Renewable energy not sustainable without justice: GU-Q Professor

Doha, Qatar: Historian Trish Kahleexplained How energy is governed in a country is the key to understanding its political system and agenda, during...

Doha, Qatar: Historian Trish Kahle explained ‘How energy is governed in a country is the key to understanding its political system and agenda,’  during her book  ‘Energy Citizenship: Coal and Democracy in the American Century, recently published by Columbia University Press’ launch held at the Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q). 

“Energy is not just a resource, but a relationship between people. As the foundation of political economy, energy and its governance has a profound impact on society.” 

An Assistant Professor at GU-Q, Dr. Kahle’s book delves into the human side of energy, offering a new perspective on the history of coal miners in America and the imprints they have left on the country’s laws and political imagination.  Yet her research is not confined to American history alone, it also addresses broader global trends affecting governance and injustice worldwide.

Scouring through thousands of pages of coal miner archives, affidavits, and oral histories to write the book, Dr. Kahle found surprising connections with US foreign affairs. “I found evidence that coal towns, which people saw as being at the core of the US’s territory, existed as quasi-imperial spaces, and the military brought in to suppress miner organizing had gained their experience in places like the Philippines, Hawai’i, and the US-Mexico borderlands. They drew on these experiences to put down resistance in the coalfields.” The actions of miners helped to shift the conversation about the human cost of energy production to the center of energy policymaking for the first time, earning them rights and concessions.

The connection between American energy and labor governance to global systems of inequality means that the book’s insightful treatment of the role of coal miners in shaping foundational energy justice principles offers a new understanding of energy citizenship critical to today’s discussions about a sustainable energy transition.