As the emerging field of energy humanities (168) is beginning to show, the traditions, cultures, and beliefs of contemporary, industrial societies are deeply entangled with fossil fuels in what have been called petrocultures and carbonscapes (169). Future visions are dominated by such constrained social imaginaries (170), and hence rarely offer a “radical departure from the past” (171, p. 138).
Constructing social imaginaries that are alternatives to the petrocutultural, carbonscape ones is critical to shift the mindset.
Carbon pollution cannot be disentangled from colonialism and social imaginaries must consist of stories that tell alternative futures narratives that address both simultaneously.
Replace petroculture with ecoculture, doughnut economics, living within planetary boundaries and eco-civilization