Wilcox+Why+Now


 * Why Now?**

Per capita energy use in the U.S. increased sharply over the twentieth century, and reductions in energy use in response to the ongoing energy crisis have stagnated in recent years. As energy "realists" speaking from a variety of partisan perspectives remind us, a "plug and play" clean energy future in which current ways of life and patterns of social organization are preserved is unlikely. Whether motivated by concerns about energy security, the decline of available cheap fossil fuels, climate change and environmental destruction, global energy and environmental justice, or political-aesthetic ethical commitments, new modes of engagement linking users and infrastructures are needed to achieve the necessary reductions in energy intensity. Unfortunately, most "energy imaginaries"--the ways in which various collectives understand continuity and change in energy regimes--and the "energy interventions"--organized efforts to shape the ongoing reproduction of energy regimes--they inspire largely neglect the everyday domain in which new modes of engagement would be enacted.