Matthew P. Johnson is an energy and environmental historian whose research area is modern Latin America (with emphasis on Brazil and the Caribbean).

Matthew is especially interested in projects that relate to energy, dam-building, and socio-environmental justice, as separate and overlapping issues. He wrote his PhD dissertation (Georgetown University 2021) about the social and environmental impacts of Brazil’s big hydropower dams. In light of the anthropogenic climate crisis and urgent calls to divest from fossil fuels, he decided that historical research about the socio-environmental footprint of low-carbon energy (i.e., renewables) would be important to inform a just energy transition. To date, hydropower has spared the Earth’s atmosphere more carbon emissions than any other sources of low-carbon energy, and Brazil is among the world’s top producers of hydropower, both in terms of gross production and percentage of electricity consumed. But Brazil’s dams are also some of the world’s most controversial, with massive social and environmental impacts that fell hardest on indigenous communities.
 
As an Environmental Fellow, Matthew is finishing his second research project, an environmental history of the Caribbean’s oil refineries. During the twentieth century, many Caribbean governments welcomed oil refining as a means of industrial growth and access to cheap fuel. The region boasted some of the world’s biggest refineries, which brought immense benefits to companies, consumers, and local governments. However, these facilities also produced deleterious and long-lasting health and environmental impacts.

Faculty Hosts: Gabriela Soto Laveaga and Victor Seow, History of Science