BPR Fall 2017 Issue 1

BPR Brown Political Review Fall 2017. Issue 1.

Sponsored by the Political Theory Project

Masthead

Brown Political Review

Editors-in-Chief Aidan Calvelli & Noah Cowan Chiefs of Staff Michael Bass & Bami Oke Creative Director Klara Auerbach & Annabel Ryu

Editorial Board

Senior Managing Editor Jack Glaser Managing Editors Pieter Brower & Angie Kim Associate Editors Taylor Auten Victor Brechenmacher Mary Dong Michael Gold Christian Hanway Jordan Kranzler Max Low Olivia Nash Jared Samilow Lucy Walke Emily Yamron Gabe Zimmerman

Data Board

Data Editor Matthew Dudak Associate Data Editor Aansh Sha Data Associates Julia Gilman Zachary Horvitz Amy Huang Alex Jang Malavika Krishnan Louise Tisch

Copy Editorial Board Chief Copy Editor Liza Ruzicka Associate CEC Daniel Duarte Perdomo Associate Copy Editors Miles Campbell Halle Fowler Erin Gallagher Gabriela Gil Will Gomberg Joseph Hinton Samuel Parmer Brendan Sweeney Dorothy Windham

Jen Shook Yashi Wang

Content Board

Content Director Jordan Campbell & Matthew Meyer US Section Manager Taylor Auten Brendan Pierce Rachel Risoleo US Writers Streator Bates AJ Braverman Justin Breuch Ashley Chen Dane Cooper Sophie Culpepper Brionne Frazier Michael Froid Annie Gersh Cayla Kaplan John Metz Michael O’Neill Sophia Petros Sean Sullivan Carter Woodruff World Section Manager Alessandro Borghese Allison Meakem Jeremy Rhee World Writers Vafa Behnam Alex Burdo Connor Cardoso Alexa Clark Mike Danello Mara Dolan Dhruv Gaur Julian Jacobs Sean Joyce Anna Kramer Annie Lehman-Ludwig Zoe Mermelstein Orwa Mohammad Thomas Murphy Simran Nayak Nathaniel Pettit

Media Board

Media Director Isabela Karibjanian Media Associates Zack Goldstein Jenna Israel Max Naftol Tim Peltier Eileen Phou Katie Scheibal Joelle Sherman

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Culture Section Manager Alan Garcia-Ramos Madeleine Thompson Kion You Culture Writers Maria Camila Arbalaez Noah Choi Anna Corradi James Flynn Matthew Ishimaru

Joel Kesselbrenner Hans Lei Olivia Rosenbloom Benjamin Shumate Emily Skahill Erika Undeland

Business Board

Business Director Alan Swierczynsk Assistant Business Director Graham Gonzales Business Associates Oona Cahill Owen Colby Erin Gallagher Austin Reynolds Sidi Wen

Interviews Board

Interviews Director Katrina Northrop Interview Associates Maria Camila Arbelaez Zahra Asghar Maya Gonzalez Fitzpatrick Jack Makari Sea-Jay Van der Ploeg Alexis Viera Catherine Walker-Jacks Jordan Waller Joshua Waldman

Marketing Board

Marketing Director Anna Marx Social Media Director Kevin Garcia Marketing Associates Nelson Chou Alexandra (Allie) Dolido Bridget Duru Maria Hornbacher Stephanie Kendler Karolyn Lee William Pate Elizabeth (Ellie) Seid Calista Shang Lauren Shin

Creative Board

Creative Director Klara Auerbach Associate Creative Director Anna Ryu

Brown Political Review

Contents

fall 2017

CONTENTS World 6 Fighting the Flood

Small island nations’ struggle to remain above water

8

Para-legal

11

Baby Blues

12

The Labor Empire Strikes Back

How a complicated history led to Paraguay becoming a hub for illicit trade Why the international adoption process needs an overhaul

2 Masthead 3 Contents 4 Magazine in Numbers 5 Letter from the Editors

A massive strike in India foreshadows a global labor movement

Special Feature 16 A Poisoned Well

Data Feature

Rhode Island’s trouble with lead

How wildfires in the west have strained budgets and communities

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Downstream Downturn

23

Turning Up the Heat

How hydropower in Laos may choke Vietnam

20

After the Flood

22

Watershed Warzones

How the US government exacerbates natural disasters

Interviews

The weaponization of water

36

Beto O’Rourke

US

37

Farhad Manjoo

38

Harrison Kreisberg

39

Neil Kemkar

26

Fracturing Families

28

Trump’s Farming Folly

30

No Congress, No Problem

34

Untangling the City

The sources of segregation in New York’s foster care system How the White House is leaving farmers behind City Politics in Trump’s America Congestion pricing in the Big Apple

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Brown Political Review

Magazine in Numbers

Magazine in Numbers ISIL controled

75%

of Iraq’s electricity when they took Mosul Dam

Houston has suffered once-in-500-years floods in the past 3 years.

3

2015

2016

2017

In Providence, Hispanic and African-American children have blood lead levels

53% and

In Paraguay,

90%

of the male population was killed during the War of the Triple Alliance

65% higher than those of their white counterparts In India,

90%

African-American and Latino children make up of the foster care system in New York City

92% 4

about of the workforce is “informal,” meaning that their employment is either temporary, contract work, or selfemployment

Brown Political Review

Letter from the Editors

Letter from the Editors Water’s destructive power has recently been on full display in the US. With hurricanes battering Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico, we have all been reminded that although water has the capacity to create life, it also has the capacity to take it away. We chose to devote the Special Feature of this edition to Water both because these epic storms have brought the strength of water into the national mindset and because the full impact of water transcends these current events.

In fact, water is essential to everything we do. The poet W.H. Auden once remarked that “thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” And although matters of the heart are central to humanity, in water’s absence all else loses its worth. It is the most valuable substance in the world. Without access to it, we cannot survive. Without using it well, we cannot progress.

Attempts to use and access water have driven some of the most impressive engineering projects in history. From the great sewers of Mohenjo Daro to the massive aqueducts of Rome to the tremendous Three Gorges Dam, the need to survive caused humankind to develop innovative ways to access and control this precious resource. Even our travels amongst the stars are defined by the search for extraterrestrial water. But even as we look for water on planets far from our own, we struggle to control and protect the water on our earth.

In our feature, we examine this fundamental struggle. Nathaniel Pettit shows how our home state of Rhode Island’s failure to ensure safe drinking water contributes to social inequality. Mike Danello explains how using dams for hydroelectric power affects international relations and soft power relationships in East Asia. Jared Samilow explores how armies and terrorists have tried to weaponize water, channeling its destructive properties. And Grace McCleary illustrates how government policy on flood insurance can invite water-related tragedy by encouraging people to live in places that should be uninhabited.

As is clear from these distinct impacts, water affects us at both micro and macroscopic levels. It makes up over 70 percent of the planet, irrigates our crops, and is home to countless species.

Water access in Syria can lead to civil war. Drought in California can affect what the rest of the country eats and buys. And amidst these large-scale impacts, we all interact with water every day. We see it coming out of our own taps and feel its nourishing effects after a hard day. No matter where you look—whether to the kitchen, the government, the world, or the universe— water will be there, flowing through it all.

– Noah & Aidan, Editors-in-Chief

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Brown Political Review

The World

Fighting the Flood

s

mall island developing states (SIDS) are at the forefront of the international conversation about climate change, and for good reason. Take, for example, the Maldives, a country that has a high point of less than eight feet above sea level and the lowest average elevation in the world. Today, the country has a population of 427,000. But by 2100, it may have a population of zero. This dire situation is not unique to Maldivians. Tuvalu, an island nation in the western Pacific Ocean with a population of 10,500, could be uninhabitable by 2050, and Kiribati, another small Pacific island nation, is projected to be fully submerged by the end of the century. Thanks to the thermal expansion of ocean waters and the melting of ice in glaciers and ice sheets, the National Climate Assessment predicts that global sea levels could be 1 to 4 feet higher by the end of the century, putting low-lying island nations and their residents at serious risk. To put this figure into perspective, sea levels have risen by just eight inches since reliable measurements began in 1880.

But rising sea levels are not only a worry for those living in 2100—the issue has already had disastrous effects on SIDS. In 2016, Australian researchers found that 11 islands in the Solomon Islands, a nation in Oceania, had become fully or partially submerged. In two cases, entire villages were flooded and residents had to relocate. In Tuvalu, rocks and debris regularly wash up on roads, and homes are often flooded.

When flooding occurs, residents of island nations—unlike those in coastal cities who can move farther inland—often have

6

Small island nations’ struggle to remain above water

nowhere to turn. In this century, hundreds of thousands of these residents will see their homes—and even their home countries—engulfed by the ocean. Some states are already preparing for this scenario. In 2014, Kiribati purchased approximately 5,000 acres of land from Fiji, a nation with a higher elevation, to act as possible refuge for citizens in the event that rising sea levels push Kiribati residents out of their homes. But this is not a solution.

Other countries have a limited amount of

IN 2016, AUSTRALIAN RESEARCHERS FOUND THAT 11 ISLANDS IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS, A NATION IN OCEANIA, HAD BECOME FULLY OR PARTIALLY SUBMERGED. available land, and many island nations do not have the money to make these large purchases. This means that in the not-so-distant future, hundreds of thousands of climate refugees may soon need to be relocated—likely to countries drastically different from their own.

A new migration stream of climate refugees would create worldwide political and humanitarian issues. In addition to being prohibitively expensive, relocation would require that residents of island nations, who are often accustomed to rural maritime lifestyles,

adapt to a new life. The languages indigenous to island nations could disappear if individuals assimilate into new areas, and historical sites would be lost under the sea. In the words of former Kiribati President Anote Tong, “As you go into another community…there is bound to be a certain loss of identity.” These financial and cultural challenges make relocation a last resort; until it becomes absolutely necessary, island nations should do everything they can to build up their infrastructure to delay flooding and submersion.

Even for island nations not yet completely submerged, flooding creates immense economic stress, especially since many of these nations already face a variety of economic and developmental issues. Shipping costs are high for SIDS, and their economies are often heavily dependent upon single industries such as fishing, agriculture, and tourism. Worse, rising tides may imperil basic resources such as fresh water. A solution like desalination—in which salt water is processed to produce fresh water—may be technologically feasible, but the process is unfeasibly expensive for many of these developing countries.

With all of the problems facing island nations, it’s important to remember that they did not bring rising sea levels upon themselves. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, island nations are responsible for less than 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet these countries are 3 times more susceptible to climate change-linked disasters than other nations, meaning they bear a disproportionate share of the burden. Such a problem, like many involving climate change, will require international

Brown Political Review

cooperation and help from the same large states who are responsible for the damage.

The 2015 Paris Agreement focuses on limiting pollution and transitioning to green energy, but it does little to address the effects of rising sea levels. While these efforts are necessary to mitigate climate change, any action taken today to halt rising sea levels would be too little, too late. The ocean takes longer to heat up than the atmosphere, so even if we were to completely stop emitting carbon dioxide today, sea levels would continue to rise for another 1,000 years.

Future international agreements on climate change must create a mechanism for collective action to assist island nations. Even if international cooperation can’t stem the tide of rising seas, countries can play a role in alleviating island nations’ distress, whether by mandating bilateral aid agreements with SIDS or making pledges to take in a certain number of climate refugees.

Especially for wealthy nations that contribute so disproportionately to climate change, the capacity to help entails a corresponding responsibility.

Dealing with sea level rise will require a unique fix, especially in the case of protecting SIDS. One proposed solution is to construct seawalls around islands. Kiribati has tried this strategy with mixed success.

Initial attempts to construct seawalls using sandbags backfired, causing increased erosion. Subsequent seawalls constructed from rock proved far more effective. But there remain problems with this approach. Primarily, seawalls are expensive to construct, and

their construction requires coastal engineering skills and deep knowledge of local geography, a combination that’s hard to find.

According to Professor Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia, “the idea that an outside organization can just come in with money, expertise and ideas and implement something easily is naive.”

Another proposed mitigation strategy is to strengthen mangrove forests at the edge of islands. Mangroves, which grow in coastal waters, provide a natural barrier against flooding and storm surges. However, their numbers have dwindled due to development and land reclamation. Traditionally, residents of island nations have sought to protect mangrove populations because of their use in structural material, fuel, and fishing tools. But with imported goods now acting as substitutes for those products, demand for mangroves has waned, making protection and conservation less of a priority for locals. Public education by governments, NGOs, and activists could teach residents of SIDS the significance of mangrove forests in mitigating flooding to counteract their recent decline in importance.

A more out-of-the-box approach is to construct artificial islands to replace those that have been submerged. Throughout history, artificial islands have been used to make more space for population expansion, from Tenochtitlan, the precursor to Mexico City, to modern-day Holland and Hong Kong. In fact, the Maldives constructed an artificial island called Hulhumal to meet housing demand in its capital of Male, and the nation

The World

uses the artificial island of Thilafushi to store its trash. This strategy would allow island nations to repopulate on land close to their original homes, preserving their culture, way of life, and sense of nationhood. While costly, this seems to be the only way to fix the deeper issues of identity and culture that island nations will face as entire islands begin to disappear.

