A remarkable six part series has launched over the past few weeks on PBS––“Power Trip: The Story of Energy”––“Water”, “Food”, “Cities”, “Wealth”, “Transportation”, and “War”. This series explores the ways in which energy flows in and out of our use of water, food, and transportation; each of these uses of energy is foregrounded in each episode. It also examines the conceptions of cities, wealth, and war and how these relate to energy. It would be a great educational tool for children who are now at home, due to the coronavirus and for parents who are home with them.

I am thrilled to be a part of this historic launch of the beginning of a critical examination of energy, aimed at the general population. The episode on food was aired on 4/27/20 and will be available until 5/25/20. Excerpts of my interview are featured in various segments (1:50-1:56; 3:37-3:49; 49:30-51:16).

The episode on “Wealth” was aired on 5/11/20 and will expire 06/08/20. I am also one of the featured interviews in this episode as well (3:14-3:24; 50:12-50:22; 51:35-52:04). In the last segments I speak about what I hope for in terms of our collective imaginations of energy, that we need to and can put in the same kind of focused energy as we did in WWII and in going to the moon in the 60s. The “Transportation” and the “Cities” episodes both aired on 05/18/20 and expire on 06/01/20. The “War” episode will air soon (The episode on water was aired on 4/08/20 and is no longer available on PBS).  These will also soon be available on Amazon Prime as streaming documentaries.

All in all, these episodes provide a framework of understanding what inventions, what decisions, and what meanings we have invested in the field of energy mostly over the past two hundred years. Sometimes the frame of reference extends backwards to Roman times over two thousand years ago. This series goes back in history and uses fantastic archival footage of maps, photographs, and historical moments. People who have been working in the field of energy–––Scientists, engineers, historians, architects, farmers, city planners, and religious studies scholars–––are woven into a collective fabric of willpower, imagination, and thought. I am deeply honored to be included as one of the many voices in this series.

The creator of the series, Michael Webber, is the author of the book, Power Trip: The Story of Energy,on which this series is based on. He is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at University of Texas, Austin and is one of those rare engineering leaders who see beyond the excitement of simple inventiveness, to probe the shadow sides of equity, sustainability, and climate.  It is, indeed, refreshing to see the field of engineering coming closer to the field of environmental studies. It is one of the first of its kind, and in a strange way, coming from where it is coming from, feels slightly revolutionary.

For someone like me who spent a couple of years as a college student in mechanical engineering, over forty years ago, who was told by her Dean of Engineering that equity and the environment had nothing to do with the study of engineering, it is a refreshing additional tool right now to address those who may still be unconvinced at all that what we need to do is to shift our foundational contemporary sense of ourselves and connect to the very real limits of the earth on which we live.