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Imre Szeman

@imreszeman.bsky.social
211 followers 181 following 11 posts

Director of UTSC Institute for Environment & Sustainability in Toronto. Energy Transition, Energy Humanities, Social Change. Author most recently of *Futures of the Sun*

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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Zach Gan on current Canadian policy on critical minerals:
can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com
Carney’s approach to critical minerals won’t deliver strategic autonomy – just more de-risking
The prime minister's “major projects” push merely continues a long practice of de-risking Canada’s mining industry. The vast public resources mobilized to this end are not a net gain for the Canadian ...
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Ben Doyle @bendoyle.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
New addition to our burgeoning Science, Technology and Society' list - 'Green Dreams: Why Technology Can't Save the World' just dropped onto my desk! Working on something STS-shaped? Please drop me a line! @imreszeman.bsky.social @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social
Image shows a copy of the book Green Dreams on a desk.
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Ben Doyle @bendoyle.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
'Green Dreams' traces the rise of green techno-optimism from postwar fantasies of progress to Silicon Valley manifestos, EV marketing, Big Tech sustainability campaigns, and Hollywood eco-futures. Beautiful eh? @imreszeman.bsky.social @tanner-mirrlees.bsky.social www.bloomsbury.com/green-dreams...
The book's jacket shows a dreamy background of clouds and blue sky, with wind turbines peaking above the clouds. The jacket blurb reads: Electric cars, smart apps, green AI, carbon
capture, solar panels—everywhere we
turn, we’re told technology will save the
planet. Green Dreams shows why that
promise is so compelling, and why it keeps
us chasing solutions that leave the real
causes of the climate crisis untouched.
Blending cultural criticism, political
analysis, and environmental history,
Green Dreams traces the rise of green
techno-optimism from postwar fantasies
of progress to Silicon Valley manifestos,
EV marketing, Big Tech sustainability
campaigns, and Hollywood eco-futures.
Along the way, it exposes the hidden
costs of supposedly “clean” technologies:
extractive mining, exploding energy
demand, ecological destruction, and the
preservation of systems built on endless
growth and consumption. Rather than
rejecting technology outright, Tanner
Mirrlees and Imre Szeman argue that
technological solutions can matter only if
paired with deeper social, political, and
economic transformation. Provocative,
accessible, and sharply argued, Green
Dreams offers a powerful critique of one
of the defining ideologies of our time.
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
And I’m equally excited by this! www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978...
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Coming soon — well, soon-ish. www.bloomsbury.com/us/green-dre...
bloomsbury.com
Green Dreams
Electric cars, green AI, carbon capture, clean tech - everywhere we turn, we're told technology will save the planet. Green Dreams challenges this comforting st…
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Ben Doyle @bendoyle.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Brilliant to see 'Green Dreams: Why Technology Can't Save the World' by @imreszeman.bsky.social and @tanner-mirrlees.bsky.social on the Bloomsbury website (and what a dreamy jacket it is!) Written sharply & accessibly, it tells a fascinating (and important) story: www.bloomsbury.com/green-dreams...
bloomsbury.com
Green Dreams
Electric cars, green AI, carbon capture, clean tech - everywhere we turn, we're told technology will save the planet. Green Dreams challenges this comforting st…
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Thea Riofrancos @ IECS / U of Toronto. If you happen to be in the city for MLA, join us! www.eventbrite.ca/e/extraction...
eventbrite.ca
Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism
A lecture by Thea Riofrancos
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
And to kick off 2026: Thea Riofeancos - January 8, U of Toronto! Hope to see some of you there (and please spread the word to those coming for MLA) utscenvironment.ca/event/thea-r...
utscenvironment.ca
Thea Riofrancos
Will green capitalism save us from the climate crisis? Riofrancos unpacks the dilemmas of the ‘critical mineral’ essential to decarbonizing transportation.
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Upcoming at the IECS: utscenvironment.ca/event/ecolog... Come join us for all the fun!
utscenvironment.ca
Ecologies of Collapse
Ecologies of Collapse explores overlapping crises of the family, property, political imagination, and planetary futurity from a materialist perspective.
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Caleb Wellum @calebwellum.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Thanks to @modamhist.bsky.social for publishing my conversation with @imreszeman.bsky.social, Bob Johnson, Cara Daggett, and Jennifer Wenzel on history and the energy humanities. We hope it is helpful! Check it out here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
“Energy Humanities and American History” | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
“Energy Humanities and American History”
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Katie Ritson @untamed.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Looking forward to some more good #energyhumanities conversations in Bochum next week. And to Team Petrocultures representation with @imreszeman.bsky.social and @gmacdonald.bsky.social 💡🔥⚡💨🔆
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valerieuher.bsky.social @valerieuher.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Excited to receive a copy of the book Power Shift, edited by @imreszeman.bsky.social and Jennifer Wenzel, with a text by me on "Class." I wrote it in 2020-2021, in the middle of signing union cards, covid, and the weird lull in emissions. I feel like a lot of that is in the chapter. Full info below!
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Green Dreams: Podcast series on which I worked @tanner-mirrlees.bsky.social and Cited Media now available! citedpodcast.com/2025/09/02/s...
citedpodcast.com
Introducing Green Dreams (Season Trailer) - Cited Podcast
Introducing our new season, Green Dreams. Starting September 9, 2025, with weekly episodes through October.
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Caleb Wellum @calebwellum.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
New pub: @culturalstudies.bsky.social has just posted the interview that @imreszeman.bsky.social and I did with Andreas Malm re: Fossil Capital, the development of his thought, and plenty more. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
Sun going down on my birthday spent in Bilbao. Thanks, Eva-Lynn, for bringing me here!
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Dominic Boyer @dominicboyer.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
New episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast. We talk with old friend Imre Szeman about his new book Futures of the Sun and why energy transition is too often the story of failed states. tinyurl.com/5n6bp8b6 @cymene.bsky.social @imreszeman.bsky.social @uminnpress.bsky.social @4sweb.bsky.social
tinyurl.com
Cultures of Energy: 234 - Failed States (feat. Imre Szeman)
Dominic reports briefly on how your co-hosts returned home to their own personal Hurricane Harvey. Then (4:20) returns to the podcast to talk about his new book Futures of the Sun: The Struggle Over ...
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Spread the word: climatebacktracker.ca. An initiative of the Institute for Environment, Conservation and Sustainability at the U of Toronto Scarborough!
climatebacktracker.ca
Home
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Anne Pasek @apasek.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Power Shift is out! This keywords project brings together many long-admired energy humanities thinkers in 1 book of v. assignable essays. In my entry I don't talk much about screen time & instead muse about infrastructure, data sovereignty, and (eventually, a little bit,) bikes. powershiftbook.com
A photo of a book chapter. It starts:

