MUSE in Focus:
Humanity’s “Code Red” on Climate Change

Environmental educators face a formidable challenge when they approach climate change due to the complexity of the science and of the political and cultural contexts in which people live. There is a clear consensus among climate scientists that climate change is already occurring as a result of human activities, but high levels of climate change awareness and growing levels of concern have not translated into meaningful action. Communicating Climate Change provides environmental educators with an understanding of how their audiences engage with climate change information as well as with concrete, empirically tested communication tools they can use to enhance their climate change program.

Starting with the basics of climate science and climate change public opinion, Armstrong, Krasny, and Schuldt synthesize research from environmental psychology and climate change communication, weaving in examples of environmental education applications throughout this practical book. Each chapter covers a separate topic, from how environmental psychology explains the complex ways in which people interact with climate change information to communication strategies with a focus on framing, metaphors, and messengers. This broad set of topics will aid educators in formulating program language for their classrooms at all levels. Communicating Climate Change uses fictional vignettes of climate change education programs and true stories from climate change educators working in the field to illustrate the possibilities of applying research to practice. Armstrong et al, ably demonstrate that environmental education is an important player in fostering positive climate change dialogue and subsequent climate change action.

Thanks to generous funding from Cornell University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other Open Access repositories.

Our Changing Menu helps us understand how to think about food, rather than what to think. The diversity of the co-authors' experiences is woven together to create awareness and help us get involved in improving our diets, while reducing food waste and food's impacts on climate change and the planet.— Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Markets, World Wildlife Fund

Our Changing Menu unpacks the increasingly complex relationships between food and climate change. Whether you're a chef, baker, distiller, restaurateur, or someone who simply enjoys a good pizza or drink, it's time to come to terms with how climate change is affecting our diverse and interwoven food system.

Michael P. Hoffmann, Carrie Koplinka-Loehr, and Danielle L. Eiseman offer an eye-opening journey through a complete menu of before-dinner drinks and salads; main courses and sides; and coffee and dessert. Along the way they examine the escalating changes occurring to the flavors of spices and teas, the yields of wheat, the vitamins in rice, and the price of vanilla. Their story is rounded out with a primer on the global food system, the causes and impacts of climate change, and what we can all do.

Our Changing Menu is a celebration of food and a call to action—encouraging readers to join with others from the common ground of food to help tackle the greatest challenge of our time. 

The consequences of twenty-first-century sea level rise on the United States and its nearly 90,000 miles of shoreline will be immense: Miami and New Orleans will disappear; many nuclear and other power plants, hundreds of wastewater plants and toxic waste sites, and oil production facilities will be at risk; port infrastructures will need to be raised; and over ten million Americans fleeing rising seas will become climate refugees. In Sea Level Rise Orrin H. Pilkey and Keith C. Pilkey argue that the only feasible response along much of the U.S. shoreline is an immediate and managed retreat. Among many topics, they examine sea level rise's effects on coastal ecosystems, health, and native Alaskan coastal communities. They also provide guidelines for those living on the coasts or planning on moving to or away from them, as well as the steps local governments should take to prepare for this unstoppable, impending catastrophe.

A graphic novel that confronts our habits, narratives, and fantasies head-on to help
break our petroleum dependency

What if the biggest barriers to responding to climate change are not technological or governmental but, rather, cultural? In other words, what if we ourselves could help to enact change through a deeper understanding of our petroleum dependency? In a provocative graphic format that draws widely from history, critical theory, and popular culture, Gasoline Dreams explores and challenges the ways fossil fuels have shaped our identities, relationships, and our ability to imagine sustainable, equitable futures.

As our rapidly warming planet is pushed toward ecological collapse, we might often feel helpless or paralyzed by the enormity of the challenges confronting us. However, reflecting upon the cultural dimensions of our predicament helps reveal the great potential for social transformation inherent in the multiplying crises. Author and artist Simon Orpana engages with contemporary scholarship in the emergent field of Energy Humanities to confront the habits, narratives, and fantasies that support our attachment to fossil fuels. By revealing the many ways petroculture repeatedly fails to deliver on its promises of “the good life,” Gasoline Dreams calls us to the difficult work of waking up from the fantasies that inhibit us from working toward a global transition to renewable energy.

