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Chris Kennedy
Professor, Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Speaker Biography:
Chris Kennedy is a Professor of Industrial Ecology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. He has worked for over 30 years on the world’s toughest environment and sustainability challenges, from climate change, waste and pollution to declining biodiversity. Chris has been a consultant to several national governments and international institutions, including a secondment to the OECD in Paris. He was previously a professor at the University of Toronto, and a visiting professor at Oxford University and ETH Zürich. Chris is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and a former President of the International Society for Industrial Ecology.
Dr. Kennedy is the author of three books:
Advanced Introduction to Industrial Ecology (2025)
Malthus Enigma: Technology, Science, and Policy for a Fragile Earth (2025)
The Evolution of Great World Cities: Urban Wealth and Economic Growth (2011)
Abstract:
The three major US macroeconomic policy paradigms of the twentieth century, defined by transformational economic shocks, had distinct energy characteristics. The pre-Keynesian era (to 1929) was dominated by coal; the Keynesian era (1930-1973) witnessed substantial growth with unconstrained access to abundant domestic oil supplies; and the Monetarist era (after ~1973) was energy constrained. Moreover, the economic shocks that precipitated paradigm changes were rooted in changes to energy supply. The Great Crash of 1929 followed from discovery of vast oil fields in the US Southwest. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 occurred in part due to US peak conventional oil production; and together they established the conditions for the First Oil Crisis of 1973.