EDUCATOR • AUTHOR • ACTIVIST
I have spent decades studying environmental justice, but ever since Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign, my research has shifted increasingly toward the study of the Right. It is a powerful force whose energy, structures and logics impact a wide-variety of issues. I am particularly interested in the various ways that white supremacy and nationalism are linked to environmental degradation, especially climate denial and refusal.
TRUMP RACIST & ENVIRONMENTAL
DATABASE
In an effort to cope with the onset of the Trump administration, I began making lists of all the racist and anti-environmental things that were happening. I did this out of curiosity, but also to document the changes themselves. I began the process on my blog, but was not able to maintain it. In Winter 2018 I taught “Race, Nature & Power” (Geography 410/510) at the University of Oregon and took the opportunity to develop a class-based research project centered on the lists. Working together, we tried to identify all the racist things that happened in Trump’s first year and all the anti-environmental actions. We then analyzed the lists and studied how the two different agendas unfolded.
On this page you can find the data itself, as well as the accompanying article that discusses the findings. The article, “Environmental Deregulation, Spectacular Racism and White Nationalism In the Trump Era,” was published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.