scholarly journals Managed retreat through voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. eaax8995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine J. Mach ◽  
Caroline M. Kraan ◽  
Miyuki Hino ◽  
A. R. Siders ◽  
Erica M. Johnston ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Vulnerability ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Open Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
The Government

Retreat from some areas will become unavoidable under intensifying climate change. Existing deployments of managed retreat are at small scale compared to potential future needs, leaving open questions about where, when, and how retreat under climate change will occur. Here, we analyze more than 40,000 voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties in the United States, in which homeowners sell properties to the government and the land is restored to open space. In contrast to model-based evaluation of potential future retreat, local governments in counties with higher population and income are more likely to administer buyouts. The bought-out properties themselves, however, are concentrated in areas of greater social vulnerability within these counties, pointing to the importance of assessing the equity of buyout implementation and outcomes. These patterns demonstrate the challenges associated with locally driven implementation of managed retreat and the potential benefits of experimentation with different approaches to retreat.

Stress Testing to Assess Recovery from Extreme Events

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. John Plodinec
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Stress Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Potential Benefits

Abstract Over the last decade, communities have become increasingly aware of the risks they face. They are threatened by natural disasters, which may be exacerbated by climate change and the movement of land masses. Growing globalization has made a pandemic due to the rapid spread of highly infectious diseases ever more likely. Societal discord breeds its own threats, not the least of which is the spread of radical ideologies giving rise to terrorism. The accelerating rate of technological change has bred its own social and economic risks. This widening spectrum of risk poses a difficult question to every community – how resilient will the community be to the extreme events it faces. In this paper, we present a new approach to answering that question. It is based on the stress testing of financial institutions required by regulators in the United States and elsewhere. It generalizes stress testing by expanding the concept of “capital” beyond finance to include the other “capitals” (e.g., human, social) possessed by a community. Through use of this approach, communities can determine which investments of its capitals are most likely to improve its resilience. We provide an example of using the approach, and discuss its potential benefits.

scholarly journals Overcoming the barriers to green procurement in the county: Interest groups and administrative professionalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Smith ◽  
Jessica Terman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Green Procurement ◽  
Environmentally Responsible ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change

Scholars and practitioners have come to understand the important role of local governments in the causes and effects of climate change. The literature has examined both the substantive and symbolic determinants of urban sustainability policies in addition to the implementation issues associated with those policies. At the heart of these policies is the idea that local governments have the desire and ability to engage in socially and environmentally responsible practices to mitigate climate change. While important, these studies are missing a key component in the investigation of local government involvement in sustainability policies: government purchasing power. This study examines the effect of administrative professionalism and interest group presence on the determinants of green procurement in the understudied context of counties in the United States.

What Americans Want from Public Schools

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hochschild ◽  
Nathan Scovronick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
American Dream ◽  
The United States ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
State Governments ◽  
European Welfare State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Main Activity

AMERICANS CONTINUE TO FOLLOW the advice of Benjamin Franklin in making “the proper education of youth” the most important American social policy. Public education uses more resources and involves more people than any other government program for social welfare. It is the main activity of local governments and the largest single expenditure of almost all state governments. Education is the American answer to the European welfare state, to massive waves of immigration, and to demands for the abolition of subordination based on race, class, or gender. Although public schools in the United States are expected to accomplish a lot for their students, underlying all of these tasks is the goal of creating the conditions needed for people to believe in and pursue the ideology of the American dream. Our understanding of the American dream is the common one, described by President Clinton this way: “The American dream that we were all raised on is a simple but powerful one—if you work hard and play by the rules you should be given a chance to go as far as your God-given ability will take you.” The dream is the unwritten promise that all residents of the United States have a reasonable chance to achieve success through their own efforts, talents, and hard work. Success is most often defined in material terms, but everyone gets to decide what it is for himself or herself. The first man to walk across Antarctica talks about this idea in the same way as people who make their first million: “The only limit to achievement,” he said, “is the limit you place on your own dreams. Let your vision be guided by hope, your path be adventurous, and the power of your thoughts be directed toward the betterment of tomorrow.” The American dream is a brilliant ideological invention, although, as we shall see, in practice it leaves much to be desired. Its power depends partly on the way it balances individual and collective responsibilities. The role of the government is to make the pursuit of success possible for everyone. This implies strict and complete nondiscrimination, universal education to provide the means for pursuing success, and protection for virtually all views of success, regardless of how many people endorse them.

