Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez

Enact reforms to protect Bolivia’s forests from fire

In 2024, #Bolivia experienced its most extensive forest #fires on record, with the burned area exceeding the size of Portugal.
In a letter published in @science.org , we highlight how these fires are part of a broader trend of environmental degradation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

My book, "Local Peace, International Builders," is now OUT.

It examines the conditions under which international actors successfully bring order, peace, and stability to fragile settings.

To read more about each chapter and download the book OPEN ACCESS: www.williamgnomikos.com/local-peace

Congrats, Will!

Rainy afternoon in Mexico City

The Colegio de San Ildefonso in CDMX has a very interesting expo on cities and the environment, including an exhibit on the reconstruction in Acapulco after Otis and another one on community oriented housing in Barcelona. There’s a big opportunity to raise awareness on climate issues via art!

Excited to have a new review article up – on Land and Politics – at Annual Review of Political Science. To understand inequality, development, identity, conflict, state-building, and more, you have to understand the power of land!

Synthesis of evidence yields high social cost of carbon due to structural model variation and uncertainties | PNAS Estimating the cost to society from a ton of CO2—termed the social cost of carbon (SCC)—requires connecting a model of the climate system with a re...

Excited to announce a new @pnas.org publication on the Social Cost of Carbon. We integrate evidence from the literature and expert survey to provide an SCC distribution inclusive of both parametric and structural uncertainties. Our mean 2020 value is $283 per ton CO2
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This is a great data resource for anyone interested in the political economy of land, land use change, and natural resources management. Looking forward to exploring it!

There are crucial connections among the different environmental crises facing the world. The Nexus Assessment Report of IPBES is a fundamental resource to study them

A picture taken after the last lecture of the quarter about a week ago ⛰️ ☀️ the Santa Ynez mountains and Henley Gate on the background

Grades submitted for the winter quarter! 🤩🎉 I am also wrapping up my first calendar year of teaching as a faculty member

At the same time, Boyer explores how, despite these limitations, local communities engaged in a wide range of strategies to preserve and use their resources.

This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in community forestry, local management of resources, and the Mexican conservation model 4/4

The interactions and negotiations among government officials (both local and national), communities, and private firms led to the politicization of landscapes, constituting the central theme of the book. Boyer focuses on Michoacán and Chihuahua as case studies of regions rich in timber resources 3/4

After the Mexican Revolution, the new regime redistributed vast swaths of land (including commercial forests) to communities, as a way to address one of the key grievances that led to the civil war. Nonetheless, it maintained key management rights over natural resources, leading to conflict 2/4

I am starting a series of threads on some of my favorite environmental politics and history books and articles 🌳

Today, let’s talk about “Political Landscapes” from Christopher Boyer (2015), which explores the intersection between state land policies and community conservation efforts in Mexico 1/4

Going to a new gym is like going to a new supermarket: it’s all momentary angst and confusion, as in “are these all the barbells?” Or “I cannot get through my list without X machine?” And “oh wait, I hadn’t seen this before, it’s kinda cool”

But at least I got a new record with my pull-ups 😎

Great initiative on social-ecological transformations in Latin America. Looking forward to learning more about it. Congrats to the team!

New paper characterizing trends in wildfire smoke PM2.5 in the US, incl. updated daily dataset and implications for air quality regulation. Below is animation of 2023.
Paper: eartharxiv.org/repository/v...
Data (BETA version): www.stanfordecholab.com/wildfire_smoke
Quick thread:

Thrilled to share that my paper “Spatial Diffusion of Local Economic Shocks in Social Networks: Evidence from the US Fracking Boom” was accepted at JOLE earlier this year.

Full article here👉 doi.org/10.1086/732300.
A short 🧵 below - my first on 🦋!

@jlaborecon.bsky.social @sofi.su.se #econsky 1/7

New paper with @nilskupzok.bsky.social out in Perspectives today! We show how decarbonizable industries are reshaping climate politics through what we call "the decarbonization bargain." 1/

Global Coal Plant Tracker The Global Coal Plant Tracker (GCPT) provides information on coal-fired power units from around the world generating 30 megawatts and above. The GCPT catalogues every operating coal-fired generating u...

Here’s the link to the data:

globalenergymonitor.org/projects/glo...

The map pools together all operating, retired, shelved, canceled and mothballed coal power plants as of 2022, so only a portion of these would be operating.

Very interesting work! Some of these hotspots are more surprising to me than others (i.e. Western Europe and Southern Australia)

Timeline cleanse courtesy of Santa Barbara, California

Location of coal power plants worldwide, using data from the Global Energy Monitor Tracker. In Latin America, Colombia and Chile stand out in terms of the number of coal facilities.

Abstract for American social media users have ideological differences of opinion about the war in ukraine

Table 1: Description of the Tweets in the Dataset

Table 2: Five most frequently discussed clusters of tweets by ideology group

Figure 1: Proportion of Substantive Topics Discussed by Ideology Groups

New article accepted @natureportfolio.bsky.social HSSC (w/ @dahjinkim.bsky.social and Gechun Lin).

- Tweets about Russian invasion of Ukraine (Feb 22-25)
- Trace user ideology through networks
- Libs pro-Ukraine
- Cons more misinfo
- Mods in between

Abstract 👇
Pre-print 👉 doi.org/10.31219/osf...

Really excited to host @agazmararian.bsky.social and Helen Milner at UCSB Department of Political Science and @the2035initiative.bsky.social to workshop their book "Climate Fault Lines" and talk about future of climate politics domestically and internationally over two action-packed days.

How common is opposition to wind energy and what predicts where it occurs? My new open-access research in @PNASNews looks at wind energy opposition across North America between 2000 to 2016. We find opposition is common and growing over time. THREAD🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

The Prize is such a great, great book. It was one of the reasons why I got interested on energy / oil politics in the first place!