Much of the opposition to the decarbonization of socio-economic systems is led and driven by the fossil fuel industry and a heterogeneous galaxy of actors that support it: governments and policymakers at various levels, formal institutions, industry representatives, labor unions, other fossil fuel-dependent industries, the financial system, managerial elites, epistemic communities, the military, public relations firms, think tanks, political pundits, private foundations, and the media and communications. This ‘fossil machine’ pervades and operates in all socio-economic spheres through multiple and coordinated strategies and tactics to influence public opinion, the media, and politicians to resist, thwart, slow down, or block meaningful actions to transition to sustainability._x000D_
A first objective of this contribution is to shed light on (i) the socio-political-institutional-economic-cultural-environmental conditions in which the fossil machine is born and moves; (ii) the processes of construction and architecture of the fossil machine; (iii) its strategies and tactics of infiltration into different socio-economic spheres; (iv) the implications of fossil machine’s resistance for climate action; and (v) attempts to oppose the fossil machine and examples of exfiltration._x000D_
Based on this theoretical mapping a second objective of this contribution is to investigate the disablement practices employed to terminate the fossil machine of energy plants in Civitavecchia – the long-standing ‘fossil energy’ city close to Rome, Italy – whose planned coal to gas conversion was recently abandoned. To this end, the contribution specifies the notions and potential of ‘destabilisation’ and ‘disruption’ and use them to examine how multiple agents disabled the fossil machine under scrutiny. It then goes on to frame the practices of destabilisation and disruption occurred in Civitavecchia within a broad societal framework articulated in ‘axes of disablement’.

Marco Grasso; Daniel Delatin Rodrigues
University of Milan-Bicocca

 
ID Abstract: 609