The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/files/6761018/Geels02technological.pdf

Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study

Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways

The talk with present the key results of the IPCC Working Group III 5th assessment report. Concluding four years of intense scientific collaboration by hundreds of authors from around the world, the report responds to the request of the world's governments for a comprehensive, objective and policy neutral assessment of the current scientific knowledge on mitigating climate change. The report has been extensively reviewed by experts and governments to ensure quality and comprehensiveness.

Climate change 2014 - Mitigation of climate change

http://seg.fsu.edu/Library/From%20sectoral%20systems%20of%20innovation%20to%20socio-technical%20systems,%20Insights.pdf

From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory

In a provocative article in The Economist in 2007 a grandiose plan was 
presented to link electricity grids all over Europe. According to the journal, the main driver for this project is the necessity to make our energy 
supply system more sustainable. One of the main obstacles to integrate 
renewable energy technologies, like wind and solar into the incumbent system, is the ﬂ uctuating and unpredictable character of these energy sources. 
The proposed HVDC Supergrid would enable wind energy to become the 
‘Star of the show’, one of the major suppliers of electricity. Such a network, 
including storage options, would eliminate the disadvantage of ﬂ uctuating electricity generation by linking the large off shore wind parks with 
hydropower stations and very large scale solar power plants in southern 
Europe and North Africa. Recently, several more elaborate proposals for 
such a European Supergrid have been presented. At the end of The Economist article, even the option of a global network was mentioned, based on 
very large scale generation in remote areas as the Sahara, Siberia or South 
America (Economist, 2007). Initiatives like the Global Energy Network 
Institute (GENI) ﬁ t into this scheme. According to the mission GENI “the 
premier global strategy is the interconnection of electric power networks 
between regions and continents into a global energy grid, with an emphasis on tapping abundant renewable energy resources-a world wide web 
of electricity.”1

Future Electricity Systems: Visions, Scenarios and Transition Pathways: Geert Verbong and Frank Geels

Demand-side emission reduction through behavior change or technology adoption? Empirical evidence from UK heating, mobility, and electricity use

Changing the Climate Change Discourse

Reaching net-zero GHG emission targets will require transitions in all socio-technical systems, including electricity, mobility, heating, and agri-food. While most research focuses on transitions in single systems, it is essential to also investigate multi-system interactions since innovations like electric vehicles, heat pumps, or circular economy initiatives will require interactions between multiple systems. Although extant research acknowledges this topic to some extent, it offers limited understandings of the causal processes underpinning multi-system interaction. Building on multi-system research in the sustainability transitions literature, the paper therefore aims to develop a first inventory of causal processes of multi-system interactions in net-zero transitions, focused on technological, actor, and institutional dimensions. To elaborate and substantiate this contribution, the paper applies a narrative review methodology to identify six causal processes based on integration of insights from relevant social science theories with a multi-system dynamics approach based on the Multi-level Perspective. We illustrate causal processes with examples from the net-zero transition and articulate their implications for the speed of change. 

Frank W. Geels

Papers

Future Electricity Systems: Visions, Scenarios and Transition Pathways: Geert Verbong and Frank Geels

Demand-side emission reduction through behavior change or technology adoption? Empirical evidence from UK heating, mobility, and electricity use

Changing the Climate Change Discourse

Multi-system dynamics and the speed of net-zero transitions: Identifying causal processes related to technologies, actors, and institutions

Projecting for sustainability transitions