Session I8 - The dilemmas of living with landscapes of renewable energy

Session I8

The dilemmas of living with landscapes of renewable energy

At Nordic Geographers Meeting June 18th–21st 2017

The Nordic Geographers Meeting (NGM) is an international geography conference organized every second year. The 7th Meeting will be in Stockholm, Sweden, June 18th–21st 2017. The conference theme is “Geographies of inequalities”.

Faced with the stark reality of climate change, the world is searching for new and carbon-neutral ways to fulfil its seemingly ever-growing energy needs. Renewable energy technologies are being deployed on a massive scale in many countries. Inevitably, this transition affects landscapes in many ways. New ‘energy landscapes’ are being created, in some cases radically changing iconic natural-looking landscapes, and often altering familiar everyday landscapes that may have great cultural and historical significance. Planning professionals and engineers struggle to find ways to integrate landscape concerns into their plans for new energy projects, as proposals for the location of such projects are sometimes met with scepticism and even hostility by the public. The transition towards renewable energy brings into sharp focus various questions: of global vs. local responsibilities; of who gains or loses when new energy projects are realised; and of what values exactly are being gained or lost.

We seek contributions that address these dilemmas in diverse ways, for example about how public attitudes towards the new energy landscapes are formed; how planning processes for renewable energy are equipped to take landscape concerns on board; and the prospects for a successful completion of the energy transition that has already started.

Conveners

Karl Benediktsson, Department of Geography and Tourism, University of Iceland

Edda Ruth Hlín Waage, Department of Geography and Tourism, University of Iceland

Please submit paper abstracts to

kben@hi.is, erw@hi.is

Last updated: October 14, 2016
Page editor: Jennie Gustafsson
Source: Department of Human Geography