Notes from the Editors, December 2021

buy this issue With the rapidly worsening capitalist demolition of the planetary environment and the expansion of ecosocialist movements in response, leading establishment think tanks, like the corporate-supported Breakthrough Institute, dedicated to promoting the ideology of "green capitalism" at any cost, have found themselves in a difficult place.

Berta Vive!

For many years Berta Caceres - Honduran environmental defender, Indigenous community leader and co-founder of COPINH (Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras) - campaigned against the construction, without consent, of the Agua Zarca dam in Lenca territory, by private energy company DESA. In 2016 she was assassinated. Since then there has been a long struggle to bring those responsible to justice. In 2018, seven men were found guilty of planning and carrying out the assassination, but records showed they were following orders from higher up the food chain. In July 2021, DESA president David Castillo was found guilty of being a 'co-conspirator' in the assassination. Others involved, including Daniel Atala and other members of his wealthy family, are yet to be investigated. In Honduras, a culture of impunity, corruption and violence prevails, which links the state, the army, the business world and criminal networks. Although those who resist are frequently killed, the resistance continues. Within this grim picture, 'clean energy' and 'development' often act as shiny eco-covers for elites amassing profit without regard to the rights of Indigenous people. It needs to be more widely recognised that green capitalism is not a solution for the climate crisis: it is merely a form of neo-colonialism.

Energy Solutions, Neo-Liberalism, and Social Diversity in Toronto, Canada

In response to the dominance of green capitalist discourses in Canada’s environmental movement, in this paper, we argue that strategies to improve energy policy must also provide mechanisms to address social conflicts and social disparities. Environmental justice is proposed as an alternative to mainstream environmentalism, one that seeks to address systemic social and spatial exclusion encountered by many racialized immigrants in Toronto as a result of neo-liberal and green capitalist municipal policy and that seeks to position marginalized communities as valued contributors to energy solutions. We examine Toronto-based municipal state initiatives aimed at reducing energy use while concurrently stimulating growth (specifically, green economy/green jobs and ‘smart growth’). By treating these as instruments of green capitalism, we illustrate the utility of environmental justice applied to energy-related problems and as a means to analyze stakeholders’ positions in the context of neo-liberalism and green capitalism, and as opening possibilities for resistance.

Energy Solutions, Neo-Liberalism, and Social Diversity in Toronto, Canada

In response to the dominance of green capitalist discourses in Canada’s environmental movement, in this paper, we argue that strategies to improve energy policy must also provide mechanisms to address social conflicts and social disparities. Environmental justice is proposed as an alternative to mainstream environmentalism, one that seeks to address systemic social and spatial exclusion encountered by many racialized immigrants in Toronto as a result of neo-liberal and green capitalist municipal policy and that seeks to position marginalized communities as valued contributors to energy solutions. We examine Toronto-based municipal state initiatives aimed at reducing energy use while concurrently stimulating growth (specifically, green economy/green jobs and ‘smart growth’). By treating these as instruments of green capitalism, we illustrate the utility of environmental justice applied to energy-related problems and as a means to analyze stakeholders’ positions in the context of neo-liberalism and green capitalism, and as opening possibilities for resistance.

Art, Energy and Technology: the Solarpunk Movement

The purpose of this text is to reflect on the ways that science fiction allows criticism on the modern technology path. Imagination has allowed us to think of some ends of the world, but it has been a privileged space. Creating other possible futures for our relationship with energy is essential. Corporate renewable energy projects are emerging in corners of the planet where green capitalism has not yet reached. In this way, the creation of alternatives to centralized and corporate models of energy generation, distribution and consumption must go through new potentialities of inhabiting new possible futures. Science fiction is a literature genre that has inspired generations of people assembling art and techno-science as well as dystopia. Solarpunk has been consolidated as a space of counter-cultural hope to allow us to go beyond social-ecological injustices and growing epistemic and ontological violence. This genre is derived from other currents such as Cyberpunk, Steampunk and Dieselpunk, elucidating another relationship between technology, society and nature, nourished in turn by climate sci-fi, Indigenous and Afro-futurist science fiction. In this sense, a concept revision is made in three spheres: i) historical, based on its digital origins; ii) literary, based on the edited anthologies and iii) academic, of the reflections that it has raised. Finally, the Solarpunk Manifesto, revealed at the beginning of 2020, is shared in order to continue its co-creation.

Methane Extraction on Lake Kivu: Green Extractive Humanitarianism

In 2016, Rwanda began extracting methane gas from Lake Kivu, an innovative project designed to reduce the risk of a deadly spontaneous gas release while providing clean and renewable power to an energy-strapped region. Based on qualitative research in Rwanda from 2016 to 2019, Doughty, Uwizeye, and Uwimana use the Kivu methane extraction project to ask, How do we balance urgent electrification needs with responsible energy policies that respond to environmental risks, particularly in post-conflict contexts? Analyzing the Kivu methane projects as “green extractive humanitarianism” provides cautions within the promises of sustainability and “green capitalism.”