water-story

A Challenge to Green New Deal Activists: We Need to Reject “Sustainable” Technologies That Reproduce Colonial Gold Rush Devastation on Indigenous Peoples

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These are CIEJ’s guiding principles for Green New Deal supporters who believe in expanding the GND cosmovision beyond US / Global North-centric techno-optimism. Don’t reduce the problem to temperature and CO2.Climate change refers to a long-term change in weather patterns, including temperature, precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events such as droughts and hurricanes. The earth … A Challenge to Green New Deal Activists: We Need to Reject “Sustainable” Technologies That Reproduce Colonial Gold Rush Devastation on Indigenous Peoples

Rethinking Relief for Just Water Transition

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We are facing an accelerating water transition. Justice is not assured. In North America, ecosystemic disruption, infrastructural failure, and social inequity remain deeply entangled. The “color of water”—the racialized dimensions of water policy—has been evident in Flint, Michigan, and other majority-Black cities with lead-tainted water, like Newark and Baltimore; in the Colorado River Basin, where … Rethinking Relief for Just Water Transition

Infrastructural Collapse and Disaster Preparedness in Austin, Texas

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On the second night of Storm Uri’s landfall in central Texas in February 2021, I could see downtown Austin’s lights ablaze from the highest point of my neighborhood on the other side of I-35, the highway that runs north and south along the eastern edge of the city center. On the side of the divide … Infrastructural Collapse and Disaster Preparedness in Austin, Texas

Socialize Flooding: Creating Collective Sacrifice Zones in Mexico City

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Mexico City is digging in to prepare for a wetter—and rapidly sinking—future. Like Jakarta and New Orleans, much of the metropolis of twenty-two million is literally falling under the weight of its own growth. A century of unrelenting groundwater pumping has led to runaway land subsidence, with no clear short- to medium-term solution. This undermines … Socialize Flooding: Creating Collective Sacrifice Zones in Mexico City

No AI for the Colorado River

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The Colorado River is a living ecosystem of self-sustaining waterways stretching from tens of thousands of feet high in the Rocky Mountains traveling through the Sonoran and Mojave deserts and flowing into Mexico. These beautiful and unruly waters comprise rivers, tributaries, confluences, and bends flowing in from snow melt, groundwater, and aquifers. Over the past … No AI for the Colorado River

No More Groundwater, More Aquifers!

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The twenty-first century has pulled aquifers up from the relative obscurity they enjoyed in the twentieth century; increasingly, people across the world realize that 99 percent of available freshwater sits underground (Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2015). This awareness is linked to increased water extraction. Since the 1950s, the world’s use of subterranean water has … No More Groundwater, More Aquifers!

An Environmental Justice Approach to Hydroelectric Damming

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As of 2000, forty-seven thousand large dams were choking, rerouting, and fracturing more than 60 percent of the earth’s rivers. These dams, while providing fossil-free sources of power through the generation of hydroelectricity, can have catastrophic impacts on fisheries, aquatic and terrestrial life, and nearby human communities. Dams have displaced approximately eighty million people worldwide; … An Environmental Justice Approach to Hydroelectric Damming

De-escalating Water Crisis

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Since the time of its first white settlers, the US West has been paradoxically imagined as a place of infinite natural abundance and looming resource scarcity. In the era of accelerating drought brought on by fossil fuel-induced climate change and water mismanagement, long-standing resource anxiety increasingly manifests as discourse about imminent “water wars.” Yet while … De-escalating Water Crisis

From Management to Justice

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Is it fixed yet? Can you trust the water now? That’s the question everyone has for Flint, almost eight years into a water crisis that has left behind continuing uncertainty and apprehension about the toxicity of the city’s water supply. Flint is a postindustrial city in the American Midwest with a remarkable history of union … From Management to Justice

The Legacies of Jim Crow Water Infrastructures 

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In November 2021, the Flint water crisis was resolved from the state’s legalistic perspective. A federal judge awarded city residents a $626 million-dollar settlement for damages that dovetailed with the January 2021 indictment of former Michigan governor Rick Snyder. “Although this is a significant victory for Flint,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer Corey Stern told journalists, “we … The Legacies of Jim Crow Water Infrastructures