DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0008
G. Mann
{"title":"Markets Won’t Stop Fossil Fuels","authors":"G. Mann","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0008","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In early January, the United Arab Emirates named Sultan Al Jaber president of COP28, the twenty-eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Al Jaber is CEO of the UAE’s state-owned oil company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), and chair of the board of Masdar, the state-owned renewable energy corporation. He has announced his commitment to bring the private sector’s “business mindset” to bear on “a pragmatic, realistic and solutions-oriented approach that delivers transformative progress for climate and for low-carbon economic growth.” Meanwhile, ADNOC is currently planning to increase production from 4.3 to 5.1 million barrels of oil per day by 2027, and potentially to 6 million or more by 2030—the very same year COP21’s Paris Agreement set as the deadline for a 43 percent reduction in global emissions.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"54 1","pages":"45 - 49"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85629484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0011
Amna A. Akbar
{"title":"The Fight Against Cop City","authors":"Amna A. Akbar","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0011","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:On Saturday, March 4, I arrived at Intrenchment Creek Park in DeKalb County, Georgia, for the first day of a week of action against a $90 million construction project undertaken by the Atlanta Police Foundation—a private entity, backed by local CEOs and political leaders, that advances police interests. The foundation wants to raze eighty-five acres of public forest to build the largest police training facility in the United States, complete with a firing range, a burn building, and a “kill house” designed to mimic urban combat scenarios. It also argues that the facility will boost morale among officers. The size and scale of the project, and the destruction and deforestation it will require, have led a growing number of activists, organizers, and community members to object to what they call “Cop City.” The campaign against Cop City is simultaneously a campaign to defend the Weelaunee Forest, the name used for the area by the Muscogee Creek people forcibly displaced by settlers from the land in the early 1800s before it became the site of the notorious Atlanta Prison Farm. These elements of the campaign—the histories on which it draws, what it’s fighting against and for, who it is bringing together, and how—have given it tremendous staying power despite extraordinary odds.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"14 1","pages":"62 - 70"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87648033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0015
W. Kornblum
{"title":"Homeless in Midtown: The View from Mainchance","authors":"W. Kornblum","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0015","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Alice M. speaks with some difficulty due to an early childhood brain injury. She worked with counselors at Mainchance—a New York City center for homeless adults where I volunteer as chair of the board—for four years before securing a studio in supportive housing with a Catholic agency in Queens. Proud of her childhood in Harlem, she has been in and out of institutional settings for most of her life. Her last bout of homelessness on the street lasted four years. For three years she slept in respite beds in churches and synagogues connected to Mainchance. She found employment in a sheltered workshop, established a bank account, and saved money while awaiting her eventual placement. Her face lights up when she talks about the kitchenette in her new residence.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"36 1","pages":"104 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86220717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0020
Nia T. Evans
{"title":"Yearning for Freedom","authors":"Nia T. Evans","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0020","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:They could be any couple. The man appears to be talking or resting. The woman wears a furrowed brow, her face illuminated and surrounded by shadow. The title gives them away: they are Amina and Amiri Baraka, the celebrated poets and political activists, captured on film by Ming Smith. To mention the Barakas is to summon seismic political and cultural forces, but here they are simply two lovers, perhaps recuperating after a long day.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"41 1","pages":"136 - 136"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82253173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0006
Patrick Bigger, S. Nelson
{"title":"Fighting Fire and Fascism in the American West","authors":"Patrick Bigger, S. Nelson","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Late in the summer of 2020, forests across the western United States were on fire. In that year alone, California experienced six of the twenty largest fires in its recorded history, including the North Complex Fire, which killed sixteen people and burned more than 300,000 acres. Further north, the Beachie Creek and Lionshead fires merged near the Oregon-Washington border, ultimately burning more than 600 square miles (an area roughly half the size of Rhode Island) and killing five people. Across the West, more than 10 million acres burned—the second-highest annual figure since record-keeping began—incurring $18.9 billion in economic losses and firefighting costs.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"101 1","pages":"30 - 37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77423331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0010
J. Cha
{"title":"The Future of the Labor-Climate Alliance","authors":"J. Cha","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0010","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:President Joe Biden has emphasized the need for climate action since he was on the campaign trail. His platform included policies inspired by the Green New Deal, and one of his first acts in office was to issue an omnibus executive order calling for a “Whole of Government” approach to tackling the climate crisis. Then, in August 2022, he signed the Inflation Reduction Act. Heralded as the most significant piece of U.S. climate legislation to date, the IRA allocates $369 billion to incentivize clean energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicle purchases, and other supply-side measures to build demand for low-carbon technologies and products. Its underlying philosophy is that if renewable energy and low-carbon technology is cheap and plentiful, market dynamics will make fossil fuel production and use prohibitively expensive.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"175 1","pages":"56 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79732494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0007
H. Buck
{"title":"The Carbon Capture Distraction","authors":"H. Buck","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0007","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new set of stricter carbon dioxide emissions standards. For coal-fired power plants, one way to meet those benchmarks would have been to use carbon capture technology, in which special equipment is installed to separate out CO2 from power plant gas streams. To complete the system called carbon capture and storage (CCS), the separated carbon is then transported and stashed in underground rock formations.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"70 1","pages":"39 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87374791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0009
Saheli Khastagir
{"title":"Power Games: How General Electric Exports Privatization","authors":"Saheli Khastagir","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0009","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Last February, when President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan looked all but dead, General Electric joined twenty-six other U.S. companies to call on Congress to salvage a climate deal. On its website, GE stressed that tax credits and grants to boost clean energy would advance U.S. interests in the global energy transition, generating domestic jobs in the wind industry. Filings compiled by the watchdog group OpenSecrets show that the negotiated successor to BBB, the Inflation Reduction Act, was the biggest target of GE’s lobbying efforts in 2022. These efforts paid off. In August, Biden signed the IRA, securing exactly the kinds of lucrative tax credits GE had trumpeted. Yet less than two months later, the company laid off 20 percent of its U.S. onshore wind workers.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"10 1","pages":"50 - 55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81820718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0017
Matthew Sitman
{"title":"Will Be Wild","authors":"Matthew Sitman","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0017","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:When we imagine what it means to live through a political crisis, most of us probably summon visions of extremity: assassinations and coups, depressions and wars—times of unusual danger or alarm, when malevolent forces are on the march. We wonder how long it would take us to realize what’s happening, and how we’d react when we do. We spin heroic scenarios about joining the resistance or taking to the street. There you are, the stakes clear, faced with the great dilemma presented to you by fate. Will you or won’t you? Hurry, time is running out.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"30 1","pages":"119 - 124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88355881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
DissentPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/dss.2023.0018
L. Casey
{"title":"Structure and Solidarity","authors":"L. Casey","doi":"10.1353/dss.2023.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dss.2023.0018","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Two strikes serve as bookends for the heyday of the twentieth-century American labor movement: the 1936–37 sit-down strike of the fledgling United Auto Workers (UAW) against what was then the nation’s largest corporation, General Motors, and the 1981 strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) against the Federal Aviation Administration, a government agency. The successful UAW strike led not only to the unionization of General Motors; it opened the door to the unionization of basic industry across the U.S. economy, from auto, steel, and textiles to important components of transportation, food production, and communications. The PATCO strike, broken by President Ronald Reagan, led not only to the demise of that union; it marked the start of a period during which industrial unions were decimated and strikes in the United States dwindled to a mere handful.","PeriodicalId":51822,"journal":{"name":"Dissent","volume":"23 1","pages":"124 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74033184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}