Who is pedalling when you are watching kittens on youtube?

Lecturer: Daniel Pargman

Content: Energy is invisible. Our daily use of electricity is invisible. So how can we even start to contemplate changing our behaviours and using less when we don’t really have a visceral feeling for how much energy we use in the first place? This lecture introduces two concepts that help bridge that mental gap and that help us in making the invisible visible; "homo colossus" and ”energy slaves”. How many ”energy slaves” do we have working for us 24/7 to provide us with our modern lifestyles?

NOTE: The topic of seminar #2 directly builds on this lecture so you can start preparing for the seminar right now by reading the literature (see the literature webpage).

About: Daniel Pargman is an Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the KTH School of Computer Science and Communication. 

Literature:

- BBC. "Human Power Station" (58 minutes). 

- Catton Jr (2012), "Destructive momentum". (10 pages)

- Nikiforuk (2011), "You and your slaves". (4 pages)

- Nikiforuk (2012), ”Slaves to energy”. (10 pages).