April 11, 2010
To: ESS and other ISA section members
From: Matthias Finger, PhD, EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne) &
EUI [European University Institute] <[email protected]>
Thomas Princen, PhD, University of Michigan
<[email protected]>
Re: Request for paper proposals for a panel at the 2011 ISA annual
conference, Montreal on the topic,
Leave It In the Ground!
Humanity has currently extracted about half of the Earth's oil resources
(and less than half of the Earth's gas and coal resources) with already
dramatic consequences on the global climate, the regional and local
environment and, especially, on local and powerless peoples. If such
extraction continues, the consequences for the habitability of our planet,
for biodiversity and for humanity will be devastating.
This panel thus starts with three assumptions:
*if fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal, tar sands, etc.) are extracted, their
combustion products will enter the atmosphere and oceans (i.e.,
technological efficiencies, decoupling, sequestration, geoengineering
won't do it);
*one way or another, fossil fuel extraction will stop, long before the
last drop of oil or last lump of coal is mined (for habitability,
economic, political or other reasons);
*further extraction of fossil fuels must stop before catastrophic change
is unavoidable.
The question this panel will explore, then, is, What would be the politics
of stopping fossil fuel extraction-that is, stopping fossil fuels at the
source-before catastrophic effects are set in motion? Who would be the key
actors? What scientific, economic and normative arguments would be
applicable? What historical shifts might offer insight (e.g., abolition,
POPs agreement, land mines)? What contemporary efforts are pertinent (e.g.,
elimination of nuclear weapons). The panel will ask how
leave-it-in-the-ground! can be achieved both from a theoretical and from a
practical point of view.
We encourage proposals from and referrals to other sections-e.g., IPE, IO,
Ethics, Security.
To date, we expect to have papers that could cover the following. We invite
additional paper ideas, whether primarily empirical or conceptual.
*Framing the problem of stopping fossil fuel extraction
*Ethics of keeping fossil fuels in the ground
*Case study on a local/national/international effort to keep known oil
reserves in the ground (e.g., Ecuador)
*Case study on oil exploitation in Petén, Guatemala
*Case study of opening (via warming) and closing (via politics) the
Arctic
We would especially like to see work, however provisional, on the
following:
*Exploring institutional arrangements, governmental and non-governmental,
formal and normative, for leaving fossil fuels in the ground
*Case studies of local or regional resistance to fossil fuel extraction
(e.g., Nigeria, Appalachia, Papua New Guinea)
*Analysis of NOPE (not on planet earth) strategies, local to national to
global (e.g., POPs, nuclear weapons)
###Please respond to BOTH Finger and Princen: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> ###
**********************************************************************
Thomas Princen, Ph.D.
School of Natural Resources and Environment
440 Church Street, Dana Building
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1041 USA
telephone: 734-647-9227 fax: 734-936-2195
e-mail: [email protected]
************************************************************************
