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Unplugged: Politics of Power. Observations from the luxury deck

The topic UNPLUGGED 'sheds light' – electrically speaking – on the field of energy politics as the scene of global conflicts, and turns a spotlight on a 'plugged' California, where the lights go out and other regions of the world, where they never go on in the first place.

An update by Andreas Hirsch

One of the UNPLUGGED sujets of Ars Electronica 2002 takes a turn on the 'electrical' interpretation of the term by showing earth by night (in a conventional map projection) – somewhat reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch’s Film 'Night on Earth' – and on it the (industrialized) areas illuminated by night. It is a strange contrast of Light and Dark, that somehow echoes the words of Berthold Brecht about the ones in the light and the ones in the dark.

Such living in the dark were observed by Arundhati Roi in her hometown in India: 'In the lane behind my house, every night I walk past road gangs of emaciated laborers digging a trench to lay fiber optic cables to speed up our digital revolution. In the bitter winter cold, they work by the light of a few candles.” (1) Such images point to the massive distortions that follow the topic 'energy” – in its form as electricity one of the main associations of the topic 'Unplugged” -, inequalities especially in the regional distribution of population and their energy consumption. In 1973 the OECD-countries plus the former Warszaw pact countries used up 83% of the energy whereas the countries of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia (not including Japan) had a mere 1/6th share of the consumption of commercially traded energy forms. The first group had a share of 30% of the world population, the latter approx. 70%. In 1998 the world population share of the OECD-countries plus the countries of Central and Eastern Europe had sunken to 25%, their share of the world energy consumption to 70%. (2)

To add a sharper outline to the current conditions in the 'dark” part of the world, we should remind ourselves of the fact that approx. 1,6 Billion people have no access to modern energy forms and have to walk several hours a day to collect wood or cowdung to cover their energy needs. (3)

The usage of largely renewable energy forms like wood, wind or water had been replaced during the 19th century with coal and later oil and gas. Today the vast majority if the energy demands is covered with limited ressources and this development is characterized by an accelerated growth of the consumption and a continuing substitution.

Electricity laid the foundation for the rise of the modern city – systems that function only by means of climatisation, lighting and the cooling logistics of food suppliers, that is by maintaining an artificial 'unpluggedness” from natural environmental factors like weather, seasons and the change of day and night. Also do the cities have light and dark, areas of fully lit and protected wealth and the inreasingly marginalized and the same time ever growing (!) areas of non-legal living, housing, construction and economy in the shadows of the unwanted, at times summarized under the harmless-sounding cliché of the 'darker sides of globalisation”.

To bring about a sudden darkening of rich areas remained reserverd for the neoliberal politics of privatisation that led to power outages in California, certainly one of the most 'plugged” areas of the world. The liberalisation of energy markets point in a problematic direction, since it marginalizes issues like climate protection and the necessity of regulatory politics in the field. Arundhati Roi has – in the context of her political criticism of energy politics in India - characterized the privatisation of natural ressources as a process of barbaric disposession on a scale that has no parallel in history. Consequently she asks in the case of the live-critical ressource water, that is closely connected with the construction of dams and thus with energy production: 'What happens when you commodify water and say that only those can have it, who have the cash to pay the so called ‘market price’ for it.” (4)

It is the fossile energy forms that dominate energy production and that are responsible for the green house effect generated by humans, thus calling upon climatic dangers, that are capable of surpassing the dramatic character of the current issues of the politics and economy of energy. Whether these changes will also induce the necessary changes of mind quickly enough, that would be required for essential changes in the habits of power production and consumption remains questionable in the light of current deadlocks at international energy conferences. Also the reactor accidents at Harrisburg in 1979 and Tschernobyl in 1986 did diminish the public support for nuclear energy, but have up to now not led to realized scenarios of completely replacing this form of energy production.

Energy and politics are closely connected in an unholy alliance. The role of petrol in the 20th century shows this: two oil-crises were connected with wars or political change: the Yom-Kippur-War of 1973 and the islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. The countries represented in the OPEC – founded in 1960 – even after a certain loss of political relevance in the 1980ies, now control a major part of the natural oil ressources on earth. The activities of US-governments at least in part motivated with the control over the world oil reserves reach from Operation Desert Storm in 1991 to the current US-led war against radical Islam.

International energy corporations have drawn a trace of destruction across many countries on continents like Africa and South America, they have brought national governments under their control, caused environmental damage and ignored human rights. At the same time they invested in optimising their public image, like for instance the rebranding of BP to bp with the slogan 'Beyond Petroleum”. The green logo is intended to signal natural energy forms and environmental conscience, indeed stands – as Sharon Beder in her article 'bp: Beyond Petroleum?' (5) critically describes – in sharp contrast with their actions in countries like Columbia or South Africa and the fact, that bp have significantly reduced their own emissions but don’t care too much for the consequences of the usage of the fossile energy forms dominating their product range: 'We make no secret of our intention to grow our core exploration and production business and to continue our search for new sources of oil and gas.' (6)It may seem like a bitter irony on the side, that ENRON – that got into the headlines by its collapse and its ties with the current US-president – did over many years play a problematic role in the connection between power and energy, not forgetting energy politics in India. (7)

Notes (1) Arundhati Roi, Power Politics, South End Press / Cambridge MA, 2001, p 2. back to top
(2) Hans Joachim Ziesing, 'Energie – von der Versorgungssicherheit zum Klimaschutz', in: Peter J. Opitz (ed.), Weltprobleme im 21. Jahrhundert, München, 2001, p 103ff. back to top
(3) The Economist, Vol. 364 No. 8280, p 11. back to top
(4) Arundhati Roi, Power Politics, South End Press / Cambridge MA, 2001, p 43f. back to top
(5) Sharon Beder, 'bp: Beyond Pertroleum?', in: Eveline Lubbers, Battling Big Business, Green Books/Devon, 2002, p. 26ff. (). back to top
(6) David Rice, 'Corporate Responsibility in the marketplace', 1999 speech (www.bp.com) quoted after Sharon Beder, 'bp: Beyond Pertroleum?', in Eveline Lubbers, Battling Big Business, Green Books/Devon, 2002 (http://www.greennbooks.co.uk/bbb.htm) back to top (7)cf Pratap Chatterjee, Global Gospel of Gas (www.sfbg.com/News/32/17/WorldView; Arundhati Roi, Power Politics, South End Press / Cambridge MA, 2001, p 53ff. back to top

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