At first reading, we notice each page of Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices is densely footnoted, an impeccable academic point of study clearly lluminating the ideas behind the work. In the first chapter, the book presents Energy Justice as a “concept and tool.” It offers the definition of an energy-just world as one that equitably shares "the benefits and the burdens involved in the production and consumption" of energy services. Included in this definition is the fair-handed treatment of “people and communities in energy-decision-making.” The book goes on to explore “energy” conceptually, a word with both scientific and social implications, followed by an examination of justice in a similar manner.
At the beginning of each themed chapter was a discussion of Classical moral philosophy of the sort law students are expected to be versed in when defining issues. It was here that it became hard not to notice the almost exclusive input of male thinkers, while the (blindfolded) Lady Justice was remarked upon as representative of "most icons" of justice “across cultures, have been female,” according to the authors. I don't intend to shred an excellent third book in a comprehensive and groundbreaking series, one that is defining a generation of lawyers and lawmakers in the gritty environmental court battles of the coming decades. However, the book does indeed bear the ommitance of feminist input or eco-feminist ideas. By doing so it implies that Philosophy must be as tough in the face of courtroom scrutiny as the words of Aristotle and Plato, and some philosophies are just not tough enough to do this.
In the first chapter we find a chart with topics: Energy Efficiency, Energy Externalities, Human Rights and Social Conflict, one for concepts: Virtue, Utility, Human Rights, and a column for major philosophical influences: Plato, Bentham, Kant etc., with a few words on their relevance next to their names. This chart allows readers to note that only two female influences (Nussbaum and Edith Brown Weiss) are cited among twenty-one males. The authors have indeed chosen to leave Feminism, Eco-feminism, Environmental Philosophy and the philosophical writings of Feminists to one side in order to opt for exclusively for these more Classical Western philosophers. There is no question that this is an excellent and important book, however, it feels almost a sigh of relief that Nussbaum and Weiss chose to write on male philosophers and therefor could be included. I couldn't help but consider a young feminist-minded law student arriving at the chart and realizing they were in a discipline where a key textbook could respectably dodge the existance of the entirely scholarly field of Environmental Philosophy, not to mention its many Feminist and Eco-feminist offshoots, in order to simply debate Plato-style the morality questions of Virtue vs Utility vs Human Rights.
Infact, the debates within are lively, and the book is a useful toolkit to anyone interested in these questions, as the current legal system is mired in old-school references to morality which these familiar names furnish. The book's approach to moral and philosophical questions within energy justice practice will be taken with appropriate gravity by established scholars because of this "conservative" approach, but the omittance will also be noticed by young students who hopefully move the discussion further along.
It was 2014 when the book was was first issued as a widely-read academic textbook. Considering the essential role women are playing globally in leadership and in grassroots movements focused on energy justice and energy rights, the choice of familiar all-male philosophers could make a reader feel as if the book unintentionally paved the way for a “soft landing” for energy executives who could claim through lawyers from progressive Vermont Law School that they were invested in a moral approach to energy justice without ever having to even consider female and non-male philosophers.
It is a damn good book otherwise and has received a lot of praise. If you are comfortable with the premise of so many dead white male philosophers structuring the moral questions, it is a well-written and comprehensive volume loaded with useful ideas. At the end of this review I will however address the question of feminism more directly.
Chapter 2, which talks about the global energy system, slides straight into some well-researched background on fuels specifically, addressing “prime movers, delivery system and end-uses” and discussing pipelines, how many there are and where they are. The chapter addresses the story of oil tankers and kinds of ships that deliver fuel. It remarks that the US requires “more than 20 million barrels of oil per day” and how they dodge laws by being owned by independent shipping companies. It describes well the underdocumented quantities of spent fuel, oil-polluted ballast water and other discharge “that add up to five Valdez spills,” each year in environmental damage of the ocean. There are more charts with extensive details and comparisons, and the chapter also examines critical materials such as concrete, steel, “rare earth” uranium and how they feed the electricity grid. This chapter also writes extensively on environmental and social impacts such as air pollution and climate change, water quality and availability, and land use change. As the authors remark, at least 15% of land use change is caused by "the direct clearing of forests for fuel wood...and energy crops" something often underconsidered. It's an excellent chapter, a grim but sobering start leading towards the solutions framework offered later in the book.