Keeping island nations above water will require huge contributions of time and resources from wealthy nations, and there isn’t one perfect solution. However, these are necessary investments. In the coming decades, island nations will face economic strain from constant flooding, exacerbating existing financial and development issues. By the end of the century, mass exodus may strip island nations of their language and cultural and national identity, forcing the global community to find new homes for hundreds of thousands of people.

Considering the scope of these humanitarian and economic problems, inaction is unacceptable. As Tuvalese Prime Minister Enele Sosene Sopoaga put it, “Our island is sinking together with our hearts.” For island nations, there is no time to waste.

Zack Goldstein ‘19 is a Philosophy and Public Policy concentrator and a Media Associate at BPR.

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Brown Political Review

The World

Para-legal

w

ith a population of only 6.9 million people and one of the smallest economies in South America, Paraguay is often overlooked in discussions of Latin American affairs.

But the country’s location in the heart of South America has made it a key center of illicit regional trade, much of which takes place in the border city of Ciudad del Este. Home to the Western Hemisphere’s largest illicit market and located on Paraguay’s border with Brazil and Argentina, Ciudad del Este is well known throughout South America as a smuggler’s haven. City authorities make practically no attempt to enforce customs regulations, so electronics, counterfeit goods, and pirated software move freely across the Friendship Bridge that connects the city to Foz do Iguacu in Brazil.

Thousands of Brazilians make the trip to Paraguay each day to smuggle a wide range of goods back home—most notably, illicit drugs.

Today, Paraguay is the world’s fourth-largest producer of marijuana. However, its citizens appear to have little demand for the drug. Less than 1 percent of Paraguayans claim to use it. Most of the country’s supply is instead distributed to Brazilian gangs in and around Ciudad del Este, who then smuggle it across the border to sell to suppliers throughout Brazil. A small percentage of Paraguay’s marijuana is also shipped to nearby Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay.

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How a complicated history led to Paraguay becoming a hub for illicit trade

The cocaine trade also runs rampant in Paraguay. Though the drug is not produced domestically, cocaine made in Andean nations frequently finds its way over the country’s northwestern border with Bolivia. Some is also flown directly from Colombia to the northern city of Pedro Juan Caballero and then trafficked to the north. It is estimated that some 10 to 40 metric tons of the drug are shipped from Paraguay to the US and Europe every year. Most smugglers use what is known as the “rip-off method,” hiding drugs within legal shipments to make it difficult for officials to catch them.

NEAR THE WAR’S END,

BOYS AS YOUNG AS SIX DONNED FAKE BEARDS

AND MARCHED INTO

BATTLE, WHILE THOSE

WITHOUT WEAPONS

WERE TOLD TO MAKE

THEMSELVES USEFUL BY

THROWING DIRT INTO

ENEMIES’ EYES.

Despite the country’s central role in the South American drug trade, the Paraguayan government has historically done little to combat the trafficking. Whereas violent clashes between drug cartels and government forces in Mexico and Colombia regularly make international headlines, the Paraguayan government has turned a blind eye toward many of the criminal activities that occur within its borders.

However, this approach is not a simple acquiescence to smugglers in the name of peace, but rather is due to complex historical factors that date back as far as the Paraguayan War.

Though today Paraguay has little global influence, throughout much of the 19th century the country seemed to be emerging as one of the most powerful nations in South America. Its self-sufficiency and industrializing economy made the small nation’s future appear bright.

But in 1864, news of Brazilian aggression against Paraguayan allies in Uruguay reached Paraguayan President Francisco Solano Lopez. Solano Lopez, who had dreams of becoming the Napoleon of South America, quickly declared war.

With the strongest army in South America, Solano Lopez had every reason to believe he would triumph. But when Paraguay’s army marched through neutral Argentina to invade Uruguay, Argentina joined the war on the side of Brazil. Soon after, Uruguay fell to Brazil, and Solano Lopez’s soldiers rapidly found themselves hopelessly outnumbered, but Solano Lopez refused to surrender. Near the war’s end, boys as young as six donned fake beards and marched into battle, while those without weapons were told to make themselves useful by throwing dirt into enemies’ eyes.

Upon surrendering in 1870, Paraguay was forced to cede 55,000 square miles of land, almost half of its territory, to Brazil and Argentina. Its pre-war population of 525,000 people was reduced to around 221,000, only 28,000 of which were men. This demographic imbalance—the country had lost 90 percent of its male population—stunted Paraguay’s development. Although the sex ratio today is stable, the country’s population still sits below 7 million. Furthermore, the near annihilation of Paraguay’s working-age population led to the rapid decline of industry. What could have been one of the wealthiest nations in South America was instead crippled by extreme poverty for the better part of a century.

Brown Political Review

Unsurprisingly, the difficulties associated with governing such a war-ravaged nation led to decades of political turmoil. In 1936, disgruntled veterans of the Chaco War with Bolivia led the February Revolution against the ruling Liberal Party, marking the beginning of an era of military dictatorships that lasted until 1989. The most famous of these dictators, Alfredo Stroessner, came to power in 1954. His push for development in the eastern region of the country to strengthen ties with Brazil resulted in the founding of the small town of Puerto Flor de Lis in 1956. The town would later be known as Puerto Presidente Stroessner, and eventually as Ciudad del Este.

Talk of how to exploit the town’s nearby waters began soon thereafter, and work on the Itaipu Dam, to be shared between Paraguay and Brazil, began in 1974. As workers from both countries arrived to work on what was at the time the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, Ciudad del Este and Foz do

Iguacu rapidly urbanized. Now, with a population base that supports trade on a large scale, the city is a popular point for “commercial triangulation.” After goods are shipped into Paraguay, which to this day charges low import taxes, they are smuggled across the border to Brazil and Argentina. As Ciudad del Este established its reputation as a center for smuggling, illicit traders of all kinds trickled in.

For decades, the Paraguayan government turned a blind eye to this prosperous black market. With money finally pouring into a country that spent most of a century recovering from an economically crippling war, a thriving illegal market represented a muchneeded source of income. With around two-thirds of Ciudad del Este’s 300,000 residents thought to be involved in the illicit economy, a government crackdown would have meant political suicide.

But the political calculus changed in June of 2016, when Paraguayan drug lord Jorge Rafaat Toumani was killed

The World

by First Capital Command, a prominent Brazilian gang. Suddenly, a power vacuum emerged in a market that had been controlled by the same man for decades. Though First Capital Command quickly emerged as the dominant gang in Ciudad del Este, other groups from Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia all fought for control. In response to the increasing violence in the region, Paraguay’s National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD) expanded its operations in Alto Parana, the region in which Ciudad del Este is located. The government seized more than twice as much marijuana in the first eight months of 2017 as it did in all of 2016.

But despite the government’s increased effort, Ciudad del Este’s gang violence made international headlines in April when First Capital Command broke into the headquarters of private security company Prosegur and stole $11 million in cash. Media outlets from across the globe clamored over this “heist of the century,” in which dozens

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The World

the near annihilation of Paraguay’s working-age population led to the rapid decline of industry. what could have been one of the wealthiest nations in South america was instead crippled by extreme poverty for the better part of a century.

Brown Political Review

of gang members set off explosives, lit cars on fire, and escaped back to Brazil by speedboat. With just a $9 million budget and 300 staff members, SENAD was forced to look across the Parana River for reinforcements from Brazil. In August, an agreement was reached with the Federal Police of Brazil to combat drug trafficking near the border. As part of the deal, each country committed to increase mobilization against border crime every year, and Brazil agreed to lend Paraguay the technologies it needs to do so effectively.

Both Paraguay and Brazil are optimistic that bilateral cooperation will drastically reduce Ciudad del Este’s crime rate, especially as the Paraguayan government plans to increase SENAD’s enforcement capacity over the next few years.

Fortunately for the authorities, a nongovernmental factor is also helping to reduce illicit trade: the decline of commercial triangulation. On the Argentinian side of the border, the department store Duty Free Puerto Iguazu has been attracting customers with low prices and well-known brands. In recent years, Brazilians have increasingly been going to the Argentinian town of Puerto Iguazu rather than to Ciudad del Este for cheap

goods. Though not directly affecting the drug trade, a reduction in the movement of goods across the Friendship Bridge makes it more difficult for drugs to be camouflaged and reduces the overall value of Ciudad del Este as an illicit trade center.

Back in the 1990s, illegal trade in Ciudad del Este dwarfed Paraguay’s total GDP. Today, the illicit economy is worth just 59 percent of Paraguay’s legitimate economy. Though it’s difficult to precisely measure the size of Ciudad del Este’s illicit market, its decline would bring about additional problems for the nation at large. With a majority of the population of Ciudad del Este somehow involved in the illicit market, restructuring the local economy will be a difficult challenge.

Fortunately, Ciudad del Este’s proximity to Brazil and Argentina gives it significant advantages over other Paraguayan cities.

The large Brazilian population in the city combined with Paraguay’s tax incentives for foreign businesses could bring opportunities for skilled and unskilled workers alike to the region. Already, since 2014, the number of factories in Paraguay has increased threefold. Furthermore, the city’s proximity to the Itaipu Dam—which provides Paraguay with 76 percent of its energy—creates unique job opportunities and ensures that the city will remain relevant even without an illicit economy.

Though it remains to be seen whether devoting more anti-smuggling resources and cooperating with Brazil will be effective in curbing Ciudad del Este’s illicit economy, it is crucial for the city to closely monitor criminal activities and provide economic resources to compensate for the loss of illicit income. With policies attentive to the history of the city, Ciudad del Este can safely transition away from a primarily illicit economy. With its government engaging in unprecedented intervention in one of the largest illicit economies in the Western Hemisphere, Paraguay has the opportunity to show that even the most entrenched criminal histories can be rewritten.

Adam Stein ‘21 is an intended International Relations concentrator.

Illustrations by Shirley Lau

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Brown Political Review

Baby Blues

y

The World

Why the international adoption process needs an overhaul

orphanages were overcrowded, and they ear-long waits, onerous became the two leading origin countries assessments, and disapfor worldwide adoptions. In 2003, foreign pointment—prospective parents adopted over 13,000 children from adopters in developed China and over 7,000 from Russia. The 10 countries have a lot to deal main receiving countries (led by the United with when trying to adopt States, France, Spain, Italy, and Germaa child. The scarcity of adoptable children ny) accounted for 90 percent of children and the rigor of the adoption processes adopted by foreign parents. In most cases, in developed countries drive prospective the adoptions were a adopters abroad in the success, hope of finding children International law resounding placing children in to join their families. regards children’s loving homes and reDue to the prevalence ducing the burden on of disease, poverty, and best interests as overwhelmed social abandonment as well as paramount, but services. fledgling social safety However, for a nets, less developed the current system minority of children, countries often have leaves everyone intercountry adoption many children in state was a disguised form care that are in pressing underserved. of trafficking. Interneed of adoption. In the mediaries could turn latter half of the 20th a profit by abducting and selling children to century, many of these countries welcomed adoptive parents. In some circumstances, international adoption. Under that system, children were torn from family members who children were matched with more affluent were coerced into giving them up, while othparents who could provide better lives for ers were returned to their home countries them than could be expected in the state by their adoptive parents. For these reasons, system, and overcrowded state children’s intercountry adoption became a traumatic homes were relieved of the difficulty of process for many children, and countries caring beyond their capacities. began to regulate it through international

While international adoption is laws protecting children’s rights. an ideal solution for both the overcrowding

In 1993, the Hague Convention on of state childcare systems in developing Inter-Country Adoption created laws that countries and the difficulties of adopting called for oversight from a centralized body children in developed ones, it’s currently on and mandated that states thoroughly search the decline. Intercountry adoption fell by for domestic adopters 64 percent between 2004 and 2013 in the before resorting to adoption 10 top adopting countries, indicating a seisabroad. The convention has mic shift away from the practice of adoptbeen signed by 90 couning children abroad. While modest gains in tries, and it has effectively health and income mean fewer children are put tighter restrictions on orphaned and abandoned, these factors all countries involved in alone do not explain the huge shift away international adoptions. from intercountry adoption. Rather, the For example, although decline is the result of an international South Korea is not a party law that tightens the regulatory barriers to the convention, the US is, to intercountry adoption, decreasing its meaning that all intercounattractiveness to prospective adopters and try adoptions from South increasing negative sentiments towards Korea to the US must meet international adoption in countries where it the terms of the agreement. used to be common.

This dynamic ultimately

International adoption experidecreased the number of enced a huge boom toward the end of the successful adoptions from 20th century, growing from about 2,500 South Korea to the US adoptions per year in the 1950s to 40,000 by 93 percent in 15 years. in the early 2000s. In the 1990s, China’s For top sending countries one-child policy forced many people to party to the convention, give their babies up for adoption, and the the agreement has put fall of the Soviet Union destroyed Russia’s enormous strain on already economy and left many unable to care overstretched bureaucrafor their children. Chinese and Russian

cies, lengthening wait times and increasing rejection rates.

