coe017_pinkus.mp3 Speaker1: [00:00:25] Welcome back, everyone, to the Cultures of Energy podcast, here we are broadcasting from below the Earth and parenthetically, Simone, how my co-host, I had a thought. We've been describing this room as a bunker, which is not unfair, but kind of uninspiring. What if we were to call it ground control? What if we were to take on, you know, some of the legacies of the Johnson Space Center in Houston and NASA and all of that? And call it, would that be hokey or would Speaker2: [00:00:54] That be that? Isn't that so funny? Because my first reference for ground control was actually David Bowie? Speaker1: [00:01:00] Yeah. Well, there was kind of a very, very veiled appreciation of David Bowie's Speaker2: [00:01:05] Attempt to try and get some more Bowie in the mix. Yeah. Ok, I like that, except I think it's got kind of a militaristic hue to it, doesn't it? Speaker1: [00:01:14] Ground control, yeah, possibly. Well, because of the whole military space industrial complex, right? Speaker2: [00:01:21] It's not quite command and control, but ground control. Speaker1: [00:01:24] Let's think about it. But Bunker also has a military edge to it, too. Speaker2: [00:01:28] So. And you know, the fact that this is a recording studio means that it is sort of onto logically sound control. It is, yeah, sound control to Major Tom sound control. Speaker1: [00:01:41] Ok, so we'll go with that. But anyway, I interrupted myself. Welcome back, everyone. We have a lovely episode and it's a road show episode. We were in beautiful Ithaca, New York, for the Society for Cultural Anthropology meetings, and we were able to meet an old friend, Karen Pincus, who teaches at Cornell, but who also was here at Sense as really our first visiting fellow actually back in the early days of the center. And she's also a OGE Energy humanist. She's been with it from the beginning, a field founder, somebody who helped to pave the way for all of us who are interested in this material now and who's working on a really cool project called Fuel a speculative dictionary, right? Speaker2: [00:02:26] She's also a rock and roller, too. Speaker1: [00:02:28] She's also a rock and roll star. Speaker2: [00:02:29] I mean, she mentions in the podcast that they haven't jammed out in a while, but she's like a real rocker. Speaker1: [00:02:34] I think we inspired her to. Speaker2: [00:02:35] She's got some spirit for us. Speaker1: [00:02:36] She's a drummer, and I think we inspired her to get back to get back on the drums again, Speaker2: [00:02:41] To get back on the mission. Speaker1: [00:02:43] Yeah. So we do also want to thank apropos of that trip. We were able to tape this episode in the Cornell broadcast studios and they were delightful to work with. Very professional taught us things about podcasting. Is it possible after three months, there's still more to learn. Well, it turns out there is really cutting tricks about how you put water on a table, so it doesn't get Speaker2: [00:03:06] Well, that was that was the best thing. Speaker1: [00:03:08] I loved that. Do you want to describe that? Speaker2: [00:03:10] Well, yeah. I mean, maybe we already knew this term, too, but I loved the concept of the live table. So that's what he said. You know, he's like Speaker1: [00:03:18] Me, like Simone is hitting the Speaker2: [00:03:20] Table. It's like the live table. Like if you get if you get too excited about the table and start interacting with it, it it actually comes alive and and make sounds that can perturb your your podcast and in your recording. But they had they were fully equipped with with nice water there at the Cornell Studios, and it's one of the few places that I've ever been in my life where they have one of those upright, you know, large plastic jugs of water basically at every turn, at about every 50 feet or so, there's one of those large plastic containers of water, so you can get a little sip of water because if you're working in the radio and working with your voice, you need to make sure that you're constantly cleared and and crystalline and and all hydrated. So I just had Speaker1: [00:04:05] I just thought they were like, really, really worried about dehydration. And they said, You know, we just have to make sure that, you know, you're never out of eyesight of a Speaker2: [00:04:12] Water, right? That's just a kind of para fact of being an Ithaca under the snow all the time. You kind of panic when there's not enough of it around you Speaker1: [00:04:22] And you have to figure out what to do with all that melted snow water, too. So you just put it, you Speaker2: [00:04:26] Just put a big bottle, put it in a big Osako bottle or whatever the Crystal Springs or whatever it's called there. But it's also true that apparently you're not supposed to drink cold water before you do any kind of speaking engagement because it tightens up your throat. And so they were they were very generous and offering sort of lukewarm water that you could drink before. But the most brilliant thing was that on the live table, in order to keep it from getting too noisy during the recording, they had these huge rolls of gaffers tape kind of like duct tape, except not quite as sticky and gunky. Yeah. The gaffers tape. And then you'd set your plastic cup of water in that, and it would both prevent it from kind of smacking down hard on the table and also completely prevents it from tipping over because you've got this big roll a tape around it. And that was a good thing because when they saw us coming through the studio and Karen whipped out her little flask of brandy or whatever it was, yeah, oh god, would you actually thank God? I only had a thimble, Speaker1: [00:05:28] Which leads me to another point. But first, let me just let me just by name thank Burt Odum Reed, who was our engineer and producer for this episode, and also Glenn Palmer, who's the video director who helped to set everything up there. So thanks to you both, thanks to Cornell Broadcast Studios. You guys are a classy act. It was fun to work with you. If you're in Ithaca and need to broadcast something, you should consider working with Cornell Broadcast Studios. But OK, so there was this bottle of Saint-Germain on the table that Karen brought, and then Simone has a sip of it. And this, to my mind, was the most interesting or one of the interesting parts of the episode and. And gets into a discussion about why small people should rule the world. Speaker2: [00:06:12] That's right. Speaker1: [00:06:13] Which Karen and Greed agreed with enthusiastically, Speaker2: [00:06:17] Enthusiastically and not only that, not only agreed with it on principle or on, you know, her own embodied experience, but actually had a manifesto and a reference to turn to immediately, as though she had sort of had a premonition about that question or if she had been thinking about it a lot over the course of her life. Who knows? But there's something about efficiency putting in brackets. You know, this is not this is not a pro eugenics kind of conversation at all, but there there is something more efficient about smaller human beings. And I say that's not just as a smaller human being, but as someone who spent time in places like Vietnam and Guatemala, where you have a kind of micro people, right? Speaker1: [00:07:00] In other words, humans, humanity needs to go small in the future, Speaker2: [00:07:03] Which like it's like a kind of a de-growth in human evolutionary terms, except not necessarily culling population, but rather reducing body mass and therefore needing less resources to house those bodies and water those bodies and feed those bodies and et cetera, et cetera. Speaker1: [00:07:24] And it does remind me of when we were doing fieldwork in southern Mexico, where even use so many, how were a giant among the indigenous population? We worked with and I was like a beast from another world. And it's true even in even in the United States, I have upon occasion been nicknamed Sasquatch and other things of that nature for my lumbering titanic size. But yeah, no, it's true. Most of humanity is much smaller than we are, and Karen and Simone are uniting in a front to bring us all back down to size again. Speaker2: [00:08:02] That's right. Literally. Speaker1: [00:08:03] So without further ado, we should probably turn over to this excellent, interesting conversation with Karen Pincus. What do you think? Anything else you want to talk about before we go there? Speaker2: [00:08:12] No, that's good. Rock on, Karen. Speaker1: [00:08:13] Ok, go Karen. Speaker2: [00:08:34] Welcome everyone. We're so glad to have you back here at the Cultures of Energy podcast, and we're super excited to be talking to Professor Karen Pincus, who is a professor of romance studies and comparative literature at the very fine institution of Cornell University. And so we're coming to you live ish from Ithaca, New York, Speaker1: [00:08:59] Probably from the best recording facility we've ever done this recording in. So absolutely shout out to Glenn and our friends here who are helping to make this a magical reality here in the studio today. Speaker2: [00:09:11] Thank you, Glenn. You're very you're a magic maker. Speaker3: [00:09:14] Very professional. Speaker1: [00:09:15] That's good. Karen, OK, so I when we first started working on this energy humanities project, which I don't even think we were calling an energy humanities project back at Rice several years ago now, people kept saying, You know, you would cast about for who is doing work in this area, who's interested in this? And Karen Pinkus name kept coming up again and again from various quarters as somebody who had been thinking about energy and literature, energy and