Linfield Faculty Lecture Series

Title

"And We Had Fun, Fun, Fun . . ." Till We Went over the Net Energy Cliff: Cultural Aspects of the Twilight of the Petroleum Age

Streaming Media

Document Type

Video File

Duration

1 hour 22 minutes 44 seconds

Publication Date

4-10-2013

Disciplines

Energy Policy | Social and Cultural Anthropology

Abstract

Despite optimistic headlines, industrial humanity finds itself in a predicament of converging and increasingly intractable problems such as climate change, financial collapse, biodiversity loss, crashing fish stocks, poverty, and famine. The ability to manage this problem is hindered by increasingly unaffordable supplies of oil, the very lifeblood of our way of life. Easily extracted reserves of oil are being depleted, exports are drying up from the few remaining countries that continue to export, and net energy is declining. In this faculty lecture, Dr. Thomas Love (professor of anthropology at Linfield College) addresses how expectations that were developed during a period of energy abundance from 1920 to 2005 might fare when confronted with the general economic contraction and social disruption already unfolding during a period of energy scarcity.

Comments

Sponsored by the Linfield College Office of Academic Affairs.

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