The Growing Industry of Green Technologies and the Environmental, Social, and Political Consequences of the Mining It Requires

Thea Riofrancos
Associate Professor of Political Science, Providence College
Strategic Co-Director, Climate and Community Institute
Fellow, Transnational Institute

Riofrancos's talk will critically address key aspects in the so-called green energy transition. With haunting descriptions of vulnerable ecosystems, she examines how mining harms landscapes, provokes protest, takes center stage in national politics, and links countries on the peripheries of the world economy to huge corporations, commodity markets, and powerful investors.

Cosponsored with the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative.

Thea Riofrancos is an associate professor of political science at Providence College, a strategic co-director of the Climate and Community Institute, a fellow at the Transnational Institute, and a former Kellogg visiting fellow (2014-15). She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and studies resource extraction, climate change, the energy transition, green technologies, social movements, and the Latin American left.