society, energy and philosophy for some time. And I don't know if you'd be willing to just take us back to the beginning, but tell us a little bit about how you got interested in this area to begin with. So we can kind of set the stage for what are some really amazing projects happening now and to come? Speaker4: [00:10:04] Thank you. Well, I guess it all started more or less, about 10 or 12 years ago. Speaker3: [00:10:12] I was teaching at the University of Southern California, and an email came around asking for Speaker4: [00:10:19] Proposals for a Speaker3: [00:10:20] Provost Jill initiative on future fuels and energy. Speaker4: [00:10:26] And I thought that I would apply for it, but I Speaker3: [00:10:29] Honestly thought Speaker4: [00:10:30] Of it as a Speaker3: [00:10:31] Provocation. I had Speaker4: [00:10:32] No Speaker3: [00:10:33] Expectation that I would win an award. Speaker4: [00:10:37] I wrote a proposal about Speaker3: [00:10:40] Thinking about fuels in, especially in relation to cars. It's hard not to think that way when you're living in Southern California, Speaker4: [00:10:48] Although I was probably Speaker3: [00:10:50] The only professor at the university who commuted full time on public transportation. But still, I was very interested in cars. Speaker4: [00:11:00] So I applied, Speaker3: [00:11:02] And my dean, who is now the provost of that university, signed off on my proposal. And he is a neurobiologist and he was very supportive. He thought, Yeah, this sounds cool. Why not? So I did get an email back saying congratulations. And by the way, Speaker4: [00:11:21] You Speaker3: [00:11:22] Really didn't ask for very much money. Don't you want some more money? Speaker2: [00:11:25] Don't you love that email? Yes. Yes. Take more of our money. Speaker4: [00:11:30] Yes. Email you get very. Speaker2: [00:11:31] No. No. It's to be treasured now to add it to your Treasury. Speaker4: [00:11:35] Actually, yes. Speaker3: [00:11:36] And so, I mean, I really didn't know what one would do with money. And so sure, Speaker4: [00:11:42] I said, yes, sure, I'll Speaker3: [00:11:44] Take some more. Speaker4: [00:11:45] And so that Speaker3: [00:11:47] Was really interesting to get that grant. But more than getting the grant, it Speaker4: [00:11:52] Also led to a Speaker3: [00:11:54] Series of dinners. I think they were monthly Speaker4: [00:11:57] With the other Speaker3: [00:11:59] People who had won grants from this initiative, and the vast majority of them were engineers. I think maybe there was one economist and there may have been one person in a more research oriented science Speaker4: [00:12:18] Field, so Speaker3: [00:12:19] We would have dinner. And that's when I started learning a lot about climate change. Speaker4: [00:12:25] But I also Speaker3: [00:12:26] Started learning a lot about what the humanities were in relation to that field and what they weren't and how they Speaker4: [00:12:34] What, what the possibilities Speaker3: [00:12:35] Were and how they were perceived, for example. I think those engineers thought that the economist and I were essentially doing the same kind of work, and nothing could have been further from the truth. That's when I truly took my distance from the social sciences and realized that I had much more in common Speaker4: [00:12:56] With the Speaker3: [00:12:57] Theoretical scientists who Speaker4: [00:12:59] Were part of the project. Speaker2: [00:13:00] Except you surely still love anthropologists. Speaker3: [00:13:03] Well, this is interesting because in my career, which has been fairly Speaker4: [00:13:09] Long, I never had Speaker3: [00:13:11] Any contact with an anthropologist until I came to Cornell. Because in the institutions that I've Speaker4: [00:13:18] Taught at before, this Speaker3: [00:13:20] Anthropology was a social science and I Speaker4: [00:13:23] Had literally Speaker3: [00:13:26] Barely met as an anthropologist. Except I should say that my dissertation director. There was one, but Speaker4: [00:13:32] That was sort of a fluke, too. Speaker3: [00:13:35] So one of the great things about coming to Cornell, I'm jumping ahead now is that I met anthropologists, but more than meeting professional anthropologists. I met some amazing graduate students that have ended up working with me on different fields related to energy and also meeting the two of you and coming to rice for a period of time has been an amazing shift in my thinking and my career. Speaker4: [00:14:02] So that is Speaker3: [00:14:03] A recent development Speaker4: [00:14:05] Absolutely Speaker3: [00:14:06] Never happened before. So anyway, getting back to this USC thing, you Speaker4: [00:14:12] Know, it was at Speaker3: [00:14:13] The time I think I was one of the first humanists really thinking about climate change. Speaker4: [00:14:18] So actually, the project Speaker3: [00:14:20] Was to think about fuel, Speaker4: [00:14:22] And Speaker3: [00:14:23] I used the money for a number Speaker4: [00:14:25] Of research trips. I went to Speaker3: [00:14:28] The bench Ford Archive in Dearborn, Michigan, and read through information in the archive Speaker4: [00:14:36] About fuels Speaker3: [00:14:38] And their relationship Speaker4: [00:14:39] To the Ford Speaker3: [00:14:41] Motor Company, to Ford ism as a paradigm to the four-Test Speaker4: [00:14:45] Factory, to Speaker3: [00:14:46] Cars in general. I went to Duke University and worked in the advertising archives, primarily the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Archive, because I was really interested to see how cars and fuels were advertised. I also went on a number of, I Speaker4: [00:15:07] Guess, what you guys would call field research trips, but Speaker3: [00:15:12] I didn't know what Speaker4: [00:15:13] They were or really Speaker3: [00:15:14] How to do them at the time. Speaker4: [00:15:16] So I I used the funds I traveled. I did research, Speaker3: [00:15:21] But then I really became much more interested in climate change as a Speaker4: [00:15:25] Philosophical problem, as a temporal Speaker3: [00:15:28] Problem, as a problem related to narrative. And that's what I really dedicated myself to for many years until finally I came back to future fuels and energy. But it took a long time to circle back there, and that's really the subject of my book, which is forthcoming very soon. Speaker4: [00:15:46] But it but Speaker3: [00:15:47] It's been a Speaker4: [00:15:48] Sort of a circular trajectory, right? Speaker2: [00:15:50] So what was the takeaway message that you found in terms of the research that you did on on cars and on vehicles in particular? Was there a certain kind of a kind of temporal, a different set of semiotics that were tied up with each stage of automobile manufacturer or consumption? Or what were the kind of takeaway messages that you got in that first round of getting into the archives? Speaker4: [00:16:16] Well, I should preface Speaker3: [00:16:18] It by saying Speaker4: [00:16:18] That after I did that research, Speaker3: [00:16:23] And especially since I've been teaching about climate change and in particular Speaker4: [00:16:27] Co Speaker3: [00:16:28] Teaching with an Earth and atmospheric science scientist here at Cornell, Speaker4: [00:16:33] I've Speaker3: [00:16:33] Really come to see that the focus on automobiles and fuels of automobiles is really a pretty small Speaker4: [00:16:40] Part of Speaker3: [00:16:41] The enormously unfathomable Speaker4: [00:16:44] Wicked Speaker3: [00:16:45] Problem that is climate change. So that's part of why I moved away from from the issue. Speaker4: [00:16:50] But of Speaker3: [00:16:51] Course, at the time when I started out, there was a lot of focus on cars and on automobile emissions and on on Speaker4: [00:17:01] Oil. But that has really Speaker3: [00:17:03] Shifted in my thinking and just I think in general in the thinking in the field. Speaker4: [00:17:10] So the takeaway, I guess, was which I've circled back to was that there there were always Speaker3: [00:17:20] Alternative fuels and there were always thought about different kinds of fuels other than Speaker4: [00:17:26] Oil Speaker3: [00:17:28] Or gasoline from the earliest days of the automobile Speaker4: [00:17:33] Proposed for Speaker3: [00:17:34] All kinds of different reasons, including shortages Speaker4: [00:17:38] Or war or scarcity, or just out of pure creativity. Speaker3: [00:17:44] Of course, even the so-called Speaker4: [00:17:46] Electric car, which was really the sort Speaker3: [00:17:48] Of the first automobile, as I'm sure most listeners know, which was replaced by the internal combustion engine and gasoline for reasons of efficiency and for complex cultural and economic reasons. So that was interesting. But what really, I think stuck out for me and which now is is even more apparent Speaker4: [00:18:10] Is this discourse of futurity Speaker3: [00:18:14] And that Speaker4: [00:18:15] Discourse of free charity is really Speaker3: [00:18:17] Taken up even by the petroleum industry itself, by carbon intensive industries Speaker4: [00:18:22] Like, Oh, it's Speaker3: [00:18:25] Just around the corner. We're going to move to new kinds of cars and new forms of efficiency, Speaker4: [00:18:31] New fuels, new Speaker3: [00:18:33] Designs for automobiles. It's just coming up. Just be patient in a little while. And that very discourse is there from the beginning. And even the way that we finance automobile purchases, even the point of view of the consumer of the automobile has been tied to a certain notion of future, Speaker4: [00:18:53] Which is Speaker3: [00:18:54] Really a kind of bad faith future. It's not truly thinking differently about the future. It's really the future