本期Hidden Forces播客节目，作者兼剑桥大学政治经济学教授Helen Thompson探讨了其新书“Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century”中的观点，分析了21世纪的政治经济乱局，尤其是能源政治对地缘政治、经济和民主的影响。节目中，Thompson指出，21世纪以来，世界经历了地缘政治、经济和民主的剧烈动荡，这些动荡与化石燃料能源的过度依赖和控制有关，并预示着未来能源转型过程中，能源问题仍将是关键挑战。

🤔 **能源与地缘政治的冲突:** 21世纪以来，世界经历了地缘政治的重大变化，包括中东的动荡、欧盟的裂痕以及美国国内政治的撕裂。这些变化都与化石燃料能源的争夺和控制有关。化石燃料能源的稀缺性、价格波动和政治干预，加剧了国家之间的竞争和冲突，并导致了地缘政治的不稳定。

💰 **能源与经济的困境:** 21世纪的经济发展也受到能源问题的严重影响。化石燃料能源的价格波动，以及对能源安全和可持续性的担忧，导致了经济的不确定性和波动。此外，为了应对能源危机，各国政府采取了大量货币政策，导致了通货膨胀和债务增加，加剧了经济的脆弱性。

🗳️ **能源与民主的挑战:** 21世纪的民主制度也面临着来自能源问题的挑战。化石燃料能源的开采和使用，导致了环境污染和气候变化，加剧了社会的不平等和政治分化。此外，能源政策的制定和执行，也往往受到利益集团的影响，导致民主制度的腐败和效率低下。

🌎 **能源转型与未来展望:** 随着能源转型时代的到来，我们必须认真思考能源问题对地缘政治、经济和民主的影响。能源转型是一个复杂而漫长的过程，需要各国政府、企业和公民共同努力。在能源转型过程中，我们必须确保能源安全、经济可持续性和社会公平，并努力构建更加稳定、公平和可持续的未来。

💡 **能源问题将持续存在:** 尽管能源转型是不可避免的趋势，但能源问题将持续存在。能源转型是一个复杂的过程，会带来新的挑战和风险。因此，我们需要关注能源转型过程中的风险和挑战，并制定相应的应对措施，以确保能源转型顺利进行，并为未来的发展奠定坚实的基础。

In Episode 257 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Helen Thompson, author and Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge. Thompson’s current research concentrates on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic, and geopolitical disruptions of the twenty-first century, which she explores magisterially in her new book “Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century.” 

For those of us who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, the nature of the world as we knew it to be only seemed to be getting better and better. The price of energy and the cost of capital kept getting cheaper, the world kept getting safer and more interconnected, and liberal democracy and free-market capitalism were seen as inevitable outcomes of the end of history. Today, all of that feels like it was almost a dream.

The last two decades have brought a powerful tide of geopolitical, economic, and democratic shocks onto the world. Their fallout has led central banks to create over twenty-five trillion dollars of new money, brought about a new age of geopolitical competition, destabilized the Middle East, ruptured the European Union, and exposed old political fault lines in the United States--fault lines that seem to challenge even those of the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s when the specter of nuclear war and the trauma of violent riots and political assassinations cast a long shadow over the future of the Republic.

This conversation between Helen Thompson and Demetri Kofinas endeavors to draw a line of continuity between those turbulent years and the present political moment as we try to imagine how a future situated in the long arch of human history with all its political challenges, economic imperatives, and destructive wars might unfold. It recounts three histories. One about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about western democracies, and explains how in the years of political disorder prior to the pandemic, the disruption in each became part of one big story, much of which originates in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies and our efforts to control them. And it explains why, as the green transition takes place, the longstanding predicaments that energy invariably shapes will remain firmly in place.

You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

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Episode Recorded on 07/06/2022