
IBS Speaker Series: David Ciplet
February 24 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Join in person at IBS 155 or via Zoom, email ibs-contact@colorado.edu for the password.
*Light lunch served at 11:45 a.m.
Title: Climate justice or inequality lock-in? Analysis of U.S. incarceration in a changing climate
Bio: David Ciplet directs the Climate and Incarceration Research Collective (CIRCol). He has published articles in journals such as Global Environmental Politics, Global Environmental Change, and Environmental Politics. He is lead author of Power in a Warming World: The New Global Politics of Climate Change and the Remaking of Environmental Inequality with MIT Press.
Abstract: The concept of carbon lock-in has been applied to the infrastructure, institutions, and discourses that lock society into carbon technologies, and simultaneously lock out lower-carbon alternatives. However, climate transitions have implications that extend beyond carbon and related environmental considerations. Systems of social inequality are also inextricably linked to and impacted by climate change governance and related actions. This article develops a framework to analyze inequality lock-in and disruption as part of climate transitions in particular sectors or industries. This presentation will conceptualize four distinct forms of climate transitions in relation to inequality: decarbonization lock-in, adaptation lock-in, decarbonization disruption, and adaptation disruption. Moreover, the framework conceptualizes the material mechanisms through which inequality is locked-in, or alternatively, disrupted by climate actions. Applying this framework to analyze the case of incarceration in the United States suggests that decarbonization and climate adaptation policies and practices are currently weighted toward further locking-in inequality in carceral systems.