In this presentation, I will critically review my work in the history of the social relations of energy conversion in environmental context, using ecological thinking to include work/labor alongside science, technology, engineering, and energy in the frame of reference. I will offer some thoughts on the epistemic tension in environmental studies around human, non-human, living, and non-living agencies in engaging ideas including limits to growth, the place of technology in human progress, ecological parallax, and normative scholarship in the age of climate crisis.

Dr Matthew N Eisler is Chancellor’s Fellow in History, University of Strathclyde, and author of Overpotential: Fuel Cells, Futurism, and the Making of a Power Panacea (Rutgers University Press, 2012) and Age of Auto Electric: Environment, Energy, and the Quest for the Sustainable Car (MIT Press, 2022). Dr Eisler’s research reveals how ideology and policy shape social relations and the biosphere. His current project Greenwork and Environmental Knowledge (funded by RWTH Aachen University) interrogates how environmental regulation co-produces labour, science, engineering, and business practices, developing his interdisciplinary approach to central themes of contemporary concern.