as present the future as capitalism, the future as a continuation of the way we're doing things now. Speaker4: [00:19:10] But we'll just just wait Speaker3: [00:19:13] A little bit longer and things will be better. Speaker1: [00:19:15] It kind of, Speaker2: [00:19:16] I mean, yeah, I was thinking about this question of futures, the this constant need to kind of surface the future subjunctive. You know, the future that will possibly be is also and I think this is what you're getting at. It's also a refusal to make any shifts or changes in the present right because those are the kind of an implicit refusal. I mean, even in the naming of British Petroleum right now, that's beyond petroleum. Absolutely. That's that's a great sort of corporate instance of that, that future subjunctive logic that seems to undergird a lot of the industry and which has been really pernicious Speaker1: [00:19:52] And also just, you know, evacuated present like a present that's always getting sucked forward so that, you know, you how we're living today, you know, somehow doesn't matter. It's always about that, that sort of anticipatory, you know, what's going to come? And in a way, it kind of disables the present, which you know politically is very Speaker4: [00:20:13] Yeah, it's it's sort of either, Speaker3: [00:20:15] I don't know, a week messianism or Speaker4: [00:20:18] Also Speaker3: [00:20:19] A, Speaker4: [00:20:20] Well, what it what it for Speaker3: [00:20:21] Me really troubles is the very word sustainability Speaker4: [00:20:25] Which Speaker3: [00:20:26] We use all the time and we hear it everywhere. And it when you really start to think about Speaker4: [00:20:31] It, you talked about Speaker3: [00:20:33] Pernicious. I mean, that's one of the most pernicious words, I think, in the floating around in the public sphere at the moment. Speaker1: [00:20:41] Ok, let's hear more about that. Speaker2: [00:20:42] Yeah, how do you how do you kind of deconstruct or dissenter sustainability? Because that's important. Speaker4: [00:20:47] It's it's Speaker3: [00:20:48] Problematic because one of the things that's been great about being at Cornell Speaker4: [00:20:52] Is working with Speaker3: [00:20:54] Colleagues in the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. Speaker4: [00:20:57] So I always feel a little bit guilty about Speaker3: [00:21:00] My sort of language and critical theory Speaker4: [00:21:04] Based Speaker3: [00:21:06] Deconstruction of the word. But as I'm sure many listeners have already Speaker4: [00:21:11] Thought about the Speaker3: [00:21:13] Very term sustainability and especially the. One definition, which is the common, you know, definition that we all sort of operate under Speaker4: [00:21:22] Implies Speaker3: [00:21:23] That we know what the present is and that we know what the future is, and we have some kind of a baseline that we're working from when in fact we Speaker4: [00:21:32] Don't yet. Speaker3: [00:21:34] Our vision of the quote unquote sustainable future Speaker4: [00:21:37] Is Speaker3: [00:21:38] So for me, Speaker4: [00:21:39] Clearly tied to a Speaker3: [00:21:41] Certain notion of what we might call after Lee Edelman Speaker4: [00:21:47] Reproductive Future Charity, or Speaker3: [00:21:51] We don't even have to use that term. We could just call it a sort of common sense financial planning. You could call it heteronormativity, whatever you want to call it. It's sort of based on the idea Speaker4: [00:22:03] Of Speaker3: [00:22:04] The family, the kind of, going forward, a kind of progression. Financial planning, planning for the future. Thinking about the future in terms that are under our Speaker4: [00:22:15] Control, that that follow a certain Speaker3: [00:22:17] Pattern. And I think we all wonder Speaker4: [00:22:22] How valid that will be, how Speaker3: [00:22:25] Valid that even really is now as a paradigm. And yet we continue to use the word sustainability as if we have some sense that we know what the present is or even the future. Speaker2: [00:22:38] Right? I mean, queer theory meets climate change. That's a pretty cool mutant child. Mm hmm. Can you tell us some more about how you see those sorts of conversations evolving or even in your own kind of thinking about how I mean you bringing up Edelman right in this question of reproductive futurity? And we just we did recently a conversation about de-growth and there is a kind of perpetual growth model in the capitalist system that we're aware of. But from Lee Edelman's point of view, there's also a kind of impulse within the reproductive family within heteronormativity that compels and facilitates this idea of human reproduction and growth. So do you see those as as sort of conflicting or cohabitating with one another? Speaker4: [00:23:27] Or they certainly raise Speaker3: [00:23:32] Some very interesting questions for us, Speaker4: [00:23:35] I guess. One of Speaker3: [00:23:37] The challenges in thinking about climate change in relation to these questions is Speaker4: [00:23:42] That we, the models that we use to think about catastrophe Speaker3: [00:23:49] Or to think about end times or in Edelman's case, to think about something like the death Speaker4: [00:23:55] Drive are Speaker3: [00:23:56] Models that in some ways are based on a certain notion of the event or a certain notion of Speaker4: [00:24:04] Catastrophe Speaker3: [00:24:05] That really comes from deeply embedded us in Western literary narratives. But as you know, what we're facing with climate change is something very different. I mean, there Speaker4: [00:24:17] Are periods of Speaker3: [00:24:20] Intense, intensely destructive events Speaker4: [00:24:25] Or storms or moments, followed by periods of relative calm. Speaker3: [00:24:33] There's a lot of confusion. Speaker4: [00:24:35] There's a lot of Speaker3: [00:24:36] Question and even thinking about what the Anthropocene means in terms of Speaker4: [00:24:42] Temporality, these are complicated Speaker3: [00:24:44] Terms. So they don't really necessarily line up in any way with familiar paradigms about event, about the event or end times. So on the one hand, I think someone like Edelman or Speaker4: [00:24:58] Certain forms of theory would lead Speaker3: [00:25:01] Us to Speaker4: [00:25:01] Simply say, Well, we're Speaker3: [00:25:04] We're heading to Speaker4: [00:25:06] Where we're Speaker3: [00:25:07] Heading to our end, and probably that's for the best anyway, because we weren't a very nice species and the planet will be much better off without us. But that's not really, to me, the most interesting way to think. I mean, it's it can be Speaker4: [00:25:23] Productive Speaker3: [00:25:24] In some way, but I also find the Speaker4: [00:25:27] World without us Speaker3: [00:25:28] Paradigm Speaker4: [00:25:30] Or life after people, which was a TV Speaker3: [00:25:33] Series on the History Channel that maybe some listeners Speaker4: [00:25:37] Saw. Speaker3: [00:25:38] Those paradigms are also not really that interesting when you think about them Speaker4: [00:25:43] Critically, because they're sort Speaker3: [00:25:46] Of I mean, yes, Speaker4: [00:25:48] There will be the planet will be Speaker3: [00:25:50] Better off. But for us to even think Speaker4: [00:25:52] About that or to create a narrative about that is still Speaker3: [00:25:56] Putting ourselves front and center. And we're still thinking in the same kinds of terms. We're still using the same kind of language. Speaker4: [00:26:03] So it's not particularly creative Speaker3: [00:26:05] And certainly it's not very imaginative with regard to what we're Speaker4: [00:26:08] Facing. So here's where we see that Speaker3: [00:26:11] With climate change, Speaker4: [00:26:13] We really need new Speaker3: [00:26:15] Ways of thinking. That are radically different from what we've had before. Speaker4: [00:26:19] So certainly Speaker3: [00:26:20] It's nice to be in dialogue with Speaker4: [00:26:22] Other Speaker3: [00:26:23] Humanists and especially with scientists, I find it really interesting. I've really enjoyed the last few years where I've had these kind of dialogues, but at the same time, these conversations usually end up with, you know, a kind of renunciation, which is not Speaker4: [00:26:43] Great either, Speaker3: [00:26:44] Or they end up with some kind of false Speaker4: [00:26:47] Hope. Speaker1: [00:26:48] Hmm. I'm interested. And you were just saying about events I think is really resonant to me, the kind of questing after events and questioning which is closely connected, I think, to a questing after meaning meaningful events. And that can be anything from, you know, an ice sheet in Antarctica destabilizing and collapsing like, that's an event, right? Or, you know, superstorm hitting New York City or Louisiana or Texas, for that matter. You know, those are the kinds of events that seem to be that, you know, people who want change on in terms of our energy environmental nexus, you know, they look to those events as being catalysts for action and attention. And, you know, in some ways they are. I mean, I don't think we want to underestimate like Hurricane Sandy's influence on the climate debate. I think that one storm alone really was quite influential because of where it hit, because of the vulnerability it displayed or, you know, it revealed along the way. But I also very sensitive what you're saying, like like this thirsting after events in a way is not thinking about the problem the right way because of how incremental these changes are, how they're not linear, right? So that's really resonant. And when you talk about new ways of thinking, I mean, obviously, you know, if any of us had figured it out, it would be out