Publisher Description

We need new ways of thinking about, and approaching, the world's energy problems. Global energy security and access is one of the central justice issues of our time, with profound implications for happiness, welfare, freedom, equity, and due process. This book combines up-to-date data on global energy security and climate change with fresh perspectives on the meaning of justice in social decision-making. Benjamin K. Sovacool and Michael H. Dworkin address how justice theory can help people to make more meaningful decisions about the production, delivery, use, and effects of energy. Exploring energy dilemmas in real-life situations, they link recent events to eight global energy injustices and employ philosophy and ethics to make sense of justice as a tool in the decision-making process. They go on to provide remedies and policies that planners and individuals can utilize to create a more equitable and just energy future.

Author Biography

Benjamin K. Sovacool is Professor of Business and Social Sciences and Director of the Center for Energy Technologies, AU-Herning, Aarhus University, Denmark. He is also Associate Professor at Vermont Law School, where he manages the Energy Security and Justice Program at the Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE). Sovacool is the recipient of the 2015 Dedication to Diversity and Justice Award for Environmental and Energy Justice, Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, American Bar Association. Michael H. Dworkin is a Professor of Law and Director of the IEE at Vermont Law School.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. The global energy system; 3. Virtue and energy efficiency; 4. Utility and energy externalities; 5. Energy and human rights; 6. Energy and due process; 7. Energy poverty, access, and welfare; 8. Energy subsidies and freedom; 9. Energy resources and future generations; 10. Fairness, responsibility, and climate change; 11. Conclusion.

Review

'A sustainable and desirable future must be fair in its satisfaction of basic human needs. Sovacool and Dworkin show us how ignoring fairness influences energy choices and how incorporating it should influence energy choices if we are to achieve the future we want.' Robert Costanza, Australian National University, Canberra
'Energy, and the way we produce it, is a major ethical issue. Global Energy Justice makes a valuable contribution to our thinking about energy, because it brings together the facts we need to know, and the ethical principles that help us to decide what we ought to do. Sovacool and Dworkin add their own thoughtful proposals on how best to solve the ethical problems. A book for everyone concerned about what our present energy policies are doing to our environment, our health, and the future of our planet.' Peter Singer, Princeton University, New Jersey
'This is the book on energy that many of us have been waiting for. Accessible and comprehensive in its treatment of past and present energy systems, it opens up new questions about ethics and equity. This book is a major contribution to putting concerns about energy at the centre of environmental justice.' Dale Jamieson, New York University
'This book is the first to focus specifically on this concept of energy justice alone. There are others that have as one component energy justice or edited collections on the topic but none that so comprehensively outline what energy justice is and how energy justice should be conceived … the book should be read by both the energy practitioner and academic.' Raphael J. Heffron, Energy
'Global Energy Justice is a very welcome and timely wake-up call: energy systems are not only technical constructs contributing to our welfare, they are grown institutions, social regimes, political realities, which often are central elements of the injustices of this world.' Daniel Spreng and Beat Schachenmann, Journal of World Energy Law and Business
'In Global Energy Justice: Problems, Principles, and Practices, Benjamin K. Sovacool and Michael H. Dworkin undertake an ambitious project: understanding these injustices and proposing ways to address them … Their book is well-documented and ranges across a broad array of relevant disciplines.' Michael B. Gerrard, Vermont Law Review
'This book addresses an issue of immense importance: current energy systems are failing and in need of urgent transformation … This is a book of enormous ambition and it certainly makes a tremendous contribution to the existing literature. Hayley Stevenson, Political Studies Review

Promotional

This book explores how the idea of justice can give us a way to better assess and resolve energy challenges and problems.

Prizes

Winner of Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2015

Review Quote

"A sustainable and desirable future must be fair in its satisfaction of basic human needs. Sovacool and Dworkin show us how ignoring fairness influences energy choices and how incorporating it should influence energy choices if we are to achieve the future we want." Robert Costanza, Australian National University

Promotional "Headline"

This book explores how the idea of justice can give us a way to better assess and resolve energy challenges and problems.

Description for Bookstore

This book combines recent data on global energy security and climate change with fresh perspectives on the meaning of justice in social decision-making. Sovacool and Dworkin explore how conceptions of justice can help people to make more meaningful decisions about the production, delivery, use, and effects of energy.

Description for Library

This book combines recent data on global energy security and climate change with fresh perspectives on the meaning of justice in social decision-making. Sovacool and Dworkin explore how conceptions of justice can help people to make more meaningful decisions about the production, delivery, use, and effects of energy.

Details