Public knowledge. Im the director of ipk. I am happy to be here. Andrew and i were talking about the fact that academics spend many years writing good books. And are reluctant to celebrate. We publish our books and then we want to be criticized and even condemned by panels of smart people. Some lively conversation and debate, but a touch of celebration. Which is why there is wine and cheese outside. Participate in the event fully. We like to do a lot of book launches here. The real reason we are here tonight is because for the last several years ipks been doing a lot of programming and research on issues about climate and cities and sustainability. And so, this work, while historical, very much speaks to the most contemporary and emergent problems of our time. Were excited about the conversation tonight. So, to get things rolling, we have a journalist visiting at nyu, but also someone who has done a lot of work on environmental issues, contributed to npr and the atlantic. She will moderate the conversation introduce the speakers. So, please join me in welcoming her. [applause] excited to be here. I think this is a fantastic book. I do a lot of work on cities and hinterlands and native American Lands as well. It pulls all of these issues together. Andrews going to talk about his book, its about electricity that came from navajo lands. Thehow this fueled development of phoenix and the effect this had on the system. He is an associate professor at nyu, obviously. He specializes in u. S. History, focuses on the environment, native American Indian history, rural and suburban issues. He will be joined by carl jaboy, a professor of history at columbia. For theso at the center study of race and ethnicity. He specializes in the environment, borderlands, and native american issues. Andrew is going to talk for 25 minutes about his research and read from the book. He and carl will discuss and i will tie Senate Couple of questions then we will open it up for q a. Thank you and welcome andrew. [applause] first of all, thank you all for coming. Think you for coming, jack. Said, im going to go through some of the document and the things i found in researching this book. Thehen ill read a bit from epilogue because i worked on those words hard, and i would like to share some of them. But i would first like to take the chance to say a few public thanks which, along with public celebrations, arent of the things we do not get that much of a chance to do. They are related to the project. , would like to thank kim, jack and ray. Jack and ray have been with this book as long as they have been alive. Kim has been related to this book as much a she is now related to me. I want to thank my colleagues from nyu who supported me in allowing me to take the time to write the book that i wanted to write and provided so many models of amazing scholarly accomplishment and visions of what you could do. Id like to thank the grad students from nyu who i talked eares off about this book. They have really helped me think through in their own work what kinds of questions i wanted to finally answer. And ericto thank piipk and jessica. And carl and annie. Finally, i would like to end my like to thank my mom, dad, and brother. They were on the trip when i first saw something that looked fourhis, which is corners power plant. This was the first this is bookrigin of this this. Happened long before i was in graduate school or sinking of being a historian. It happened on a car trip albuquerque in southwest colorado. In many ways, the central question that has driven the boo,k. Plant locatedwer on indian land hundreds of miles from the nearest benc metropolitan center . That question stayed with me as i started into graduate school and came to interact with probably the two books i have written in conversation with for most of my career. Those books are two of the best books about urban history. The first is origins of urban crisis, which is how the story of postworld war ii america, was how american politics, capitalism created inequality, racial inequality. The second book was natures metropolis, the story of how was19th century city constituted by the resources of the spaces that existed beyond it. Origins and most of the subsequent work that its inspired and urban history is not really thought about nature. Or looked beyond suburban borders. Natures metropolis is criticized for having a people in it. I think, one of the things that happens in the story is that the people who live in this land remain there. They are dispossessed but they remain residents of the navajo reservation. What did it mean as dispossession happened simultaneously with continued residence on this space . As i started to begin to research this, early on it came to a map. It was not this precise map, but it looks like it. A map that show the connection, the left corner where it says 350 megawatts. And a set of power lines leading from there down to phoenix. And when i saw this map, here was a map that potentially addressed those concerns about how is the contemporary city constituted by those resources that sit beyond it . It showed a connection. Which is the way i began, have continue to think about this. On the one hand, the consumer landscape of phoenix is postwar suburbs. Whereas these told consumers that Family Togetherness and marital bliss was to be found in the use of electrical appliances. I would advise against a strategy of trying to buy electric valentine. I dont know thats ever worked out for anyone. But these kinds of uses of electricity resulted in the electricity in every aspect of domestic and industrial life resulted in a per capita increased from 1400 kilowatt hours annually to over 10,000 annually between 1945 and 1970. In those 25 years, you see that kind of increase. At the same time, because of owth, you see an increase of total domestic electrical use of 7500 . More electricity is used in 1970 the 1945. Than 1945. At the same time, there was a landscape that did not