Is energy a sociological topic?

Questions concerning acquisition, storage and use of energy crop up in diverse contexts associated with how societies operate at various levels: from micro (household and individuals’ practices), via meso (when energy issues are considered in the context of the functioning of cities, municipalities or regions), to macro (referring to state policies, the workings of transnational organisations, and global markets and geopolitical systems). We can also identify the global level, when the operation of the energy industries is discussed in the context of the future of the planet, climate, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and responsible management of resources on a global scale. Energy policy as a type of public policy is generating increased interest among diverse social actors, coinciding with calls for civic empowerment and participatory development of these policies. These demands are associated with a growing popularity of the concepts of deliberative and participatory democracy (Habermas 1996; Dryzek 1990,2000,2010; Fishkin, Laslett2003], and involve consideration of the reflexive public opinion (Fish-kin 2009) and civic engagement, for example in the concept of “multilane governance” (Sroka 2009). They are gaining in importance as the needs for transformations of the current energy systems are expressed increasingly clearly in transnational (scientific, political, economic] discourses. These transformations would aim to find new, innovative solutions to allow humanity to respond to the increasing energy requirements of contemporary civilisations, as well as responding to threats related to climate, the environment and limited supplies of fossil fuels. Social protests are no longer interpreted solely in terms of a lack of knowledge or irrational fears of technology (Stankiewicz 2009) and the NIMBY (“Not in my back yard”) syndrome, too frequently reduced to people's egoistic aversion to investments (which they otherwise view as justified] being realised in their neighbourhood (Wolsink 2006; Devine-Wright 2009b). Instead, they are increasingly regarded as a dramatic voice in the public sphere resulting from exclusion or marginal-isation of some actors (cf. Bell, Grey, Haggett 2005). Some argue that the industrial revolution and its model of energy culture founded on coal, oil and gas created an era of modernisation whose potential in its original form is coming to its limit (Giddens, Lash, Beck 1994).