About the paper

In April 2025, President Donald J. Trump repealed water efficiency standards on showerheads, presenting them as part of ‘the left’s war on water pressure’. This decision reflects a broader pattern in which right-wing politicians frame climate and environmental policy as an imposition by ‘elites’ on the everyday lives of ‘ordinary’ people.

The paper 'Showerheads, coffee machines and the everyday political geographies of the green backlash' examines how anti-climate politics increasingly takes shape in the mundane aspects of daily life, with household objects becoming symbols of resistance to climate policy. Showerheads, paper straws, gas stoves, and lightbulbs have all been recast as part of a wider ‘green backlash’. By situating this backlash within both the rise of reactionary politics and the ways climate action may alter daily routines, mobilities, and habits, the paper explores how everyday annoyances gain political meaning. In doing so, it presents contemporary environmentalism as not only witnessing this backlash but also becoming 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.