"At the heart of the environmental crisis lies one key issue: We moderns are creatures of energy. Access to energy has allowed us to do remarkable things. However, the energy we've shaped our lives around is dirty energy. To be modern is to live a contradiction. Energy use expands possibilities; those same possibilities are threatened by the environmental and social implications of the expanding use of energy. How can we make sense of this contradiction and its implications for the present-and future?"
Imre Szeman is University Research Chair and Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo. His recent books include Energy Humanities: An Anthology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), and many other works on energy, environment, and culture. On Petrocultures, a collection of his essays, was published in Fall 2018.