Forests As Fuel

Sarah Hitchner; John Schelhas; J. Peter Brosius

doi:10.5771/9781793632357

Summary

In the US South, wood-based bioenergy schemes are being promoted and implemented through a powerful vision merging social, environmental, and economic benefits for rural, forest-dependent communities. While this dominant narrative has led to heavy investment in experimental technologies and rural development, many complexities and complications have emerged during implementation. Forests as Fuel draws on extensive multi-sited ethnography to ground the story of wood-based bioenergy in the biophysical, economic, political, social, and cultural landscape of this region. This book contextualizes energy issues within the history and potential futures of the region’s forested landscapes, highlighting the impacts of varying perceptions of climate change and complex racial dynamics. Eschewing simple answers, the authors illuminate the points of friction that occur as competing visions of bioenergy development confront each other to variously support, reshape, contest, or reject bioenergy development. Building on recent conceptual advances in studies of sociotechnical imaginaries, environmental history, and energy justice, the authors present a careful and nuanced analysis that can provide guidance for promoting meaningful participation of local community members in renewable energy policy and production while recognizing the complex interplay of factors affecting its implementation in local places.

Keywords

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-3234-0
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-3235-7
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 238
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. List of Figures No access
3. List of Figures No access
4. Foreword No access
5. Acknowledgments No access
1. One Bioenergy Story No access
2. Some Backstory No access
3. 1. 1. Landscapes and Forests No access
    2. Climate Change No access
    3. Race No access
  2. 1. Scale No access
    2. Translation No access
4. Why Ethnography? No access
5. Methods No access
6. 1. Soperton, Georgia (Range Fuels/LanzaTech) No access
  2. Waycross, Georgia (Georgia Biomass) No access
  3. Columbus, Mississippi (KiOR) No access
7. Conclusion No access
8. Notes No access
1. Bioenergy: Is That a Promise or a Threat? No access
2. 1. 1. Economic Impacts No access
    2. Social Impacts No access
3. Governance of Bioenergy No access
4. Imaginaries No access
5. Public Opinion of Bioenergy No access
6. Influence of Discourses, Narratives, and Metaphors on Perceptions of Bioenergy No access
7. Themes, or Elements of Imaginaries No access
8. 1. Snake Oil No access
  2. Silver Buckshot No access
  3. People Who Hate Us No access
9. Linking Metaphors and Conventional Discourses No access
10. Note No access
1. The Forested Southeastern United States as a Cultural Landscape No access
2. Imaginaries in Real Places: The Forested Context No access
3. 1. Valuations of Trees and Forests No access
4. 1. Renewability and Sustainability No access
  2. Energy Security No access
  3. Rural Development; or Intracommunity Dynamics No access
  4. Government Promotion and Investment No access
5. 1. Soperton, Georgia: The Million Pines City No access
  2. Range Fuels: When a Plant Comes to Town No access
  3. LanzaTech: New Company, New Opportunities, New Risks? No access
  4. Even the Dairy Queen Shut Down No access
  5. Talking about Bioenergy: When Imaginaries Collide in Forest-Dependent Communities No access
6. The Forest Is in Your Blood No access
7. Notes No access
1. Climate Change: Living in the Intersection of Science, Crisis, and Critique No access
2. 1. The Science of Climate Change No access
  2. On “Uncertainty” in Climate Science No access
  3. How Climate Policy Gets Made No access
3. Public Understandings of Climate Change No access
4. Climate Change Denial No access
5. Climate Change Imaginaries No access
6. Wood-based Bioenergy and Climate Change No access
7. 1. Markers of Sustainability No access
  2. Hostility Toward Climate Science No access
  3. Blaming the Environmentalists No access
  4. Environmentalist Perspectives No access
  5. Making Space for Climate Change Denial No access
  6. Questioning the Role of Bioenergy in Climate Change Mitigation No access
  7. Distrust of Carbon Markets No access
8. The Intersections of Climate Change with the Bioenergy Imaginary No access
9. Notes No access
1. 1. Those Here First: Recognition of Native American History in Rural Communities No access
  2. “Wrapped Up in Slavery”: Black History in the South No access
  3. Black Labor in the Forested Landscapes of the South No access
  4. The Times Are Changing: Rural Racial Turmoil in the 1960s No access
  5. “I’m Not Racist, But . . .” No access
  6. Acknowledging Limitations and Providing Context for the Stereotypes No access
  7. Educational Deficiencies in the Rural South No access
2. Expectations of Local Bioenergy Development No access
3. Black Cultural Landscapes and Forestry No access
4. 1. The “Good Old Boy Network”; Or, Why I Didn’t Get Hired No access
  2. What Bioenergy Company? How Lack of Information Thwarts Participation No access
  3. Expectations versus Realities for Black Landowners No access
5. Environmental Justice: Fair Treatment and Meaningful Involvement No access
6. Notes No access
Conclusion No access Pages 187 - 194
Bibliography No access Pages 195 - 230
Index No access Pages 231 - 236
About the Authors No access Pages 237 - 238