John C Stephens
Biographic Data
| ID | 1200703 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John C Stephens |
| GIVEN NAMES | John C |
| FAMILY NAME | Stephens |
| SIGNATURE | STEPHENS J C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northeastern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0386-8115 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 399 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Renewable energy discourses of fossil fuel companies
Academic Capture
The Case for Climate Justice Universities
Profit-seeking solar geoengineering exemplifies broader risks of market-based climate governance
Despite uncertainties about its feasibility and desirability, start-up companies seeking to profit from solar geoengineering have begun to emerge. One company is releasing balloons filled with sulfur dioxide to sell “cooling credits”, claiming that the cooling achieved when 1 g of SO 2 is released is equivalent to offsetting one ton of carbon dioxide for one year. Another aspires to deliver returns to investors from the development of a proprieta…
Gender equity and care for transformative climate justice
Financial innovation for climate justice
Global financial architectures, including central banks and their monetary policies, are critical to leveraging transformative change for climate justice.Yet, currently central banks are exacerbating rather than mitigating the climate crisis and climate injustices.By following a neoliberal policy paradigm and narrowly interpreted mandates for price stability and financial stability, central banks are focusing on stabilizing a system that is inher…
The dangers of masculine technological optimism
Responding to the climate crisis requires social and economic innovation—because climate change is a symptom of patriarchal capitalist systems that are concentrating—rather than distributing—wealth and power. Despite the need for social and economic innovation, technological innovation continues to be prioritized in climate policy and climate investments. This paper reviews the dangers of technological optimism in climate policy by exploring its …
Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education
The evolution of fossil fuel industry tactics for obstructing climate action, from outright denial of climate change to more subtle techniques of delay, is under growing scrutiny. One key site of ongoing climate obstructionism identified by researchers, journalists, and advocates is higher education. Scholars have exhaustively documented how industry‐sponsored academic research tends to bias scholarship in favor of tobacco, pharmaceutical, food, …
Fossil fuel interests in Puerto Rico
This study explores perceptions of fossil fuel interests and the role narratives of fossil fuel obstruction play in slowing down the renewable energy transition in Puerto Rico. We analyzed interviews conducted with 56 “energy actors” engaged in Puerto Rico's energy system about their visions of the system's future and perceptions of the influence of different actors in promoting change or reinforcing the status-quo. The analysis also examined the…
Feminism, Capitalism, and Ecology
Fossil fuel companies' climate communication strategies
Research shows that multinational oil and gas companies have recently made a strategic shift away from outright climate denial to more nuanced discourses of climate delay. Communication on social media is an under-analyzed part of the fossil fuel industry's strategy to delay the energy transition away from fossil fuels to a renewable future. This study examines how four companies (Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, and TotalEnergies) are communicating about …
Misalignment or exclusion? Investigating climate and energy philanthropy funding of diversity
Environmental philanthropy is expanding while inequities and disparities among those impacted by environmental degradation are also growing. Little is known about the distribution of funds from environmental philanthropy, that is, who is benefitting and who is excluded? This study analyzes how environmental philanthropy is being distributed among non-profit organizations working on a low-carbon energy transition in Canada. The funding sources of …
Toward Dangerous US Unilateralism on Solar Geoengineering
As social scientists, we are concerned about the impact of the National Academies Report on solar geoengineering. It has already set into motion a major, federally coordinated national research program in the United States to develop this dangerous technology. We emphasize that scientists and researchers are not the ones who will be making decisions on deployment, so research and development should not proceed without integrating broader internat…
The Dangers of Mainstreaming Solar Geoengineering
The U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) 2021 report on solar geoengineering research is a political intervention in global climate politics. Although the NASEM report explicitly acknowledges the risks of unilateral research without broad-based public participation and global governance, the report minimizes these concerns by recommending that the U.S. act swiftly to establish a publicly funded national research pr…
Action research for energy system transformation