The result is tragic: Thousands of children who might have found loving parents will never be matched with prospective families, and will instead spend their childhood in foster care and state homes. There is no question that children’s rights must be protected in any adoption process, but policymakers should consider whether the decline in the number of adoptions resulting from the Hague Convention’s regulations necessitates a policy change. Policymakers should aim to create laws that both secure children’s rights and maximize the number of adoptions, internationally and domestically. Given the impossibility of improving domestic adoption systems in all states and the difficulty of finding biological relatives to adopt children, foreign adopters who pass standard background and means checks should be given adoption priority equal to domestic and biological adopters. International law regards children’s best interests as paramount, but the current system leaves everyone underserved.

Alexa Clark ‘19 is a Political Science concentrator and a World Staff Writer at BPR. Illustration by Julie Benbassat

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The World

The Labor empire strikes back

Brown Political Review

On September 2, 2016, 150 million Indian workers, 30 percent of the Indian labor force, participated in a general strike to demand higher wages and protest the international investment encouraged by the right-wing administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Cities and major industrial centers such as the automobile manufacturing belt in southern New Delhi were shut down. The A massive strike in India strike’s opposition to the Modi administraforeshadows a global labor tion was clear: It was aimed at protesting “the [Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)] promovement posed reforms to labor laws, which would exclude a huge number of workplaces from government regulation and would further heighten job insecurity.” The unions affiliated with the strike were officially linked to center-left and left parties such as the Indian National Congress and cross the world’s major the Communist Party of India (CPI(M)). democracies, right wing The groups were comprised of a more ethno-nationalism is diverse and grassroots base than a typical on the rise. Reactionary union movement, suggesting that workers politics have assumed are growing disillusioned with established different forms in different left-wing politics. places: In Brazil, it is privatization-driven

Perhaps the most significant neoliberalism pushed by President Michel break with conventional worker orgaTemer; in India, the Hindutva nationalnizing came in the form of the sidelining ism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi; in of major labor unions. The New Delhi Turkey, the neo-Ottomanism of Prime manufacturing zone was where the strike Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan; and in the was strongest, despite the establishment West, the general xenophobia of populists unions’ small presence there. Further, such as US President Donald Trump and the logistical planning for the strike was Hungarian President Viktor Orban. carried out by smaller, worker-organized Though unions such as the different in many ways, 150 MILLION Maruti Suzuki Workers each of these reacUnion, which mantionary strands is an INDIAN WORKERS, aged to bridge the unmistakable reaction 30 PERCENT often-present gap beto globalization, which tween permanent and appears to be the axis OF THE INDIAN contracted workers. of 21st century politics.

Additionally, And while the anti-glo- LABOR FORCE, the strike’s decenbalization right has PARTICIPATED IN A tralized organization gained notoriety in its departed from three GENERAL STRIKE. victories with Brexit traditional attributes and Trump’s election, of Indian unionism. First is the party-union an anti-globalization left has also come hierarchy: Unions were founded by the to prominence and is attempting to unite major political parties and have historically workers against both ethno-nationalism been run to serve their electoral interand neoliberalism. Last year, India expeests. When dealing with strikes, the major rienced the largest strike in the country’s parties have always prioritized campaignhistory, demonstrating the strength and ing and fundraising over the spontaneity organization of this fledging movement, of working-class anger. The grassroots while at the same time revealing the internature of the strike is thus distinct, and nal contradictions imperiling its success.

A

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accordingly more potent. Without strict direction from a political party, the workers’ voices themselves were the driving force of the strike.

Second, while unions tend to let the state mediate between labor and business, this time they negotiated for themselves. As University of Delhi political scientist Achin Vinaik explains, “The system laid down for resolution of trade union issues encourages anything but class struggle methods. It puts a premium on third-party intervention by the state which, time and again, plays a decisive role.” But this strike was different, with protest directed against the state itself, rather than against the policies of corporations. Even in light of negotiations between the government and participating unions, angry working-class union members opted for “class struggle methods” over settling for mere concessions.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, is that the strike united permanent and informal workers. In India, about 90 percent of the workforce is informal, meaning that their employment is either temporary, contract work, or self-employment. From rickshaw drivers to laborers in manufacturing, these workers work without long-term contracts and often fear termination on the whims of their employers.

With this divide in classes of labor, an unhealthy dynamic has evolved: Unions, to protect their members’ jobs and not harm employers, encourage discrimination against informal workers, convincing employers to hire only formal, unionized workers. In many cases, this partiality has led to distaste for unions among the massive sector of informal laborers. But the smaller Indian unions behind the strike strove to counter this dynamic, with protests and riots beginning in 2012 surrounding corporate crackdowns on unionization. When permanent and temporary workers became aware of their common interests as exploited laborers in the globalized economy, they saw reason to work together. Pawan Kumar, a worker at a unionized Maruti Suzuki plant, told the Hindustan Times in March, “the biggest legacy of 2012 is that we forged an understanding between permanent and temporary workers.” The 2016 strike is a

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testament to the perpetuation of this un- 10 percent of the workforce is indicative derstanding, and has opened the door to of this trend. The strike, with its goal of unionization and political activism for an uniting the informal and formal workoften excluded sector of the workforce. forces, constituted a common struggle

Globalization seems to be a against the division usually present in strong impetus for the discontent that formal, unionized strikes. drove the strike. According to Jacobin

But here also lies the deepwriter Thomas Crowley, “the importance est problem with the strike: While the of…the informal sector has only increased anti-establishment left played a big role in the age of globalization, liberalization, in organizing, the 10 major unions and and privatization.” One their respective might be tempted political parties still THE WORKERS’ to believe that large, reaped much of VOICES THEMSELVES the benefits. We organized production best fits the needs of in this national WERE THE DRIVING find modern globalized problem the univertrade, because this sal problem of the FORCE OF THE is indeed the case in anti-globalization STRIKE countries like China. radical left. Workers But in India, where the are increasingly weakening of unions has helped quell mobilizing against neoliberal policy and resistance to the influx of internationthe right-wing governments that are imal capital, globalization has pressured plementing it. Yet these workers are yet employers to disassemble the workforce. to move beyond the center-left political This serves to break up the formal sector machines that receive their votes but do into contracted and temporary workers, little to make big changes in labor policy. all in an effort to thwart unionization.

As long as power still flows through Modi’s government’s recent attempt to well-established institutions, the direct remove legal protections from the formal concerns of labor will be relegated to the

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back burner, with the slow political process obfuscating immediate demands for radical workplace changes.

In India, worker protests and action most often benefit the Congress Party or the CPI(M), instead of the workers themselves. This illustrates a major predicament for labor in India: It is at war with both the BJP—the largest political party worldwide—and the Congress Party—the mainstay of the Indian left and an institution tied deeply to the foundation of the country’s democracy. Workers will have to wrest influence from both of these institutions to have any hope of an upheaval in labor policy. Given the scope of this challenge, a workers’ movement posing a true challenge to globalization might seem like a pipe dream. But if the size and momentum of workers’ movements can be channeled into governmental change, progress is just over the horizon.

Thomas Murphy ‘21 is an intended Development Studies concentrator and a World Staff Writer at BPR.

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A Poisoned Well Rhode Island’s trouble with lead

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Downstream Downturn How hydropower in Laos may choke Vietnam

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After the Flood How the US exacerbates natural disasters

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Watershed Warzones The weaponization of water

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Brown Political Review

Downstream Downturn How hydropower in Laos may choke Vietnam

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n the mountains of Tibet, Asia’s 6th longest river shares its headwaters with two of China’s most important. But the Mekong River, often overshadowed by the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, is just as critical to the countries through which it flows. Passing through 6 Southeast Asian nations, the river is an enormous economic resource for the region. But hydropower has made the Mekong’s future murky. As dam-building continues and the negative externalities flow down to the Mekong’s final destination in Vietnam, water becomes a conduit of soft power, weaponized to grow domestic economies at the expense of foreign ones. In particular, Laos’ ambitious hydroelectric projects threaten to devastate the economy and ecosystem of its southern neighbors while inflaming

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regional tensions.

The extent to which the Mekong defines the economic, cultural, and ecological health of these downstream countries—Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam—is indisputable. These countries produce more than 100 million tons of rice per year combined, representing nearly 15 percent of the global output. The Mekong serves as the water source for half of Vietnam’s rice production. In total, those in the Lower Delta will eat 60 kilograms of freshwater fish per year, 18 times more than their counterparts in Europe or the US and, on average, fish supply about 60 percent of the animal protein consumed in Vietnam. The Mekong also plays host to a wide variety of species, second only to the Amazon in biodiversity. Some land animals dependent on its waters have such distinctive features that taxonomists have placed them in a class of their own.

In recent years, the river’s delicate financial and environmental ecosystem has been threatened by the construction of hydropower dams. Fish need

a certain flow of water to migrate up and downstream each year, and rice paddies require an exact amount of flooding. The proposed dams could unbalance both.

Damming the Mekong favors upstream populations, leaving countries downstream with no choice but to adjust to whatever effects trickle down. Despite the river’s ecological fragility, this political leverage is too enticing for Laos to ignore.

Since China built the first dam on the mainstream Mekong in 1995, those along the river have had to adapt quickly.

The project marked nothing new for China, which had constructed nearly half the world’s dams in the previous 20 years. But for the inhabitants of the river, the Manwan Dam was just the beginning. By 2015, China had six dams operating on the Mekong and one more under construction.

Yet other countries had not followed in China’s footsteps until recently. Now, Laos—upstream of Vietnam and Cambodia—has developed rich energy ambitions fueled by a desire for development. The country sees an opportunity to

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become the “battery of Southeast Asia” by exporting hydropower. To this end, the government has recently proposed six dams which, when fully operational, could turn a profit of over $4.5 billion. In a country of 6.5 million people with a GDP per capita of less than $2,500, these dams could represent a watershed moment. Sweetening the vision, the World Bank and the US Agency for International Development have, until recently, supported dam building and “sustainable hydropower,” arguing that the benefits outweigh the ecological costs.

Laos has found a powerful ally in China. Or, more precisely, China has decided to assist its southern neighbor. Since Xi Jinping became President in 2013, China has cultivated relationships with Southeast Asian countries in a bid for regional influence and ideological hegemony. Xi’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, which aims to connect the region through a series of ambitious transportation projects, has already benefitted Laos. Beijing has lent the Laotian government $7.2 billion­—almost 50 percent of Laos’s GDP—to construct a railroad linking the two countries and has gifted military equipment as an added incentive. The outgrowth of this vision is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, whose $100 billion in capital has funded such projects across the region. Direct foreign investment in Laos has more than doubled since 2006—largely because of China. Now, China has entered a joint venture with Thailand to build another dam

in Laos on the Mekong mainstream.

Despite the goodwill that China has recently won from many of its neighbors thanks to new projects, its ties with Vietnam have deteriorated. The relationship owes some of its troubles to history: China waged war with Vietnam in the 1970s, and, over 40 years later, Beijing is encroaching on areas in the South China Sea that Vietnam claims as its own. Given the dual interest of reducing Vietnam’s power in the region and deepening ties with Laos, Chinese officials disregard any concerns about the ecological damage the dams may cause to the Vietnamese portion of the river. Despite China’s concern for climate change, after tallying both sides of the ledger, the country finds itself supporting construction, not conservation.

Already, the damage these dams will have on Vietnam is beginning to appear. In the short term, flooding has been severe and unpredictable; last summer, the dams exacerbated El Nino conditions to create one of the worst droughts Southeast Asia has seen in a century. In the long run, the implications will multiply. As the country farthest down the watershed, Vietnam will be subject to these compounded harms. The country will suffer considerably under the proposed dams, losing as much as 27 percent of its GDP in the next 20 years as the Mekong Delta shrinks.

Vietnam has little ability to protest its fate. Around the time when China built its first dam, concerned downstream countries formed the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an organization that would ostensibly govern the construction and proposal process for projects on the river. However, the organization can do very little to halt projects. Lower countries cannot veto proposed dams that would be within the borders of higher ones, and the commission has no enforcement mechanisms, making it powerless to stop the havoc upstream dams can wreak on countries farther down the river. Moreover, membership excludes China, leaving it free to act outside of any boundaries the MRC sets.

One of Laos’ newest dams in Xayaburi, for which construction has already begun, encapsulates the slippery power dynamics of riverbed construction. In 2011, Laos approached the MRC to propose the 1,285 MW capacity dam that would lie in the mainstream. Vietnam objected, citing environmental concerns, and demanded a 10-year period for scientists to pinpoint environmental impacts. But the dam will soon be fully constructed, and in 2019,

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DAMMING THE MEKONG FAVORS UPSTREAM POPULATIONS, LEAVING COUNTRIES DOWNSTREAM WITH NO CHOICE BUT TO ADJUST TO WHATEVER TRICKLES DOWN. commercial operation will begin. Without increased influence in the dam approval process—which no country besides Vietnam has incentive to provide—the MRC will continue to ineffectually protest inevitable projects. This impotence helps to explain why, in the last two decades, the number of dams on the Mekong, both proposed and completed, has ballooned. Without international cooperation, the 11 mainstream dams merely need to find financing to proceed. China’s eagerness to provide capital means this hurdle is easy to clear.

