We got so sick of hearing about all the lithium we need to carpet the roads w electric cars. So we did the 1st study to quantify alternatives. Leading w mass transit, ebikes, and urban density cuts lithium demand by up to 90%, while slashing carbon & giving us mobility & freedom. .@triofrancos led this brilliant
@cpluscp
research project, in collaboration w expert EV modelers at UC Davis. We also worked w frontline groups in Nevada and Chile. And we produced our report in both English and Spanish. Less mining, more mobility 💥
climateandcommunity.org/more-mobility-…

I'm thrilled to be starting the first substantive week of my class this semester, "The Sociology of the Climate Emergency." I'll be posting some links and readings as I go along. First up, our syllabus. Next, today's readings...

docs.google.com/document/d/1HO… To dig into an emerging (if still contested) consensus that we're now looking at a narrow climate future of 2C to 3C warming, we read @dwallacewells's latest NYT Mag opus.

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

I want to quickly clarify an offhand, sloppy tweet I wrote last week. A lil 🧵 for those who were genuinely curious about what I meant. I use eco-apartheid as shorthand for situations where the affluent (& usually white) get lovely green amenities, while others are locked into miserable conditions, w the inequalities sustained by racist state violence. Obv, cities/housing matter here.

Tomorrow, the IPCC will issue a massive new report. It will find that, basically, we need a Green New Deal, w incredibly ambitious public action to coordinate and help fund trillions in green investment to prevent total climate breakdown.

Hardly anyone will talk about it. 1/4 In the US, centrists thought ditching the Green New Deal would allow Dems to focus on more pragmatic, concrete actions.

But now the only narrative is Manchin blocking Biden. 😵‍💫

There's no rousing meta-narrative frame for ambitious climate action linked to jobs and equity. 2/4

What if we focused on 2030 less as ultimate climate deadline, and more as double-down moment? In that timeline, winning this decade involves blocking fascisms & white nationalisms, major progress in energy sector decarb, *start* of large-scale retrofits. Years of Beginning. Accomplishing all the hard stuff by 2030 looks… extremely hard. But building momentum on decarb (& adaptation!) while repelling fascist rights would be a decent achievement! In many sectors, success would beget accelerating success. Building retrofit costs will really come down.

A (v long) thread on the Bowman affair, inspired by over a decade of research and work on the Brazilian left. (And my lifetime of immersion in Lat Am politics.) To finally get elected President in 2002, Lula wrote a public letter swearing fealty to neoliberalism. He kept most of those promises.

nacla.org/article/lula%E…

The answer is that socialist engagement in federal politics is good. Obviously! Bowman has been a strong DSA ally on most issues. He’s helped advance the DSA agenda. Just as socialists benefit from Bernie from being a socialist, even if he’s bad on some issues.

https://twitter.com/Econ_Marshall/status/1465815892403515396

DSA doesn’t need to expel or censure Bowman for breaking their (v good) line on Palestine. There are other options for long-term engagement, organizing, persuasion, etc. If none of that works, fine, reconsider. On the hardest issue in US politics, it’s ok to take a minute.

It's troubling when left magazines write about *the big issues* facing internationalist left politics and don't mention climate breakdown. This lets them evade any issues of timeline, or frankly some of the direst threats to working class ppl worldwide, esp in the Global South. At this point I would just term any discussion of global politics that doesn't address climate to be idealist. If the German Ideology were written today, it would be a send-up of everyone who ignores the melting, burning, and flooding of the earth in working class struggles.

Bowman has incredible potential to advance the multiracial working class struggle in the US & abroad.

Yeah, he's done bad stuff. So have Lula, Evo, & other DSA faves.

We can critique the bad AND recognize that overall, Bowman's a courageous, effective DSA member in Congress. Lots of DSA folks want Lula to be the next President of Brazil. You can't imagine how many times he could have been expelled from the Workers Party for deviating from party platforms. Pick any leftist who's held high office. They've done stuff that rightly enraged their base.

“Greater Paris’s success [in homebuilding] is due to leadership, plain and simple, according to @yfreemark.”

“Greater Paris had, writes Freemark, ‘a government-led attack on the housing-production problem.’”

sightline.org/2021/07/26/yes… “France spends 1.5 percent of GDP on housing subsidies for low- and moderate-income households: roughly 6x as much as the US, adjusted for GDP. In greater Paris overall, 1/3 of dwellings are either social housing units or private units rented by tenants w cash rental assistance.”