Written in an engaging graphic format that makes relevant historical, cultural, and political analyses of global warming and petrol dependency important to a wide audience, Gasoline Dreams refutes the progress narratives that depict contemporary, energy-intensive societies as the inevitable product of human history. By revealing the contingencies, coercions, and compulsions this myth disguises, the book allows us to imagine truly progressive alternatives. Rather than casting climate change as a problem for technological elites to solve, the book confronts the everyday realities that reinforce our dependence on fossil fuels, offering a space of hope and engagement from which concerned people can work to build a more sustainable future.

On the threshold of the single greatest transformation the human species has yet faced, Gasoline Dreams challenges us to start living, working, and dreaming differently to become less culturally dependent on petroleum.

A critique of population control narratives reproduced by international development actors in the 21st century

Since the turn of the millennium, American media, scientists, and environmental activists have insisted that the global population crisis is “back”—and that the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change is to ensure women’s universal access to contraception. Did the population problem ever disappear? What is bringing it back—and why now? In On Infertile Ground, Jade S. Sasser explores how a small network of international development actors, including private donors, NGO program managers, scientists, and youth advocates, is bringing population back to the center of public environmental debate. While these narratives never disappeared, Sasser argues, histories of human rights abuses, racism, and a conservative backlash against abortion in the 1980s drove them underground—until now.

Using interviews and case studies from a wide range of sites—from Silicon Valley foundation headquarters to youth advocacy trainings, the halls of Congress and an international climate change conference—Sasser demonstrates how population growth has been reframed as an urgent source of climate crisis and a unique opportunity to support women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. ­Although well-intentioned—promoting positive action, women’s empowerment, and moral accountability to a global community—these groups also perpetuate the same myths about the sexuality and lack of virtue and control of women and the people of global south that have been debunked for decades. Unless the development community recognizes the pervasive repackaging of failed narratives, Sasser argues, true change and development progress will not be possible.

On Infertile Ground presents a unique critique of international development that blends the study of feminism, environmentalism, and activism in a groundbreaking way. It will make any development professional take a second look at the ideals driving their work.

The consequences of climate change, increasing storm surge, and rising sea levels are being seen and felt by coastal communities across the globe as hurricanes, coastal storms, and flooding increase in intensity and frequency. Understanding how coastal communities around the world have adapted to these challenging environments can help identify not only the strategies to better prepare our vulnerable cities, but also the attitudes that are most effective in producing constructive solutions.

Protecting Historic Coastal Cities presents an overview of how historic communities in coastal environments understand and confront the unique challenges they face. It represents a variety of disciplines including historical preservation, public history, environmental science, engineering, and architecture. Authors explore communities that take a proactive approach to the special circumstance of living on a coast—historic preservation efforts in the midst of hurricane response, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the subsequent raising of Galveston Island, resilient housing initiatives in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, aggressive public infrastructure changes in Miami Beach, and pioneering advances in flood protection in the Netherlands.

Each disaster is different, and the unique characteristics of the event determine approaches to recovery as well as funding from both insurance and government. As we prepare for future disasters, we must understand the underlying conditions that make us vulnerable as human beings and recognize the links between the built environment and the natural environment. In Protecting Historic Coastal Cities, the authors assert that building resilient coastal communities requires a profound understanding of this relationship to confront the extreme conditions of living and working in coastal areas around the world.

Over vast expanses of time, fire and humanity have interacted to expand the domain of each, transforming the earth and what it means to be human. In this concise yet wide-ranging book, Stephen J. Pyne—named by Science magazine as “the world’s leading authority on the history of fire”—explores the surprising dynamics of fire before humans, fire and human origins, aboriginal economies of hunting and foraging, agricultural and pastoral uses of fire, fire ceremonies, fire as an idea and a technology, and industrial fire.

In this revised and expanded edition, Pyne looks to the future of fire as a constant, defining presence on Earth. A new chapter explores the importance of fire in the twenty-first century, with special attention to its role in the Anthropocene, or what he posits might equally be called the Pyrocene.

In 1958, Charles David Keeling began measuring the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. His project kicked off a half century of research that has expanded our knowledge of climate change. Despite more than fifty years of research, however, our global society has yet to find real solutions to the problem of global warming. Why?

