The Production of Consuming Less: Energy Efficiency, Climate Change, and Light Bulbs in North Carolina

In this research, I have analyzed the production of consuming less electricity through a case study of promotions of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). I focused on the CFL because it has been heavily promoted by environmentalists and electricity companies as a key tool for solving climate change, yet such promotions appear counter-intuitive. The magnitude of CFL promotions by environmentalists is surprising because CFLs can only impact less than 1% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. CFL promotions by electricity providers are surprising given such companies' normal incentives to sell more of their product. I used political ecological and symbolic interactionist theories, qualitative methods of data collection (including interviews, participant-observation, texts, and images), and a grounded theory analysis to understand this case. My findings suggest that, far from being a self-evident technical entity, energy efficiency is produced as an idea, a part of identities, a resource, and a source of value through social, political, and economic processes. These processes include identity formation and subjectification; gender-coded household labor; and corporate appropriation of household value resulting from environmental governance. I show how environmentalists use CFLs to make and claim neoliberal identities, proposing the concept of green neoliberal identity work as a mechanism through which neoliberal ideologies are translated into practices. I analyze how using this seemingly easy energy efficient technology constitutes labor that is gendered in ways that reflect and reproduce inequalities. I show how electricity companies have used environmental governance to valorize and appropriate home energy efficiency as an accumulation strategy. I conclude by discussing the symbolic power of CFLs, proposing a theory of green obsolescence, and framing the production of energy efficiency as a global production network. I found that promoting energy efficiency involves consuming less energy by consuming more technologies. This research contributes to understandings of how environmentalists become laboring subjects in an era of neoliberalism and how energy companies are responding to the threat of climate change by turning mitigation into an opportunity for profit.Doctor of Philosoph

Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production

This dissertation expands upon the definition of eco-visualization artwork. EV was originally defined in 2006 by Tiffany Holmes as a way to display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy. I assert that the final forms of EV artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and can differ in terms of media used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based, or static two-dimensional forms that communicate interpreted environmental information. There are two main categories of EV: one that is predominantly screen-based and another that employs a variety of modes of representation to visualize environmental information. EVs are political acts, situated in a charged climate of rising awareness, operating within the context of environmentalism and sustainability. I discuss a variety of EV works within the frame of ecopsychology, including EcoArtTech’s Eclipse and Keith Deverell’s Building Run; Andrea Polli’s Cloud Car and Particle Falls; Nathalie Miebach’s series, The Sandy Rides; and Natalie Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir. The range of EV works provided models for my creative project, Sculpting Corn Production, and a foundation from which I developed a creative methodology. Working to defeat my experience of solastalgia, Sculpting Corn Production is a series of discrete paper sculptures focusing on American industrial corn farming. This EV also functions as a way for me to understand our devastated monoculture landscapes and the politics, economics, and related areas of ecology of our food production

Consumption, Sustainability and Everyday Life

This open access book seeks to understand why we consume as we do, how consumption changes, and why we keep consuming more and more, despite the visible damage we are doing to the planet. The chapters cover both the stubbornness of unsustainable consumption patterns in affluent societies and the drivers of rapidly increasing consumption in emerging economies. They focus on consumption patterns with the largest environmental footprints, including energy, housing, and mobility and engage in sophisticated ways with the theoretical frontiers of the field of consumption research, in particular on the ‘practice turn’ that has come to dominate the field in recent decades. This book maps out what we know about consumption, questions what we take for granted, and points us in new directions for better understanding—and changing—unsustainable consumption patterns

Electric Power Wheeling and Dealing: Technological Considerations for Increasing Competition

This assessment analyzes how the Nation’s power systems could accommodate various proposals for competition intended to make the electric power industry more responsive to market forces. Operation of an electric power system is extremely complex, and increased competition could have serious effects on costs and reliability if not implemented carefully. The assessment identifies the technical requirements that must be met to keep the system working well as the level of competition increases, and determines how competitive enterprises could meet these requirements