Responding to the climate crisis requires a large-scale transformation of energy systems away from fossil fuels toward a more distributed, equitable, renewable-based society. The societal benefits of this transformation which could redistribute power, literally and figuratively, go well beyond decarbonization; a renewable society could also be a healthier, more economically just society. This study conceptualizes action researchers as key drivers…
Green New Deal proposals
Green New Deal (GND) policy proposals that simultaneously address the climate crisis and economic inequity by prioritizing job creation have been developed for multiple different levels of government in jurisdictions around the world. The United States federal GND originally introduced to Congress by Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey in 2019 has received the most attention. Since then, however, multiple other climate policy proposal…
Diversifying Power
Towards impactful energy justice research
The field of energy justice is at a critical juncture. As the social dimensions of energy systems are becoming more salient, it is time to reflect on what has been achieved, and look towards a future of greater impact and transdisciplinary methods in energy justice research and practice. In the past 10 years, the energy justice literature has grown exponentially demonstrating the appeal and the value of its tangible, applicable explanatory framew…
Sociotechnical agendas
The field of science and technology studies (STS) has introduced and developed a “sociotechnical” perspective that has been taken up by many disciplines and areas of inquiry. The aims and objectives of this study are threefold: to interrogate which sociotechnical concepts or tools from STS are useful at better understanding energy-related social science, to reflect on prominent themes and topics within those approaches, and to identify current re…
Environmental education in transition
The transition from centralized energy systems based on fossil fuels to renewable-based systems is a macro-level societal shift necessitated by climate change. This review of recent environmental education (EE) research identifies gaps and opportunities for promoting environmental action in this new context. We found that environmental educators and researchers are currently focused on researching and promoting energy conservation behavior with a…
Energy Democracy
As the expansion of renewable energy accelerates, the transformative potential of moving away from fossil fuel reliance is becoming increasingly clear. Around the world, individuals, communities, o...
The Food-Energy-Water Nexus, Regional Sustainability, and Hydraulic Fracturing
Intersections of food, energy, and water systems (also termed as the FEW nexus) pose many sustainability and governance challenges for urban areas, including risks to ecosystems, inequitable distribution of benefits and harms across populations, and reliance on distant sources for food, energy, and water. This case study provides an integrated assessment of the FEW nexus at the city and regional scale in ten contiguous counties encompassing the r…
Women’s leadership in renewable transformation, energy justice and energy democracy
As women take on more leadership roles in the United States advancing social and political change, analysis of women’s contributions to the transformation occurring within the energy sector is critically important. Grassroots movements focused on energy justice and energy democracy focus on: (1) resisting the power of large multinational fossil fuel energy companies that exacerbate inequities and disparities in energy, (2) reclaiming the energy s…
Technological Optimism in Climate Mitigation
This chapter explores and critiques technological optimism and the sociopolitical appeal of technological fixes with regard to energy and climate mitigation. The term “technical fix” is frequently used by academics and activists to describe the application of a technological solution to a social problem, where a reductive problem definition leads to only a partial and superficial solution. As the transition to lower-carbon energy systems proceeds…
The role of college and university faculty in the fossil fuel divestment movement
Colleges and universities have played a critical role in the growing social movement to divest institutional endowments from fossil fuels. While campus activism on fossil fuel divestment has been driven largely by students and alumni, faculty are also advocating to their administrators for institutional divestment from fossil fuels. This article characterizes the role of faculty by reviewing signatories to publicly available letters that endorse …
Sociotechnical agendas
The field of science and technology studies (STS) has introduced and developed a “sociotechnical” perspective that has been taken up by many disciplines and areas of inquiry. The aims and objectives of this study are threefold: to interrogate which sociotechnical concepts or tools from STS are useful at better understanding energy-related social science, to reflect on prominent themes and topics within those approaches, and to identify current re…
Energy democracy
Energy democracy is an emergent social movement advancing renewable energy transitions by resisting the fossil-fuel-dominant energy agenda while reclaiming and democratically restructuring energy regimes. By integrating technological change with the potential for socioeconomic and political change, the movement links social justice and equity with energy innovation. Through a policy mix lens, this research examines the energy democracy agenda in …
