Sawyer Seminar Series on Energy Transitions and Society
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The Sawyer Seminars on Energy and Society was sponsored by the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and the Department of Geography and Environment at Boston University in 2010-2011. This year-long series brought together a diverse comunity of international scholars to explore the causes and consequences of energy transitions. The Sawyer series was supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Principal Investigators of the Sawyer Seminars areCutler J. Cleveland and Adil Najam.
The seminars will address the following questions:
1. What were the cultural, social and historical forces that generated earlier energy transitions? How did these driving forces differ between Europe and the United States, and between Europe/U.S. and developing nations such as China and India? Why did some societies respond to and adapt to new energy systems faster and to a greater extent than others?
2. How are social and cultural conditions today the same or different than those that existed during earlier energy transitions? How will those differences affect the composition and trajectory of the next energy transition?
3. What effect has globalization had on the social and cultural determinants of energy use in developed as compared to developing nations?
4. What attitudes, behaviors, policies, and institutions are needed to manage, or perhaps even engineer, the impending energy transition? What are the cultural barriers to these changes, and how do they differ between developed and developing nations?
SAWYER SEMINAR SPRING 2011 SERIES
Seminar 5. ENERGY POLICY
Friday January 28, 2011, SMG Room 424
Robert Lifset, University of Oklahoma
Paul Sabin, Yale University
Michael C. Caramanis,Boston University
Seminar 6. ROLE OF ENERGY IN AVOIDING COLLAPSE
Friday, February 25, 2011,SMG Room 424
Joe Tainter, Utah State University
Robert Kaufmann, Boston University
Robert Weller, Boston University
Seminar 7. ENERGY, SECURITY, and CONFLICT
Friday, March 25, 2011, Pardee Center
Amy Myers Jaffe,Rice University
Michael Klare,Hamphsire College
Dana Bauer, Boston University
Seminar 8. GEOGRAPHIES OF ENERGY
Friday, April 22, 2011,Pardee Center
Peter O’Connor, Boston University
Rania Ghosn,Boston University
Adil Najam and Cutler Cleveland, Boston University
Seminars meet between 10:00 am and 12:30 pm.
SAWYER SEMINAR FALL SERIES
Seminar 1. AN OVERVIEW OF ENERGY TRANSITIONS
Monday, September 20, 2010
Martin Melosi (History, University of Houston)
Download Presentation:Energy Transitions in Historical Perspective
Bruce Podobnik (Sociology,Lewis and Clark College)
Download Presentation:Social Movements and Energy Transition
Cutler Cleveland (Geography and Environment, Boston University)
Download Presentation:Energy Transitions: an Overview
Seminar 2. ENERGY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE
Friday, October 15, 2010
Laura Nader (Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley)
Peter Shulman (History, Case Western Reserve University)
Download Presentation: 'The Prophet and the Pessimist: Narrating the Future of Energy in the 19th Century
Moderated by Adil Najam (International Relations, Boston University)
Seminar 3. ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT
Monday, November 8, 2010
Joan Martinez-Alier (Economics and Economic History, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)
Download Presentation: 'The EROI of agriculture, its use by the Via Campesina
Paul Epstein (Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard University Medical School)
Download Presentation: 'Energy and Development
Moderated by James McCann (History, Boston University)
Seminar 4. THE BUSINESS OF ENERGY
Friday, December 3, 2010
Joseph Pratt (History, University of Houston)
Download Presentation: The Primacy of Price
Martha Amram (Founder and CEO, Ennovationz)
Download Presentation: The Business of Changing how Much Energy We Use
Paul McManus (School of Management, Boston University)
Download Presentation: The Business of Energy
PROJECT COORDINATORS
Cutler Cleveland, Department of Geography and Environment
Adil Najam, Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future
Post-Doctoral Fellow:Rania Ghosn
Graduate Research Assistant:Peter O'Connor
The Seminar Series is co-sponsored by the Boston University Clean Energy and Environmental Sustainability Initiative (CEESI).