Online: When we are online, what lines are we on?

The meanings of the word online are less narrow that we usually imagine. Though its use skyrocketed with the advent of the internet, 'online' messages and practices can be found in early twentieth-century discussions of the telegraph's electric signals as well as the linear paths of the railway... The word speaks not to a technology but to an infrastructural condition.The chapter continues: What will lines mean in such a future? This is an undecided question, and so also a promissory one. In visions of the Green New Deal, in experimental networks, and in Indigenous land and water protection movements, we find the unfolding of spaces and times that lines have long compressed. They prompt us in part to ask: what if lines were built not only for transmission, but also for living and leisure, featuring linear parks that bridge urban and rural landscapes? How might community-controlled networks get more people on screens, but also outside, locating the lines of sight and solar panel placements needed to make different kinds of connectivity? Could we learn to stream video while the wind blows, and pursue less energy- and data-intensive pleasures when the turbines are still? And what if Indigenous data sovereignty and land sovereignty were thought and practiced together, such that consent was meaningfully negotiated for the transit of such lines, so that they in turn served to connect and benefit the nations they crossed? Lines, in this future, might invite new modes of dwelling within the spaces of interconnection...
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Socio-Political Impacts of AI-Driven Battery Materials Discovery / Deadline for applications -July 15, 2025 See: www.utsc.utoronto.ca/research/pos...
utsc.utoronto.ca
Postdoctoral Fellowship: Socio-Political Impacts of AI-Driven Battery Materials Discovery | Office of the Vice-Principal Research & Innovation
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Imre Szeman @imreszeman.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
On Fogo Island doing a research retreat for the next two weeks with an amazing group of people. Cold, windy, icebergs. Wonderful!
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Leah Pennywark @lpennywark.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Listen up! Imre Szeman talks about his book, Futures of the Sun, and what's shaping our energy future @imreszeman.bsky.social creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...
creators.spotify.com
Imre Szeman spurns the standard logic of the energy transition: that capitalism will save the Earth by Pretty Heady Stuff
Imre Szeman is the inaugural Director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation and Sustainability and Professor of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His recent book, Futu...
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Susanne Rust @susrust.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
🍿🎥 I'll be moderating a panel at 12PT with some fantastic scientists to discuss a new documentary film, Single Use Plastics -- coming to public television in April. Please join us (‪ @traceywoodruff.bsky.social @imreszeman.bsky.social Sam Mason)! www.eventbrite.com/e/single-use...
eventbrite.com
Single-Use Planet Film--Live Discussion and Preview Clips
A live event to preview select clips & from the new film Single-Use Planet, coming to public television in April 2025, and live discussion.
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sidsareen @sidsareen.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Deliciousness! 'Power Shift: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy', with 101 succinct chapters convened by @imreszeman.bsky.social and Jennifer Wenzel and a foreword by David Nye is now finally up on @wvupress.bsky.social and officially published in April 2025: wvupressonline.com/Power-Shift - yay!
wvupressonline.com
Power Shift
Power Shift Edited by Imre Szeman and Jennifer Wenzel
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