The strength of this opposition helps to explain why Vietnamese officials have failed to stop the dams, despite expressing concerns about them. Simply put, Hanoi faces a coalition that stands to benefit from its harm and receives support from the region’s main economic and political powerhouse. Unless conditions in Vietnam deteriorate substantially, China will continue to pour money into hydropower on the river. Currently, even with the risk inherent to dam-building and the instability of village dislocations, China has every reason to support the projects. The environmental effects will not flow upstream, and a weaker Vietnam benefits Beijing.

In other words, Laos can toe the line without tangible opposition from Vietnam. The Laotian Minister of Energy stated that his country does not need consensus in the region to push the dam projects forward. Unless these conditions change, Laos will continue to inflict ecological damage on the countries downstream, while simultaneously growing in regional stature.

The Mekong, once the source of life for downstream countries, now threatens to cause their ruin.

Mike Danello ‘20 is an intended Political Science concentrator and a World Staff Writer at BPR. Illustrations by Sel Lee 17

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A poisoned well Rhode Island’s trouble with lead

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mericans everywhere on the political spectrum agree: Today, equality of opportunity is more a dream than a reality. Almost two-thirds of Americans believe only a small minority of privileged people have a chance to excel in today’s economy. Examples of inequality of opportunity are often painfully present, from crumbling schools to the school-to-prison pipeline. But these stark manifestations of inequality tend to obfuscate their more hidden

cousins, ones so transparent they are hard to spot in a glass of water.

Rocketed into news coverage by the Flint water crisis but then quickly forgotten, lead exposure is an issue that often slips from the public consciousness.

Yet it is a pernicious cause and symptom of inequality. Across the country, at least 4 million households—10 percent of all households with children—are exposed to high levels of lead. The Center for Disease Control recommends intervention at blood lead levels (BLLs) above five micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL). Over half a million American children exceed that threshold during their first 5 years of life, exposing them to serious problems at a time when the human body is most susceptible to the long-term effects of lead.

At very high levels, lead exposure in children causes immediate consequences.

The metal attacks multiple body systems, disrupting impulse control, attention span, and overall mental functioning.

In Rhode Island, the problem of lead exposure is dire: The state has three times the national average number of children with BLLs over 10 mcg/dL. More than 1,000 Rhode Island children are poisoned annually. Almost 1 in 5 rental homes in Providence are serviced by utility-owned pipes made of lead, owing to the fact that the city, like many of its kind, has a particularly old housing stock.

Although lead pipes are common, the burden of this epidemic is not shared equally. Across American households, inequality of exposure is the central injustice of this epidemic: It is a matter of opportunity, not just one of health.

In a May 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research study, Anna Aizer, an economist at Brown University, published data on lead and juvenile delinquency among Rhode Island youth.

The paper, coauthored by Janet Currie of Princeton University, is crucial in advancing the understanding of lead exposure as an issue of social justice and inequality of opportunity.

Aizer’s study capitalizes on a dataset of blood lead levels from the state’s robust screening program.

Between 1990 and 2004, 120,000 children born in Rhode Island were tested at various stages of childhood development. Aizer and Currie first note that low-income and minority children in the state are more likely to live in urban

neighborhoods. Inhabitants of urban areas are more susceptible to lead exposure due to their greater likelihood of having high traffic congestion

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and older housing, two major sources of lead pollution. The study further confirms that the burden of lead exposure is disproportionately placed on the shoulders of low-income people and people of color in Rhode Island, as is the case in many communities across the nation. While the average BLL of white children in the dataset was 3.4 mcg/dL, African-American and Hispanic children had levels 65 percent and 53 percent higher, respectively— both above the level recommended for intervention. This burden was also disproportionately borne by low-income families: The average BLL of children who qualified for free school lunch was 50 percent higher than that of those who did not.

Lead exposure is profoundly disruptive for children, even when correcting for other environmental factors. For every unit increase in BLL, the probability of school suspension increased from 6.4 to 9.3 percent.

These disruptions correspond to academic deficits: An August 2016 study from Aizer and Currie found that for every one unit increase in BLL, the probability of a student scoring substantially below proficiency in reading rose by 3.1 percentage points. Outside of the classroom, the effects are even worse: The researchers found the same increase in BLL augmented the likelihood of incarceration by up to 74 percent.

Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler, a lawyer and professor at Brown’s Alpert Medical School, emphasizes a central absurdity in how we approach lead poisoning: “Most of our systems are about what happens after a kid gets poisoned as opposed to creating systems and structures that ensure we are addressing the problem before the exposure happens.” Indeed, the current way of dealing with lead is reactive, with action usually beginning after exposure in a child has been reported. Furthermore, systems generally place the burden on tenants to report possible lead hazards, intimidating would-be reporters by allowing the possibility of retributive eviction.

The status quo thus forces low-income tenants to choose between adequate living standards and having a place to stay, often silencing the victims of lead exposure.

Current regulations in Rhode Island have simply not gone far enough to address the problem.

Providence Water, a department of the city, replaces lead lines from the water main to the curbs, but it is not allowed to use ratepayer funds to address lead pipes on private property, a system known as “partial pipe replacement.” This leaves the onus of replacing lead pipes on property owners themselves. Particularly for those lacking the finances to personally pay for removal or are renting from an unwilling landlord, this burden is often too high. Worse, as the neighborhood of Mount Hope in Providence discov-

Across American households, inequality of exposure is the central injustice of this epidemic: It is a matter of opportunity, not just one of health. ered in 2010, this “partial pipe replacement” can exacerbate the problem: By disrupting the pipes and inadvertently exposing water to increased levels of lead, partial pipe replacement is often accompanied by spikes in lead levels in the short term.

Despite these challenges, Rhode Island has made some recent strides in advancing preventative measures. In 2002, the state passed the Lead Hazard Mitigation Act, giving landlords an affirmative duty to assess and fix lead hazards, perform ongoing lead maintenance, and obtain a lead hazard conformance certificate. While the law was a substantial step forward, weak enforcement has hindered its effectiveness: Between 2005 and 2009, 4 out of 5 of properties subject to the law did not comply with the regulations.

Summoning the will to address these regulatory inadequacies has proven easier said than done. The first

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hurdle, unsurprisingly, is a financial one. Replacing a large service line containing lead costs between $2,000 and $3,000—meaning it would take about $95 million to replace the nearly 38,000 lead service lines owned by Providence Water, Rhode Island’s largest supplier. As of August 2017, Providence Water began offering a three-year, 0 percent interest loan to homeowners in need of replacing lead service lines. However, even at such terms, the program remains inaccessible to thousands of low-income Rhode Islanders.

To motivate action, then, politicians should look to the social benefits of removing lead. Research suggests that although the initial investment would be expensive, the ultimate social rewards—in the form of less crime, higher productivity, and lower medical costs—would be worth the cost. Research from PEW Charitable Trusts explains that, across the country, removing lead service lines and eliminating lead paint from low-income homes with young children would see returns over time of about $1.33 per dollar invested.

The lead exposure debate here in Rhode Island and across the country requires elected officials to embrace short term investment for a long term reward—a difficult campaign platform for officials who might no longer be in office by the time society reaps the benefits. There is good reason for optimism, however, even in the face of this daunting task: The Aizer and Currie studies strongly suggest that reducing lead exposure would give children greater impulse control, decreased rates of juvenile delinquency, and improved school performance. While acknowledging that it comes with real costs, fixing the problems of lead should be seen as a safe investment in improving social outcomes for those whom our society most often fails.

Eradicating lead exposure is imperative for a society intent on pursuing justice, and Providence might just be the place to start.

Nathaniel Pettit ‘20 is an intended Public Policy concentrator and a World Staff Writer at BPR. Illustration by Eliza von Zerneck

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After the Flood How the US government exacerbates natural disasters mericans tend to think of massive hurricanes and the havoc that they wreak as once-in-alifetime disasters. Sensationalist news coverage reinforces this narrative, using flurries of superlatives to describe, often in real time, the epic force and magnitude of natural disasters. We know, for instance, that Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 24.5 trillion gallons of rain when it hit Texas in late August, more than a year’s worth of rain in Seattle or Chicago. The only storms with comparable standing in recent memory are Hurricane Sandy—which in 2012 flooded over half a million homes on the East Coast—and Hurricane Katrina—which in 2005 caused a storm surge that flooded much of coastal Louisiana, killing more than 1,800 people and displacing over a million residents. Perhaps Hurricane Maria, which ravaged Puerto Rico in late September and destroyed much of the island’s power infrastructure, will soon make the list too.

These natural disasters caused exceptional levels of human suffering and economic cost. But they are by no means isolated incidents.

“Billion-dollar” disasters—natural disasters that cause $1 billion or more in damages—are on the rise in the US: There has been an average of five and a half such events a year since 1980, but that number has almost doubled since 2012.

In Houston, Hurricane Harvey caused the third “500-year-flood” (a flood whose likelihood in any given year is one in 500) in three consecutive years, making the term seem like quite the misnomer. Not enough data is available to conclusively state that climate change is making storms and flooding worse; however, we know that extreme rainfall events are more frequent and that global water temperatures are rising, making it easier for tropical storms to turn into deadly hurricanes. But grappling with climate change is only one part of the equation: In order to mitigate the fallout from increasingly frequent large-scale flooding, US policymakers must tailor their policies to ensure they incentivize risk mitigation, rather than increase the number of people in harm’s way.

A critical part of this challenge is overhauling the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the NFIP was created in 1968 to address the lack of attractive flood insurance on the private market. Within the NFIP,

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private insurers sell and administer policies on behalf of FEMA, earning a portion of the policy payments in return. The program offers people in any of over 20,000 participating communities the ability to protect their property against potentially catastrophic flood damage at subsidized rates— making protection available to many who would not have been able to afford it on the private market. In high-risk areas, any homeowners obtaining a federally backed loan are required to buy NFIP flood insurance. In the case of a flood, the NFIP provides up to $250,000 for damages to a home and $100,000 for damages to its contents.

The program was designed to act as a safety net while incentivizing homeowners and municipal governments to reduce the number of homes built in harm’s way. Its creators sought to provide “protection against the perils of flood losses” and also to encourage “sound land use by minimizing exposure of property to flood losses” by, for example, raising the elevation of homes.

In practice, however, the program tends to undervalue risk and underprice its policies.

This is partly due to so-called “grandfathered” properties, whose premiums are kept constant even when the risk of flooding increases. Moreover, FEMA often uses outdated flood risk maps to determine how safe a home is: Local officials seek to minimize the amount of land declared a 100-year-flood zone because of the onerous building regulations that apply. As a result, about 1 in 5 properties pays too little for the risks insured.

Instead of encouraging people to better prepare their homes for flooding or to relocate, the NFIP’s artificially affordable insurance rates effectively do the opposite, encouraging people to stay in extremely flood-prone areas.

These design flaws have a real cost. In some years, repetitive loss properties—homes which flood repeatedly—make up 2 percent of NFIP’s insured properties but over 40 percent of its payouts. One $69,000 home in Mississippi flooded 34 times in 32 years, receiving $663,000 in insurance. Without adjusting premiums to reflect modern risk assessments, the NFIP creates excessive moral hazard.

The NFIP’s flaws are made apparent when superstorms make landfall, since the program’s undervalued premiums do not compensate for the payouts needed when disaster hits.

Hurricanes Rita, Wilma, and Katrina forced the NFIP to borrow $17.3 billion from the Treasury.

After Hurricane Sandy, the program stood in a whopping $24.6 billion of debt.

Efforts to address this debt problem began in 2012, when Congress passed a bill that cut subsidies and sought to make premiums reflect risk. However, outcry from policyholders who saw their rates increase quickly prompted a backlash. To slow the rate of premium increases and appease property owners hit by expensive, albeit risk-reflective rates, Congress scaled back many of the measures in 2014.

Such are the politics of natural disasters.

James Surowiecki of the New Yorker points out

Instead of encouraging people to better prepare their homes for flooding or to relocate, the NFIP’s artificially affordable insurance rates effectively do the opposite, encouraging people to stay in extremely flood-prone areas.

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that research suggests “voters reward politicians for spending money on post-disaster cleanup but not for investing in disaster prevention.” As a result, prevention gets left by the wayside. This creates a misallocation of funds and a positive feedback loop entrenching homeowners in flood-prone communities, while burying the government program further in debt.

