Cultures of Energy

Latest Episodes:

227 – The Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (feat. Radha D'Souza and Jonas Staal) Apr 11, 2025

Show notes

Cymene communes with Californian nature (slugs and all) on this edition of the podcast. Then (14:33) we welcome Radha D'Souza and Jonas Staal to the podcast to talk about their amazing project, the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC). The CICC aims to put the law itself on trial by creating new laws and juridical mechanisms capable of actually holding states and corporations to account for their role in the climate emergency. We discuss Radha's pathbreaking book, What's Wrong with Rights? and how it traces modern rights discourse back to colonial principles and institutions. Jonas explains how organizational art can advance the cause of emancipatory politics through experiments like the CICC. Finally, we explore how it helps the climate struggle to understand that we have never left the colonial period and its pioneering military industrial and corporate state forms of governance. Please check out their book detailing our alternative legal framework and judgements:

https://framerframed.nl/en/dossier/boekwinkel-selectie-court-for-intergenerational-climate-crimes/

And here is the main link to the public hearings of the next iteration of the CICC happening right now in London, The British East India Company on Trial:

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/court-for-intergenerational-climate-crimes-cicc/

Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.

226 - Extraction (feat. Thea Riofrancos) Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

Cymene and Dominic advise universities on how to handle blackmailers and wish a certain daughter a happy birthday on this sweet sixteen episode of the podcast. Then (13:40) Dominic chats with the brilliant Thea Riofrancos about her new book Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism (now available for pre-order from WW Norton here). We start with extraction as a difficult topic for the Left and then turn toward why people are talking so much about "critical minerals" of late. We discuss her travels to lithium frontiers like Chile and Nevada and Thea puts forth an important distinction between extraction and extractivism. Thea explains how resistance can be world-making, and how writing for broad audiences makes you a sharper theorist. We close with the backstory to one of her latest collaborative projects, the Climate and Community Institute, how it grew out of pandemic-era efforts to catalyze a green stimulus, and how it now acts, among other things, to shape green policy and build supply-chain solidarity.

225 - Bad Weather (feat. Jerry Zee) Mar 13, 2025

Show notes

Even though Cymene and Dominic clearly dislike billionaires they sure seemed enchanted by pirate gold in this episode of the podcast. Then (16:44) we talk to Jerry Zee about where he got the idea to pursue a political anthropology of strange weather in China. We discuss his recent book Continent in Dust: Experiments in a Chinese Weather System (U California Press, 2022) and how sand becomes a "theory machine" as Jerry documents efforts by scientists to keep Chinese cities unburied by encroaching deserts. We talk about the Chinese concept of "wind sand" and how an ethnography of China looks different when it is focused on sky rather than land. We turn from there to how state socialism has been reorganizing itself in China in recent decades and the potential of socialist ecological civilization to become the next phase of Chinese socialism. We close with what bad weather can teach us about different modes of political collectivity and Jerry's latest project on understanding the New Cold War between China and the USA through atmospheres, river systems and landscapes. Hang in there, folks, peace and love 😊

224 - Peak (Whale) Oil Feb 28, 2025

Show notes

Dominic and Cymene bask in their new mics in this week's podcast and talk about a new Glacier Graveyard installation coming soon to the UNESCO HQ in Paris. Then (15:55) we welcome Jamie Jones to the podcast to talk about her new book, Rendered Obsolete (U North Carolina Press, 2023). We talk to Jamie about how whale oil defined the historical context into which petroleum was born and contributed to a unified idea of "energy" as a market commodity. We then discuss Jamie's argument that Melville's Moby Dick is a peak (whale) oil novel. We discuss the shared vulnerability of working class humans and whales in extractive industry, whaling and imperialism, whether there are traces of the past worth recovering, narratives of energy obsolescence and white supremacy, and the many afterlives of whaling in American culture. Hang in there, good people of the pod, peace and love ❤️

223 - Bringing solar back to earth (feat. Myles Lennon) Feb 12, 2025

Show notes

Cymene gives us part one of a two-part story about her imminent return to the world of being tattooed and defends USAID while Dominic rants for a while about Democrats' spinelessness as BigTechMaga organizes to eliminate both marginalized communities and the educated classes. Then (19:50) we welcome Myles Lennon (Brown University) to the podcast to talk about his new book, Subjects of the Sun. We start with the politics of sunlight and the built environment in New York City. We discuss how the ubiquity of screenwork influences how climate professionals think about solar energy by removing that energy from the social and material contexts in which it is made and deployed. From there we talk about the visual media associated with solar energy, the relationship between electricity and capitalism, the affective infrastructures of energy and we close discussing his new work on the paradox of liberation on stolen lands through Black land stewardship. Hang in there, good people of the pod, peace and love ❤️