Embodied energy injustices
We introduce the new concept of embodied energy injustices in order to encourage integrative, systemic, transboundary assessment of the global implications and responsibility of energy-policy decisions. Embodied energy injustices reframe considerations of energy justice to explicitly consider hidden and distant injustices (upstream or downstream) arising from the extraction, processing, transportation and disposal of energy resources. We assess t…
Towards impactful energy justice research
The field of energy justice is at a critical juncture. As the social dimensions of energy systems are becoming more salient, it is time to reflect on what has been achieved, and look towards a future of greater impact and transdisciplinary methods in energy justice research and practice. In the past 10 years, the energy justice literature has grown exponentially demonstrating the appeal and the value of its tangible, applicable explanatory framew…
Women’s leadership in renewable transformation, energy justice and energy democracy
As women take on more leadership roles in the United States advancing social and political change, analysis of women’s contributions to the transformation occurring within the energy sector is critically important. Grassroots movements focused on energy justice and energy democracy focus on: (1) resisting the power of large multinational fossil fuel energy companies that exacerbate inequities and disparities in energy, (2) reclaiming the energy s…
Trump's Electoral Triumph
El presente artículo aborda el análisis de los personajes femeninos en las distopías cinematográficas contemporáneas, basándose en un amplio corpus de filmes del siglo XXI. A partir de las aportaciones de Laura Mulvey y Teresa de Lauretis, se explora cómo estos filmes construyen la mirada del espectador hacia dichos personajes, reproduciendo y/o transgrediendo una serie de estereotipos. Estos estereotipos serán analizados mediante la aplicación d…
Green energy clusters and socio-technical transitions
The social and political complexities of learning in carbon capture and storage demonstration projects
Green New Deal proposals
Green New Deal (GND) policy proposals that simultaneously address the climate crisis and economic inequity by prioritizing job creation have been developed for multiple different levels of government in jurisdictions around the world. The United States federal GND originally introduced to Congress by Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey in 2019 has received the most attention. Since then, however, multiple other climate policy proposal…
Characterizing the international carbon capture and storage community
Fossil fuel companies' climate communication strategies
Research shows that multinational oil and gas companies have recently made a strategic shift away from outright climate denial to more nuanced discourses of climate delay. Communication on social media is an under-analyzed part of the fossil fuel industry's strategy to delay the energy transition away from fossil fuels to a renewable future. This study examines how four companies (Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, and TotalEnergies) are communicating about …
The political economy of technical fixes
Social-ecological system resonance
The Dangers of Mainstreaming Solar Geoengineering
The U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) 2021 report on solar geoengineering research is a political intervention in global climate politics. Although the NASEM report explicitly acknowledges the risks of unilateral research without broad-based public participation and global governance, the report minimizes these concerns by recommending that the U.S. act swiftly to establish a publicly funded national research pr…
Toward Dangerous US Unilateralism on Solar Geoengineering
As social scientists, we are concerned about the impact of the National Academies Report on solar geoengineering. It has already set into motion a major, federally coordinated national research program in the United States to develop this dangerous technology. We emphasize that scientists and researchers are not the ones who will be making decisions on deployment, so research and development should not proceed without integrating broader internat…
Time to stop investing in carbon capture and storage and reduce government subsidies of fossil‐fuels
Government investment in carbon capture and storage ( CCS ) is a large and expensive fossil‐fuel subsidy with a low probability of eventual societal benefit. Within the tight resource constrained environments that almost all governments are currently operating in, it is irresponsible to sustain this type of subsidy. CCS has been promoted as a ‘bridging’ technology to provide CO 2 reductions until non‐fossil‐fuel energy is ramped up. But the past …
Framing of customer engagement opportunities and renewable energy integration by electric utility representatives
Distributed and renewable energy technologies are changing the electricity sector and altering traditional relationships between electric utilities and their customers. This analysis involving focus groups with fourteen electric utilities in seven U.S. states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Texas, and Vermont) demonstrates divergence in framing among utility representatives in terms of how they characterize customer eng…