The NFIP—which will require reauthorization by Congress in December—needs to be overhauled. As glaciers continue to accelerate their melt, some predict global sea levels will rise around 3.2 feet by 2100, forcing more and more Americans to deal with the consequences. This is salient for the Gulf Coast, home to some of the largest concentrations of Americans living in flood zones, but also for the East Coast, notably New York City, Boston, and Miami. Chronic inundation—flooding at least every two weeks of at least 10 percent of a region’s area—will afflict Boston by 2080.

In the face of increasingly costly flooding disasters, elevating buildings and roads is an effective way to protect development projects in coastal regions. It is also the most economically efficient: For every dollar spent on disaster mitigation, the government saves $4 in post-disaster clean-up costs. A 2015 executive order by former President Barack Obama took a first step in this direction, mandating that all federal infrastructure and building projects plan for floods and

rising sea levels. However, the Trump administration rolled back the order in August 2017, promising fewer bureaucratic hurdles for infrastructure.

Since elevating homes and building levees and floodgates will not solve the problem, planning for relocation is a drastic but necessary step–even if only to prevent people from inadvertently relocating into a different flood zone on their own initiative.

Many Hurricane Katrina victims from New Orleans resettled 80 miles inland outside of Baton Rouge, only to suffer a 500-year flood there in August 2016. To avoid such repeated tragedies, and in anticipation of losing over 1,450 square miles of coastal land in the next 50 years, Louisiana has embarked

IN THE FACE OF INCREASINGLY COSTLY FLOODING DISASTERS, ELEVATING BUILDINGS AND ROADS IS AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO PROTECT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN COASTAL REGIONS.

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on a program to relocate coastal communities—marking an important recognition that investments should be made before, not after, the encroaching waters arrive.

The harsh realities confronting coastal communities in Louisiana and elsewhere cannot be addressed through changes to the NFIP alone. They require a much broader reckoning with the reality of climate change and its consequences for coastal cities across the country. Still, redesigning the NFIP is an important first step. In the interest of discouraging development in floodprone areas, premiums should be adjusted to better reflect risk—particularly for homes that flood repeatedly. Moreover, prioritizing spending on investments in mitigation rather than repairs may entail costs in the short run, but it is the most efficient way to protect the 25 million Americans living in flood zones.

For many, the question is often no longer if a flood will come, but when. To continue honoring its commitments to American citizens, a 21st-century National Flood Insurance Program must reflect that reality.

Grace McCleary ‘20 is an intended Environmental Studies and History concentrator.

Illustration by Ellen He

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Watershed Warzones

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n a brisk March morning in Washington last year, US officials announced that they were bringing criminal charges against seven Iranian nationals who tried to hack into the computer systems of the New York Stock Exchange and AT&T. Usually, attempts at electronic burglary aren’t noteworthy: Cyberattacks on financial institutions are about as widespread as the Social Security numbers of Equifax clients.

But these hackers—gainfully employed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard—also pulled off something startling: They briefly seized control of a small dam in Westchester County, just a few miles north of New York City. Fortunately, they didn’t cause any flooding, because the dam’s gate had been manually disconnected from the system’s circuitry.

This incident recalls the rich history of using dams as tools of warfare. During the Eighty Years’ War in the 16th and 17th centuries, Dutch rebels flooded two-thirds of Northern Flanders in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to recapture territory from Spanish occupation. In 1938, China destroyed dams along the Yellow River in an attempt to prevent Japan from seizing the city of Wuhan, killing about 800,000 people in the process. More recently, in 1993, Saddam

THE COLLAPSE OF THE DAM WOULD HAVE KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AND LEVELED IRAQ’S THIRD LARGEST CITY. Hussein diverted the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers away from the Mesopotamian Marshes to deprive Shia militants of sanctuary.

And although such flooding hasn’t happened in the past quarter-century, it’s not for lack of effort. In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a report on worldwide dam attacks since 2002, warning that dams across the world exhibit “a number of critical assets whose failure or disruption could lead to deleterious results, including casualties,

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The weaponization of water

massive property damage, and other severe long-term consequences.”

Of the 25 incidents recorded in the DHS study, about half were in the Middle East, and threats continue to mount today.

Just a few months ago, Kurdish-Syrian forces repelled a campaign by ISIL to seize the Taqba Dam, the largest in Syria. Coalition forces battled for weeks for control of the dam, which is viewed as crucial to eventually liberating the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa. Equally important, conceding dams to ISIL can be devastating for locals. In April 2014, ISIL captured the Nuaimiyah Dam and, The Guardian reported, “deliberately diverted its water to drown government forces.” Twelve thousand people lost their homes and millions more were without water. “Using water as its weapon, ISIL intended to impose a drought on the cities of Karbala and Najaf, holy sites of the Shia,” explained a journalist at Qantara.

At their most extreme, these threats, have the potential to cause immense human destruction. Before US-backed Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul in June of this year, engineers warned that the city’s largest dam was on the verge of collapse, its maintenance crew having fled after ISIL captured the city in 2014. The collapse of the dam would have killed hundreds of thousands of people and leveled Iraq’s third largest city.

Though inundation is a fearsome threat, the far more common strategy is deprivation. As warfare continues to diminish supplies of available drinking water, civilians in conflict zones frequently find themselves the victims of tactical drought. In 2015, the Red Cross warned that both government and opposition forces in Syria were disrupting access to water in the besieged city of Aleppo. In March, the UN accused the Assad government of bombing the Ain al-Fijeh spring in Dcember 2016, leaving 5.5 million people without water.

In addition to their humanitarian consequences, these types of diversions can lead to lasting political instability. From 2007 to 2009, water diversion contributed to a significant drought in the region, and a report from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies suggests that “the resulting failed

crops helped trigger Syria’s civil war by creating social breakdown as farmers became refugees and food prices soared in cities.”

Though weaponizing water offers enticing power to tyrants and terrorists, dams do have one unexpected protector: the self-interest of those who control them.

According to Ambika Vishwanath, a security consultant specializing in Middle East energy, during the three years ISIL held the Mosul Dam, it was effectively in control of 75 percent of Iraq’s electricity production and was strongly in favor of protecting it.

ISIL even once warned citizens in Raqqa to evacuate out of fear the Taqba Dam could collapse. Even terrorist organizations recognize that inundating entire cities and wasting millions of gallons of water delegitimizes those seeking power in the eyes of the publics they claim to represent.

And while it hasn’t stopped actors from diverting water to the detriment of civilians, perhaps the benefits of water warfare are murky enough to avoid catastrophe.

Jared Samilow ‘19 is a Computer Science–Economics concentrator and an Associate Editor at BPR. Illustration by Klara Auerbach

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Data Feature

turning up the heat How wildfires in the west have strained budgets and communities

This fall, wildfires have ravaged the United States. Cashstrapped state and federal agencies are desperately trying to combat the fire-wrought destruction, while astronauts helplessly watch gargantuan clouds of smoke waft over the nation. In Montana, firefighters tirelessly battled 15 large wildfires, straining their state’s fire suppression budget.

Meanwhile in California, officials have declared a state of emergency in response to fires that have destroyed countless farms, homes, and historic structures. In Seattle, the rainy weather and overcast skies of spring gave way to a suffocating, smoky summer haze.

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Data Feature Wildfire seasons wreak havoc on American communities. The damage caused by wildfires is multidimensional: The blazes disrupt both the health of the populace and the budgets of local and federal agencies. And their costs are only growing.

Wildfires do real harm to population health. While direct fatalities are rare, wildfires do damage indirectly.

When forests erupt in flame, acres of foliage are reduced to smoke. The resulting plumes are composed carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other greenhouse gases. These clouds are lofted into the air by convection and blown over expansive tracts of land. Unlike the wilderness where the fires burn, smoke clouds can be blown to more heavily populated areas. According to the National Resources Defense Council, in 2011, “212 million people lived in counties affected by smoke conditions.”

For these populations, the smoke wafting over their homes is far from harmless. In addition to anecdotal accounts of burning eyes and worsened breathing, scientists at Harvard found preliminary evidence that wildfire smoke exacerbated respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. These respiratory conditions can then result in fatalities.

A study in Southern California found evidence that one wildfire season resulted in “69 premature deaths, 778 hospitalizations, 1,431 emergency room visits, and 47,605 outpatient visits, mostly for respiratory and cardiovascular health problems aggravated by smoke exposure.” The growing body of evidence has led state and federal agencies to advise effected regions to avoid physical exertion outdoors and to seal their homes.

Evidence about the health effects of wildfires is often imperfect. But the financial cost of wildfires is clear and present. At both the state and federal level, the recent uptick in wildfires has depleted agency budgets. These increased expenditures have forced Congress to reallocate larger sums for wildfire prevention to the United States Forest Service and the Department of Interior. From 1991 to 1995, Congress appropriated about $1.39 billion (2012 dollars) annually for fire protection. But between 2002 and 2012, annual firefighting budgets ticked up to an average of $3.51 billion a year. Despite steady funding increases, the provided appropriations have been consistently insufficient, so the Forest Service has started regularly drawing emergency funds from other programs, including wildlife habitat and recreational projects: From 2008 to 2013, $2.7 billion was pulled from these

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initiatives. On top of this, other agencies, such as FEMA, contribute millions in disaster relief and rehabilitation costs each wildfire season.

Most large wildfires occur on federal lands, and thus are under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service. However, a significant number of large fires occur on land owned by states, pushing these states’ budgets to their limits. In 2010, for example, wildfire programs cost states $1.43 billion.

This year, northwestern states, especially Montana, have been caught off guard. Montana’s $32.5 million budget for firefighting was quickly drained this season: As of early September, the state had spent upwards of $53.7 million fighting wildfires. To sustain the effort, resources have been pulled from the Department of Natural Resources budget.

The year 2017 stands out as a particularly bad year for firefighting, and agencies across the country are draining their budgets at a faster pace than usual.

This fire season, more than 8 million acres in the US have gone up in flames. For comparison, in the past 10 years, the average was under 6 million, and from 1990 to 1999, the average was 3 million. The cul-

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prits are 49,840 individual wildfires, primarily in the West, up from 43,695 last year.

Unfortunately, 2017 is not an exception. Large fires appear to be increasing in frequency. This year, while an especially bad year for wildfires, is only a continuation of recent trends.

Much of the increase in wildfires can be chalked up to increasing droughts: Without rain, the fires burn longer and have

more dry fuel to burn. This relationship between drought and wildfires does not bode well. Climate models predict that as a result of climate change and in conjunction with natural forces, Americans should expect a dramatic surge in drought over the next 30 years. In turn, they can expect more wildfires and more inadequate fire budgets—unless funding priorities drastically change.

Data Feature

However, wildfires are caused by more than drought. Wildfires are a natural occurrence, and their regular appearance in various regions is a critical dynamic of the ecosystem, clearing small foliage and creating nutrient-rich soil. When humans disrupt these cycles, either through suppressing small fires or grazing animals, they change the ratio of small to large foliage. There is evidence that, over time, this can make regions more flammable, as small plants that burn at low-intensity are replaced by a growing number of flora that burn at a higher intensity.

While numerous factors facilitate more sizable and frequent wildfires that require expensive responses, others induce more preventative costs. The growing Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) may be having the greatest impact of all. The WUI is the intersection of dense population areas with wildlands and, over the past decades, it has exploded: Between 2000 and 2030, forecasts project the size of the WUI will increase 111 percent in the West, 93 percent in Southeast, and 44 percent in the rest of the mainland United States.

Upon reaching the WUI, forest fires become threats to large population centers. A larger WUI means that threats will become more frequent. Given the potential human costs, these threats warrant a serious response. To contend with the fire risk, federal and state agencies have instituted expensive fuel reduction programs, clearing foliage from populated areas bordering wildlands.

These programs, and fire suppression that prioritizes private property, put more pressure on already-strained budgets. As wildfires become more intense and the WUI continues to grow at an exponential rate, these costs will skyrocket. However, even with the hefty investments already being made, thousands of buildings in the WUI are destroyed each year.

The number of large wildfires, the length of the wildfire season, and the size of populations in high-risk fire environments are all climbing. Given these trends, both state and federal agencies must proactively reallocate appropriations to fighting wildfires. Investing in better prevention and more effective response is the only way to address the fires sweeping across the nation. Without such action, we will be unable to control the wildlands’ rampaging infernos, and smoky skies may become the norm.

Zach Horvitz ‘19 is a Computer Science and Anthropology concentrator and a Data Associate at BPR.

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Fracturing families

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orrisania is one of the most heavily policed neighborhoods in the Bronx. Despite living there in a public housing complex, Maria was surprised when police officers arrived at her home one March night in 2009, immediately searching the small, two-bedroom apartment where she lives with her children, Anthony, 17, and Ava, 12. Maria, who is in her early fifties and wheelchair-bound due to a disability, was not the target of the warrant. The cops had received a tip that Anthony, still in high school, had been selling marijuana out of his mother’s apartment. Yet Maria and her husband were the ones zip tied and arrested in front of their children.

