Arizona State University expert directory

Christopher Jones is a historian of energy, economics, and environment.

He is specifically knowledgeable in the past, present, and future of energy systems. His research focuses on how human societies have come to use energy in the ways they do, and the consequences of these choices for the ways people live, work and play.

Jones has studied the relationships between economic ideas and the natural world. He is particularly interested in exploring how economists have come to calculate economic growth with little regard for the depletion of planetary resources such as non-renewable stocks of energy. Given the profound influence of economics in determining what types of policies are considered feasible and desirable, his research seeks to better understand the epistemological assumptions that structure contemporary discussions on energy, climate change and sustainability.