Portugal SB13: contribution of sustainable building to meet EU 20-20-20 targets

Proceedings of the International Conference Portugal SB13: contribution of sustainable building to meet EU 20-20-20 targetsThe international conference Portugal SB13 is organized by the University of Minho, the Technical University of Lisbon and the Portuguese Chapter of the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment in Guimarães, Portugal, from the 30th of October till the 1st of November 2013. This conference is included in the Sustainable Building Conference Series 2013-2014 (SB13-14) that are being organized all over the world. The event is supported by high prestige partners, such as the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) and the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE). Portugal SB13 is focused on the theme â Sustainable Building Contribution to Achieve the European Union 20-20-20 Targetsâ . These targets, known as the â EU 20-20-20â targets, set three key objectives for 2020: - A 20% reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels; - Raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources to 20%; - A 20% improvement in the EU's energy efficiency. Building sector uses about 40% of global energy, 25% of global water, 40% of global resources and emit approximately 1/3 of the global greenhouse gas emissions (the largest contributor). Residential and commercial buildings consume approximately 60% of the worldâ s electricity. Existing buildings represent significant energy saving opportunities because their performance level is frequently far below the current efficiency potentials. Energy consumption in buildings can be reduced by 30 to 80% using proven and commercially available technologies. Investment in building energy efficiency is accompanied by significant direct and indirect savings, which help offset incremental costs, providing a short return on investment period. Therefore, buildings offer the greatest potential for achieving significant greenhouse gas emission reductions, at least cost, in developed and developing countries. On the other hand, there are many more issues related to the sustainability of the built environment than energy. The building sector is responsible for creating, modifying and improving the living environment of the humanity. Construction and buildings have considerable environmental impacts, consuming a significant proportion of limited resources of the planet including raw material, water, land and, of course, energy. The building sector is estimated to be worth 10% of global GDP (5.5 trillion EUR) and employs 111 million people. In developing countries, new sustainable construction opens enormous opportunities because of the population growth and the increasing prosperity, which stimulate the urbanization and the construction activities representing up to 40% of GDP. Therefore, building sustainably will result in healthier and more productive environments. The sustainability of the built environment, the construction industry and the related activities are a pressing issue facing all stakeholders in order to promote the Sustainable Development. The Portugal SB13 conference topics cover a wide range of up-to-date issues and the contributions received from the delegates reflect critical research and the best available practices in the Sustainable Building field. The issues presented include: - Nearly Zero Energy Buildings - Policies for Sustainable Construction - High Performance Sustainable Building Solutions - Design and Technologies for Energy Efficiency - Innovative Construction Systems - Building Sustainability Assessment Tools - Renovation and Retrofitting - Eco-Efficient Materials and Technologies - Urban Regeneration - Design for Life Cycle and Reuse - LCA of sustainable materials and technologies All the articles selected for presentation at the conference and published in these Proceedings, went through a refereed review process and were evaluated by, at least, two reviewers. The Organizers want to thank all the authors who have contributed with papers for publication in the proceedings and to all reviewers, whose efforts and hard work secured the high quality of all contributions to this conference. A special gratitude is also addressed to Eng. José Amarílio Barbosa and to Eng. Catarina Araújo that coordinated the Secretariat of the Conference. Finally, Portugal SB13 wants to address a special thank to CIB, UNEP, FIDIC and iiSBE for their support and wish great success for all the other SB13 events that are taking place all over the world

Sustainability politics: The consequences of rebounds Vol. 1

To achieve a sustainable or steady-state economy a society must be able to hold negative environmental impacts, whether defined as resource depletion or as pollution, to desired maxima. That is, it must control throughput defined as resource inputs plus low-value outputs. This can be done directly through capping input substances or approached indirectly through various sustainability paths, fruitfully classified into three groups: control of the number of people, control of the quantity of goods and services per person, and increasing the ratio of goods and services per unit of either resource consumption or pollution. This taxonomy coincides with the formula I = PAT. It is found that each indirect path suffers from rebounds: whatever inputs are left temporarily fallow after reducing population, and/or the affluence of some people, and/or the technological ratio of inputs to economic output, are merely consumed to support more people, raise the affluence of others, and/or increase the amount of economic output. In order however to decrease throughput to sustainable levels – solving the primary problem of human ecology, that of the scale of the human economy in relation to biophysical limits – we needn’t measure exact levels of rebound: directly imposing caps achieves this goal. Once overall caps are in place, population, affluence and efficiency will find their levels decentrally and democratically. Social problems to be addressed in a lower-throughput economy concern the just distribution of rights to consume or pollute common property, unemployment that can result from economic shrinkage, and in general just distribution of the pie when the pie is getting smaller. It is suggested that environmental research should focus on winning democratic majorities for sustainability and identifying the ethical, aesthetic and quality-of-life benefits of a smaller economy. Only worldwide political action – not that of individuals, firms or even countries – is likely to achieve sustainability