there already. But do you have any, you know, little glimpses to share what you think are more productive ways or things that you've read or encountered? Do you think are more productive ways of engaging climate change? Speaker4: [00:28:25] I'm going to Speaker3: [00:28:25] Put a plug in not so much for myself, but Speaker4: [00:28:28] For the authors who contributed to an issue of diacritics that I edited Speaker3: [00:28:34] Called climate change Speaker4: [00:28:35] Criticism. Cool. Speaker3: [00:28:37] And it was. It came out a couple of years ago, and it Speaker4: [00:28:41] Was 30 Speaker3: [00:28:43] Years on from the nuclear criticism issue, Speaker4: [00:28:46] Which was edited Speaker3: [00:28:47] By my former colleague, Richard Klein. Speaker4: [00:28:50] That issue included Speaker3: [00:28:52] A very influential Speaker4: [00:28:53] Essay by Jacques Derrida about nuclear, how we Speaker3: [00:28:59] Read differently and how we think differently about time and the archive under the Speaker4: [00:29:05] Threat Speaker3: [00:29:05] Of nuclear annihilation. Speaker4: [00:29:08] So my issue had Speaker3: [00:29:09] Some wonderful contributions by people thinking about those same kinds of issues. But under the regime of climate change, and there are a number of Speaker4: [00:29:22] People who wrote for that that really Speaker3: [00:29:24] Thought in interesting ways about this question. That's been very some of those are very Speaker4: [00:29:30] Helpful, but I've also Speaker3: [00:29:33] Found inspiration by reading things that are not about climate change. I don't know if you find this as Speaker4: [00:29:40] Well, but Speaker3: [00:29:41] Sometimes reading something completely distant, temporally or even in terms of Speaker4: [00:29:47] The the scope Speaker3: [00:29:49] Or the context that it comes out of can help us think differently than just the Speaker4: [00:29:55] Sort of. New field of scholarship Speaker3: [00:29:59] That's coming out about climate change and the humanities, I mean, which isn't to say that there isn't great work being done. Speaker4: [00:30:06] But some of that work Speaker3: [00:30:07] Is not maybe as inspiring as something random from elsewhere. Speaker1: [00:30:12] Right? I mean, it can get formulaic to any discourse can even if you kind of agree with it ethically or politically or whatever. Speaker4: [00:30:21] I mean, one thing Speaker3: [00:30:23] That I've been thinking about, so so my book fuel is very much a text Speaker4: [00:30:27] Based book. It's it's about it especially Speaker3: [00:30:31] Draws on literature and some sort of para scientific writing. Speaker4: [00:30:37] But lately Speaker3: [00:30:38] I've been really thinking about Speaker4: [00:30:40] What we, Speaker3: [00:30:41] As humanists can do in in other forms Speaker4: [00:30:45] Of research that are that are Speaker3: [00:30:47] Engaged or that follow more closely on scientific Speaker4: [00:30:51] Research, but that still Speaker3: [00:30:54] Draws on or summons up critical theory. And it's a very challenging problem, but I'm sure you guys think about that as well. Speaker1: [00:31:02] Oh, yes, yeah. I mean, I've I have I've had the pleasure and the the opportunity to look at fuel in its draft form, and it is a really remarkable book. So. So definitely keep an eye out for it. And I think it's coming out next year with the University of Minnesota. Speaker3: [00:31:17] Press should be in the next few months, although I don't know when this podcast is coming out, so I would Speaker4: [00:31:23] Say sooner than that fall Speaker3: [00:31:24] 2016. Speaker1: [00:31:25] Ok, great. So that actually at the time, it'll be really good. But in the book, as in other lectures I've heard you give, I mean, you do this remarkable job of interweaving together theory and history and literature. So that Marks coexists with Jules Verne coexists with John Maynard Keynes. And in fact, we were excerpting part of fuel for the energy humanities reader, and we found it really difficult to do because of how well interconnected all of its elements were, such that it was really hard to pull one piece out that didn't reference. And so there was a kind of a a web yoenis to it, to the text itself. That was really impressive. But maybe you want to take a step back and tell us a little bit about the form of this book, which is unusual and why you wrote the book that way and why you think fuel is, is is a topic that is, you know, gives itself well to that kind of organization. Speaker4: [00:32:25] Oh, well, I guess there's sort of a long history to it, but I was encouraged to write a book in Speaker3: [00:32:34] A non-traditional and non-linear way in in part, I think because Speaker4: [00:32:41] As as we've talked about, Speaker3: [00:32:44] These issues are not really that linear and or they might be Speaker4: [00:32:48] Best thought Speaker3: [00:32:50] About in more fragmentary or more experimental ways. Speaker4: [00:32:53] So the book is a speculative dictionary. Speaker3: [00:32:57] At least that's what Minnesota has given it as a Speaker1: [00:33:01] That's a good way. Speaker4: [00:33:02] You like it? Yeah, I was trying to get away Speaker3: [00:33:05] With just the one word Speaker4: [00:33:06] Because every book Speaker3: [00:33:07] I've ever done has a colon and a subtitle. Speaker4: [00:33:12] At least this doesn't have a colon. Speaker2: [00:33:14] Your post colon? Yes. Speaker4: [00:33:15] Nice, yes. Which might have Speaker3: [00:33:19] Other resonances that are not as Speaker4: [00:33:21] Pleasant, but we don't think about it. Speaker2: [00:33:23] We won't get all scatological. Speaker3: [00:33:24] No, no, not yet. Speaker4: [00:33:26] Anyway, yeah, yeah. So I I I do Speaker3: [00:33:32] A an alphabetized dictionary of Speaker4: [00:33:35] Fuels and I some of the fuels are real like oil or coal Speaker3: [00:33:45] Or uranium, and others are completely made up or they come from literature or they come from fake Speaker4: [00:33:52] History. Speaker3: [00:33:53] Or they come from letters Speaker4: [00:33:55] Written to Henry Ford by Speaker3: [00:33:59] Entrepreneurial men who wanted to get his imprimatur on Speaker4: [00:34:04] Their pet projects. Speaker3: [00:34:07] Or they come from different Speaker4: [00:34:10] Sources like that. Speaker3: [00:34:12] And none is given priority over another. Speaker4: [00:34:15] So obviously, oil and coal are Speaker3: [00:34:20] Much more important in the grand scheme of things, Speaker4: [00:34:23] But they are Speaker3: [00:34:25] In the dictionary in alphabetical order, along with dilithium crystals that come from Star Trek, for example. Speaker4: [00:34:33] So the idea Speaker3: [00:34:34] Was not to create Speaker4: [00:34:35] A hierarchy of fuels, but to think about Speaker3: [00:34:38] All different kinds of Speaker4: [00:34:39] Fuels, but especially that Speaker3: [00:34:41] Allows me to think about fuel as something either prior Speaker4: [00:34:45] To or Speaker3: [00:34:46] Separate from energy. And that seemed to be really important, and we all do this, including myself. Speaker4: [00:34:53] That is, we all confuse or conflate energy. Speaker3: [00:34:57] And fuel and even something like Speaker4: [00:34:59] Electricity, which can't really be categorized as Speaker3: [00:35:02] Either energy Speaker4: [00:35:03] Or fuel. Speaker3: [00:35:04] But it seemed to me really important to separate them out and to realize that energies are energy Speaker4: [00:35:12] Is essentially the ability to do Speaker3: [00:35:14] Work. But energy is a Speaker4: [00:35:15] System Speaker3: [00:35:17] Tied to infrastructures Speaker4: [00:35:19] And the dream. Speaker3: [00:35:21] I think Speaker4: [00:35:22] Of the Speaker3: [00:35:24] Future fuel industry or let's say, the dream of democratic Speaker4: [00:35:29] Regimes is to keep Speaker3: [00:35:32] The infrastructure, keep the system in place and simply input non-fossil Speaker4: [00:35:37] Based fuels. Speaker3: [00:35:39] And therefore all of our problems will be solved. And I think any of us who've really thought about this problem for more than about 15 minutes realize that that dream is Speaker4: [00:35:49] Really in bad faith. Speaker1: [00:35:51] So in part, like, I really want to linger on that for a second this. The move to separate fuel from energy and really focus in on fuel. If I understand it correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but part of that is to disable the the normal apparatus of energy, along with all of its futurity and its growth expectations in it, and to really to create a space in which to reflect critically and imaginatively on, you know, the sources or where it comes from, its potentiality and how there could be different. Including, I guess, how shifting between forms of fuel really creates qualitatively different kinds of energies. Not, you know, one you just generic kind of energy that's being created. But they have different materials, cities, they have different patterns. I don't know, is that more or less? Speaker4: [00:36:42] Where are you going with it? Speaker3: [00:36:42] Absolutely. And you mentioned the word potentiality, and that's of course, a Speaker4: [00:36:46] Really, really crucial term for the more Speaker3: [00:36:49] Theoretical underpinnings of the Speaker4: [00:36:51] Project. But I also feel that the Speaker3: [00:36:54] Reader could come to the book and look at it almost like a dictionary like, Oh, I just heard something about methane, and let me look this up in fuel and see what Karen Pincus says about methane in the context of this strange, strange, Speaker4: [00:37:15] Speculative project. So potentiality, of course, has the word, you