Cultures of Energy

171 - Jerome Whitington


Listen Later

Cymene and Dominic celebrate a podcast milestone and bid adieu to 1990s Democrats and their market-loving, head-kissing ways on this week’s show. Then (15:40) Dominic has a chance to chat with NYU’s Jerome Whitington who has just published a fascinating book on hydropower in Laos—a country some are calling the “battery of Southeast Asia”—entitled Anthropogenic Rivers: The Production of Uncertainty in Lao Hydropower(Cornell U Press, 2019). We start off with where hydropower fits within the contemporary debate on renewable energy transition and why it receives so much less attention than solar and wind energy. Then we turn to how Jerome got interested in the Theun-Hinboun Dam project in particular and why he decided to frame the study in terms of knowledge and uncertainty. We discuss the importance of an experimental moment in the dam’s history when the power company sought to collaborate with environmental activists to allay concerns about the ecological and social impacts of the dam project. Jerome explains what he means by “technical entrepreneurialism” and we talk about how to think about the meaning of “anthropogenic” without getting stuck in nature/culture binaries. Shifting gears, we discuss Jerome’s current research on carbon accounting and he explains the influence of corporate accounting logics and Silicon Valley culture on practices like carbon offsets and why he doesn’t think carbon accounting is ultimately going to stop climate change. We close on the need for more academic activism on climate.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Cultures of EnergyBy Dominic Boyer

  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9

4.9

54 ratings


More shows like Cultures of Energy

View all
On Being with Krista Tippett by On Being Studios

On Being with Krista Tippett

10,375 Listeners

The Political Scene | The New Yorker by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

3,908 Listeners

The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

The LRB Podcast

287 Listeners

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry by David Naimon, Tin House Books

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

443 Listeners

Novara Media by Novara Media

Novara Media

161 Listeners

The Dig by Daniel Denvir

The Dig

1,506 Listeners

The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

The New Yorker Radio Hour

6,652 Listeners

Politics Theory Other by Politics Theory Other

Politics Theory Other

152 Listeners

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat by New York Times Opinion

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

6,750 Listeners

Throughline by NPR

Throughline

15,964 Listeners

Acid Horizon by Acid Horizon

Acid Horizon

175 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,316 Listeners

Ones and Tooze by Foreign  Policy

Ones and Tooze

343 Listeners

Ordinary Unhappiness by Patrick & Abby

Ordinary Unhappiness

201 Listeners

Past Present Future by David Runciman

Past Present Future

311 Listeners