think about get thiouought about. That was this landscaper energy was produced. This was a photo that are companies that map from 1961. It is a photo of the Four Corners Power Plant which i w was one generating station that later became four. And navajo mine in the foreground. A landscape where social transformations enabled suburban consumption. This map. Ound this is one of the single most important i found. This is a schematic map of powerlines lines that crisscross the southwest in 1970. Four corners is not the only power plan. You see four corners up in that but you also see a series of other power plants that ring the navajo reservation. Jave generating station. Chola powerplant. And theres another power plant called san juan begine these power plants to ring navajo land with the power relying on those plants to supply their energy needs. Intensifiedal ties used of the navajo reservation as a source of energy supply. And they positioned coal rather than the more famous dams. Hoover. As the solution to Regional Power needs. This is the roots of todays climate crisis, this turned to coal. As i will talk about it a little bit. Here is the same map shown differently. This is from the 1970 newspaper, forh is a navajo language voice of the people. There hevery early, quickly perceived as a landscape of inequality. As it came to manifest itself on navajo land by People Living on the reservation. The 1950sn hopes in by navajo leaders that electricity produced on their land would lead to new kinds of reservation development. They dreamed of, one leader dreamed of two lightbulbs in every hogan, electrical by the early 1970s, many navajos came to understand power lines as symbols of subordination. The solution was Something Like this navajo power. And an attempt to use sovereignty rights to claim control over this, which we will talk about the successes and lack of successes. The thing i would like to highlight here is that navajos are some of the first critics of the American Carbon economy as it came to develop and came to rely on coal. So, the themes of the book are first that metropolitan inequality is not just a case of, as George Clinton famously said, chocolate cities and vanilla suburbs. But theres also inequalities, deep regional inequalities, that exist far beyond suburban borders. As distant environments, and societies are transformed to meet the metropolitan need for Inexpensive Energy and also Waste Disposal and other things that do not fit into, in a way, do not fit into urban space. The second and into related theme is that in the southwest, development and indian under development went handinhand were connected. Native peoples have been deeply connected to, and have been vital participants in T Construction of suburban modernity. They have argued whether that goal orty should be agoal a anathema. The terms by which those connections the navajo tribe received a quarter for coal that was resold by Mining Companies for 3. 00. They saw limited benefits. From the transformation of their land. Finally, the roots of Climate Change exists not only in the machinations of Companies Like various energy companies, but also in the monday and aspects of our built environment. In the way that bountiful electricity became an expected condition of what weve called modernity and how that was literally built in. So, im going to grab some water and then im going to read from of a lot before he turned it over to carl. I turn it over to carl. Jack neery, thin author of an article that appeared in 1971, 6 days before earth day, opened with an appeal southwestern boosters have been making since the end of world war ii. When i first came out here from the issa dozen years ago, it was like having the bandages taken off after an eye operation. Folks back home who had never been here realized grew up and died without ever really having seen. It told not of the power of the vision but of its death. Photos of smog hanging low over the mountains. He lamented the pollution that had introduced the nations environmental troubles to its last pristine region. This morning the mounds were just silhouettes and in ink wash. A somberness like the mountains in pennsylvania or west virginia. The same darkening of tone you can see looking from the atlantic towards long island in new york city. A smudgy cobweb of smog on the horizon. Once clear from coast to coast, now the dark miasma of soot and smog stressednd all the way from the atlantic to the pacific ashtrays of los angeles and san francisco. You know the last stretch of wideopen space we had left, the american southwestern skyscape, is gone, too. The articles title captured sentiments hello, energy. Goodbye, big sky. Two months earlier a different headline appeared. A journa lfor stockbrokers. Coal, the giant revived. The article explained that the coal industry, sensual to the early industrial economy, has recovered from postwar collapse. A single economics and accounted for this revival. In railroads, home heating continued to decline. It had driven a 77 increase in Coal Production during the 1960s. Economic conditions, the journal reported, now favored coal as the primary source of energy for the nation. Read together, goodbye, big sky revived. Iant told the story. It how electrical utilities to be an into tol expensive alternative. Alone, utilities powerilt 328 coalfired plants. In the southwest, the transformation was starker. In 1954, the year Utah International negotiated the ,iddle expiration permit utilities in the region generated no electricity by burning coal. Coal from the navajo and hopi reservations transported by truck load sent furnaces at four corners and plants. Wer collectively, they generated 8000 megawatts of electricity, almost 65 of the electricity consumed in arizona, new mexico, and southern california. Goodbye, big sky, suggest the ast of coals new place as dominant source of electricity. With four corners releasing 46,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 35,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, the two comical components of smog, two chemical components of smog, it suggested the southwests end. E had come to an revivede giant presented the resurgence of coal as a function of economic demand. It contains no mention of the politics. Made indian lands available for utilities. For its part, goodbye big sky looked upward. Avoiding the transformation of grazing lands into acidic ponds and of ram springs, the navajo name, into area four. Worry aboutid not the 16 million tons of Carbon Dioxide that issued from four corners annually. A Carbon Emissions equivalent those of 2. 