Jigsaw puzzle by Nina Torr
Buy online
The Limits of Clean Energy The Limits of Clean Energy
Science

The Limits of Clean Energy

Jason Hickel
Reading
time 7 minutes
Jason Hickel:
an anthropologist, author, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His work deals with global social inequalities, the climate crisis and the impact of policy on ecology.

The conversation about climate change has been blazing ahead in recent months. Propelled by the school climate strikes and social movements like Extinction Rebellion, a number of governments have declared a climate emergency, and progressive political parties are making plans—at last—for a rapid transition to clean energy under the banner of the Green New Deal.

This is a welcome shift, and we need more of it. But a new problem is beginning to emerge that warrants our attention. Some proponents of the Green New Deal seem to believe that it will pave the way to a utopia of “green growth.” Once we trade dirty fossil fuels for clean energy, there’s no reason we can’t keep expanding the economy forever.

This narrative may seem reasonable enough at first glance, but there are good reasons to think twice about it.

Information

You’ve reached your free article’s limit this month. You can get unlimited access to all our articles and audio content with our digital subscription. If you have an active subscription, please log in.

Subscribe
Jason Hickel:
an anthropologist, author, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His work deals with global social inequalities, the climate crisis and the impact of policy on ecology.
Publish date: 19.06.2020

Also read:

The Reindeer Were Here First The Reindeer Were Here First
i
Photo: Adam Smotkin/Unsplash
Nature

The Reindeer Were Here First

Ula Idzikowska
Ula Idzikowska:
A journalist, reporter, documentarian. She writes about migration and social issues. She lives in Szczecin.

The Sámi live in harmony with nature. Their tried and true methods may prove invaluable in our struggles with the changing climate.

“We have always been here, long before anyone else,” the first Sámi author, Johan Turi, wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century. “Here,” meaning in Sápmi—in lands that stretch across the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The Sámi, indigenous residents of the Arctic, have traversed this land since the dawn of time, fishing, hunting, and gathering herbs and berries. The rhythms of their lives were dictated by the migration of the reindeer; they followed their herds, not the other way around. “They’re free, they’re not my property,” I heard many times from the Sámi who continue their tradition raising the reindeer they consider sacred animals. Because the reindeer were in Sápmi first, everything began with them. According to one legend, Earth was created by a white reindeer: from his veins came the rivers, his fur became the forests, his stomach the ocean, and his antlers the mountains.

Continue reading