Chapter 3 opens with the Aristotelian question “what is the purpose of our energy systems and technologies?” Chapter 3 then explores the familiar philosophic concept of Virtue, and is titled Virtue and Energy Efficiency. In Aristotle's philosophy, Virtue poses the question, “who should own a beautifully made flute?” The answer is if not the maker of the flute or those who appreciate it, surely it should be owned by the one who plays the flute well. The book then applies this idea of Virtue to the energy grid, and finds that it is not making particularly beautiful music, but is in fact grossly inefficient, with many examples to drive the point home. Similar inefficiencies are cited in the transport sector, the electricity sector and the the industrial sector. The authors remark, “the United States wastes more energy each year than Japan harnesses for its entire economy,” and so, virtue-wise, the book concludes that Japan deserves the more beautiful flute of Virtue, and most certainly in comparison to the US.
Energy efficiencies are covered in detail in chapter 3, as an issue which "also affects the US military, impacting national security.” One example offered by the book was particularly noteworthy, "the amount the US military spends on air-conditioning for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed $20 billion...equal to what the G-8 pledged to foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.” The chapter also addresses the inefficiency of “aging energy equipment and infrastructure,” remarking that nuclear and cole plants are all "older than thirty years," and some coal-fired plants “are older than seventy.” This problem also extends itself to hydro-electricity as "over half the dams in the United States" will require major modernization to pass reliscencing “by 2017.” The chapter then explores Platonic and Aristotelian ideas involving an ideal state, and remarks that Plato decided that “objects and times in our world are only imperfect and temporary representations of their true form.” Therefor, these ideas when looking at the Energy would suggest Plato would like us to “strive to create” an ideal perfect energy system.” The authors also examine Aristotle’s ideas and conclude, “a virtuous energy system would...achieve its end of delivering energy services the most efficiently and prudently.” It adds that both philosophers spoke of balance, and that could be interpreted as to use energy “efficiently and with minimal waste.”
Because the textbook does not give even a nod of recognition to the field of Environmental Philosophy or to so many great women philosophers and lawmakers who also are strongly associated with or deeply relevant to environmental law, I decided to make a list. I even wondered, bad of me because this book is like a bible to environmental law students, if the extensive footnoting and citation in the book itself was not the work of a female grad whose name was buried somewhere or not even mentioned at all. Considering the field of environmental ethics is rich with female lawyers and philosophers, I decided to create a list of interesting environmental and philosophy-minded feminists worth reading if you are a law student or even just a reader who has had been impressed by the book, but wondered if there were more discussions of ethics, morality and environmental law than those found in Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices.
Dr. Anita Allen is a professor of philosophy and a professor of law, Dr. Angela Davis is formally a philosopher, Dr. Val Plumwood was an uncompromising environmental philosopher and ecofeminist, Dr. Karen Warren devoted her life to environmental ethics and feminist philosophy, Dr. Carolyn Merchant is an ecofeminist philosopher and historian of science, and all are established academics who are indespensible reading involving this topic. Dr. Ruth Chang is a philosopher who writes about decision-making, the whole point of the first chapter chart, and has a career in law as well. In fact, I suppose if I should supply twenty-one possible philosophers, (since the book cited twenty-one male philosophers and only two women) I would add Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir, and grudgingly, Hannah Arendt, as they were philosophers who explored the same classical theories entirely consistent with the male philosophers that were chosen instead. As Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices for reasons of conservatism in the legal world was pressed to offer a male-gendered interpretation of philosophical concepts, I would also suggest feminist philosopher bell hooks on the interconnectivity of race, capitalism and gender, Dr. Sara Ahmed, who writes on intersectional, feminist and queer theory, and philosopher Dr. Judith Butler, a gender theorist, offer indespensible cultural criticism of relevance to any debate involving morality and Environmental Law. Philosopher Simone Weil writes on rootedness to land. No one wrote on Moral Philosophy quite like Iris Murdoch, while the under-appreciated moral philosopher Dr. Mary Midgely also involved an animal rights perspective. Michele Moody-Adams is a philosopher and professor of both political philosophy and legal theory. Dr. Barbara Herman is a professor of philosophy and law, Onora O'Neill is a political philosopher who focusses on international justice and ethics, Dr. Vinciane Despret is a philosopher of science, Dr. Rosi Braidotti is a philosopher who writes on environmental humanities, Dr. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a philosopher who writes on science. By 2014, when Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices. was published, editor and writer Dr. Elizabeth Willott had released Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters and it had been available since 2011. It is a book involving both classical philosophy and contemporary readings in the topic. Dr. Vandana Shiva is formally a philosopher, as well as a physicist and social activist, and is a writer with indespensible non-Western insights. Dr. Rosemarie Tong is a feminist philosopher who writes on the environment, Dr. Nina Witoszek edits books promoting the ideas of eco-philosopher Arne Naess, Dr. Irene Klaver is a professor of environmental philosophy who writes on radical ecology, Robin May Schott is a feminist philosopher who writes on development and ethics, Dr. Alison Stone write on environmental philosophy, Dr. Freya Mathews is a environmental philosopher who writes on culture. I offer these just as examples, as all were available at the time of publication.