8 million passenger cars. Ongoingnore the debates among navajos about coal mining. Those debates illustrate the deep connections, connections that were political and iredronmental that coal f Energy Production had forged in the southwest. These articles would have surprised americans earlier in the 20th century. Not supposed to be that fuel of modernity. Coalr dam was built and was described as an unwelcome artifact. Coal representative upthrust into barbarism. It required the expectation of labor and nature. Mumf wasoaustion for evident inr abandoned mine shaft and thed power of smoke that hung in the air. Human exhaustion late evident in the foul cities created by coal congestion. It was electricity that would bury the corpse of the paleo technique era. With electricity, the clear sky and clean waters come back again. Electricity would serve as the engine of a neotechnique era, characterized by garden cities and slowing energy. Flowing energy. Allowing people to work in more salubrious seats of living. Those visions were partially realized. Industry decentralized. Americans decamped in great numbers. The mediterranean climate of southern california. The dry air of the Desert Southwest and the temperate winters of the american south. And electricity became part of every fact. Et. Homebuilders competed to compete st electricarold homes. And utilities told consumers of the ability to live better electricity. Portions of the vision freed from the spoils of the Natural World appeared to exist in phoenix and other southwestern cities, a consumers paradise. The early 1960s, however, that consumers paradise had come to rely on the very fuel that mumford announced. Mumfords vision of liberation from coal was underlined by the increasing demand for electric power. By the 1960s, that demand drove coals return. Electrical generation that occurred on the colorado plan to recapitulated any of the maladies mumford have highlighted. Strip mining disrupted unstable environments, leaving displaced earth. Chromium and sulfur contaminated water and seeped slowly into deep aquifers. The Navajo Nation experience political and economic maladies from Coal Production as well. And flex will contracts are characterize Energy Development in the 1960s most of the profits from coal mines and power plants were realized in places distant from the reservation. Those contracts meant that as court cases confirmed tribal sovereignty and indian selfdetermination, in the late 1960s and 1970s, the Navajo Nation possessed a limited authority over the most valuable resources within its borders. Despite hopes in the 1950s that four corners and other projects lightbulbs inwo hogan, 40 remained without electricity in 2010. Instead, electrical power, like postwar societies other benefits, was developed in a manner on even and unequal. Inequalities that were brought in new deal policies. The experience of postwar metropolitan growth has made the inequalities that exist beyond borders difficult to appreciate. Michael harrington worried about the increasing isolation of suburbanites from urban poverty. He admitted that middleclass women coming in from suburbia on glance ofay catch a the other america on their way to the theater. Remained aality specialized presence in the life of middleclass residents of the metropolis. A constant counterpoint and an imagined threat to their security. Beenrban inequality has different. With metropolitan america imagined as the engine of economic growth, it became easy to imagine that the economic struggles of those People Living beyond metropolitan borders arose from the lack of integration. Diagnosed as missing out on maternity, such understandings developmente th missed the connections. These connections have been difficult to appreciate when they involved indian people. As thepresented antithesis of modernity, indian peoples continue to play a role in modernity. Even as electricity began streaming from Four Corners Power Plant to phoenix, arizona highways magazine was advising people to turn from the great. Slick, speedy arteries of travel and go forth 100 miles into navajo land and you will find the people as they were a decade, two decades, a halfcentury ago. The primitive imagination contained in navajo land rated difficult to appreciate the industrialization of the Navajo Nation. Product beamede into homes. Electricity allow the freedom to surmount the desert heat, and to call entire electronic worlds to life. Vastced in locations the majority of consumers never experienced, it was easy to assume that electricity was not produced. That it existed naturally and that its costs were minimal. Staring at the lights of phoenix from Camelback Mountain night after night, such assumptions make bothre easy to in phoenix and elsewhere in metropolitan america. Such a subject have proven a boon to the nations coal economy. Even as the American Economy became postindustrial, as the federally funded hightech andstries of Silicon Valley consumers of metropolitan American Combined to create the information age, coal fired electrical production in the u. S. Tripled. 1. 9 trillion000s, kilowatt hours of electricity were generated from burning coal. Fired1970, 594 new coal power plants have been built. Generates 40 of the nations electric power. Land made available by local governments eager for jobs and tax r