Criminal charges against Maria and her husband were eventually dismissed. Despite this, New York City’s Administration of Child Services (ACS), which investigates cases of child abuse and neglect, took Ava to a foster care facility on the East Side of Manhattan and opened a case against her parents.

Ava would spend the next year shifting from group homes to foster families, only able to see her mother at ACS offices. Maria was forced to go to a drug treatment program in order to regain custody of her daughter, even though she did not test positive for any illicit substance. After a year of bureaucratic chaos, Maria was finally able to reunite with her daughter. That year was time neither of them would ever get back.

Ava is not alone as a poor child of color wrested from her family. New York City’s child welfare system is arguably the most racially segregated in the country, with black and Latino children making up 92 percent of the foster care system. African-Americans,

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The sources of segregation in New York’s foster care system

who represent only 25 percent of the population in New York City, account for 56 percent of the foster children in the city. Only 4 percent of children in foster care are white. America’s child welfare system, originally set up by well-intentioned individuals trying to help children, is in reality destroying black and Latino families, especially those afflicted by poverty.

A 2008 study revealed that an estimated 71 percent of the 3.3 million cases of child abuse recorded in the United States that year were cases of neglect, challenging the narrative that violent abuse is the most prevalent type. Child neglect is defined as “the failure to provide adequate health care, supervision, clothing, nutrition, and housing as well as their physical, emotional, social, educational, and safety needs.” But economic resources are a fundamental factor in whether families can meet these needs: Those who lack the money to provide for their children are more likely to be charged with neglect, regardless of their intent. Simply put, what looks like neglect is often the result of the constraints poverty places on families.

The intimate relationship between poverty and charges of neglect

Across New York, the threat of an agency removing children has become a weapon landlords use to force out lowerpaying tenants in gentrifying neighborhoods.

means that families—and particularly families of color—are often punished and torn apart for even the smallest infractions. Families residing in marginalized communities, such as the South Bronx, are 22 times more likely than white families to interact with the ACS. Child welfare institutions are increasingly criminalizing mothers of color across the country for being poor.

This fits into a larger trend of disproportionate increases in imprisonment of women. Since 1985, the number of women in the criminal justice system has increased at nearly double the rate it has increased for men, with many women incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. A little-discussed side effect of locking up women is how the criminal justice system affects the more than 2.7 million children left behind when their mothers go to jail. In the United States, more than 60 percent of incarcerated mothers have children under the age of 18. Approximately half of those children are under the age of 10, and these young children may have an especially difficult time maintaining a relationship with a parent that’s in prison. And the notorious Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 created incentives to construct prisons in rural areas, meaning imprisoned parents can be held more than 100 miles from their homes, making family visits difficult, if not impossible.

While over-policing in urban neighborhoods—exemplified by the backlash and reversal of the NYPD’s much lamented “stop and frisk” policy—is a well-documented disaster, the intrusive policies officials rely on to separate families remain under-covered. But for poor parents and children harmed by imprisonment, the disparities that these policies create are all too

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real. “When you walk into the court, you think ‘white people must not deal with issues of mental health or substance abuse issues’ because they simply are not present in family court, which we obviously know is not true,” states Emma Ketteringham, the managing director of the Family Defense Practice at the Bronx Defenders. Even Gladys Carrion, former ACS commissioner under Mayor Bill de Blasio, acknowledged that along with racism, “over-surveillance of families in poor neighborhoods” plays an outsized role in creating these racial disparities.

Families living in public housing or homeless shelters do not have much privacy. Spaces are staffed 24/7 by security guards and social workers who are legally obligated to report to ACS if they witness anything out of the ordinary, which can happen frequently and randomly in such cramped places. A system so powerful yet so capriciously applied leaves plenty of room for bureaucratic abuse. Across New York, the threat of an agency removing children has become a weapon landlords use to force out lower-paying tenants in gentrifying neighborhoods. Ketteringham explains that “we do see cases where neighbors or people who want to cause trouble call into ACS. Everyone knows it’s the best way to blow up somebody’s life.”

The combination of near-constant surveillance and extreme punishment for poverty-linked negligence frequently leads to the removal of children from their homes, spelling disaster for families. When children are taken away after a parent is charged with a crime, the family often becomes ensnared in a well-meaning but destructive system.

“Parents can be kicked out of [public] housing for arrests, often leading them to resort to single-sex shelters. This then prevents them from getting their children back from ACS until they are in a family shelter—yet with no children, there is no access to family shelters,” creating a vicious cycle, says Helene Barthelemy of The Nation.

The kids face real harm, too: Research shows that children in foster care have worse outcomes on both short- and long-term measures. Placement in foster care has been linked to increases in behavioral, psychological, developmental, and academic problems. One in four foster children ends up behind bars two years after leaving the system. Only 3 percent of foster children graduate from college. Even short-term removals that are quickly reversed can have lasting effects on vulnerable children.

If the goal of the child welfare system is to protect children from abuse and neglect, parents should be

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able to reach out and ask for support without risk of separation. But today, many families in the Bronx fear ACS social workers more than they fear the police. When this is the understanding between the child welfare system and the community it serves, the system is failing. According to Ketteringham, in order to solve the problems deeply entrenched in the child welfare system, “we need to transform, not reform, it, starting with the idea that permanency is more important than reuniting families.”

As a nation, we must address how we look at poverty. On both sides of the aisle, social welfare has become increasingly associated with behavioral expectations. Until we stop thinking of child neglect and child welfare issues as results of deficient characteristics and start acknowledging their deep relationship to poverty, we will continue to turn a blind eye to the larger problem of child welfare and continue to do harm to the children that public policies are trying to protect. For all the Avas and Marias of the world, maintaining the status quo is simply unacceptable.

Gabe Zimmerman ‘18 is a Urban History concentrator and Associate Editor at BPR.

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Trump’s Farming Folly How the White House is leaving farmers behind

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n the world of food, where free range and organic are idolized, farmers remain caged in by big business and government aid. The United States’ agriculture system has perfected the mass production of cheap crops, keeping the McDonald’s Dollar Menu true to its name and the price of a dozen eggs lower than that of a latte. This corporate success, however, has failed to prop up the farms sustaining the industry. Today, American farmers, stuck between profit-driven oligopolies and a negligent administration, are struggling to put food on their own tables.

While agricultural legislation focuses on subsidies and land evaluations, the politics of food is more often portrayed as an issue of American sustainability, prosperity, and self-reliance.

Politicians render the farmland as a scene of pastoral calm and use this conjured image as a proxy for America as a whole.

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In all but two of his State of the Union addresses, President Obama mentioned farmers, praising their dedication and ingenuity and offering them as exemplars of American ideals. In his 2016 campaign, President Trump pandered to rural communities, pushing a narrative that rural Americans have been left behind in the globalized economy, sidelined by the outsourcing of factories and regulation of environmental resources. Trump seemed to offer a cure for their plight.

In a recent New Yorker feature on Trump’s transformation of rural America, Peter Heller interviewed the inhabitants of Grand Junction, Colorado.

“I think America is lost to us,” mourned a woman in her sixties, explaining the abandonment she felt before Trump’s election. This feeling of abandonment augmented Trump’s emotional connection to rural supporters, who believe his “tough” rhetoric is improving America

even without any tangible legislative actions. Promises of “cutting regulation,” “bringing back jobs,” and “fixing trade” were vague enough to stir visions of higher crop prices, new factories, and the freedom to farm.

Past administrations have sought to relieve the economic strain on farmers. All have had little long-term success. The original Federal Subsidy Program, started by President Roosevelt in 1933 to remedy the problem of low crop prices, paid farmers to limit their production. Sixty years later and with a more robust economy, President Clinton overturned Roosevelt’s model. The 1996 Freedom to Farm Act established direct payments to farmers based on their historical land output, rather than their actual output in a given year. Clinton’s annual payments replaced subsidies as the government’s major form of payment to farmers and aimed to protect them

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from seasonal fluctuations. The plan was supposed to prop up the agricultural industry, but the formula used to calculate payments ultimately favored large factory farms, creating a barrier to entry for smaller operations wishing to expand.

Whereas Clinton’s Farm Act weaned farmers off subsidies, the Agricultural Act of 2014, passed 16 years later by a Republican Congress, moved to cut farmers off government entitlement altogether. Yearly direct payments were revoked, replaced by a glorified crop-insurance program. Similar to price-matching at Walmart or Best Buy, the government reimburses farmers for their losses when market prices fall below production costs for their products. The government is thus doing the bare minimum—ensuring only that farmers can break even.

Although farming in America is discussed as a domestic issue, it is, in fact, an international one. One in every ten acres of American produce is exported to Canada or Mexico, the two largest importers of US crops, in no small part due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since NAFTA was signed in 1993, however, the number of manufacturing jobs has decreased by almost 30 percent in the United States.

The causes of this decline are still unclear, but are more likely a result of mechanization than of the trade agreement itself; still, the visible loss of American factory jobs positioned NAFTA as a convenient enemy in Trump’s nationalist narrative.

As a central target of the president’s crusade for better trade deals, NAFTA’s future remains in question, a worrying uncertainty for the agricultural community. On the campaign trail, Trump labeled NAFTA as the “worst trade deal ever signed in this country.” (However, after being sworn into office, Trump has leaned toward renegotiation rather than termination). The trade agreement raises an important distinction in the discussion of agricultural policy: The priorities of rural voters are diverse and could never be represented by one group, whether it be farmers or factory workers. NAFTA is critical to agriculture prosperity, but it exists simultaneously as a painful symbol of economic loss for rural workers whose factory jobs were outsourced.

Yet, referring to farmers as the primary beneficiaries of NAFTA does not tell the whole story. In reality, multinational exporters and distributors, who purchase crops from individual farmers, stand to lose the most in the event of a dissolution of trade agreements.

Three companies control two-thirds of the soybean processing industry, with

similar situations in the corn, dairy, and cotton industries. This type of oligopoly is reflective of the agriculture sector as a whole. A proposed merger of Bayer and Monsanto, two major input suppliers, would give three companies control of 80 percent of the US seed supply, further squeezing farmers’ already tight profit margins. The Monsanto-Bayer merger has been blessed by President Trump, who met with both companies in the days before his inauguration, even though the

Politicians render the farmland as a scene of pastoral calm and use this conjured image as a proxy for America as a whole. consolidation of power puts farmers in an even weaker position.

Through stronger regulation and the review of such mergers, the federal government could protect farmers and American interests. By tightening agricultural antitrust laws or prosecuting more aggressively under existing laws, the government could better regulate the burst of mergers in big agriculture and look out for the interests of local farmers.

The president and the current Republican-controlled Congress, however, have no interest in increasing federal oversight on almost any issue. Indeed, regulation is the core irony of rural support for Trump.

Stuck between aggressive input suppliers and greedy distributors, farmers sought a return to agricultural sanity. Trump, portraying himself as a savvy businessman and dealmaker, offered hope. But his message and actions to date have suggested an abandonment of the agricultural base that propelled him to victory.

Without government regulation, the agricultural industry would not remain afloat. The Agricultural Act of 2014—which is the major source of farm subsidies—is set to expire in 2018 and must be either replaced or funded for another five years. In his 2018 budget proposal, titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” President Trump proposed to cut $9 billion in agricultural

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support programs. Though Congress refused such a drastic measure, the president’s suggestion made clear to farmers his own priorities. Hopefully congressional Republicans, faced with the need for a new farm bill, will show their allegiance to American farmers.

Further legislation may be the most effective way to alleviate the current economic stress on farmers. New policies can shift the agricultural dynamic to the local vision of the last generation. Although the local label has become associated with Whole Foods, federal support for regional food could be the tipping point in the farm bill. Funding local food in school lunch programs and at military bases, subsidizing farmers markets, and increasing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for local purchases are a few simple propositions to decentralize the agricultural industry without directly taking apart the large corporations controlling it.

Though the Trump administration seems reluctant to implement even these simple regulations, and thus is doing little to tangibly help farmers, rural communities’ emotional bond to Trump might persist. As Heller explains, “The lack of legislative accomplishment seems only to make supporters take more satisfaction in Trump’s behavior. And thus far the president’s tone, rather than his policies, has had the greatest impact.” But tone will do little for these voters if they lose their farms to Monsanto. The Republican Party, in all branches of government, will be responsible for the fate of these rural communities.

Agricultural policy has the potential to be a turning point for a small but influential voting demographic. While the magnitude of votes from the farming community pales in comparison to that from any major city, our nation’s idyllic attachment to prosperous farmers underscores an important truth: American farmers are worthy of national political attention. The agricultural-industrial complex is an institution with a fraught relationship with the farmers who sustain it. Every husk of corn at the supermarket is a testament to the political and economic cascade providing cheap food, for better or worse, to a growing worldwide population. The party in the Capitol that can sow support for farmers will reap its own political harvests.

Michael Gold ‘20 is an intended Biochemistry concentrator and an Associate Editor at BPR. 29

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No Congress, No Problem 30

City Politics in Trump’s America

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n the current state of American politics, it’s no surprise the approval ratings of city mayors tend to be about triple those of the President or Congress.