know, the root of of the word Speaker3: [00:37:25] Power and the Speaker4: [00:37:26] And that is, of course, a crucial term Speaker3: [00:37:29] For for energy as Speaker4: [00:37:31] Well. But it also Speaker3: [00:37:33] Implies non-use Speaker4: [00:37:35] Or that fuel could be prior to Speaker3: [00:37:38] Its insertion into a system. And so I really try and think through what potentiality means, especially in the time of climate change, because it seems often that in the common sense realm, Speaker4: [00:37:51] The only alternative to use Speaker3: [00:37:54] Is conservation Speaker4: [00:37:55] Or Speaker3: [00:37:57] Reforming the energy Speaker4: [00:37:59] Grid, both Speaker3: [00:38:00] Of which, as we all know, are Speaker4: [00:38:02] Certainly laudable Speaker3: [00:38:04] Goals. But they're not getting us anywhere near where we need to be in terms of our pledged indices or even getting towards carbon neutrality. Speaker4: [00:38:15] So the idea is to think Speaker3: [00:38:19] About potentiality in a philosophical sense through thinkers like Giorgio Gambon, in order to arrive at a much more complex way of thinking about the problem of energy Speaker4: [00:38:32] That that Speaker3: [00:38:33] Would, in a sense, I'm very much critiquing the discourse of of energy conservation. Speaker4: [00:38:40] Hmm. Speaker2: [00:38:41] I'm glad you brought up a gambit, and I'm really looking forward to reading the dictionary when it comes out. Super cool stuff. But I did want to go back to a kind of question about the parameters or the limits between energy and fuel. So O'Gorman has this notion of bare life, right? And when I think about energy too, especially in terms of the different forms of energy, we have a kind of conceptual distinction between life, energy or life forces. If you want to put it into more mystical terminology, kind of biotic energy, and then we have this sort of material energy. So that's that's one question is, is there a kind of difference for you in those those kinds of energies? And then I think leading into fuel, I also am now, you know, you've thought of this wonderful, speculative sort of provocative way of thinking about fuel as imaginary, invented, innovated, created space like Star Trek. But is there also a way in which fuel can be seen as life energy? So for? Let me give an example, like if we're thinking about more ancient forms of animal farming, for example, is the ox pulling the car? Fuel for that form of agriculture in the same way that gasoline is fuel for a school bus or if we think about human power, right? A bicycle, I mean, our is the human than fuel for this kind of mode of locomotion. Is there anything interesting to see there between a different forms of of fuel? Or where do we draw the line at different forms of fuel? Speaker4: [00:40:23] That's a really Speaker3: [00:40:25] Difficult question and something I grappled with a lot because I was trying to be very rigorous in my choice. So I tried to think, like, Speaker4: [00:40:32] What about Speaker3: [00:40:34] Animals Speaker4: [00:40:35] Or what Speaker3: [00:40:35] About different forms of human labor, Speaker4: [00:40:38] Especially slave labor? Right? And there are people who might reduce all of all Speaker3: [00:40:47] Of those life forms of labor essentially down to solar energy. And they would say that Speaker4: [00:40:52] The fuel of all of those Speaker3: [00:40:54] Forms of energy is the Sun. So that's certainly one approach to that. In which case the Sun would be the entry in my dictionary, and Sun is an entry in my dictionary, Speaker4: [00:41:07] But I wouldn't have the ox Speaker3: [00:41:09] Or the human or the Speaker4: [00:41:11] Horse, although I do have the goat. I just Speaker3: [00:41:14] Couldn't resist that one, because in Speaker4: [00:41:19] Agriculture's Speaker3: [00:41:20] Day, Metallica, which is this fantastic early modern text about mining and metals, there are these goats running around a wheel kind of like your daughter's hamsters. If if they do have clover and disco or their hamsters, names just want to put a shout out to them. Speaker1: [00:41:41] And they do have a running wheel, by the way. They do, they share it so that they're in it at the same time, which is comical, right? Speaker4: [00:41:46] And so there are a number of goats that are Speaker3: [00:41:49] Also in in agriculture's Speaker4: [00:41:51] Wheel that are that Speaker3: [00:41:53] Are helping with the the mining, helping to Speaker4: [00:41:56] Fuel the Speaker3: [00:41:57] Extraction of Speaker4: [00:41:58] Fuels or of of Speaker3: [00:42:00] Substances that could in fact be used for fuel. So that one, I just couldn't help but put in there. But normally I try Speaker4: [00:42:06] To avoid Speaker3: [00:42:07] Those kind of vital forms. But having said that, I mean, it's a really, really interesting question. Speaker4: [00:42:13] So how would you how how Speaker3: [00:42:16] Would I deal with something like Speaker4: [00:42:18] Vital force or vs fire, Speaker3: [00:42:21] Which was a term used to Speaker4: [00:42:23] Talk about Speaker3: [00:42:24] Energy in the early modern period or in the Enlightenment? And how do Speaker4: [00:42:30] I Speaker3: [00:42:31] How do I put them in the dictionary? So all of this was part of my speculative thinking when I tried to put the dictionary together. Speaker4: [00:42:38] So obviously, this kind of thought doesn't really Speaker3: [00:42:41] Get us any closer to solving the movement off of Speaker4: [00:42:45] Fossil fuels Speaker3: [00:42:46] Or a number of other questions around climate change. Speaker4: [00:42:51] But but it does. But but having to Speaker3: [00:42:53] Be that rigorous, I thought, was useful in trying to sort Speaker4: [00:42:56] Of get Speaker3: [00:42:57] Us to a point Speaker4: [00:42:58] Where we have to Speaker3: [00:42:59] Really go down to the the basic point and say, what Speaker4: [00:43:03] Is Speaker3: [00:43:03] The least common denominator or what is the nucleus Speaker4: [00:43:07] Of Speaker3: [00:43:08] What we're thinking about when we talk about Speaker4: [00:43:10] Fuel? Speaker3: [00:43:11] And so when I when I look at the term and its Speaker4: [00:43:16] Etymology, it it Speaker3: [00:43:19] Comes from Speaker4: [00:43:21] The a very early use of of the word fuel. When we trace it back Speaker3: [00:43:27] To old English and to old French and then also to Speaker4: [00:43:30] Latin is the sort Speaker3: [00:43:32] Of the hearth and the sticks of wood that were burned on the hearth, Speaker4: [00:43:38] But also the right to collect that wood. Speaker3: [00:43:41] So even the earliest sense Speaker4: [00:43:44] Of fuel has to do also with its extraction, the way it's collected, the way it's brought together. But it also has this very Speaker3: [00:43:53] Kind of domestic and and I don't know, original sense of belonging to the domestic sphere. So all of this has been really, really interesting. Speaker4: [00:44:07] But it but it clearly the really doing the work of Speaker3: [00:44:12] Deciding what to put in there and what not to put in there was in itself a process of definition Speaker4: [00:44:19] And exclusion. Speaker1: [00:44:20] I'm wondering, speaking of dilithium crystals, I mean, when you were thinking especially about the speculative aspect of the book, you know, what were your what was your approach there? Did you find that there were a sufficient number of speculative forms of fuel out there already that like dilithium that you had to sort of be selective about it or as you went back through the archive of literature, did you find I mean, how rich is our historically? Has our imaginary fuel been? Speaker4: [00:44:51] Pretty rich, interestingly, Speaker3: [00:44:55] Contemporary Speaker4: [00:44:56] Sci fi Speaker3: [00:44:58] Maybe is not as interesting as we might hope in this Speaker4: [00:45:02] Respect, because a lot of Speaker3: [00:45:03] Contemporary sci fi, I think, brings us back to the same old familiar forms and the same old familiar narratives. So maybe it wasn't as rich as I would have hoped. And also linguistically, it's maybe not as rich, but for example, the Speaker4: [00:45:21] Windup Girl by Paolo Speaker3: [00:45:23] Bacigalupi and author that I know you both like a lot and I just think is Speaker4: [00:45:27] Fantastic in that book. From that book, I extract Speaker3: [00:45:32] A number of fuels that are pretty Speaker4: [00:45:34] Unconventional. Speaker3: [00:45:35] Mega-dam has its own entry. Speaker4: [00:45:37] Good Mega Speaker3: [00:45:38] Dant is a Speaker4: [00:45:39] Fantastic source of fuel, Speaker3: [00:45:42] Which is not really like the same as an ox, because even though it's an animal, Speaker4: [00:45:47] It has a very particular Speaker3: [00:45:50] Bioengineered Speaker4: [00:45:53] Form. Speaker3: [00:45:54] And what I loved most about mega-donors because, for example, I'm very interested in coal and especially interested in the history of labor around coal and the way that unions formed around coal mining. I love the fact that in his novel, mega dont's have their own union, right? They do. Speaker1: [00:46:12] And it's a powerful one, right? Speaker3: [00:46:14] Whereas humans, I don't really think have any more unions, that's certainly the direction we are going. Speaker2: [00:46:20] Should we reveal what mega-donors look like? Sure. Can you draw us an oral picture of the Magadan? Speaker4: [00:46:27] I think there maybe you do, you know, better? Speaker1: [00:46:32] Do I know? I kind of imagine them as woolly mammoth for some reason. But you know, as you said, bioengineered to to turn these kink springs, which again, is another amazing energy form in that in