SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash recently wrote an article featured on The Huffington Post titled, “If Liberal Billionaires Really Wanted to Change Politics, Here’s What They’d Do.” Many are frustrated by the inaction (or retreat) on climate policy at the federal level. In part, this is due to the institutional mechanism through which we elect our representatives. 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak, UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash and Associate Professor of Political Science, University at Albany, State University of New York Brian Greenhill recently wrote an article featured on The Conversation titled, “Don’t be afraid to talk about the costs of dealing with climate change.” The piece draws on a recently published article in the journal Environmental Communication and reports on a survey experiment showing that communicating the need for adaptation may actually increase support for mitigation. 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash recently wrote an article featured on The Regulatory Review titled, “A Green Economy Must Achieve Climate Justice.” The article discusses environmental policy and how “somebody, somewhere has to pay for climate protection.” Often it is the underprivileged that suffers the brunt of climate neglect. 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash recently wrote an article featured on The Hill titled, “Seattle’s smoky summers are becoming the new normal.” Last summer, Seattle was under a cloud of smoke for several weeks from fires that burned in the Cascade mountains and Eastern Washington. Once again, Seattle and surrounding areas find they are shrouded in smoke, this year from fires in British Columbia, Oregon and California. 

SMEA Professors Patrick Christie and David Fluharty, SMEA alumna Haley Kennard and co-authors recently published a paper in Ocean & Coastal Management titled “Policy pivot in Puget Sound: Lessons learned from marine protected areas and tribally-led estuarine restoration.” The paper’s authors examine two approaches to restore the Puget Sound basin in light of multiple drivers of change that place an accelerating squeeze on marine and coastal habitats and limit their ability to provide ecosystem services; Marine Protected Area (MPA) designation and estuary restoration (ER). 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash recently wrote an article featured on The Hill titled, “What Amazon owes Seattle’s homeless is a matter of debate.” The article discusses the debate on Seattle’s homeless tax, which the authors believe provokes an important question: What responsibility do companies have toward the communities in which they function? 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash recently wrote an article featured on The Hill titled, “Environmentalists need to reconnect with blue-collar America.” The article discusses communities with economies that in some way depend on fossil fuels, such as coal country. These communities feel that they carry the unfair burden of “rescuing the polar bear from the melting of the Arctic.” Dolšak and Prakash think environmentalists need to reconnect with blue-collar America. 

SMEA Professor Eddie Allison was recently interviewed for an article featured on Oceans Deeply to discuss his research that shows in some developing countries, fish farming is not benefiting nutritionally vulnerable communities. These findings have some researchers and the aquaculture industry pushing back. However, it has also helped to develop a healthy debate. Ben Belton, an assistant professor of international development at Michigan State University, initially had questions regarding Professor Allison’s research, but is now working with him on a paper that Allison “thinks will address some of the contentions and look at the future of aquaculture. 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak, UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash and faculty member at the School of Law, Environment and Planning at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in India Shalini Iyengar, recently wrote a piece featured in The Regulatory Review, a publication of the Penn Program on Regulation titled “Should India’s Supreme Court Enforce Regulations?” The article questions the Supreme Court of India’s involvement in enforcing public interest regulations, and whether sustained interventions could affect its ability to interpret the law as an expert, legitimate, and neutral actor. 

SMEA Professor and Associate Director Nives Dolšak, UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash and Political Science Ph.D. student Sirindah (Christianna) Parr recently wrote a piece featured in The Washington Post Monkey Cage on the Oxfam scandal titled “The Oxfam scandal shows that, yes, nonprofits can behave badly. So why aren’t they overseen like for-profits?” The civic sector plays an important role in the contemporary society.