New paper: New York City as ‘fortress of solitude’ after Hurricane Sandy

[Daniel Aldana Cohen]

Hi all,

I wanted to pass on a new paper of mine, "New York City as ‘fortress of solitude’ after Hurricane Sandy: a relational sociology of extreme weather’s relationship to climate politics," out in Environmental Politics this week. (Apologies for cross-posting.)

Using a case study of New York's climate politics evolution after Hurricane Sandy, and building on essential work by many members of our section, the paper critiques some of the more superficial, optimistic takes that if we just link extreme weather to climate change, it will automatically yield good climate politics. And it sketches a theoretical framework that illuminates how actors' climate politics evolve after a disaster. I'd love to get feedback from anyone interested.

I think the paper may have some relevance during this horrible period of climate disasters. On the one hand, I've been so thrilled to see so many activists, scholars, and journalists call our Gov. Newsom's pro-fossil fuel drilling record in the midst of these fires. On the other hand, there seems to be a lot of discourse limited to "this is climate change!" The other day there was a story in the NYT about a "reckoning" with climate change in California that didn't mention GHG emissions or fossil fuels. I'm not sure where that gets us. Even if local adaptation is equitable, there can't be climate justice from a global perspective if affluent parts of the US pursue climate policies that don't slash emissions.

Pre-print here.

all best

Daniel

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Daniel Aldana Cohen (he, his, him)

Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

Director, Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2

Co-author, A Planet to Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal

Office: (215) 898-5614 | da...@sas.upenn.edu | www.aldanacohen.com 

Whatsapp: +1-646-920-3436