that novel. So but when you were going back to Jules Verne and so forth, did you find that there were sort of antecedents there? A richer imagination, it sounds like, than we have today? Speaker3: [00:46:55] Definitely so. Vern is the most Speaker4: [00:46:58] Important author for Speaker3: [00:47:00] For fuel and actually for the work that I'm doing now. I keep going back to him again and again. Speaker4: [00:47:09] So he Speaker3: [00:47:10] He thinks about different forms of fuel and different forms of energy, but he doesn't only just think about them, he categorizes them he he Speaker4: [00:47:18] Writes kind of encyclopedias, except that they're Speaker3: [00:47:22] In the form of narrative. Speaker4: [00:47:23] So that's why Speaker3: [00:47:24] He really inspired me and sort of gave me the impetus to keep going with this speculative form. So he was a really, really important author and not so much the speculative fuels, so much as just a Speaker4: [00:47:39] Really a catalogue of Speaker3: [00:47:41] Fuels and reminding us of different fuels again and again. Speaker4: [00:47:45] But there are other authors that had Speaker3: [00:47:49] Different forms of fuels. Speaker4: [00:47:51] The The Ford Archive was really rich because, Speaker3: [00:47:54] As I mentioned, for whatever reason, it Speaker4: [00:47:58] Was sort of the pre Twitter era, but people thought it was Speaker3: [00:48:01] Fine to write to Ford all the time. There are all of these letters. I'm sure there are more than the ones I saw. And I guess he Speaker4: [00:48:09] Gave off the vibe that it was cool to Speaker3: [00:48:11] Write to him, and they proposed all kinds of fuels to him. Some of them were obviously complete bullshit. I mean, they have no basis in any kind of biogeochemical physical reality. Speaker1: [00:48:26] You have an example. Speaker4: [00:48:29] Some of them, yes, there was one called Speaker3: [00:48:32] Zolan, which was like a magical elixir. And there was no. There's no real explanation of what it was, in part because the the person who wrote the Speaker4: [00:48:43] Letter was worried about Speaker3: [00:48:45] The patent. You know, he wanted to make sure that the fuel wouldn't be stolen, but Speaker4: [00:48:51] He extolled its properties as basically Speaker3: [00:48:54] It could run anything cleanly and it would Speaker4: [00:48:58] Be so cheap that it Speaker3: [00:48:59] Didn't have to be metered and there would be no Speaker4: [00:49:02] Collateral side effects. So if that Speaker3: [00:49:05] Discourse sounds familiar, we should all, of course, remember that those are the same kinds of claims that were made for nuclear Speaker1: [00:49:12] Power and are still when you think about fusion like, you know, 25 years and we're going to have all the energy we need just Speaker2: [00:49:18] Around the Speaker4: [00:49:18] Corner, just around Speaker2: [00:49:19] The corner, just right in front of us. Well, speaking of Zolan, my second favorite thing about the table in front of us right now is the fact that there is a small but elegant flask of liquor. What's it called Saint Chavez or something? Speaker4: [00:49:36] Samuel Mount St. Germain? Speaker2: [00:49:38] Yeah, and it looks kind of like a perfume bottle, but I love that we've got it because I think if I take a swig off of it, I can actually ask you this next question. That's only excusable if you've had a shot. Well, not a shot, but like a thimbleful. Sure. Oh, my God, Speaker4: [00:49:59] It's very sweet, boy. That's kind of like finger lakes, wine. Speaker1: [00:50:03] Wow. Oh, gauntlet thrown down Karen Pinkos. Speaker2: [00:50:07] Yeah, that's definitely a lake. That's like Night Train, but it's like a reduction of night train that's been boiled down to its true essence. Speaker1: [00:50:14] Wow, that is. Yeah. Speaker2: [00:50:16] So here's a question for you, and this is the reason it's a it's an inappropriate question is because it's bordering on the eugenic. But this is a conversation that we that Dominic and I and I have had several times. Speaker1: [00:50:31] Don't don't implicate me in your madness. Speaker2: [00:50:33] Well, OK. We've had it's it's been a debate, I guess. I don't think you weighed in either way. I think you see the logic. Speaker1: [00:50:40] I actually don't know what's coming, but I'm worried. Speaker2: [00:50:42] Well, OK. Well, Karen will understand. I like our lovely guest, Karen. I'm a petite person and we petite people use far fewer resources in general for our vital force for our society. You know, for our subsistence, we require a little bit less water, a little bit less space, a little bit less food. And so I wonder if you know the way forward, speaking of speculative futures and the future subjunctive isn't to just begin breeding down the scale of humanity. I mean, it seems to me that we should all be petite like Karen or, you know, like a Mayan villager, because you know it just as human life on the planet is incredibly consumptive, not just in terms of its transportation, but in terms of its material needs feeding and watering and cleaning and clothing. And so if we could make everyone just a little tiny bit smaller, if we could go back to that kind of 18th century model of humanoid, might we be a little bit better off? Speaker4: [00:51:50] Oh, absolutely. Speaker3: [00:51:52] And I'm sure you're familiar with and I have Speaker4: [00:51:54] Written about this manifesto of Speaker3: [00:51:58] Human engineering by Leo and other colleagues, which was published a number of Speaker4: [00:52:04] Years ago, which had as a Speaker3: [00:52:07] Provocation a number Speaker4: [00:52:09] Of ideas put forward, including Speaker3: [00:52:12] Giving Speaker4: [00:52:14] People Speaker3: [00:52:15] Hormones to stunt Speaker4: [00:52:16] Their growth. Speaker3: [00:52:18] Also, bioengineering people Speaker4: [00:52:22] To Speaker3: [00:52:23] Have better eyesight so they would not need as much light at Speaker4: [00:52:27] Night or making Speaker3: [00:52:29] People have meat intolerance so that we Speaker4: [00:52:32] Could switch to Speaker3: [00:52:34] Universal vegetarianism, which, as you know, would Speaker4: [00:52:37] Have really Speaker3: [00:52:38] Substantive impacts on carbon emissions. Or I think another element to Speaker4: [00:52:46] Their proposal was to Speaker3: [00:52:50] Genetically engineer people to be Speaker4: [00:52:52] More altruistic. All of these ideas they put forward. Are complicated Speaker3: [00:53:00] In the sense that it's not really clear if they would be a kind of generation by generation or would they be genetically engineered so that Speaker4: [00:53:11] They could so that they could Speaker3: [00:53:12] Speed up a kind of evolutionary Speaker4: [00:53:15] Process? Of course, Speaker3: [00:53:17] This manifesto Speaker4: [00:53:19] Was, Speaker3: [00:53:20] You know, absolutely considered to be, you know, one of the most horrific things ever written. Speaker4: [00:53:27] So I've Speaker3: [00:53:28] Always found it interesting that people would find something like that so horrific when they're willing to think about, they're willing to continue to emit, for example, Speaker4: [00:53:40] Greenhouse gases, Speaker3: [00:53:41] Or they're willing to think about other forms of geoengineering and accept Speaker4: [00:53:47] Those. Speaker3: [00:53:48] So this is this is another research project I have going on now about geoengineering, but at the same time, Speaker4: [00:53:56] The idea that we could do what we're doing to the planet because that's other from us that's out Speaker3: [00:54:03] There, that's the environment. Speaker4: [00:54:06] But we could never Speaker3: [00:54:07] Do these things to our own bodies Speaker4: [00:54:09] Is really shows us how limited Speaker3: [00:54:13] People's thinking is and how difficult it is for us to think beyond a certain very stable idea of the human being as a biological and cultural entity. Speaker1: [00:54:24] Yeah. And I will say, I mean, as a non petite person, I do recognize that, you know, my physical form is indebted to hundreds and hundreds of years of colonialism and and petro capitalism, frankly, that have concentrated resources and energy in a certain way that have allowed our bodies to get much larger. Right. I mean, you look at the sort of phenomenon of European immigrants coming to the U.S. and then like, suddenly they're a foot taller. I mean, that is everything to do with the marshaling of resources, and that's effect. So even if we even if we haven't maybe been bioengineering ourselves in the lab, but we are, I mean, look at contemporary athletics like there are places that are exactly doing that. We are certainly transforming ourselves physically in relationship to our energy and environment in ways that I think, you know, are incredibly resource dependent. I mean, you know, one I don't know what the figure is like. One American child consumes the resources of what, four or five or six or 10, you know, children in, let's say, rural Mexico. And that's really striking when you think about it. So the whole debates over, you know, population and at what level it's safe to have population also often don't take into account the radical differences between, you know, you know, the fact that even though population is booming in Africa, the children aren't using the same resources that even a small family in the United States would have? So, yeah, oh, right on. Do you want to talk to us more about the geoengineering project, by the way? Because that sounds, that's kind of where you're headed next. Is that Speaker4: [00:55:58] Right? I think so, yes. So I am very interested in geoengineering again. Speaker3: [00:56:05] I'm trying