About us
Le bureau
Président: Yves Cochet
Yves Cochet was minister for territorial planning and for the environment under PM, Lionel Jospin. As a green activist for the past forty years, he has been a European MP for the European Green Party until june 2014 after spending almost twenty years as a parliamentary... Read more →
Secrétaire: Mathilde Szuba
Mathilde Szuba has a PhD in Environmental Sociology from the Centre d’Etudes des techniques, des Connaissances et des Pratiques (CETCOPRA, Université Paris I). Her research focuses on the political and social implications of peak oil and the “overshooting” of irreversible ecological thresholds, mostly through the study... Read more →
Trésorière: Anne Rumin
Le conseil d'administration
Agnès Sinaï, fondatrice de l'Institut Momentum, présidente jusqu'en juin 2014.
Agnès Sinaï is an independent journalist (Le Monde Diplomatique, La Revue Durable, Actu-Environnement) and is the author of several books, including “Sauver la Terre”, co-written with Yves Cochet (Fayard, 2003), “Labo-Planète” with Catherine Bourgain and Jacques Testart (1001 Nuits, 2011), "Penser la décroissance" (Presses de Sciences... Read more →
Alice Canabate
Benoît Thévard
Benoît Thévard is an engineer from the “Ecole des Mines en Génie Energétique”. After working several years for the aeronautical industry, he decided to change career after realizing that it wasn’t a sector with a future. After obtaining his diploma, he went to Québec and spent... Read more →
Christophe Laurens
Christophe Laurens is a landscape architect. He has been developing a project management activity for the past ten years called Studiolaurens. As a researcher for the “Architecture and Anthropology Laboratory” at the “Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris la Vilette”, he currently teaches Applied Arts at... Read more →
Flore d'Ambrosio-Boudet
Françoise Gollain
Luc Semal
Luc Semal has a PhD in political sciences from CERAPS (Lille 2 University). His work focuses on the political and social implications of the current ecological crisis, his thesis focuses on the transition movement and transition towns. He is also a member of the editorial board... Read more →
Philippe Bihouix
Philippe Bihouix is an engineer. From a general engineering background, he has worked as a construction engineer in the building industry and as an engineering analyst in various industrial sectors (energy, chemicals, transport, telecommunications, aeronautical and so on) for almost ten years. He has also worked... Read more →
Les contributeurs
Alain Gras
Currently Professor Emeritus at the university of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Alain Gras has founded the “Study center for techniques, knowledge and practices” (Centre... Read more →
Alice Canabate
Alice Le Roy
Environmental activist, Alice Le Roy is a journalist and teacher. She currently teaches urban ecology at the IUT of Bobigny (Paris 13) after... Read more →
Anne Rumin
Benoît Thévard
Benoît Thévard is an engineer from the “Ecole des Mines en Génie Energétique”. After working several years for the aeronautical industry, he decided... Read more →
Christophe Bonneuil
Christophe Bonneuil is a historian at the CNRS (Centre A. Koyré). He has published a book called “Gènes, Pouvoirs et Profits” (Genes, Power... Read more →
Christophe Laurens
Christophe Laurens is a landscape architect. He has been developing a project management activity for the past ten years called Studiolaurens. As a... Read more →
Clara Breteau
Clara Breteau studied literature, theatre and dramaturgy (from the stage director Sébastien Bournac and under the sponsorship of Jacques Nichet), philosophy (at Sorbonne... Read more →
Corinne Coughanowr
Corinne Coughanowr is an engineer and doctor in chemical engineering. She left the United States during the 1990s to come and live in... Read more →
Dennis Meadows
Dennis Meadows is a physician. He started his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the end of the 1960s. Professor Emeritus... Read more →
Francois Roddier
François Roddier is an astrophysicist; he is renown for finding a solution to compensate the effects of atmospheric turbulences during star observation. After... Read more →
Françoise Gollain
Ghislain Nicaise
Ghislain Nicaise is a biologist, he undertook research until 2004 and today continues to be an environmental activist. In 1963, he started his... Read more →
Jacques Grinevald
Epistemologist and historian of scientific and technological development, Jacques Grinevald is a member of the “Geological Society of London” and of the “Anthropocene... Read more →
Jean-Claude Besson-Girard
Painter and writer, Jean-Claude Besson-Girard is director of the theoretical and political degrowth review, Entropia. He has theorized and practiced degrowth throughout the... Read more →
Kim Pasche
Kim Pasche is a specialist in primitive human techniques. He animates several internships and workshops on techniques and lifestyles used by early human... Read more →
Luc Semal
Luc Semal has a PhD in political sciences from CERAPS (Lille 2 University). His work focuses on the political and social implications of... Read more →
Marc Zischka
Marc Zischka is an entrepreneur. He created is own company in 1996 to introduce juggling as a pedagogical tool in France. He progressively... Read more →
Mathilde Szuba
Mathilde Szuba has a PhD in Environmental Sociology from the Centre d’Etudes des techniques, des Connaissances et des Pratiques (CETCOPRA, Université Paris I).... Read more →
Michel Lepesant
Michel Lepesant lives in the Drôme region (France) where he earns minimal revenue as a philosophy teacher. He was at the origin ofmany... Read more →
Pablo Servigne
Pablo Servigne is an independent and interdisciplinary researcher. With an academic background (Agronomist from the “Faculté de Gembloux in Belgium and with a... Read more →
Paul Jorion
Philippe Bihouix
Philippe Bihouix is an engineer. From a general engineering background, he has worked as a construction engineer in the building industry and as... Read more →
Raphael Stevens
Raphael Stevens is an independent researcher specialized in prospective studies, the science of complexity and qualitative modeling. He is the co-founder of “Greenloop”,... Read more →
Thierry Caminel
Thierry Caminel is an engineer; he is a technological and numerical consultant and is interested in peak oil and the relationship between energy,... Read more →
Vincent Pierré
Vincent Pierré is a mechanical and thermal engineer having started his career in the automobile industry. Appalled by the exploitative relationship over men... Read more →
Manifesto
The Momentum Institute met for the first time on the 10th of March 2011, the day before an earthquake struck Japan and unleashed the nuclear catastrophe we know as Fukushima. The twofold catastrophe that engulfed the inhabitants of the northern part of Honshu Island was both local and global. It demonstrates the fragility of the […]
Brèves
Local Dollars, Local Sense
In response to the magnitude of the energy, environmental and economical crisis that strike the United States, the Post Carbon Institute has recently undertaken the production of a series of community resilience guides.
Post-Fukushima Food Resilience
Only 39% of calories consumed by the Japanese come from local production, the remaining 61% are imported, often from far away.Japan has one of the world’s lowest levels of food self-sufficiency.
Dennis Meadows Forty years after “The Limits to Growth”
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Club of Rome’s report , Dennis Meadows discussed the challenges of forging ahead into a sustainable future at “Perspectives on Limits to Growth: Challenges to Building a Sustainable Planet”.
Europe facing Peak Oil
Benoît Thévard, an energy engineer member of the Momentum Institute, published a study entitled ” Europe facing Peak Oil”. Peak Oil is the period of time when global oil production starts to decline due to the depletion of the exploitable resources.