Climate of Capitulation: An Insider's Account of State Power in a Coal Nation (Mit Press) - Hardcover

Thomson, Vivian E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262036347 ISBN 13: 9780262036344

Publisher: The MIT Press, 2017

Synopsis

Who wields power--and how--in environmental policy making at the state level, and how to fight ingrained favoritism toward coal and electric utilities.  A rare insider's story.

Dr. Michael Mann, 2019 winner of the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, calls Climate of Capitulation a "no-holds-barred exposé" and a "must-read."
2018 book award, PROSE competition (Honorable Mention, Government and Politics), a much-coveted recognition for "the very best in professional and scholarly publishing."

In Climate of Capitulation, Vivian Thomson offers an insider's account of how power is wielded at the state level when coal air pollution threatens people and ecosystems. Professor Thomson, a former member of Virginia's State Air Pollution Control Board, identifies a "climate of capitulation" in state government -- a deeply rooted favoritism toward coal and electric utilities in states' air pollution policies.

Thomson illuminates overt and covert power struggles that involved a host of players, including Governor Tim Kaine, and she exposes the root causes of Virginia's climate of capitulation. Extending her analysis to fifteen other coal-dependent states, Thomson offers policy reforms aimed at mitigating ingrained biases toward coal and electric utilities in states' air pollution policy making.

About this title

About the Author:

Environmental policy expert Vivian E. Thomson is former Professor in the Departments of Environmental Sciences and Politics at the University of Virginia, where she was on the faculty from 1997 to 2017 and where she directed the Environmental Thought and Practice BA Program. She has been an air pollution policymaker at the national and state levels in the USA and she has been Distinguished Fulbright Professor of American Studies in Denmark.  http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/thomson-vivian/

Review:

Vivian Thomson kicks ash and names names in this no-holds-barred exposé on the coal industry and its efforts to seize control of the environmental policy apparatus. Climate of Capitulation is a must-read at a time when entrenched fossil fuel interests have strengthened their hand and pose a heightened threat to efforts to avert dangerous climate change.

―Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Penn State University; coauthor, with Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles, of The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy

Voluntary commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Climate Convention will only be implemented if they are in the self-interest of the parties involved. It would seem, for now, that national authorities in the United States fail to perceive their strong self-interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, emission reductions in the United States may depend mostly on action at the state and local levels. Vivian Thomson shows, in this book, how these problems are considered at the state level and what can be done to facilitate state-level action.

―José Goldemberg, former President, University of São Paulo; former Secretary of State for Science and Technology, Brazil; Time magazine “Hero of the Environment”

About this edition

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0262036347
• ISBN 13: 9780262036344
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256