THEA RIOFRANCOS on Planetary Perspectives of Green Energy /250

Flamingos feeding in the salt shallows of Laguna Colorada on the altiplano near the border of Chile and Bolivia; Photo by Flavijus Piliponis.

When we hear about the Green New Deal, it is almost always in context to policy and business within the United States. The urgent push for an energy transition away from fossil fuels often obscures the reality of extractive frontiers and the supply chains that green energy necessitates. This week, we slow down and explore the structures behind “our” energy systems, what a Green New Deal means for “resource-rich” countries in the Global South, and what a globally accountable Green New Deal could look like with guest Thea Riofrancos. 

All around us, electric vehicles are advertised as an accessible product of the near future, shielding us from the truth of what is required to make these products accessible, specifically the denial of Indigenous sovereignty and the violent desecration of ecosystems. Thea shares the connections between renewable energy development and state deployment of the military and police, the difference between extractivism versus extraction, and the ever-thorny question of whether or not it is possible to improve “wellbeing” under capitalism without an extractive model of development. As we explore what a renewable energy transition looks like from the so-called peripheries of extraction, Thea guides us to think about the relationship between solidarity and consumption, collectivity, and the vital importance of pushing for policy, systems, and organizations that empower public services, forms of sharing, and economies of care.

“Even when our consumption appears to us as an individual choice, it’s never individual.”

— THEA RIOFRANCOS / Episode 250

Photo of Thea Riofrancos

Thea Riofrancos is an assistant professor of political science at Providence College, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2020-2022), and a Radcliffe Institute Fellow (2020-2021). Her research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America. These themes are explored in her book, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020) and her co-authored book, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Boston Review, The Baffler, n+1, Dissent, Jacobin, among others. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and serves on the steering committee of the organization's Ecosocialist Working Group.

♫ The music you heard in this episode was “A Glimpse of the Summit” by 40 Million Feet, “Jobless Monday” by Mitski, and “Weightless” by Alexa Wildish.

Episode References

“What Green Costs” by Thea Riofrancos

“Latin America’s Green New Deal” by Daniel Aldana Cohen and Thea Riofrancos 

Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador by Thea Riofrancos

Thea’s Recommendations

“Seize and Resist” by Thea Riofrancos 

“FIELD NOTES FROM EXTRACTIVE FRONTIERS” by Thea Riofrancos 

“Latin America can only thrive with a new eco-social pact” by Thea Riofrancos

“Reclaiming Populism: The View from Latin America” by Thea Riofrancos

Take Action

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