In Chapter 3, the What Is To Be done section begins to shine as why this is a great book. Each chapter is equipped with a What Is to Be done section, something that contradicts its grim start. The section in this case explains Electricity Demand-side Management and Transportation Demand-side management brilliantly as solutions, offering examples of countries which have implemented policies successfully to this end. The book cites a study which claims, “cost-effective energy measures” could reduce consumption by an astounding 30-70 %” in the US. It continues by describing smarter grids and incentive policies, leading into Chapter 4, which tackles Utility and Energy Externalities. “GHG and the resulting changes in climate are an externality because they impose costs far away, temporally and geographically, from emitters.” This chapter has a number of charts and establishes “true costs” of everything: From transportation basics to mountain top removal and uranium mining. These are done with great detail and also frankly discuss the damage to human life in a way that law students and lay-people will find helpful as a framework. Similar to the other, this chapter has a “What is Justice” section that describes the ideas of philosophers Bentham and Aristotle as well as some others. The "What is to be Done" section explores different types of carbon tax, strategies such as Environmental Bonds, and other helpful examples. Chapters 5 and 6 of the book address Human Rights and Energy. Chapter 5 includes a call for overhauled and improved environmental assessment and extractive industry transparency initiatives with examples. Chapter 6 explores Energy and Due Process, and again has many examples of corrupt events including involuntary resettlements, improper licencing and deception, and the impacts these problems have caused in particular upon indigenous communities and communities of people of colour. In What is to Be Done, Chapter 6 emphasizes “broader public involvement and participatory energy decision-making” and “debates, referendums, review boards and consultations,” as well as the importance of “free prior informed consent.” Chapter 7, Energy Poverty, Access, and Welfare addresses issues from the perspective of philosophers John Rawls, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Interestingly, in addressing the great inequalities in energy access globally, Nussbaum's list of “central human functional capabilities” is evoked. Nussbaum remarks that the concept of “justice” does not neccessarily provide “any concrete guarantee that people will remain healthy or that they will have satisfying lives" only that their issues will be addressed formally, an inadequate effort according to Nussbaum. Solutions in Chapter 7 include “investing in small-scale renewable energy,” harnessing the “pro-poor public-private partnership approach,” and “social pricing and assistance programs.” The book describes several examples of these programs in some depth and is interesting and inspiring. Energy subsidy, Freedom, Energy Resources and Future Generations are all discussed in chapters 8 and 9, and each topic leads well into chapter 10. Chapter 10 discusses fairness, responsibility and climate change in an illuminating way, while chapter 11, the closing chapter, addresses the necessity of comprehensive intervention. Presenting an energy justice framework in a way that is already beginning to be widely accepted by many nations, Chapter 10 is particulalry inspiring. The final chapter is a bit of a tough and stark one in terms of facts, but nations are already responding to these urgent concerns and adopting workable frameworks. The book urges us to remember that there is an importation of values behind technologies, that of “luxury, comfort and happiness” and that the way energy can “redistribute social, political and economic power" is as important as how such technologies generate the power in the first place.
Plato: “A state ordered with a view to the good of the whole should be most likely to find justice.”
Sovacool, B. K., Dworkin, M.H. (2014). Global Energy Justice. problems, principles, and practices. Cambridge University Press.