From ensuring the garbage gets picked up to taking action on climate change, mayors across the US have embraced their ability to work around federal gridlock and implement effective city policies. In cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, mayors have

gained national and international attention as they defy President Trump’s agenda. In June, a bipartisan group of city officials gathered at the US Conference of Mayors meeting to unveil a new policy proposal titled “Leadership for America: Mayors’ Agenda for the Future.” The plan targets infrastructure, economic growth, and the promotion of safe and equitable communities. Perhaps more importantly, this conference symbolizes

The US mayors’ proactivity in an era of mass disillusionment with the federal government and congressional gridlock.

In the words of New Orleans’ Mitch Landrieu, mayors “don’t have time to argue about ideological positions.

We have to find real solutions for problems.” Those in attendance at the conference urged Americans to look to their local leaders for changes they wished to see in their daily lives.

While a shift away from federal policymaking benefits progressive Americans concentrated in cities, such a shift may have unintended consequences for Americans outside the jurisdiction of urban centers. If only the Americans living within municipal boundaries benefit from innovative public policies like paid sick leave and investment in important infrastructure, Americans outside prosperous urban areas will continue to experience widespread disillusionment with the government as a whole. This sentiment was a major factor in President Trump’s victory: evidence that the preoccupation with this issue can affect nationwide change. Increased citizen engagement in local and state-level politics, as well as a collaborative spirit amongst mayors around the country, would improve political productivity across the urban-rural divide and ensure that the majority of Americans enjoy the benefits of a robust public policy agenda.

Congressional sluggishness on major issues has a long and storied history, but modern developments have resulted in an era of unprecedented inaction. Ideological and geographical sorting have created two political parties that are sharply divided and more homogenous than ever. This phenomenon has led to the reelection of over 96 percent of incumbents, despite a congressional approval rating in the low teens. Across the country state legislatures have designed heavily partisan districts where representatives fear losing primaries more than losing general elections.

Representatives from both parties are then forced to take on more ideologically extreme platforms, a phenomenon described by Alan Abramowitz, a Professor of Political Science at Emory University, as “the disappearing center.” This barrier to compromise will continue to hurt legislators who seek to confront serious policy issues in a bipartisan way.

It is in this climate that mayors across the country have begun to

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champion local government as the last bastion of bipartisanship. Republican Arizona Mayor Scott Smith, a former president of the US Conference of Mayors, states that although balancing a budget and filling potholes aren’t easy, “at the municipal level, we somehow figure out a way to get it done.” It’s unsurprising, then, that mayors consistently receive higher approval ratings than federal officials, making it important to acknowledge what they are doing differently and how they are working together to lift up their cities.

Effective programs generated by municipal government are a testament to mayoral leadership in cities.

Mayor Landrieu, who has earned praise for his strategy in reforming the New Orleans Police Department, has tackled the city’s historically high murder rate with a program centered on prevention and rehabilitation.

Also under Landrieu, the Office of Performance and Accountability was created to increase governmental transparency and track management performance. Sly James, the mayor of Kansas City, has launched a similar community-based approach to crime reduction. He has also budgeted the funds to install Google Fiber’s high-speed internet throughout the city, fixing an issue commonly associated with sparsely populated rural areas of the country.

Certainly, too, there are many mayors that fail to meet the needs of their constituents. Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago has seen the murder per capita rate nearly double under his tenure.

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On top of this, Chicago has one of the worst credit ratings in the United States. In Minneapolis, urban projects championed by Mayor Betsy Hodges have disrupted local transportation and small businesses. Still, relative to the stalemate and incivility seen in Congress today, American mayors for the most part have been more successful and effective at getting their constituents the services they need.

Finding success in the complicated operations of running a municipal government is much easier when mayors can work with the state government. Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta, a Democrat, has capitalized on this balance, and describes his relationship with Republican Governor Nathan Deal as cooperative, particularly when it comes to attracting companies interested in Atlanta as a site for their corporate headquarters. His ability to cross the aisle has been a major part of what has been

considered a successful mayoral tenure, during which he balanced the city budget and saw Atlanta’s cash reserves grow to $175 million.

Unfortunately, not every city and state government have a working relationship. In red states, liberal mayors routinely feud with GOP governors and state legislatures. For example, the Phoenix City Council has historically clashed with both the Arizona state and the federal government over deportation enforcement. In retaliation for the Charlotte City Council passing a nondiscrimination ordinance which approved legal protections for LGBT city residents, the North Carolina legislature passed the notorious “bathroom bill,” for the explicit purpose of overturning Charlotte’s law. These conflicts are inevitable in a politically fractured country. Instead of antagonism, increased collaboration between cities and their states would improve not only the ability of American cities to implement policy, but also improve the general well-being of Americans living outside of urban centers.

So far, many municipalities have embarked on partnerships with statewide initiatives which aim to benefit the entire state. In Massachusetts, the state government is partnering with the National Resource Network to provide economic solutions to problems faced by up to seven cities and at least three broad regional districts. The network will attempt to improve business competitiveness through consulting services and investment. Importantly, the program is targeted at struggling Massachusetts cities far from the Boston metropolitan area, such as Worcester and

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American mayors have not only ensured that cities remain operational, but also taken initiative where the President and Congress have failed

Springfield. Similarly, the North Carolina Local Government Commission is working with local governments and public authorities in North Carolina on fiscal management and the issuance of municipal bonds. The commission has already helped numerous municipalities build a favored credit status on the national bond market.

Regional-city collaboration is the key to increasing the number of people that benefit from legislation and programs which have worked for cities in the past. Although the US Conference of Mayors is a good start, there needs to be more communication between local governments on what is working and why. California has taken this approach to tackle the climate-change-induced drought that has affected the region for most of the 21st century. Cities in California have worked alongside large companies to come up with creative solutions for water conservation, from drought-resistant landscaping to the development of a supply chain water risk analysis framework. Mayors across the country are doing great things, but a greater flow of ideas and resources between the city and state would allow more Americans to benefit from innovative programs and policies.

A great example of bipartisan collaboration among local leaders is the effort to combat climate change. In response to President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords, more than 300 American mayors openly defied the president on the international stage by pledging to uphold the agreement. The mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times with the mayor of Paris calling for their own climate deal. After all, cities are responsible for 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, so urban commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could go a long way.

Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, has been a leader in this effort.

From pledging to go carbon neutral to installing millions of LED lights across Los Angeles, it’s clear that Garcetti is refusing to let federal failure on climate policy slow down his vision for an environmentally sustainable city.

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Even states are beginning to join these efforts: In August 2017 governors of northeastern states from both sides of the aisle came together to create a regional cap and trade program that may cut emissions by upwards of 65 percent in the next 20 years. As city and state governments continue to expand their impact, the federal government could take a page from these laboratories of democracy to fight the large, complex issues impacting our nation. Doing so would benefit not only those in cities, but also citizens across the country.

In this era of federal gridlock, Americans have very little trust in the efficacy of their federal government.

Thankfully, that is not the attitude many Americans hold about their local elected officials. With a few exceptions, American mayors have not only ensured that cities remain operational, but also taken initiative where the President and Congress have failed.

From Los Angeles to Atlanta, mayors have pledged to uphold the Paris Climate Agreement and have worked to advance sustainable environmental policy. Local governments are increasingly picking up the slack when the federal government falls short, in areas ranging from gun laws to afterschool programs. But local governments still need to cooperate with their states.

Without a functional relationship between the two, those that reside in non-urban areas are left behind, disproportionately deprived of state and federal resources. Local governments in thriving cities must continue to strive to fulfill the vision they have for their constituents, but also recognize that increased collaboration can go a long way in elevating the quality of life for all those in their state.

Lucy Walke ‘19 is a Political Science concentrator and an Associate Editor at BPR. Illustrations by Sam Berenfield

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untangling the city Congestion Pricing in the Big Apple

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etween emergency repair work at Penn Station and constant delays on an aging and overcrowded subway system, New York City commuters just survived one of the worst summers in recent memory.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the beleaguered transit system in June, just days after a derailment in Harlem injured 34 people, marking a dismal point for the century-old network. While such accidents are rare, stranded passengers, power failures, and signal malfunctions are symptoms of a system that is quite literally falling apart.

Critical infrastructure still has not recovered from damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, meaning more closures and headaches are in store for discouraged residents. The origins of the current crisis can be traced back to years of chronic underinvestment and a daunting maintenance backlog.

Desperate politicians are now scrambling to identify new funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in hopes of ameliorating the problem. These efforts have revived an idea that has long been relegated to the fringes of political feasibility in New York politics: congestion pricing.

Economists have long favored congestion pricing as the best policy to control traffic. Congestion pricing consists of charging drivers a fee during peak travel times, which encourages commuters to change the timing of their trips or shift to other means of transportation, freeing up lane space for those that are willing to pay the toll.

While its application in the US has been largely limited to freeway lanes, cities abroad such as London and Milan have

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found success with programs applied to the entire city center. Traffic levels in London, for example, have been markedly reduced, the transit system has raised funds, and the program has the added effect of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. Due to the success of similar programs, many believe the New York Metropolitan Area stands to benefit from a similar policy.

The last meaningful push for congestion pricing in NYC came in 2008, when a plan championed by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg failed

THE PLAN WOULD YIELD ROUGHLY $1.1 BILLION ANNUALLY FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT, FUNDING THAT WOULD BENEFIT CITY RESIDENTS AND SUBURBANITES ALIKE. in the New York State legislature. While the economic rationale for congestion pricing is widely accepted, politicians often balk at what amounts to a regressive tax, charging equally without considering ability to pay. Counter to this intuition, however, opposition to congestion pricing is found less among low-income commuters and more among relatively affluent and politically powerful suburbanites who depend on their cars.

It’s therefore unsurprising that the New York State Senate, where suburban Republicans wield outsized influence, has thrown cold water on any talk of congestion pricing. Their opposition may make congestion

pricing appear rather unpopular, but studies have demonstrated that with a little education, many voters will come to support the policy. In fact, it appears that once congestion pricing is adopted, opposition largely vanishes; after implementing its own program, Stockholm saw levels of support jump from 30 percent to over 70 percent. With the right program, proponents in New York could see similar public acceptance.

Congestion pricing can take different forms, and no such legislation is currently on the state docket, but a proposal championed by the advocacy group MoveNY offers an instructive blueprint that has won the attention of a growing list of elected officials and advocacy groups.The plan attempts to address some of the equity concerns that derailed Bloomberg’s earlier effort by spreading the financial burden more evenly across the five boroughs. Tolls would be reduced on bridges in the outer boroughs to compensate for the new charges in Manhattan, addressing the complaints of politicians from those neighborhoods. Most importantly, the plan would yield roughly $1.1 billion annually for public transit, funding that would benefit city residents and suburbanites alike.

While any renewed push for congestion pricing would face obstacles similar to those of previous efforts, the current transit funding crisis could alter the political calculus for elected officials. As traffic congestion in Manhattan worsens and public transit systems degrade, the possible revenue bump from congestion pricing grows more and more appealing to politicians dealing with strapped budgets.

Facing voter anger over the seemingly endless subway problems, Governor Cuomo recently threw his support behind a congestion charge, a meaningful

The US

Brown Political Review development in the years-long push for the policy. Cuomo’s switch from skepticism to support suggests there is momentum in the state legislature for a renewed effort.

Governor Cuomo’s support is probably the most important recent development, since he has considerable political capital to spend and a strong incentive to put wins on the board ahead of a potential 2020 presidential campaign. His efforts, however, will likely prove futile if he cannot get New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on board. De Blasio remains opposed to a congestion pricing plan, maintaining that he has yet to see a policy that strikes him as fair. De Blasio’s favored solution is a new tax on affluent residents to support a dedicated transit fund. While the mayor’s stance has attracted criticism from commentators, he has refused to budge, preferring

to stick to “tax the rich” rhetoric. This dispute between the two ambitious politicians is just the latest chapter in their famous feud, which has intensified as each seeks to blame the other for the worsening transit crisis. With both pointing fingers and pushing different solutions, the likelihood of cooperation seems slim.

The confusion surrounding the whole debate is compounded by the opacity of the MTA’s funding and governance structures; most New Yorkers simply don’t know who to blame for the agency’s considerable troubles.

This situation is intentional—while most elected officials want to play a role in controlling the region’s transit system, few want to become scapegoats if things go awry. All 17 members of the MTA’s governing board are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the

State Senate, although these selections are based on the recommendations of officials in the service area, including the mayor. The result is that the New York City Transit Authority—including the subway and bus systems—is effectively run by the state government, even as those assets remain city property.

De Blasio’s recent stance is not the first time he’s dug his heels in opposition to a sensible transit policy.