In Behind the Curve, Joshua Howe attempts to answer this question. He explores the history of global warming from its roots as a scientific curiosity to its place at the center of international environmental politics. The book follows the story of rising CO2—illustrated by the now famous Keeling Curve—through a number of historical contexts, highlighting the relationships among scientists, environmentalists, and politicians as those relationships changed over time.

The nature of the problem itself, Howe explains, has privileged scientists as the primary spokespeople for the global climate. But while the “science first” forms of advocacy they developed to fight global warming produced more and better science, the primacy of science in global warming politics has failed to produce meaningful results. In fact, an often exclusive focus on science has left advocates for change vulnerable to political opposition and has limited much of the discussion to debates about the science itself.

As a result, while we know much more about global warming than we did fifty years ago, CO2 continues to rise. In 1958, Keeling first measured CO2 at around 315 parts per million; by 2013, global CO2 had soared to 400 ppm. The problem is not getting better - it's getting worse. Behind the Curve offers a critical and levelheaded look at how we got here.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title

The first volume to focus on suburbs and sustainability in the United States, this collection approaches the topic through regionally diverse case studies. Departing from the more widely examined issue of urban sustainability, contributors argue that the suburbs present a unique and important challenge given their greater land mass, lower population density, lower tax rates, and more limited government services.

The studies featured in this volume analyze the impact of planning, social and economic concerns, environmental factors such as air pollution and climate change, and water management on suburban communities. Areas of focus include suburbs of New York City, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New Orleans, and Tampa. In these examples, contributors show that activism and leadership are currently advancing a strong sustainability agenda in regions many would have believed unlikely.

Through these case studies, this volume demonstrates that the suburbs are a crucial nexus for sustainability in the United States. Because suburbs have been overlooked in most green initiatives, and because they play such a vital role in the future of American housing and development, these essays call for more research and continued creative innovation in these areas.

Contributors: Troy D. Abel | Simon A. Andrew | Viney P. Aneja | Miles Ballogg | William H. Battye | Casey D. Bray | Vaswati Chatterjee | Stacy Clauson | Craig E. Colten | Sarah Combs | Yonn Dierwechter | Richard C. Feiock | Michael H. Finewood | Melissa M. Grigione | John Harner | Mathew K. Huxel | Mike Johnson | Gabrielle R. Lehigh | Elizabeth Mattiuzzi | Sean McGreevey | Susan M. Opp | Michaela C. Peterson | Benjamin L. Ruddell | Richard R. Rushforth | Debra Salazar | Ronald Sarno | Mallory Thomas | Carolina A. Urrea | Pornpan Uttamang | E. Christian Wells

Capitalism’s addiction to fossil fuels is heating our planet at a pace and scale never before experienced. Extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels and accelerating feedback loops are a commonplace feature of our lives. The number of environmental refugees is increasing and several island states and low-lying countries are becoming vulnerable. Corporate-induced climate change has set us on an ecocidal path of species extinction. Governments and their international platforms such as the Paris Climate Agreement deliver too little, too late. Most states, including South Africa, continue on their carbon-intensive energy paths, with devastating results. Political leaders across the world are failing to provide systemic solutions to the climate crisis. This is the context in which we must ask ourselves: how can people and class agency change this destructive course of history? Volume three in the Democratic Marxism series, The Climate Crisis investigates eco-socialist alternatives that are emerging. It presents the thinking of leading climate justice activists, campaigners and social movements advancing systemic alternatives and developing bottom-up, just transitions to sustain life. Through a combination of theoretical and empirical work, the authors collectively examine the challenges and opportunities inherent in the current moment. This volume builds on the class-struggle focus of Volume 2 by placing ecological issues at the centre of democratic Marxism. Most importantly, it explores ways to renew historical socialism with democratic, eco-socialist alternatives to meet current challenges in South Africa and the world.Indexed in Clarivate Analytics Book Citation Index (Web of Science Core Collection)

Abstract:

Concepts of the everyday typically correlate with the normal and regular, while narratives of climate change are structured by predictions that exceed the normal. Since extreme events of climate change are not assimilable into the everyday, their destabilizing effects heighten destructive feedback loops mediated through fear. Developing psychic and social resilience necessary for re-routing climate change predictions from their direst outcomes thus requires transformed relations to the everyday. After analyzing how a default conception of the everyday hinders existential adaptation, I draw on Jean-Luc Nancy, Alfred North Whitehead, and William James to develop a concept of the everyday that emphasizes precarity, multiplicity, and creativity as better fostering social and psychic resilience amidst destabilization. This different concept of the everyday is necessary for learning how to live meaningful daily lives not predicated on an illusion that all is well or the fantasy that climate change can be resolved through a perpetuation of current norms of the everyday.

