Hydropower in Authoritarian Brazil: An Environmental History of Low-Carbon Energy, 1960s-90s

During the later twentieth century, Brazil's right-wing military dictatorship built a vast network of hydropower dams that became one of the world's biggest low-carbon electricity grids. Weighed against these carbon savings, what were the costs? Johnson unpacks the social and environmental implications of this project, from the displacement of Indigenous and farming communities to the destruction of Amazonian biodiversity. Drawing on rich archival material from forty sites across Brazil, Pa...