This talk explores why ideas like “energy efficiency” are familiar in everyday life, while “entropy”—the unavoidable waste and disorder created by energy use—remains hard to grasp, even though it matters greatly for sustainability. It introduces the idea of “Lived Thermodynamics,” which looks at how scientific ideas about energy quietly shape daily habits, technologies, and economic thinking. The proposed framework, called Pragmatist Thermodynamics, aims to explain these ideas in ordinary language rather than only through equations or computer models. Instead of focusing on isolated machines or systems, it shifts attention to larger, messy “assemblages” of people, technologies, and environments that are always changing and never in balance. Using a modern interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the talk argues for a more realistic and holistic way to think about sustainability and our collective use of energy.

 

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