In the summer of 2015, the mayor famously launched an all-out war on Uber, attempting to lay the blame for the city’s gridlock at the feet of the notorious ride-sharing company. In 2015, as it is today, the best solution to the gridlock was congestion pricing, but de Blasio remained sensitive to the political optics of new fees, even if they are the most efficient and equitable option. This year’s mayoral election is a likely factor in his continued hostility—no politician wants to campaign on charging residents more money—but de Blasio and other officials cannot afford to sit on their hands for much longer if they want to address the city’s transit crisis.

For all the problems it’s causing, the MTA’s current state of disrepair presents a tantalizing opportunity to impose a congestion charge, a policy that could address many of the New York City metropolitan area’s challenges. The dire need for more transit funding will likely prove key in getting long-reluctant politicians to embrace a long-term solution to the gridlock that continues to stunt the region’s economic performance. The MoveNY plan appropriately analyzes past failures to develop a proposal that is likely to garner widespread support, as the long list of proponents attests. Cuomo and de Blasio can only evade responsibility for so long, and in their zeal to point fingers have attempted to obfuscate the fact that they are both responsible.

The governor seems to have come to his senses; only time will tell whether de Blasio follows suit and gets behind the policy that could spell enduring improvements in what amounts to New York City’s transportation armageddon.

Pieter Brower ‘18 is a Hispanic Studies and Public Policy concentrator and a Managing Editor at BPR.

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Interviews

Beto O'Rourke

Congressman Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat in his third term representing the 16th District of Texas, is challenging Republican Senator Ted Cruz for his seat in the 2018 election.

After graduating from Columbia University in 1995, O’Rourke founded an internet services and software company. As a politician, he uses social media and technology extensively to spread his message and garner support.

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Brown Political Review

What role does social media play in your broader campaign strategy?

connection with the person who wants to represent them. Social media facilitates that connection.

It’s a great way to bring a lot of people on the road with us as we travel the state of Texas. My campaign just spent more than a month going from town to town in Texas.

We were on the road for 34 days and put 7,400 miles on the truck.

Almost all of that was livestreamed, including the time driving between these cities. So, for one, you get to see me on the road and answering questions in urban town halls, rural town halls, and suburban areas. You can decide for yourself whether I’m consistent and see what people are asking me. You also get to see what is on the minds of Texans who live in a very different part of the state from you. So it just brings everyone into the campaign. Over the course of this, hundreds of thousands of people [have] participated in some way or another—not just watching the live stream, but also commenting. [Social media] is the most direct, transparent, and honest way to campaign.

At a campaign kickoff event in March 2017, you announced you would not accept money from any Political Action Committees (PACs) in your Senate race.

How does this decision fit into your campaign’s emphasis on transparency?

How did you get the idea for your Facebook livestreams?

It started from an attitude of being as responsive and accountable as possible. I hold a live town hall meeting every single month in El Paso, [a city] in my district. We started livestreaming them a couple years ago because some people can’t get to the town halls. I knew from all the folks who were stopping me in grocery stores or at the airport that people were really connecting with us that way.

I know I can’t run the typical campaign and win. We have to be as innovative and creative and different as possible for many reasons, including that so many people are just sick of politics and politicians.

[People] want a direct and honest

A lot of folks already knew that this campaign was a long shot to unseat a sitting senator in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in 30 years. They felt like not taking PAC money was ridiculous, because it leaves hundreds of thousands— potentially millions—of dollars on the table. But it was one of the best decisions we’ve made about how to run the campaign, because it also broke through a lot of the cynicism that people—especially young people— have about campaigns and politics.

[They think] if you have money and if you’re able to buy access, you can affect or control the outcome. So much of what disgusts people or is so disappointing about Congress can be explained by the flow of money into the halls of Congress. On principle, and because I think it’s a disgusting aspect of our democracy, I don’t take PAC money. [This decision] has brought in so many people who will tell me, “I don’t consider myself a Democrat or a Republican, and to be frank with you, I’m not very interested in politics. The only reason I’m here is because you don’t take PAC money.

So, I know that you’re going to be listening to us.”

Interviewed by Catherine Walker-Jacks

, Brown Political Review

How have you seen technology promote or amplify the voice of the people?

not that everything is fake, but that we can easily dismiss everything we read as fake.

Ordinary people have a lot more say now collectively than they did in the past. For example, social media has enabled this very active instant protest movement, both on the left and right, in the United States and elsewhere.

You see huge protests in South Korea, for example. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in an instant in a way that was very difficult before social media. So [technology] definitely has increased the access people have to affecting political debates.

Hacks, like those against the DNC and Equifax, are putting Americans and political institutions at risk. Do you think there is a lag time between the mass rollout of technology and the full understanding of the vulnerabilities of that technology?

The other thing technology has done effectively is to reduce the power of institutions, like the media. The media has less of a gatekeeper role. Now, ordinary people have more say in how media flows, what stories become important, and what people are clicking on.

In 2008, you wrote a book titled True Enough: Learning to Live in a PostFact Society. What role does fake news play in this ‘post-fact’ world, and how serious is the threat that it poses?

My thesis in True Enough was that we were entering this world where there would be a lot more fake stuff with two main reactions. One would be that many pursue the fake stuff, indulge the fake stuff, and ignore the truth because there is so much information out there to choose from. The way that we choose is based on our political and cultural beliefs, more than any rational reason that many people think we operate under.

The other would be to just dismiss everything as untrue. A year ago, when ‘fake news’ really became a term people used, they were talking about actual fake news—stories pretending to be from real news outlets on Facebook and elsewhere. Now the term fake news is a catch-all term, thanks to Trump and others, used to mean anything that you don’t quite believe, or even that you don’t like. That is the real danger. It’s

I think there is not much understanding on the part of the public on the dangers of this stuff, but I also think there shouldn’t be. The answer is to blame the companies and the internet security apparatus rather than to promote fear. The consumers have been sold a bunch of technology, and they have been promised that it’s safe. And it’s not safe. The way to lock down and secure all your devices is not as easy as it should be.

It’s not quite clear that the companies themselves have a handle on this, and so we are just very bad in terms of internet securing. And we are diving headlong into it. We didn’t start our aviation industry until we knew planes were safe to fly. But computers aren’t very safe about our information. We just had a whole presidential election where pretty much every correspondence of one of the candidates was leaked online. That was seen sort of as just what happens with computers, and it is kind of crazy that we allow that.

What is the future of net neutrality?

I think net neutrality is one of those issues where there is going to be a compromise, perhaps worked out in Congress, that both the technology giants and the broadband giants are okay with.

I do not think we are going to go back to an internet where it is much freer and technology companies do not have a hand in it. Today, we are in this internet that is ruled by corporations, and it seems like it is going to stay that way.

Interviews

Farhad Manjoo

Farhad Manjoo writes the “State of the Art” column for The New York Times, where he examines how technology is changing business and society.

Before joining the Times, Manjoo was a technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal and Slate magazine. In 2008, Manjoo published a book entitled True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.

Currently, he is working on a book about the efforts by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google to rule the business world.

Interviewed by Jack Makari

37

Interviews

Harrison Kreisberg

Harrison Kreisberg is the lead strategist for Blue Labs, a technology and analytics company formed in 2013 by senior members of the Obama campaign.

Kreisberg’s team at Blue Labs works with political campaigns to optimize strategies using data analytics. Kreisberg worked on Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, Terry McAuliffe’s 2013 Virginia gubernatorial campaign, and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Kreisberg graduated from Brown University in 2010.

Brown Political Review

Data-driven political campaigning is a fairly new development that many people don’t understand. How would you define data-driven campaigning?

If you use the term data, it often scares people off. But fundamentally, what we are trying to do is take all the information coming into a campaign and make a decision. So the idea is to take the information we have and use that to help us decide whom [a voter] is going to support. Ultimately, we can’t talk to everybody, so we have to make guesses about people before we spend money on campaigning.

You can’t answer every question [using data], but you can come to some basic decisions about whom to talk to and how to talk to them.

target social media users?

Social media is the next frontier in a lot of this if we want to understand how folks are communicating. Not everyone is on social media, and if you only listen to social media, you will get a biased vision of the world. Just like we need to understand which doors to knock on and which mailboxes to send letters to, we also need to understand which social media users we need to talk to. If the social media population is different, we need to recognize that and talk to them in a different way. It is tricky because social media is so balkanized—different groups of folks are talking to themselves and not to each other. When people are so segmented, it makes [these topics] harder to break into.

Did the Democratic Party fail to use data correcctly for the 2016 Elections?

Do you think driving political decisions with data—instead of a more traditional political calculus—poses a risk?

There is no doubt that a lot of things were surprising to people on election day. Most polling aggregators got it wrong, and there was a fundamental shift in the electorate, with big changes in October and new players in the election like Russia and fake news. Data is as susceptible to these types of changes as anything else.

Just as analytics was not [the] magic formula to victory that many claimed following Obama’s 2012 election, it is not fundamentally broken, as some are claiming in the wake of last November’s elections. Hillary Clinton needed to win either Pennsylvania or Florida and one other swing state.

The Clinton campaign should get a lot of credit for spending a lot in those two states, and that was something that data was able to bring to the fore. That said, there was much to learn from the 2016 outcome.

You can use any tool for good or for bad. Data is certainly a very powerful tool, and with more power, you have the ability to have a larger impact on both sides of the coin. Maybe there are some politicians who say, “tell me what the most popular belief is, and then I will say that.” But I don’t think that is common.

You need something that is going to be authentic and believed, and the only way to do that is to truly believe it. If I told Hillary Clinton the best thing to do was to play to nativist fears, I don’t think it would have been authentic coming from her. [Some people] treat the data practitioner as a mercenary, but people in my shoes on both sides of the aisle care about politics. You can make a lot more money working in data and analytics in finance [than in politics]. You do this because you believe in it.

Interviewed by Katrina Northrop

How has social media changed campaign strategy, and how can data analytics be used to 38

Interviews

What is GE’s position on clean energy policy? How are new innovations and technologies affecting energy policies generally?

We see four megatrends: an accelerating digitization of the world, fossil fuel abundance, resource stress, and increased competitiveness of clean energy. First is accelerating digitization. We see the number of connected devices reaching 50 billion by 2020. Think about 50 billion devices, all connected by their own internet.

Right now we’re closely considering how we can use digital technologies to improve the efficiency of every machine that’s operating. Second is fossil fuel abundance.

Surprisingly, global fossil fuel reserves are actually up, and due to the United States’ increased shale gas production, we’ve seen a dramatic drop in oil prices in recent years.

Our challenge is ensuring fossil fuel production and consumption are as efficient as possible and have minimal environmental impacts. Third is resource stress. Because a key driver of climate is energy-related emissions, we really need to find a way to make energy cleaner. Fourth, we’re actually watching unprecedented innovation in the clean energy space. Costs have declined big time as a result of this innovation, and the market for clean energy technology has really expanded. For example, solar costs have dropped 75 percent over the last decade and wind power installations have grown ten-fold.

Explain GE’s ‘Ecoimagination’ initiative. What are the purpose and goals of the program?

The Ecoimagination program is GE’s big commitment to prioritizing cleaner technology growth, research and development investments, and reductions to our own footprint. Ecoimagination is really about transforming industries, driving greater economics for the customers, and improving environmental performance. Since we launched the program in 2005, we’ve invested $20 billion in clean technology research and development. We’ve also returned over $270 billion in revenue, which proves that our customers really value these efficient solutions. When Ecoimagination started, we also set some really bold goals to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions and water usage. Since 2005, we have worked to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent and our fresh water use

by 29 percent. In 2015, we doubled down and decided to make our goal for 2020 to invest $25 billion in research and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and fresh water usage by an additional 20 percent.

Many argue that a shift towards renewable energy could negatively affect employment. How does GE plan to support workers who haven’t had experience with these new clean energy technologies?

GE has something called the Brilliant Learning Program. The idea of the program is to train workers for jobs of the future.

Take, for example, this idea of additive manufacturing and 3D printing. Many of our workers did not study these techniques in school, and certainly didn’t have experience with them on the shop floors. But we’re moving into this era of 3D printing at GE, so one of the things we’re doing is launching open online courses that serve as immersion boot camps on the work of the future. In 2017, manufacturing is driven by productivity. To boost productivity, we really need a highly skilled labor force, and we’re prepared to invest in training our workforce so they’re ready for the jobs of the future.

How did GE react to the Trump administration’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement?

At GE, we believe the science is settled and climate change is real. Period. We were supportive of the Paris Agreement, and in June our chairman announced that he was disappointed by the President’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, stating that “industry must now lead and not depend on government.” We believe that we are one of the best-positioned companies to help the nations of the world meet their commitments to the Paris Agreement.

We operate in nearly every country in the world, so while we are an American company, we are also a global company. We want to play a part in helping the nations of the world meet their commitments, and just because the United States is withdrawing, that doesn’t change GE’s beliefs, values, or goals.

Neal Kemkar

Neal Kemkar serves as the Director of Environmental Policy at the General Electric Company (GE). Prior to joining GE, Kemkar worked for Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, the US Secretary of the Interior, and the White House Council on Environmental Equality.

He is a graduate of Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Interviewed by Katrina Northrop 39

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