Speaker: Diana Hernandez, Associate Professor of Public Health, Columbia University
Join Diana Hernández for a timely conversation at the intersection of climate change, energy justice, and public health. Drawing on insights from her new book Powerless: The People’s Struggle for Energy (Russell Sage, 2025), Hernández will reveal how everyday households—especially in low-income, historically marginalized communities—are navigating the compounding pressures of rising energy costs, inadequate housing, and extreme weather. Hernández’s research centers the voices and experiences of those on the frontlines: households enduring unaffordable bills, unreliable utilities, and dangerous heat with limited protection. This Weston Roundtable lecture at University of Wisconsin Madison will unpack how energy insecurity is both a cause and consequence of structural inequities and how the fight for energy justice is inseparable from broader struggles for health, housing, and climate resilience. Through compelling storytelling, original research, and a call to action, Hernández will invite the audience to rethink power—both electrical and political—as we confront rising temperatures and deepening inequality and to reimagine what it means to build a just energy future, starting not with technology, but with those most affected- the people.
Co-hosted with Center for Demography and Ecology