(Un)Just transitions and Black dispossession: The disposability of Caribbean ‘refugees’ and the political economy of climate justice

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110414
Author(s):  
Keston K Perry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Climate Action Plan ◽  
Climate Refugees

Caribbean populations face increased displacement, dispossession and debt burdens due to shocks related to climate change. As the major neighbouring power that is the most significant historical contributor to global warming, the United States has persistently deflected from this responsibility. Instead, its climate plans are weaponized to target potential climate refugees who constitute a ‘national security threat’ and are faced with risks of premature death. These policies also aim to create green capitalist peripheries following racial capitalist logics. The paper contends that US climate interventions and policies increase the likelihood of Black dispossession within Caribbean societies. These policies commit to supporting so-called ‘left-behind’ white communities in need of a ‘just transition’, while Caribbean racialized subjects are not as equally deserving. To explain this, the paper examines major climate policies, in particular the recent Congressional Climate Action Plan of the US House of Representatives and President Biden’s climate proposals. It juxtaposes policy claims against political actions and racial capitalist historiography of the United States, especially its past treatment of climate refugees from the Caribbean. This analysis shows the persistent ways in which US climate policies advance organized abandonment and a neocolonial relationship predicated on an unjust system of racial capitalism.

Political beliefs, views about technocracy, and energy and climate policy preferences

2020 ◽  
pp. 096366252097856
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Nowlin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Significant Interaction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Energy And Climate Policy

The use of technocratic decision-making, where policy decisions are made by elite experts, is an important aspect of policymaking in the United States. However, little work has examined public opinion about technocracy. Using data from a representative sample of the United States ( n = 1200), I explore differences in support for technocracy and the implications of that support for views about politically controversial energy sources and climate policies. Overall, I find that liberal Democrats, moderate/conservative Democrats, and moderate/liberal Republicans were more likely than conservative Republicans and moderate independents to support technocratic decision-making. In addition, I find that as support for technocracy increases, so does support for energy sources and climate policies; however, there are significant interaction effects across political beliefs.

Theorizing Gentrification as a Process of Racial Capitalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 153568412110547
Author(s):  
Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Composition ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Prior Literature

Academics largely define gentrification based on changes in the class demographics of neighborhood residents from predominately low-income to middle-class. This ignores that gentrification always occurs in spaces defined by both class and race. In this article, I use the lens of racial capitalism to theorize gentrification as a racialized, profit-accumulating process, integrating the perspective that spaces are always racialized to class-centered theories. Using the prior literature on gentrification in the United States, I demonstrate how the concepts of value, valuation, and devaluation from racial capitalism explain where and how gentrification unfolds. Exposure to gentrification varies depending on a neighborhood’s racial composition and the gentrification stakeholders involved, which contributes to racial differences in the scale and pace of change and the implications of those changes for the processes of displacement. Revising our understanding of gentrification to address the racialization of space helps resolve seemingly contradictory findings across qualitative and quantitative studies.

On the Interdependence of Liberal and Illiberal/Authoritarian Legal Forms in Racial Capitalist Regimes…The Case of the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McCann ◽  
Filiz Kahraman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The United States ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Legal Forms

Scholars conventionally distinguish between liberal and illiberal, or authoritarian, legal orders. Such distinctions are useful but often simplistic and misleading, as many regimes are governed by plural, dual, or hybrid legal institutions, principles, and practices. This is no less true for the United States, which often is misidentified as the paradigmatic liberal constitutional order. Historical and critical scholarship, including recent studies of law under racial capitalism, provide reason to identify American law as a dual state in which legal forms that govern property ownership, contract relations, and civil liberties of free citizens differ from the more illiberal, authoritarian legal forms that rule over subaltern populations, particularly racialized, low-wage workers, Indigenous populations, the poor, immigrants, and women. This dual state, we argue, did undergo changes to adopt more procedurally liberal, professional, overtly deracialized legal forms after World War II, but these changes masked more than tamed the continuing illiberal, authoritarian violence that targeted marginalized citizens. While constantly changing, the American legal system is best understood not as a singular liberal order but instead as a hybrid system of mutually constitutive liberal and illiberal and authoritarian legal practices. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Developing and Monitoring a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan for an Energy-Producing Community

2017 ◽  
pp. 101-124
Keyword(s):  
Energy Savings ◽  
Sustainable Energy ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
District Heating ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
Heating Systems ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Alternative Scenarios ◽  
Climate Action Plan ◽  
The City

The development, implementation and monitoring of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan require a significant amount of data and analysis, as well as an effective and comprehensive decision making process. This chapter presents the pilot application of the proposed “MPC+ (Map - Plan - Choose - Check)” framework, through the “Action3” Decision Support System, in a Greek energy-producing community. The pilot application is conducted in three phases, namely the development of the baseline emission inventory (Phase I), the creation and evaluation of alternative Scenarios of Actions (Phase II) and the monitoring of the actions and measures implemented (Phase III). The city's univocal economy orientation of energy production through lignite is considered as a basic, inhibitory factor towards sustainability. In this respect, the city has committed to implement a series of appropriate renewable energy and rational use of energy activities in its territory, laying balanced emphasis on the local energy and heat production, and the promotion and implementation of measures on energy savings. A significant part of the CO2 emissions' reduction will come from the installation of biomass district heating systems in local communities.