My take on carbon capture: only the most aggressive reduction of fossil fuel use, and deployment of renewable energy + energy efficiency, would make carbon capture a feasible option to stabilize the climate. If you want a WW2 mobilization on something, start w the good stuff! It's very weird when people counterpose a potentially important—but relatively small—part of the solution to the most important (and cheapest) parts that have to happen the soonest.

Eyes on the goddamn prize! And short-term, that's oddles of wind, solar, storage, retrofits.

Now we’re talking! @AOC + @BernieSanders are dropping an improved Green New Deal for Public Housing bill to save the US's million units of public housing w healthy, green retrofits.

NYT has the story, linking our @cpluscp research report.

nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/… I'm proud to lead new research w @cpluscp explaining how a GND for Public Housing would help us deliver real climate investment in disadvantaged community, why we need to spend $119B-$172B, and why this new bill is so good for housing residents—and labor.

climateandcommunity.org/a-gnd-for-publ…

Searing racial political economy of urban police power.

“Police budgets grow with the political heft of the rich, which overpowers majorities. And almost all the truly rich live in blue cities.”

motherjones.com/anti-racism-po… Truly a must-read. A powerful reminder that no one is going to persuade a well-meaning liberal ruler to change basic power relations.

There’s a reason the media first sneered at, then did everything to domesticate, OWS, BLM, and the GND—it’s disruptive mobilization they fear.

Schumer + some other NYC legislators want $80B for public housing. It's a real but small step forward.

My research team has done the math: We need way more than $80B to save public housing w high levels of health + sustainability + union jobs.

https://twitter.com/Quicktake/status/1383824619077980167

We need a Green New Deal for Public Housing funded at well over $100B over ten years.

Schumer's proposal *could be* a down payment on the GND for Public Housing. But that would require careful program design and using his power to secure more funds.

dataforprogress.org/green-new-deal…

My guess is that we're entering a protracted general crisis, with the constitution at the center of it, that could last a decade or more. New Deal and Reconstruction level. A brutally contested election, court-packing, abolishing the filibuster, DC statehood are just the start. The prospect of a 6-3 Supreme Court hits a nerve.

Half the country or more will soon see the current constitutional order as entrenching white nationalist minority rule.

The rest will see opportunistic attacks on the sacred constitution and the identity of the nation.

I'm thrilled to share my new article on NYC's climate politics after Hurricane Sandy.

Core claim: Weather can't do the work of politics. After the storm, elite + grassroots actors agreed, climate made Sandy worse. Then they sidelined low-carbon policy.

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108… Penn's press office has a nice write-up of the piece, emphasizing 2 other core points:

1/ Most research on extreme weather's impact on climate politics comes from opinion surveys. They're superficial and don't capture policy detail or political process.

penntoday.upenn.edu/news/Penn-soci…

Send. These. Lying. Mass. Murderers. To. The. Hague.

nytimes.com/2020/09/12/cli… Fossil fuel companies are burning down the sky. And yes, their executives will lie at every opportunity to keep the scam going. Because every day they burn, they get richer.

Some things in climate politics are complicated. And some aren't. The CEOs are mass murderers.

I feel seen

idrlabs.com/star-trek-tng/… Dammit, I was going for Picard, not Q!!!

It's weird to talk about climate change as an "opportunity" to create jobs bc it's not. Climate change sucks.

It's the combo of good green technology (often public-supported) and a growing mass movement that created the opportunity to the transform economy, eg w good jobs. It's just annoying how much mangled climate rhetoric is out there, bc the ppl writing it haven't through this stuff w any care.

Result is climate word mashups that make no sense and probably alienate people.

Think it through, or listen to the movements that already have!

In '09, Obama spent ~$80 billion in green stimulus.

Rn Biden is promising $2 TRILLION in green stimulus. That's 25x bigger than last time.

Progressives: wake up! Give or take $500B, the next 4 years will be a massive fight over the substance of green investment. Worry about eco-apartheid, not mere green-washing. Capitalism is transforming irrevocably. If you're not worried about green capitalism, you're fighting yesterday's war.

It's not a question of Biden's sincerity. We still have to fight fossil fuels.

Capitalism is changing.

Incredible: We finally have a detailed blueprint for an urban Green New Deal + Just Recovery!

Ty @wutrain for this glorious doc, full of ideas like free express bus routes + green cooperative housing. It will kickstart urban GND scheming countrywide 🙌🏼

https://twitter.com/wutrain/status/1295356804931756033?s=20

It's a huge honor to see A Planet to Win cited on the need for a *radical* GND.

And I was blown away when I met @wutrain, her team, and at least a dozen community leaders during the drafting process. This doc reflects a serious, wide-ranging effort to rethink urban politics.