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Beyond the Coal Rush

by Stuart Rosewarne on August 23, 2016

Beyond the Coal Rush

Stuart Rosewarne | August 23, 2016

Tags: climate change
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Tune in to ‘Beyond the Coal Rush’ radio series, Radio National Science Show from Saturday 27 August

Based on the results of a research project linked to the School of Social and Political Sciences (SSPS) at the University of Sydney  and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) by anthropologists, political economists, journalists and sociologists, Beyond the Coal Rush explores the global contest over the future of coal through the eyes of communities on three continents – Chhattisgarh, central India; Laustiz, eastern Germany; and Liverpool Plains, New South Wales, Australia.

Beyond the Coal Rush is a radio series written and produced by Tom Morton, for the Science Show and the Australia Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project The Coal Rush and Beyond.

Some of the people interviewed include: residents, villagers, farmers, government officials, mayors, lawyers, and activists in Chhattisgarh (Central India), Lausitz (Eastern Germany) and Liverpool Plains (NSW).

Some of the scientists, politicians, lobbyists, policy makers and analysts include:

  • James Hansen, former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, now Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
  • FossilAndreas Malm, Department of Human Geography, Lund University; author of Fossil Capital: The rise of steam power and the roots of global warming.
  • Paul Ekins,  Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy, University College London, Co-Director, UK Energy Research Centre.
  • Anil Swarup, Secretary, Ministry of Coal, Government of India.
  • Jairem Ramesh, former Environment Minister,  Government of India.
  • Claudia Kemfert, Head of the Department of Energy, Transportation and Environment at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin.
  • Benjamin Sporton, CEO of the World Coal Association.
  • Kenneth Pomeranz, University Professor of History at the University of Chicago , author of The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy.
  • Barbara Freese, former Assistant Attorney General, State of Minnesota, author of Coal: A Human History.
  • Will Steffen, Climate Commissioner, Emeritus Professor in the Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU.
  • Dr Tao Wang, Assistant Dean, China Business News Research Institute in Beijing.

Part 1: The march of coal

 

Part 2: The age of coal

 

Author: Stuart Rosewarne

Stuart Rosewarne has had a longstanding research interest in the environment developed within a Marxist or socialist ecology conceptual frame. Over the last decade, this research focus has concentrated with the challenge of fossil fuel capital in the generation of energy as the prime driver of climate change. This is reflected in the jointly-authored Climate Action Upsurge: The ethnography of climate movement politics (2014) and Beyond the Coal Rush: A turning point for global energy and climate policy? (2020). The recently-published sole-authored Contested Energy Futures: Capturing the renewable energy surge in Australia explores the resistance of fossil fuel capital and the state to transitioning from a national accumulation regime based on the extraction of coal and gas and how this resistance is being challenged by the contrasting endeavours of residential Australia to become energy self-sufficient and renewable energy capital seeking to construct a low carbon-based pattern of accumulation.

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