Speaker4: [00:56:06] To approach it from the broadest perspective possible without sort of making Speaker3: [00:56:11] Choices or thinking about one form of it or another. Speaker4: [00:56:16] Because I think it's a way to use sort of critical theory and speculative theory Speaker3: [00:56:22] And yet at the same time, intervene in some way Speaker4: [00:56:26] Into a more practice based or policy based sphere. So the Speaker3: [00:56:34] Research that I'm proposing to do, it's an interdisciplinary team of Speaker4: [00:56:38] Researchers is to, first of all, Speaker3: [00:56:41] Do a kind of taxonomy of what forms of geoengineering are already going on. Speaker4: [00:56:47] Because first of all, Speaker3: [00:56:49] Many people don't like the word, you know, for example, many outside funding sources or people who work in the sustainability space, you know, they don't even want to hear the word. Speaker4: [00:56:59] But actually, first of all, if you think about Speaker3: [00:57:02] What we're doing now through climate change, I mean, you can certainly argue that anthropogenic climate change Speaker4: [00:57:09] Is the Speaker3: [00:57:09] Greatest geoengineering that project that humans have ever Speaker4: [00:57:12] Undertaken. But of course, the Speaker3: [00:57:14] Definition of it then, is Speaker4: [00:57:17] To Speaker3: [00:57:17] Mitigate climate change. So once you add that part on, you can no longer say that climate change is geoengineering. And then, you know, generally, as you may know, it's split up into two general sectors. So one is solar radiation management, which involves intervening at the atmospheric level to either reflect sunlight Speaker4: [00:57:38] Back up or Speaker3: [00:57:39] To create ways in which the atmosphere will be, you know, that the that carbon can be released, you know, Speaker4: [00:57:50] Back up Speaker3: [00:57:51] Towards, you know, up in the atmosphere Speaker4: [00:57:54] Or Speaker3: [00:57:55] Carbon dioxide removal, which in. Includes everything from making soil more enhancing soil as a carbon sink Speaker4: [00:58:04] To actually taking Speaker3: [00:58:08] Carbon from the flue stack and burying it underground or injecting it into rocks, or perhaps injecting it into the ocean. So there's so many different practices there. But then I was also interested in asking about whether something like a giant dam, Speaker4: [00:58:25] Which certainly affects Speaker3: [00:58:26] Weather in a particular area and has a kind of geological and terrestrial Speaker4: [00:58:33] Effect. Could that be considered geoengineering? Speaker3: [00:58:38] So these are all questions. So the Speaker4: [00:58:39] First part of the project would be to Speaker3: [00:58:41] Do a kind of taxonomy of what's already being done, for example, recently during one of the unfortunately fewer than expected rainstorms in Southern Speaker4: [00:58:50] California. Some clouds were seeded to increase precipitation, so that happened at a really local level that didn't get a whole lot of press. Speaker3: [00:59:00] Probably it's not that controversial. It probably didn't have an enormously profound effect, Speaker4: [00:59:07] But it was Speaker3: [00:59:08] Done. So in other words, stuff is already happening. And how do we think about the different forms of geoengineering that are happening? Speaker1: [00:59:16] So who did that project was that? Was that a government project? Or just like local citizens scientists Speaker4: [00:59:22] Who I believe it was the state of California Speaker3: [00:59:26] That did it. It was certainly not, you know, citizens. That would be an interesting Speaker4: [00:59:34] Project, right? Yeah. Speaker3: [00:59:36] It could almost be something like an art project, but no, I don't think that it was in this case. Hmm. So after doing a taxonomy of what's already being done, then I think Speaker4: [00:59:49] The the project Speaker3: [00:59:50] Is to try and think about Speaker4: [00:59:52] Governance, who decides what gets done, what kinds of critical or philosophical criteria would be used to think about what gets done beyond Speaker3: [01:00:03] Just the usual quantitative measures, which have Speaker4: [01:00:06] To do with Speaker3: [01:00:06] Cost and safety Speaker4: [01:00:08] And effect. Because in Speaker3: [01:00:11] Fact, for example, something like spraying sulfur aerosols into the Speaker4: [01:00:18] Atmosphere is Speaker3: [01:00:19] Relatively inexpensive. Speaker4: [01:00:21] So a billionaire could do that today. Right? Speaker3: [01:00:28] I'm not sure if Donald Trump is rich enough to do it if he wanted to do it, but he Speaker4: [01:00:32] Might actually be, I guess, today, Speaker3: [01:00:34] He said. He's not going to show his tax returns, so we don't necessarily know. But aside from him, you know, a Richard Branson could do it or an Elon Musk could do it today. Speaker4: [01:00:46] And the effect could potentially be pretty powerful on global cooling. Speaker3: [01:00:52] And that's total emissions, you know, total Speaker4: [01:00:55] Cooling Speaker3: [01:00:56] Because we don't talk about cooling in a particular place. Sometimes we would like Speaker4: [01:01:00] That, but we don't. So because this Speaker3: [01:01:04] Stuff can already be done and relatively cheaply, I think it's all the more important that we Speaker4: [01:01:09] Have critical thought behind what it is that we could be doing what it is that we are doing and what would be the criteria that would we use to even think about it. So that Speaker3: [01:01:22] Bioengineering provocative manifesto Speaker4: [01:01:25] That we talked about? Speaker3: [01:01:27] I mean, in a sense, what I'm trying to do is something like that, Speaker4: [01:01:31] Although with a slightly broader scope. But it's really to sort of say, what Speaker3: [01:01:35] Are the implications of of all of these different forms of engineering the planet? And frankly, I think that we may be headed Speaker4: [01:01:43] To doing some of them, Speaker3: [01:01:45] Some of the more radical ones in order to meet our Speaker4: [01:01:49] Goals. Right. So there is that sort of practical Speaker3: [01:01:52] Element as Speaker4: [01:01:53] Well, and it will be interesting to see if the project goes does get funded, you know, how people would react to it. Speaker2: [01:02:01] So one other thing we know about you, Karen, at least one other thing that we know about you is that you rock and that you also are in a band and you plug your hand and have been for a long time. Well, you can plug away, but I'm actually going to ask you the question what does rock and roll? Or maybe just music in general have to say or can say about climate change energy? Humanity's take your pick. Speaker4: [01:02:28] Well, first Speaker3: [01:02:29] Of all, the band is in a bit of a hiatus right now, but thank you for the mention and Speaker4: [01:02:36] I certainly have the goal of Speaker3: [01:02:39] Spending my retirement in in the band or playing music. I certainly hope that Speaker4: [01:02:45] I won't get arthritis that will force me Speaker3: [01:02:47] To not play the drums, but I'm also thinking Speaker4: [01:02:50] I could like the Speaker3: [01:02:52] Bioengineered figures in the Leo manifesto. Speaker4: [01:02:56] I could also. Adapt, if I did have, say, Speaker3: [01:03:00] Arthritis and I could find a new way of playing the drums, perhaps, or there will be meds, Speaker2: [01:03:05] A little a little transhumanism and you'd be set. Speaker4: [01:03:08] Absolutely. Speaker3: [01:03:09] So aside from the band being on hiatus, Speaker4: [01:03:13] I would say that rock and roll has nothing to do with the other work that I do, but it certainly is a nice diversion because it's very Speaker3: [01:03:22] Difficult to think about this stuff all day long, as you know, Speaker2: [01:03:26] And it kind of makes you want to hit things right Speaker4: [01:03:28] Like a drum. That's true. That's true. But I must say Speaker3: [01:03:32] That some of the academic situations I've been in have Speaker4: [01:03:35] Helped with that as well. Speaker1: [01:03:38] But I mean, OK, let me let me not play devil's advocate exactly, but say, could we imagine or maybe there's out there already, you know, somebody who can give voice to these issues in music, right? I mean, I'm thinking of our dearly departed prince, who I discovered after he had passed away and actually was a huge environmental activist. Apparently, that was something that was going on in the background. I feel like anti-capitalism has a lot of rock profits, and I'm wondering why climate change doesn't have one or that I can think of. And again, maybe it's just my lack of, I don't know, keeping up with music over the past 10 years. Speaker4: [01:04:16] Yeah. Well, I think what you're Speaker3: [01:04:19] Addressing is a Speaker4: [01:04:20] Much bigger problem, Speaker3: [01:04:21] Both in the music Speaker4: [01:04:22] Sphere. That could be a whole nother podcast and don't get me started on that. But really, what do you what Speaker3: [01:04:31] Do you think? I mean, I would like to know what the two of you think about. The question of activism and social movements, it's around climate change, Speaker4: [01:04:42] It's really Speaker3: [01:04:43] Disturbing to Speaker4: [01:04:44] Me that you could get Speaker3: [01:04:46] A million people in Paris Speaker4: [01:04:48] For just Charlie. Speaker3: [01:04:50] But there have never been a million people coming Speaker4: [01:04:52] Together to protest Speaker3: [01:04:55] Anything around climate change. Speaker4: [01:04:57] I think the the Speaker3: [01:05:00] Climate march in New York City Speaker4: [01:05:01] Had Speaker3: [01:05:02] Around 