Abstract:

The past two decades have seen a significant shift in the Caribbean's development landscape, with climate change becoming the focal point of regional policy and planning. These initiatives represent a major shift in the region's development policy arena—a shift that is premised on the transformational, if not apocalyptic, implications that anthropogenic climate change seem to pose for the Caribbean. The discourses that have shaped this policy shift and their wider implications for the region's future development trajectory are the central focus of this paper. First, we provide an overview of the current climate change science literature for the Caribbean and discuss some of the main implications for regional development. We then trace and assess the region's major policy responses to climate change, paying keen attention to the Caribbean Community's strategic approach for promoting climate-compatible development over the past two decades. We conclude by critically exploring the notion that global climate change poses an 'existential threat' to the Caribbean, amidst its potential to erode or even reverse whatever developmental gains the region has achieved since the post-independence era and the region's own state of readiness to respond effectively to such an unprecedented challenge.

Resumen:

Las últimas dos décadas han visto un cambio significativo en el panorama de desarrollo del Caribe, con el cambio climático convirtiéndose en el punto central de la política y planificación regional. Estas iniciativas representan un cambio importante en el ámbito de la política de desarrollo de la región, un cambio que se basa en las implicaciones transformadoras, sino apocalípticas, que el cambio climático antropogénico parece representar para el Caribe. Los discursos que han dado forma a este cambio de política y sus implicaciones más amplias para la futura trayectoria de desarrollo de la región son el foco central de este artículo. Primero, proporcionamos una visión general de la literatura científica actual sobre el cambio climático para el Caribe y discutimos algunas de las principales implicaciones para el desarrollo regional. Luego, rastreamos y evaluamos las principales respuestas políticas de la región al cambio climático, prestando especial atención al enfoque estratégico de la Comunidad del Caribe para promover un desarrollo compatible con el clima en las últimas dos décadas. Concluimos explorando críticamente la noción de que el cambio climático global representa una "amenaza existencial" para el Caribe; su potencial para erosionar o incluso revertir cualquier ganancia que lograda en la región, en términos de desarrollo, desde la era posterior a las independencias: y el estado de preparación de la región para responder de manera efectiva a un desafío sin precedentes.

Résumé:

Au cours des vingt dernières années, la Caraïbe a connu un grand changement en ce qui concerne son développement, puisque le réchauffement climatique est désormais au coeur de la politique et de planification de la région. Les initiatives entreprises représentent un changement majeur dans la politique dédiée au développement de la région, changement qui impliquent des transformations profondes, sinon chaotiques, que le réchauffement climatique lié aux facteurs anthropogènes semble poser pour la Caraïbe. Les discours qui soustendent ce changement de politique et leurs implications pour le développement et l'avenir de toute la région sont au coeur de notre contribution. Nous commencerons par une brève présentation de la littérature scientifique sur l'impact du réchauffement climatique pour la Caraïbe et nous discuterons de certaines des principales implications pour un développement régional. Puis nous passerons en revue et évaluerons les réponses politiques de la région au défi climatique, en nous attachant particulièrement à l'approche stratégique de la communauté caribéenne afin de promouvoir un développement tourné vers la préservation de l'environnement au cours des vingt dernières années. Enfin, nous explorerons la notion selon laquelle le réchauffement climatique constitue une "menace existentielle" pour la Caraïbe, en même temps qu'il a le potentiel de menacer, voire de réduire à néant tous les progrès réalisés dans la région depuis le début de la postindépendance, avant de présenter certaines mesures de préparation observables dans la région pour répondre efficacement à ce défi sans précédent.

Abstract:

Domestic policies are the cornerstone of the new global climate governance architecture. However, what motivates vote-seeking politicians to pursue climate policies remains remarkably unclear, as the climate politics literature suggests that climate policies are usually not perceived as a vote winner. The present article revisits this issue and argues that a better understanding of the relationship between electoral competition and climate policy making requires taking into account differences both in party ideologies and in policy characteristics. Studying twenty-nine democracies between 1990 and 2016, the analysis finds that climate policy production overall tends to increase as the election approaches due to increases in “soft” policies, such as subsidies, research grants, and information instruments, and relatively stable production rates of “hard” policies like taxes and regulations over the electoral term. Regarding partisan politics, left governments are found to produce more hard, but not more soft, climate policies than center and right governments, especially before elections. This suggests that partisan and electoral incentives are important reference points in the fight against climate change.

