IHS Climate in Context Workshop: “From Smog to Climate Change? The Precarious Precedents for Curbing Greenhouse Gases in the U.S. and Mexico

Monday November 23, 2020 • Zoom Webinar

I plan to present a draft article that looks at the roots and recent realities of greenhouse gas regulation in the U.S. versus Mexico. Comparing the control of environmental toxics (and other pollutants) instituted over 1970s in the United States with that of the 1990s in Mexico, the piece then goes on to look at how these regulatory regimes have (and haven’t) furnished each nation with tools for overseeing greenhouse emissions. I’ll conclude by exploring the strengths and drawbacks of approaching carbon emissions as we do other kinds of environmental pollution.’

Christopher Sellers is Professor of History at Stony Brook University. His research concentrates on the history of environment and health, of cities and industries, and of inequality and democracy, with a focus on the United States and Mexico. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale and an M.D. from the University of North Carolina. Among his numerous grants and fellowships are those from the Wilson Center, the National Science Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the National Library of Medicine; and among his awards, the Abel Wohlman Award (for best book in public works history) and the Alice Hamilton Prize (a best article award from the American Society for Environmental History). He is the author of Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease to Environmental Health Science (University of North Carolina Press, 1997), Crabgrass Crucible: Suburban Nature and Environmentalism in Twentieth-Century America (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), and currently forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press, Skewed City, Democratizing Seeds: Inequality, Democracy, and Environmental Politics in Atlanta’s Twentieth Century, along with numerous edited volumes and articles.  In 2016, he co-founded and now serves as co-moderator of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, an influential group of scholar- and scientist-activists. As a residential Fellow at Institute of Historical Studies this year, Dr. Sellers will complete an in-depth comparative and transnational study of the history of environmental change and hazards connected to the oil industry in Mexico and the United States.

Respondents:

Dr. Christopher R. Boyer
Dean of the College of Arts and Letters
Northern Arizona University
https://nau.academia.edu/ChrisBoyer

Dr. David Adelman
Harry Reasoner Regents Chair in Law
University of Texas at Austin
https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/david-e-adelman

IHS Fellow Dr. @ChrisCSellers co-authored a piece for @voxdotcom w/ Dr. Marianne Sullivan @WPUNJ_EDU, on why the new administration must rebuild & strengthen the EPA: http://bit.ly/34xptZI.

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