Anthony Calacino

Existential Politics A new way to tackle the real politics of climate change through asset revaluation

Today is the day!!! Existential Politics is out in the world!

Read about why we’re doing climate policy wrong (too focused on measuring emissions) & what we should do instead (focus on $$ to constrain fossil asset owners & expand green asset owners). Just in time for #COP30.

Abstract of "Offshore Outlaws" paper by Calacino, Genovese and Pring: Globalization has led to various forms of international integration whose effect on environmental behavior has been a long-standing source of debate. Yet, in recent years, there has been a growing backlash against international institutions, in part motivated by the will of taking back control of national borders. Focusing on the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, this paper explores the effects of this type of backlash on firms' environmental standards. Despite being defined as a sovereignist project to enhance state power and national regulatory oversight, we argue that Brexit caused immediate suboptimal environmental outcomes. Specifically, Brexit created policy misalignment, pushing the UK regulators into a capacity vacuum. This led to a transition period of impunity for polluting firms, further catalyzed by accelerating market changes, which led firms with lower environmental compliance to sort into the market. We test our theory with evidence from the oil sector's offshore rigs in the North Sea between 2015 and 2023. A grid-cell analysis of satellite-detected oil spills compares firm behavior in the United Kingdom, European Union, and Norwegian jurisdictions. We first find that, after Brexit, UK waters experienced significantly less environmental protection compared to the EU and Norway. Additionally, we show that the environmental damages following Brexit are not associated to a decrease of UK public salience for environmental protection, but by a new ecosystem of firms that were allowed to reap short-term profits from Brexit.

Looking forward to hopping on a train later today and heading to Paris to present our "how Brexit harmed the environment" paper (cc @acalacino.bsky.social @hayleypring.bsky.social) tomorrow 🇫🇷

Thanks @sciencespo-cee.bsky.social for the invite!

Foot note in a draft "Earlier data exist, but downloads were interrupted by the 2025 U.S. government shutdown."

Service Unavailable screenshot of NASA website.

NEO NASA website showing banner that says "Due to the lapse in federal government funding, NASA is not updating this website. We sincerely regret the inconvenience.

Having to footnote limited data is a modest inconvenience in the grand scheme of all the bad happening right now in the US. But also, this sort of thing underscores how much science is being undermined right now.

“If you can beat the oligarchs here…that will send a message to every community in America that real change is possible.”

More of my conversation with Bernie Sanders on democracy, oligarchy and his time as Mayor.

Our research makes it clear: by capitulating to the right, Labour is driving voters to Reform UK | Tarik Abou-Chadi and Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte Mimicking Farage on immigration is senseless. Labour voters feel betrayed; anti-immigration voters see through the ruse, say academics Tarik Abou-Chadi and Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte

For the Guardian, @turnbulldugarte.com and I discuss our research that clearly shows one thing: Labour's anti-immigration strategy will only strengthen Reform and weaken its own electoral prospects. It won't win voters back but ultimately normalizes the far right

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Take Action for International Education! I just took action to increase funding for Title VI and Fulbright-Hays! Join me and take action here.

Action Alert: APSA members are invited to urge Congress to take action in support of international education and federal science funding. Take action here: buff.ly/FlaOWyg and buff.ly/AlQ8CTm

Critics slam renewables for land use but ignore fossil fuels' huge impact.

Germany's Hambach lignite mine: 85 sq km pit, 300m deep, snapped from ISS.

My first ever energy research protect professionally was on the externalities of lignite. In short: they are very significant!

Especially as the wind energy sector in the UK might be closing in on 60k people right now.

Also funny how the narrative is about jobs, while the Labour government also pursues AI strategies, which might lead to major job losses? Is it about jobs?

Ed Miliband looking into more North Sea drilling despite Labour pledge Exclusive: Energy secretary examining ways to allow oil and gas exploration without breaking manifesto promise

i know this does not strictly mean more or new gas and oil licenses, but the optics of this move from a climate policy credibility standpoint are bad…

H/t @acalacino.bsky.social

Critics of renewables often point to land use as a reason not to invest in wind & solar. Land use IS a real issue for all energy assets incl renewables (unless on-site).

But what critics conveniently forget is the huge land impact of fossil fuels. Aerial view of fracking sites in Wickett, Texas. 👇

"Soon, the only comedian left on TV will be Karoline Leavitt" - Andy Borowitz

#Kimmel #JimmyKimmel

I was also shocked to see this. Hard not to read it as the university endorsing ChatGPT at all levels of university work, regardless of the ethical or PR implications.