222 - Soul Train to Communism with Timothy Morton Jan 29, 2025

Show notes

Cultures of Energy is back and biweekly for 2025! Half interviews with bright and shiny people, half unlicensed therapy (for us anyway), half everything related to energy and environment issues. Today it's podcasting against fascism with the spiritual guidance of our dear friend Timothy Morton. Dominic and Cymene see if they can think of something positive to say and then discuss Taylor Sheridan's Landman so you don't have to watch it very carefully. Then (17:00) Tim joins us to talk about the quiet truth of snowfall and how the sociopathy of cars led to the Internet. Next, we turn to how to reimagine communism as planet-scale collectivity while dealing with the narcissists who want to devour the world. We close with a few words on David Lynch and what his ability to juxtapose, vividly, beauty and nightmare might teach us about how to make paradise despite the hell of fascism. Hang in there, folks, peace and love 😊 PS Soul Train to Communism playlist now ready! Check it out at: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5VjbVDQw0dz1VH3t9gOF1K?si=fmDpMfT3TsyWwb-AzyuYfw&pi=6lp9H1kWT6ie8

221 - Planetarity Now! (with Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman) Jul 09, 2024

Show notes

Dominic and Cymene are beaming to you this week from a European Cup-addled Berlin. They share a few reflections on their time in Cape Town and then ruminate on why it is it doesn't seem possible to hate anyone from California. Is it the sunshine? As if to underscore this point about the essential good of Californians, we welcome to the podcast (15:55) two brilliant residents of the Golden State, Berggruen Institute based political philosophers Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman to talk about their new book, Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises (Stanford UP, 2024). We start with the concept of subsidiarity and why they view it as crucial to creating new kinds of political institutions capable of managing planetary challenges like climate change and health crises. They explain why it's problematic that so much sovereignty is bound to the nation-state when the scale of planetary challenges exceeds nation-states. Similarly, we talk about how that disables multilateral institutions like the United Nations from engaging planetary challenges effectively too. From there we turn to the need for new supranational institutions to reign in corporate power, why they are not calling for a world government, the importance of planetary sapience and remote sensing and close with a discussion of why they emphasize the importance of multispecies flourishing in the project. Please listen, read and share!! ps Special shout out to Alex Gardels from Berggruen for engineering the recording of this week's interview.

220 - Design Earth (with Rania Ghosn) May 24, 2024

Show notes

Cymene and Dominic recap last week's Petrocultures Los Angeles conference and discuss the new climate lawsuit filed in France seeking to press criminal charges against the CEO and directors of the French oil major TotalEnergies. Then (15:27) we welcome the brilliant and megatalented Rania Ghosn to the podcast. We start with the work of Design Earth, Rania's practice together with El Hadi Jazairy and how the collaboration began. Rania explains how Design Earth seeks to explore how design can help respond to the climate crisis and why they tend to work in a narrative or speculative mode. We discuss their strategies for cultivating what she calls "geostories" at the intersection of art, science and design. From there we move to talking about what energy means in the context of design, how the ruins of carbon modernity will haunt urbanism and landscapes for many years to come, speculative ecofeminist storytelling, and the art of making exquisite corpses. We close talking about what it means to inherit the world in all its crisis and how to learn to live in a time of collapse.

219 - Climate Storytelling (with CNN's Bill Weir) Apr 27, 2024

Show notes

Dominic and Cymene react to the police violence sweeping across US university campuses. Then (15:11) we are thrilled to welcome CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent, Bill Weir, to the podcast. We begin with the big news of the day—the landmark legal ruling by the European court of human rights that Switzerland had violated the human rights of more than 2,000 older Swiss women by failing to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions. Then, we dive into Bill's great new book, Life as We Know It (Can Be): Stories of People, Climate, and Hope in a Changing World (Chronicle Books 2024). We talk about how to balance nightmares and dreams in climate storytelling, techniques for building effective story arcs, the five stages of climate grief, and disrupting the idea that consumption leads to happiness. Bill explains the ideas of protopia and YIMBYism to us and emphasizes the need to act locally and with humility as he shares with us some of the more encouraging stories he's encountered in his travels as a reporter. We close by discussing what Bill thinks has changed in terms of news coverage of climate change during the course of his long and storied career. Please listen and share!!

218 - Solar Futures (with Siddharth Sareen) Mar 17, 2024

Show notes

Cymene tries to convince Dominic to join the Freemasons on this episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast. Plus, a shallow dive into Buzkashi, the national sport of Tajikistan, the country that helped convince the UN to designate 2025 the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation. Then (13:22) we are thrilled to welcome Siddharth Sareen from U Stavanger, author of The Sun Also Rises in Portugal (Bristol U Press, 2024) and the winner of this year's Nils Klim Prize in Norway (go Sid!) We start with how Sid's interests in energy research shifted from India to Portugal, an underappreciated star in solarity. We talk about the struggle between large scale solar and community solar in the context of aspirations toward a just energy transition. We discuss the environmental impact of solar and how it can be improved, and Sid explains why standards matter as solar becomes a more mature industry and how standards of commoning could help to constitute a better future for solar power. Finally, we discuss the need to pursue prefigurative politics as way of bringing more energy utopias into the world and allowing them to flourish.

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