Abstract:

Despite recognition of the gender dimensions of climate change, there is little attention to racism in climate justice perspectives. In response, this article advocates developing an ecologically informed intersectional approach designed to disclose the ways racism contributes to the construction of illegible lives in the domain of climate policies and practices. Differential impacts of climate change, while an important dimension, is ultimately inadequate to understanding and responding to both climate justice and environmental racism. What is required is a rich understanding of the histories and lineages of the deep incorporation of racism and environmental exploitation. To catalyze such an approach to climate justice, this article develops an analysis of three instances of the intermingling of racism and environmental exploitation: climate adaptation practices in Lagos, Nigeria; the enmeshment of race and coal mining in the post–Civil War United States; and the infusing of precarity and rainforest destruction in Brazil.

ABSTRACT:

Cocoa production is highly vulnerable to fluctuations in some weather parameters and efforts are now channeled at reducing farmers' vulnerability through provision of some adaptive strategies. This study analyzed the effects of climate change adaptation strategies on income inequality among Ghanaian cocoa farmers. The data were collected from cocoa farmers using multi-stage sampling method. Out of the districts where cocoa is grown in the Ashanti region, Ahafo Ano North district was randomly selected. The sampling proceeded with compilation of the names of the villages in the District where cocoa is largely grown. Although 379 cocoa farmers were interviewed with structured questionnaires, this study made use of 349 respondents with completed information on their sources of income. Data were analyzed with factor component income inequality decomposition and regression-based approaches focusing on the Gini coefficient. The analyses were carried out with Distributive Analysis Stata Package (DASP) software. The results showed that high temperature was 69.63% of the farmers in 2015, while 70.20% observed more crop pests. Cocoa farmers tried to adapt to climate change through regular spraying of cocoa (74.9%), planting of hybrid seeds (68.50%) and changing of planting time (66.10%), diversification of livelihood sources (70.60%), monitoring of weather through media houses (59.6%) and indigenous knowledge (59.3%). The results further showed high income inequality among cocoa farmers (Gini = 0.6838). Farmers indicated they were among others spraying cocoa regularly, planting of hybrid seeds and changing cocoa's planting time as means of adapting to climate change. Crop income source was inequality reducing having accounted for 55.34% of all incomes but contributed 48.37% of inequality. Other income sources that reduced inequality were livestock, non-farm wages and remittances. Farmers' incomes were significantly influenced (p<0.05) with land area, possession of formal education, access to agricultural extension services, planting of hybrid seeds, change of planting time, coping index and diversification into other crops. Among these, income inequality increased with coping index and diversification into other crops. It was concluded that provision of more effective climate adaptation methods would enhance farmers' income and reduce inequality given recent fluctuations in some weather parameters.

Abstract:

Modern capitalism is most often understood as a European development beginning in the late eighteenth century, followed by a global spread accelerating after World War II. Less consensus exists on the reasons for this spread and on how recent episodes of economic development are similar to or differ from those that occurred in European history. Few have pondered the possible relevance of the ideologies and institutions of political economies in different world regions before the modern era and how the spread of modern capitalism has shaped their contemporary approaches to the future. This article sketches Chinese comparisons with and connections to patterns initially European in origin. It highlights the economic challenges of climate change, in particular comparing Chinese and European water policy reforms. The proposed payoff of this exercise is an additional perspective from which to ponder capitalism's future and what may emerge in its stead.

abstract:

Despite established science on climate change vulnerability as mediated by social status, policy discussions of climate change vulnerabilities often still treat smallholder farming communities as largely undifferentiated. Residents themselves, however, experience their own vulnerability in the context of their individual lives. Our research explored how residents of Calakmul, Mexico, perceived and experienced their own vulnerability to climate change. Fifty-five semi-structured interviews in 2013 and forty-three follow-up interviews in 2016 provide data on perceived effects of climate-related stressors on their livelihood activities, health, and experiences of hunger. Analysis focused on patterns in residents' everyday, lived experiences and on variation among individuals and families. Community status and associated resource access, variations in livelihood activities, and other situational aspects shaped interviewees' sense of their own vulnerabilities. In addition, residents reported a variety of options for coping with the effects of climate change, most of which required cash inputs. Yet they also reported that normal opportunities for obtaining cash through agricultural wage labor were likewise curtailed by climate change.