scholarly journals Bibliotherapy for Mental Health

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Jennifer Yontz-Orlando
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Health ◽  
Group Setting ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Uk

The United States is facing an epidemic of mental illness, affecting nearly 60 million Americans annually (http://www.nami.org/ ). The World Health Organization describes mental health as “a long neglected problem” and has established an action plan for 2013-2020 (http://www.who.int/mental_health/action_plan_2013/en/). One way to combat mental illness is through bibliotherapy, which is the use of written materials including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to support emotional and psychiatric healing.Bibliotherapy has been in existence since ancient times, but began in earnest in the United States in the 1850’s during the “Great Awakening.” At that time, mental illness began to be seen as a medical condition rather than a supernatural phenomenon. Since then, due to the changing nature of our institutions, interest in bibliotherapy waned until the 1950’s when there was a slight resurgence in its practice. However, in the last 20 years, bibliotherapy has gained a stronghold in the United Kingdom. To relieve the stress of an overcrowded mental health system, public policy in the UK has supported the use of bibliotherapy in a variety of its institutions. There are many ways to conduct bibliotherapy, but studies show that when the process is interactive, such as in a support group setting, the results are better. Also, bibliotherapy can be conducted by many sorts of professionals, including doctors, therapists, social workers, teachers, and librarians. Studies also show that when the bibliotherapists are trained in the best practices of bibliotherapy, results improve. Bibliotherapy is an effective, low-cost alternative for people in need of therapeutic assistance. The UK model should be studied and implemented in the United States and in other nations to help solve the mental health crisis.

scholarly journals Racial Capitalism: A Fundamental Cause of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Inequities in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whitney N. Laster Pirtle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Multiple Risk Factors ◽  
Flexible Resources ◽  
Fundamental Cause ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Consequences Of Disease

Racial capitalism is a fundamental cause of the racial and socioeconomic inequities within the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in the United States. The overrepresentation of Black death reported in Detroit, Michigan is a case study for this argument. Racism and capitalism mutually construct harmful social conditions that fundamentally shape COVID-19 disease inequities because they (a) shape multiple diseases that interact with COVID-19 to influence poor health outcomes; (b) affect disease outcomes through increasing multiple risk factors for poor, people of color, including racial residential segregation, homelessness, and medical bias; (c) shape access to flexible resources, such as medical knowledge and freedom, which can be used to minimize both risks and the consequences of disease; and (d) replicate historical patterns of inequities within pandemics, despite newer intervening mechanisms thought to ameliorate health consequences. Interventions should address social inequality to achieve health equity across pandemics.

scholarly journals Fusing subnational with national climate action is central to decarbonization: the case of the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan E. Hultman ◽  
Leon Clarke ◽  
Carla Frisch ◽  
Kevin Kennedy ◽  
Haewon McJeon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Integrated Assessment Model ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Emissions Reductions ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Reduce Emissions

Abstract Approaches that root national climate strategies in local actions will be essential for all countries as they develop new nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. The potential impact of climate action from non-national actors in delivering higher global ambition is significant. Sub-national action in the United States provides a test for how such actions can accelerate emissions reductions. We aggregated U.S. state, city, and business commitments within an integrated assessment model to assess how a national climate strategy can be built upon non-state actions. We find that existing commitments alone could reduce emissions 25% below 2005 levels by 2030, and that enhancing actions by these actors could reduce emissions up to 37%. We show how these actions can provide a stepped-up basis for additional federal action to reduce emissions by 49%—consistent with 1.5 °C. Our analysis demonstrates sub-national actions can lead to substantial reductions and support increased national action.

Engaging publics through climate math

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiara R. Na’puti ◽  
Phaedra C. Pezzullo ◽  
Leah Sprain ◽  
Lydia Reinig
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Environmental Planning ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
National Leader ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Climate Action Plan ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The City

Abstract Energy democracy hopes to foster community engagement and participation in shaping our transition from fossil fuels to a renewable energy-based economy. These considerations result from critiques by environmental justice, climate justice, and just transition advocates. Although many are sympathetic to energy democracy ideals, climate goals often are articulated in math terms. This essay defines the aforementioned key terms and asks: what are the limitations and possibilities of engaging publics when climate action solely is articulated in numbers? A compelling case study is the City of Boulder – recognized as a global leader in climate science and a national leader in innovative environmental planning. This essay shares work from 2016, when the City shared a climate action plan for public feedback, supported several public participation events, and passed climate action legislation goals. We argue a just transition and energy democracy ideals are hindered if we reduce climate goals to math.

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