450000. But the message was very fragmented. But there were all kinds of different constituencies there. Speaker4: [01:05:11] So I think what you're what you're what I think about a lot is what, where, how, how would you give voice and. Speaker3: [01:05:24] Yeah, I don't know. Speaker1: [01:05:26] Do you want to start on that one? Speaker2: [01:05:27] Well, you were already kind of going, Speaker1: [01:05:28] Yeah, but I was going in a different direction. Ok. Speaker2: [01:05:31] Well, I mean, I think the the kind of common sense or the platitude that we hear a lot is that, you know, it's too dire, it's too depressing. No one wants to kind of think about it too much. And so therefore, it's hard to get inspired about this. But I think it goes back to what we were beginning with today and that was thinking about the eve antiquity of our orientation right now. Is that just human nature? Or is that kind of human habit that we've cultivated over time that these very spectacular events draw our attention in ways that the incremental and the kind of molecular changes that are occurring with these shifts in the climate can't inspire, don't inspire the kind of of of raw, affective passion that we so often think of in terms of social movements. And I don't think it's not for lack of information because the undergraduate students that I see and work with are all very tuned into this and they have no doubt or question or compunction about the truth of it. It's just a matter of finding those kinds of resources to to get their peers motivated, get themselves motivated to do things. And and I agree with you it's not happening either among young people or among oldsters as much as it should be, given that there are stakes and consequences for every species on the planet, including our own. Speaker1: [01:06:57] I just want, you know, I think, for my money and this is like way before. Rage against the Machine or a band like that like Gang of Four's entertainment album, I think is like the best anti-capitalist album ever made. I want that to happen for climate change somehow. Like a really sharp, smart, innovative, edgy, you know, climate change album. But I also think that by, you know, maybe that's just too predictable. Almost or maybe it is because of the dispersants and the lack of event ness in it that it doesn't seem to something people can get or because it's not like human enough, it's not focused enough on people, which is what many people humans that is seemed to care the most about. Speaker2: [01:07:36] Well, OK, now I'm going to date myself. But I mean, you think about someone like Laurie Anderson would be, you know, if she maybe if she were younger now, like if she were kind of on the sort of pop music scene now she would be the kind of person or performer, I think, who would get animated and excited and be doing cool musical experimentation around these kinds of questions, right? Maybe not. Maybe climate change isn't a kind of sexy enough rubric to think about, but what Bjork has been doing lots Speaker1: [01:08:05] Of work, Speaker2: [01:08:06] You know, biophilia do. That's not explicitly about kind of climate change, activism or anything that directly, but implicitly, that's what's happening in that music. And she's drawing attention to all these intermissions and interweaving between human life and other forms of life. So it's it's it's woven into that. Speaker4: [01:08:26] I mean, except I still I feel like what you're going towards is Speaker3: [01:08:31] Addressing climate change in the Speaker4: [01:08:33] Lyrics, whereas for me, Speaker3: [01:08:35] Rock and roll is much more Speaker4: [01:08:37] About loud guitars. Yeah. And a especially loud guitars, Speaker3: [01:08:45] Simple, droning bass lines, steady rhythmic drums. You know Speaker4: [01:08:54] It's. That's what rock and roll is, Speaker3: [01:08:57] So it's not really about conveying a message. It's true. And so Speaker4: [01:09:03] But this again goes back Speaker3: [01:09:05] To something that maybe we Speaker4: [01:09:07] Sort of started out with, which is that as Speaker3: [01:09:10] A humanist and you guys Speaker4: [01:09:12] Have at least one foot or Speaker3: [01:09:15] A toe into the social science Speaker4: [01:09:16] World, but as Speaker3: [01:09:18] A strict humanist, you know, as someone who's bread and butter Speaker4: [01:09:21] Or I like to say, my day job is basically Speaker3: [01:09:23] Teaching, for example, Italian literature and Italian cinema. Speaker4: [01:09:28] It's very hard to explain to people that what I do is Speaker3: [01:09:33] Not about communicating a message, right? And so Speaker4: [01:09:37] I'm Speaker3: [01:09:37] Always fighting against that. And so if Speaker4: [01:09:40] If we were to Speaker3: [01:09:41] Think about any kind of other thing that we do, Speaker4: [01:09:45] Like writing or music Speaker3: [01:09:47] As conveying a message or trying Speaker4: [01:09:49] To get people to raise Speaker3: [01:09:51] People's awareness, I'm really Speaker4: [01:09:54] Allergic to that. Speaker3: [01:09:55] So when it comes down to it, I think I'd rather just put in my earplugs and go, listen to some loud guitars. Speaker1: [01:10:04] Yeah, that is a really great place to end, but can I ask one more question because this was the thing I wanted to mention before, and this is just knowing that you were at COP21 and we were talking about gatherings of people, and I was just really curious to ask you what your impressions were of COP21, a much, you know, a much debated event in terms of its significance. So I don't know. Turn your turn your hermeneutic hat on and tell us what went down there and what did you walk away with? Speaker4: [01:10:34] So what Speaker3: [01:10:34] Didn't go down there for me was Speaker4: [01:10:37] Protests. So I did hear people say, Oh, but there were protests, Speaker3: [01:10:40] But then they were shut down because Speaker4: [01:10:42] Of the Paris Speaker3: [01:10:43] Attacks. I don't think so. Yes, there were some people protesting and there were some people marching in Paris, and maybe they there would have been more people marching if they had been allowed to do so. But none of that was really that interesting to me. What was really interesting to me was just being in the space, Speaker4: [01:11:01] Which was Speaker3: [01:11:01] Sort of like being in a casino in Las Vegas Speaker4: [01:11:04] Because you lost total Speaker3: [01:11:05] Track of what time it was. And there were just all these machines and noises and people milling around and Speaker4: [01:11:12] You sort of got got Speaker3: [01:11:14] Really kind of disoriented. Speaker4: [01:11:17] But I would go to Speaker3: [01:11:20] Different meetings and negotiations, and I just saw people from Speaker4: [01:11:25] All over the world Speaker3: [01:11:27] Dressed in their so-called, you know, Speaker4: [01:11:29] Native garb Speaker3: [01:11:30] And, you know, clearly speaking in different languages and different accents. And every single person there Speaker4: [01:11:38] Had a degree of climate literacy that I've hardly Speaker3: [01:11:42] Ever seen in the real Speaker4: [01:11:43] World, Speaker3: [01:11:44] Even when I talked to my students or Speaker4: [01:11:47] Other colleagues and I felt like I was not alone. Speaker3: [01:11:55] I realized that's a very narcissistic response to your question, but that's what the experience was for me. Speaker4: [01:12:01] And that gave Speaker3: [01:12:02] Me a certain kind of hope that I've never really had before, and it didn't come from the actual negotiations or the Speaker4: [01:12:09] Actual Speaker3: [01:12:10] Document that was produced. And it certainly didn't come from the small Speaker4: [01:12:14] Groups of protesters that it actually Speaker3: [01:12:16] Came from feeling for the first time in my life that I live on a planet Speaker4: [01:12:21] And I was in a global environment and everybody there Speaker3: [01:12:29] Understood the same kinds of things that trouble me and keep me up at night and force me to listen to podcasts in order to fall Speaker4: [01:12:37] Asleep. Speaker3: [01:12:38] Including yours. But then I listen to it again the next day when I'm more awake, just Speaker4: [01:12:42] To be clear. Speaker1: [01:12:44] Yeah. Well, we got we got into your head a little bit with the sound artist. Speaker4: [01:12:48] Absolutely. I fell asleep and then a certain point I woke up and I heard animals moving around and crickets. And since I have in past life lived in a Speaker3: [01:13:00] House out in the country where there were animals around, Speaker4: [01:13:03] I thought somehow Speaker3: [01:13:04] They were in my bedroom or crawling around in my Speaker4: [01:13:08] Suitcase and I really had a panic attack. Speaker3: [01:13:11] But then I realized it was coming out of the computer because it was the end part of the Lawrence. Speaker1: [01:13:17] Yeah, Lawrence English Speaker3: [01:13:19] Yeah, Lawrence English Speaker4: [01:13:20] Podcast, which is terrific, Speaker3: [01:13:22] As are many of yours. Speaker2: [01:13:24] Well, there's probably no better omeje to vital energy than that the digitized form of these little critters running around in your head and in your house. Karen, thank you so much for coming out and for talking with us. I learned a lot. Super interesting, and we wish you all all the best in your future work and your scholarship and and loud guitars. Speaker1: [01:13:50] And when that geoengineering project comes that you've got to come back on the pot again and talk to us about it? Speaker3: [01:13:55] Absolutely. And thanks for coming to hot and humid Speaker4: [01:13:58] Ithaca Speaker1: [01:13:59] For once. Ok.