Fossil fuel interests in Puerto Rico
This study explores perceptions of fossil fuel interests and the role narratives of fossil fuel obstruction play in slowing down the renewable energy transition in Puerto Rico. We analyzed interviews conducted with 56 “energy actors” engaged in Puerto Rico's energy system about their visions of the system's future and perceptions of the influence of different actors in promoting change or reinforcing the status-quo. The analysis also examined the…
Misalignment or exclusion? Investigating climate and energy philanthropy funding of diversity
Environmental philanthropy is expanding while inequities and disparities among those impacted by environmental degradation are also growing. Little is known about the distribution of funds from environmental philanthropy, that is, who is benefitting and who is excluded? This study analyzes how environmental philanthropy is being distributed among non-profit organizations working on a low-carbon energy transition in Canada. The funding sources of …
Diverse Perceptions of Stakeholder Engagement within an Environmental Modeling Research Team
Integrating stakeholder perspectives is increasingly important in environmental science as a growing number of research projects are justified with a “solutions” orientation prioritizing societal relevance. In earth systems modeling, there is potential for model developers to engage with stakeholders who may use modeling results to inform decisions about resource management and policy. Challenges associated with stakeholder engagement relate to h…
Higher education as a change agent for sustainability in different cultures and contexts
Purpose The goal of this paper is to enhance consideration for the potential for institutions of higher education throughout the world, in different cultures and contexts, to be change agents for sustainability. As society faces unprecedented and increasingly urgent challenges associated with accelerating environmental change, resource scarcity, increasing inequality and injustice, as well as rapid technological change, new opportunities for high…
Preserving Heirs’ Property in Coastal South Carolina (Charleston, South Carolina)
Preserving Heirs’ Property in Coastal South Carolina (Charleston, South Carolina)
Wind Energy in US Media
Wind power is a critically important climate change mitigation technology, and the most rapidly growing renewable energy technology in the USA. Wind energy can provide carbon-free electricity generation, so within societal discourse on how society should minimize the risks of climate change it is widely recognized and acknowledged as a valuable technology. Despite recent increases in wind turbine installation in the USA, the high-level of variati…
The social and political complexities of learning in carbon capture and storage demonstration projects
Characterizing the international carbon capture and storage community
Green energy clusters and socio-technical transitions
Spreading the News on Carbon Capture and Storage
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has received abundant federal support in the USA as an energy technology to mitigate climate change, yet its position within the energy system remains uncertain. Because media play a significant role in shaping public conversations about science and technology, we analyzed media portrayal of CCS in newspapers from four strategically selected states. We grounded the analysis in Luhmann's theory of social functions,…
Diverse Perceptions of Stakeholder Engagement within an Environmental Modeling Research Team
Integrating stakeholder perspectives is increasingly important in environmental science as a growing number of research projects are justified with a “solutions” orientation prioritizing societal relevance. In earth systems modeling, there is potential for model developers to engage with stakeholders who may use modeling results to inform decisions about resource management and policy. Challenges associated with stakeholder engagement relate to h…
Time to stop investing in carbon capture and storage and reduce government subsidies of fossil‐fuels
Government investment in carbon capture and storage ( CCS ) is a large and expensive fossil‐fuel subsidy with a low probability of eventual societal benefit. Within the tight resource constrained environments that almost all governments are currently operating in, it is irresponsible to sustain this type of subsidy. CCS has been promoted as a ‘bridging’ technology to provide CO 2 reductions until non‐fossil‐fuel energy is ramped up. But the past …
The political economy of technical fixes
Transitions in climate and energy discourse between Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy
Although climate change and energy are intricately linked, their explicit connection is not always prominent in public discourse and the media. Disruptive extreme weather events, including hurricanes, focus public attention in new and different ways offering a unique window of opportunity to analyze how a focusing event influences public discourse. Media coverage of extreme weather events simultaneously shapes and reflects public discourse on cli…
Energy democracy