Sadly, I think it's more than just a bug in the system. The system itself is bugging.

It Isn’t Just the U.S. The Whole World Has Soured on Climate Politics.

Big DWW piece in NYT today. Again this sad progression away from collective responsibility and commitment to each other is presented as inevitable. It was not, and is not. 1/x

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/m...

What does the EU’s new deforestation regulation mean for sourcing coffee, soy, cocoa, palm oil, and more? And what role can journalists play in monitoring its rollout?

Find out on September 15, 2025 at 7:30pm UTC in our upcoming webinar.

RSVP: forms.gle/zUDCqj8bx7B6...

27 years of prison for Bolsonaro

"27 years of prison for Bolsonaro"

This is justice for democracy, but also, justice for all those this coward attacked while in office. This is far from the end of the radical right in Brazil, but this seriously gives me hope.

The US should take notes from Brazil on how to defend democracy.

That's a pretty good reason to skip APSA - Congrats to you both!!

Thanks! In addition to what Federica said, we also think there is some missing data due to our underlying data source. We don't think the pattern would fundamentally change, but we are working at including more sources.

Thanks, Mike! Hope to see you around APSA!

Psyched for @acalacino.bsky.social and @hayleypring.bsky.social to present our media paper at PECE/APSA!

Come for the giant dataframe of local news, geolocated monthly climate events and coal mines

Stay for the wealth of stories from recent 🇧🇷🇮🇩 fieldwork

Enrage about asset-based climate politics

5/5 if you're also going to APSA, hope to see you there! Always up for coffee ☕ and conference side quests.

Abstract of article "Are policies that contribute to reducing climate vulnerability electorally advantageous? Political science has long studied the politics of carbon dioxide mitigation, but we know less about the political logic of climate impacts. As adaptation lies at the intersection of environmental, social, and disaster policy, its electoral effects are puzzling from a theoretical perspective. We address this gap by studying a program to improve the ability of households to withstand episodes of water scarcity in Mexico City, implemented between presidential cycles. In contrast to conventional forms of social policy, this intervention prioritizes building future resilience instead of immediate material benefits. We take advantage of the means-tested nature of the program to reduce imbalances between treated and control neighbors and estimate a difference-in-differences to evaluate its impact on electoral outcomes. We find that neighborhoods receiving this adaptation policy had, on average, higher levels of support for the party in charge of its implementation at the presidential and gubernatorial levels, compared to similar neighborhoods that did not receive the program. We also posit that reductions in reliance on inadequate water sources are a mechanism that explains this result. Our findings suggest that climate adaptation may be less contentious than mitigation, therefore giving politicians strong incentives to implement them. Moreover, we contribute to the climate politics literature by providing a theoretical framework to understand the political logic of adaptation action, regardless of its specific form or domain."

4/5 then on Friday during APSA, I present work on the politics of climate adaptation with @cesarbmartinez.bsky.social. We study the electoral impact of a program in Mexico City meant to address water scarcity.

Photo of coal barges in East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

3/5 we are really grateful to the Leverhulme Trust and the @cssn.org for funding our work on this. We have been able to do fieldwork where we spoke with coal miners, oil sector workers, and journalists in Brazil and Indonesia.

2/5 This map contains nearly 1 million articles geolocated to local newsrooms and likely audiences. Red = no climate reporting, blue = some climate reporting, yellow = high climate reporting. Also, we investigate how entrenched interests like fossil fuel companies try to to silence this reporting.

On my way to Vancouver for APSA and the PECE pre-conference. At PECE, I'll be sharing a look at a project with @fgenovese.bsky.social, @hayleypring.bsky.social & Mats Ahrenshop in which we try to understand when national and local media report on climate change 👇 1/5

almost hard to remember when the center and right were having a years-long meltdown about free speech on campus because students protested Milo Yiannopoulos speeches

A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

A professor at Texas A&M taught… something related to gender that offended a student, who secretly filmed herself objecting. That video is picked up by TX legislators, who demand her firing, and now the dean and dept head have been fired.

www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

screenshot of the economist "the shutdown of ocean currents could freeze Europe"

screenshot of the BBC "Tories pledge to get all oil and gas out of North Sea"

Name a more dystopian duo than these two articles which appeared one after the other in my timeline 🙃

- Rolling back environmental impact assessment
- Doubling down on oil and gas production