About the Paper

In April 2025, President Donald J. Trump repealed water efficiency standards on showerheads, framing them as part of “the left’s war on water pressure.” Such a move reflects an increasingly familiar tactic: right-wing politicians presenting climate and environmental policy as an ‘elite’ pushing down on the everyday lives of ‘normal’ people. In this paper, I work to illuminate how anti-climate politics increasingly takes root in the everyday and the mundane, with household objects becoming key symbols of resistance to climate policy today. Showerheads are not unique. Paper straws, gas stoves, lightbulbs - all have been recast as symbols of a broader ‘green backlash’. In grounding this ‘backlash’ within both the broader rise in reactionary politics and how climate action might change everyday lives, mobilities, and rhythms, I seek to outline how everyday annoyances take on new political life. In doing so, I position contemporary environmentalism as not merely a witness to backlash but as entangled in its contradictions

About the Speaker

Ed Atkins is an Associate Professor in Political Geography at the University of Bristol. His work moves in two ways. First, he explores the green backlash to understand how right-wing populist movements are seeking to slow decarbonisation and climate action. Second, he works 0with communities and policymakers to ensure that energy transitions and inclusive and just. This work currently focuses on climate action as a process of economic restructuring, affecting work and workers across industries and geographies in the UK. His book A Just Energy Transition: Getting Decarbonisation Right in a Time of Crisis was published in 2023

The event is hosted by the ARTES Sustainability and Disruption cluster (for more information, please contact a.j.telford@uva.nl). Tea and coffee will be provided; please remember to bring your own cup.