Energy democracy is an emergent social movement advancing renewable energy transitions by resisting the fossil-fuel-dominant energy agenda while reclaiming and democratically restructuring energy regimes. By integrating technological change with the potential for socioeconomic and political change, the movement links social justice and equity with energy innovation. Through a policy mix lens, this research examines the energy democracy agenda in …
Social-ecological system resonance
Framing of customer engagement opportunities and renewable energy integration by electric utility representatives
Distributed and renewable energy technologies are changing the electricity sector and altering traditional relationships between electric utilities and their customers. This analysis involving focus groups with fourteen electric utilities in seven U.S. states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Texas, and Vermont) demonstrates divergence in framing among utility representatives in terms of how they characterize customer eng…
Trump's Electoral Triumph
El presente artículo aborda el análisis de los personajes femeninos en las distopías cinematográficas contemporáneas, basándose en un amplio corpus de filmes del siglo XXI. A partir de las aportaciones de Laura Mulvey y Teresa de Lauretis, se explora cómo estos filmes construyen la mirada del espectador hacia dichos personajes, reproduciendo y/o transgrediendo una serie de estereotipos. Estos estereotipos serán analizados mediante la aplicación d…
Technological Optimism in Climate Mitigation
This chapter explores and critiques technological optimism and the sociopolitical appeal of technological fixes with regard to energy and climate mitigation. The term “technical fix” is frequently used by academics and activists to describe the application of a technological solution to a social problem, where a reductive problem definition leads to only a partial and superficial solution. As the transition to lower-carbon energy systems proceeds…
The role of college and university faculty in the fossil fuel divestment movement
Colleges and universities have played a critical role in the growing social movement to divest institutional endowments from fossil fuels. While campus activism on fossil fuel divestment has been driven largely by students and alumni, faculty are also advocating to their administrators for institutional divestment from fossil fuels. This article characterizes the role of faculty by reviewing signatories to publicly available letters that endorse …
Political power and renewable energy futures
Inspired by the energy democracy movement, this conceptual review critically explores relationships between concentrated or distributed renewable energy and political power. Advocates assert that because the renewable energy transition is fundamentally a political struggle, efforts to shift from fossil fuels and decarbonize societies will not prove effective without confronting and destabilizing dominant systems of energy power. The objectives of…
Embodied energy injustices
We introduce the new concept of embodied energy injustices in order to encourage integrative, systemic, transboundary assessment of the global implications and responsibility of energy-policy decisions. Embodied energy injustices reframe considerations of energy justice to explicitly consider hidden and distant injustices (upstream or downstream) arising from the extraction, processing, transportation and disposal of energy resources. We assess t…
Environmental education in transition
The transition from centralized energy systems based on fossil fuels to renewable-based systems is a macro-level societal shift necessitated by climate change. This review of recent environmental education (EE) research identifies gaps and opportunities for promoting environmental action in this new context. We found that environmental educators and researchers are currently focused on researching and promoting energy conservation behavior with a…
Energy Democracy
As the expansion of renewable energy accelerates, the transformative potential of moving away from fossil fuel reliance is becoming increasingly clear. Around the world, individuals, communities, o...
The Food-Energy-Water Nexus, Regional Sustainability, and Hydraulic Fracturing
Intersections of food, energy, and water systems (also termed as the FEW nexus) pose many sustainability and governance challenges for urban areas, including risks to ecosystems, inequitable distribution of benefits and harms across populations, and reliance on distant sources for food, energy, and water. This case study provides an integrated assessment of the FEW nexus at the city and regional scale in ten contiguous counties encompassing the r…
Women’s leadership in renewable transformation, energy justice and energy democracy
As women take on more leadership roles in the United States advancing social and political change, analysis of women’s contributions to the transformation occurring within the energy sector is critically important. Grassroots movements focused on energy justice and energy democracy focus on: (1) resisting the power of large multinational fossil fuel energy companies that exacerbate inequities and disparities in energy, (2) reclaiming the energy s…
Diversifying Power
Political science (30 works) · Economics (25 works) · Climate change (20 works) · Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Engineering (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Ecology (13 works) · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (13 works) · Business (12 works)