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Powering the future : energy resources in Science Fiction and Fantasy
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Macdonald, Graeme and Edwards, Caroline (2016) Powering the future : energy resources in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Open Library of Humanities . ISSN 2056-6700.
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Abstract
The recent rise of the interdisciplinary subfield of “Energy Humanities” as a prominent critical endeavour has seen an efflorescence of academic and cultural production from around the world focussing on the crucial topic of energy resources. A major spur for this work is, of course, the pervasive anxiety of late environmentalism in the face of anthropogenic climate change, a phenomenon in which energy use plays a central role: as both cause and possible solution. A variety of critical thinking around past, present, and future energy scenarios is motivated by what has been called the contemporary “energy trilemma”: how to balance energy security, equality, and sustainability on a world – and indeed planetary – scale? This question starkly confronts humans as we seek to configure a means to a less environmentally precarious future. The trilemma is further stressed by the contradiction between a seemingly inexorable rise in global demand and the fact that the world-system remains stubbornly beholden to a toxic carbon economy. As post-oil culture either mourns or celebrates the passing of cheap and easy oil it speculates on the elevation of its potential alternatives. Despite the unprecedented degree of consensus over the findings and pronouncements of climate science and despite an abundance of technological innovations, engineering skill and infrastructural promise, we still find ourselves at somewhat of a general impasse preventing transition to another, “cleaner” energy regime.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > English and Comparative Literary Studies | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Open Library of Humanities | ||||
Publisher: | The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) | ||||
ISSN: | 2056-6700 | ||||
Editor: | Macdonald, Graeme and Edwards, Caroline | ||||
Official Date: | 7 January 2016 | ||||
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Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
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