scholarly journals Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency: U.S. Involvement in El Salvador's Civil War, 1979–92

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter C. Ladwig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

After a decade and a half of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. policymakers want to change their approach to COIN by providing aid and advice to local governments rather than directly intervening with U.S. forces. Both this strategy and U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine in general, however, do not acknowledge the difficulty of convincing clients to follow U.S. COIN prescriptions. The historical record suggests that, despite a shared aim of defeating an insurgency, the United States and its local partners have had significantly different goals, priorities, and interests with respect to the conduct of their counterinsurgency campaigns. Consequently, a key focus of attention in any future counterinsurgency assistance effort should be on shaping the client state's strategy and behavior. Although it is tempting to think that providing significant amounts of aid will generate the leverage necessary to affect a client's behavior and policies, the U.S. experience in assisting the government of El Salvador in that country's twelve-year civil war demonstrates that influence is more likely to flow from tight conditions on aid than from boundless generosity.

scholarly journals Indicators of climate change and social vulnerability in fishing dependent communities along the Eastern and Gulf Coasts of the United States

Marine Policy ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 323-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa L. Colburn ◽  
Michael Jepson ◽  
Changhua Weng ◽  
Tarsila Seara ◽  
Jeremy Weiss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Vulnerability ◽  
The United States

Climate Science and Climate Change Across the Curricula – Seizing Opportunities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Holzer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Collective Knowledge ◽  
Weather Extremes ◽  
Collective Effort ◽  
Subject Areas

<p>Challenges abound as our Earth warms, seas rise, and weather extremes become more and more common. Solutions to these challenges requires the collective knowledge of many along with transdisciplinary approaches, resulting in unique, creative, and comprehensive solutions.  In addition, these challenges come in many spatial and temporal sizes, and therefore solutions are needed at local, regional, global levels organized by small scale and larger scale groups. School systems can be a hub of ingenuity when it comes to designing and implementing solutions if guided by a clear pathway. Some states in the United States of America have adopted standards for learning that include climate science and climate change across all subject areas. In these states the vision for standards implementation parallels a vision for meeting the local and regional challenges of climate change. This presentation will outline the new roles afforded schools in our collective effort to reverse climate change and reduce its impact along the way.</p>

scholarly journals Litigating for the Homeland: An Indian Treaty Framework to Climate Litigation in the Wake of Juliana

2021 ◽  
pp. 303
Author(s):  
Evan Neustater
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Trust Relationship ◽  
The World ◽  
Indian Tribes ◽  
The Government ◽  
Indian Nations

Climate change is an increasingly pressing issue on the world stage. The federal government, however, has largely declined to address any problems stemming from the effects of climate change, and litigation attempting to force the federal government to take action, as highlighted by Juliana v. United States, has largely failed. This Note presents the case for a class of plaintiffs more likely to succeed than youth plaintiffs in Juliana—federally recognized Indian tribes. Treaties between the United States and Indian nations are independent substantive sources of law that create enforceable obligations on the federal government. The United States maintains a trust relationship with federal Indian tribes, and that relationship obliges a duty of protection upon the federal government. This Note argues that those obligations may support climate change claims under the theory that the government, by failing to address climate change, has failed its duty of protection under its treaties.

How Welfare Worked in the Early United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel J. Loiacono
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Unwed Mother ◽  
Continental Army ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Government ◽  
British Colonies

What was American welfare like in George Washington’s day? It was expensive, extensive, and run by local governments. Known as “poor relief,” it included much of what we would now call welfare and social work. Unlike other aspects of government, poor relief remained the same, in structure, between the establishment of British colonies in the 1600s and the New Deal of the 1930s. How Welfare Worked in the Early United States: Five Microhistories tells the story of poor relief through the lives of five people: a long-serving overseer of the poor, a Continental Army veteran who was repeatedly banished from town, a nurse who was paid by the government to care for the poor, an unwed mother who cared for the elderly and struggled to remain with her daughter, and a young paralyzed man trying to be a Christian missionary inside a poorhouse. Of Native, African, and English descent, these five Rhode Islanders’ life stories show how poor relief actually worked. For them and for millions, all over the United States, poor relief was both generous and controlling, local and yet largely uniform around the nation. Two centuries ago, Americans paid for—and relied on—an astonishing government system that provided food, housing, and medical care to those in need, while also shaping American families and where they could live. Students of history and of today’s social provision have much to learn about how welfare worked in the early United States.

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