Widening the gap: US think tanks and the manufactured chasm between scientific expertise and common sense on climate change

As our contemporary problems of climate change, pandemics, tech reform, and worldwide wealth inequality demand global solidarities, cooperation, and collective and empathetic imagination, we need approaches that can carve critical pathways for an inclusive technological future. Much as technology is created to transcend borders and cultures, this essay proposes that cross-cultural feminism can do the same. This essay pioneers a framework that enables us to strive for global solidarities while decolonizing the feminist “common sense” that is institutionalized into how technologies are shaped. We advocate for an approach grounded in the materiality (embodiments), mobility (social movements), and modality (codes and modes of design). We believe this three-pronged lens can inform practice and help set the tenor for how to build cross-cultural feminist technologies for an inclusive future.

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What Can We Do?

Dying to Work ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501709982.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jonathan D. Karmel

Keyword(s):

Common Sense ◽

Regulatory Reform ◽

Compensation System ◽

Think Tanks ◽

Worker Safety ◽

Workers Compensation ◽

Cato Institute

Chapter Six asks whether we have done everything possible to keep Americans safe at work. The answers to that question are a discussion of common sense reforms that if implemented will make Americans safer at work. But, anticipating the anti-regulatory arguments from self-described free marketers, Chapter Six first rebuts these arguments championed by conservative think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Mercatus Center, and funded by Charles and David Koch, among others.Thereafter, Chapter Six discusses how reforming the workers compensation system, enhancing the penalties and criminal provisions in the OSHAct, criminally prosecuting employers like Don Blankenship, regulatory reform and more local worker safety laws will help keep Americans safer at work.

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Economy

Billionaires in World Politics ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198852711.003.0006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 154-184

Author(s):

Peter Hägel

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Economy ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Think Tanks ◽

Political Consequences ◽

Business Interests ◽

Political Resource ◽

Shaping Power ◽

The Uk ◽

Change Mitigation

Chapter 6 presents two cases of billionaires whose pursuit of wealth in the global economy has broader political consequences. It looks at how Charles and David Koch have tried to limit climate change mitigation in order to protect the fossil fuel–based business interests of their conglomerate Koch Industries. The Koch brothers spread climate change skepticism via the funding of think tanks and public advocacy, and they finance campaigns boosting politicians that oppose climate change mitigation. In Rupert Murdoch’s case, his News Corporation has been his main political resource. He has used the opinion-shaping power of his media empire to extract favors from politicians abroad, especially in the UK, but also in Australia, by offering support (or threatening hostility) during election times.

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