resumen:

Si bien la academia ha reconocido que la vulnerabilidad de individuos y comunidades al cambio climático es altamente influenciada por su estatus social, las políticas públicas siguen partiendo frecuentemente del supuesto de comunidades agrícolas homo-géneas. Sin embargo, los residentes experimentan su propia vulnerabilidad de manera individual. Nuestra investigación exploró cómo los residentes de Calakmul, México, percibieron y se desenvolvieron frente a su propia vulnerabilidad al cambio climático. Cincuenta y cinco entrevistas semiestructuradas en 2013 y cuarenta y tres entrevistas de seguimiento en 2016 proporcionan información sobre la percepción de los efectos del cambio climático en sus modos de vida, actividades, salud y la escasez de alimentos. El análisis se centró en los patrones de la vida diaria de los residentes, en las experiencias vividas, y en cómo esto varía entre comunidades, hogares e individuos. La situación de cada comunidad y el acceso a los distintos recursos, así como las variaciones en las actividades de subsistencia y otras circunstancias configuraron el sentido de vulnerabilidad de los entrevistados. Además, los residentes informaron una variedad de opciones para hacer frente a los efectos del cambio climático, la mayoría de las cuales requerían aportaciones en efectivo. Sin embargo, informaron que las oportunidades normales de obtener dinero en efectivo a través del trabajo asalariado agrícola también se han visto reducidas por el cambio climático.

ABSTRACT:

There is widespread confusion about the connection between COVID-19 and the larger problem of climate change. This article investigates the connection between the pandemic and climate crises in three ways. First, it examines how impactful emission reductions inspired by COVID-19 have helped prevent future climate catastrophe. Second, it shows why this pandemic is not a climate emergency at all but a routine feature of history. However, the article insists that these crises are connected by the anthropogenic influence of capitalism. Third, it examines ways that the pandemic has shifted beliefs that could be harnessed to help prevent the worst impacts of climate catastrophe, which remains the biggest problem to ever face life on earth.

RÉSUMÉ:

Il y a une confusion répandue au sujet de la connexion entre la COVID-19 et le plus grand problème des changements climatiques. Cet article examine la connexion entre la pandémie et la crise climatique de trois façons. Premièrement, il examine comment l’impact de la réduction des émissions causée par la COVID-19 a aidé à prévenir une catastrophe climatique future. Deuxièmement, il montre pourquoi cette pandémie n’est pas une urgence climatique du tout, mais un aspect routinier de l’histoire. Par contre, cet article maintient que ces crises sont connectées par l’influence anthropogénique du capitalisme. Troisièmement, il examine les manières dont la pandémie a changé des croyances qui pourraient être harnachées pour aider à prévenir les pires impacts de la catastrophe climatique, laquelle demeure le plus gros problème auquel la vie sur terre fait face.

ABSTRACT:

Gaïa Global Circus, a theatrical performance that interrogates the contemporary climate change crisis, is the product of a collaboration between Bruno Latour and the playwright Pierre Daubigny that emerged from his activities with SPEAP, the Sciences Po—Experimentation in Art and Politics program. This review essay analyzes the September 22, 2014, performance of the play in New York in relation to Latour's lectures on the Anthropocene, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (2017), as well as the fuller range of publicfacing scholarship Latour has been involved with through SPEAP and museum collaborations in recent years. This essay also situates Gaïa Global Circus in the context of activist environmental theater, from Bread & Puppet Theater's Our Domestic Resurrection Circus to Arm-of-the-Sea Theater's eco-spectacles about the Hudson River watershed.

Abstract:

Climate change is destroying the global commons to an extent unprecedented in human history. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has established clear targets for stabilizing the global mean temperature at no more than 1.5°C above preindus-trial levels: cutting global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent as of 2030 and achieving a net zero emissions global economy by 2050. This paper argues that a global green new deal can achieve the IPCC’s targets while also expanding decent job opportunities and raising mass living standards for working people and the poor throughout the world.