The Coal Rush and Beyond: Climate Change, Coal Reliance and Contested Futures

Funding: 2014: $232,767
2015: $207,233
2016: $100,000

Project Member(s): Goodman, J., Ghosh, D.

Funding or Partner Organisation: University of New South Wales (The University of New South Wales Partnership Fund)
Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)

Start year: 2014

Summary: Globally, coal extraction and burning is booming. The burning of coal has released unprecedented quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and exacerbated anthropogenic climate change. This inter-disciplinary project investigates the 'coal rush' in sociopolitical terms, asking how it can be superseded. We seek explanations of why new coal mines and coal-fired power stations are constructed, investigate social conflicts centred on new coal facilities, and analyse what social factors may enable transition from coal. Specific sites, national contexts and transnational connections will be compared to develop a nuanced understanding of dependence on coal, and how it may be overcome.

Publications:

Katja, M & Tom, M 2018, 'At the German coalface: Interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropology and journalism', Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 45, no. November 2018, pp. 134-143.
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Morton, TJ 2016, 'The first draft of the future: journalism in the 'Age of the Anthropocene'' in Marshall, J (ed), Environmental Change and the World's Futures Ecologies, Ontologies and Mythologies, Routledge, USA, pp. 33-47.

Ghosh, D 2016, '“We don’t want to eat coal”: Development and its Discontents in a Chhattisgarh district in India', Energy Policy, vol. 99, pp. 252-260.
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Goodman, J, Marshall, JP & Pearse, R 2016, 'Coal, climate and development: Comparative perspectives', Energy Policy, vol. 99, pp. 180-183.
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Goodman, J & Rosewarne, S 2015, 'Slowing Uranium in Australia: Lessons for urgent transition beyond coal, gas, and oil' in Princen, T, Manno, J & Martin, P (eds), Ending the Fossil Fuel Era, The MIT Press, USA, pp. 193-222.

Morton, T 2015, 'The future would have to give way to the past: Germany and the coal Dilemma' in Princen, T, Manno, J & Martin, P (eds), Ending the Fossil Fuel Era, The MIT Press, USA, pp. 223-248.

Salleh, A, Goodman, J & Hosseini, SAH 2015, 'From sociological imagination to 'ecological imagination': Another future is possible' in Marshall, JP & Connor, L (eds), Environmental Change and the World's Futures: Ecologies, Ontologies and Mythologies, Routledge, Oxford, pp. 96-109.
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Keywords: Climate Change, Development, India, Germany, Australia

FOR Codes: Social Impacts of Climate Change and Variability, International Aid and Development, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Postcolonial Studies, Climate Change Mitigation Strategies, Environmental Sociology, Social and cultural anthropology , Social impacts of climate change and variability

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.