Social Sciences
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Washington state farm workers worry about boom in legal foreign workers
Rosa Navarro, a sociology doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, researches the guest worker program’s expansion in Washington state. Farm workers have told her that some farms replaced their entire workforce with guest workers, and advocates say that the H-2A program is making inroads with agricultural sites that haven’t used its workers before.
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Environmental Justice? Not if Project 2025 Has a Say.
Mijin Cha, a professor of environmental studies at University of California, Santa Cruz, says Inflation Reduction Act grant programs could be improved by providing benefits more directly to underserved people. “The federal government gives money to a third party, and then that third party distributes the money,” says Cha. “Is it not more efficient to…
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Growth, jobs and manufacturing
Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh argues that increases in productivity and wages that come from investment in human capital are going to benefit a larger slice of the population than investment in physical capital that substitutes for workers, though both kinds of investment matter.
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Largest dam removal ever, driven by Tribes, kicks off Klamath River recovery
Environmental studies Ph.D. student, artist, and Yurok Tribe restoration engineer Brooke Thompson celebrated dam removal on the Klamath River. “This has been 20-plus years in the making, my entire life, and why I went to university, why I’m doing the degrees I’m doing now,” she said. “I feel amazing. I feel like the weight of…
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Uber and Lyft’s Appeal in California Labor Case Won’t Be Heard by Supreme Court
The Supreme Court's decision to kick a case on pay and benefits for gig workers back to state courts means there’s a continuing lack of clarity, according to UC Santa Cruz Sociology Professor Steve McKay, who directs the university’s Center for Labor and Community. “When we have a system where employers pay for a lot…
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Two WA men were arrested in mental health crises. Only one survived
Across the country, jails have become “the default placement” for people in mental crisis, said Craig Haney, a University of California, Santa Cruz, psychology professor. “In worst-case scenarios, that can have fatal consequences,” because mentally ill people “oftentimes react badly to the oppressive nature” of jail environments, Haney said.
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Across reforestation organizations, best practices claims abound, but details are scarce
Mongabay covered prior research by Environmental Studies Professor Karen Holl on the practices of tree-planting organizations and shared news about a new phase of the research, starting this month, in which the team plans to investigate links between reported practices and reforestation outcomes.
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To slow global warming, could methane be stripped from the air
Science interviewed Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah about a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that recommends a two-phase approach for studying the need and potential for methane removal technology in the United States. Jinnah was a member of a special committee formed by the organization to help develop a research agenda…
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Explainer: What sparked Sudan’s civil war and humanitarian crisis
Politics Professor Mark Fathi Massoud gave a 15-minute interview about the ongoing conflict in Sudan, including the history that led to the current civil war.
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Opinion: Imperial County residents deserve to benefit from a potential lithium boom
Environmental Studies and Sociology Professor Chris Benner, who is the faculty director for the Institute for Social Transformation, co-wrote an opinion article about the need for local communities to benefit from lithium extraction in the Salton Sea region. More detailed coverage is available in The Conversation.
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Silicon Valley Renegades Pollute the Sky to Save the Planet
Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah explained the harms of unregulated and uninformed solar geoengineering efforts, like the group Make Sunsets. “They are a couple of tech bros who have no expertise in doing what they’re claiming to do,” she said. “They’re not scientists and they’re making claims about cooling credits that nobody has validated.”
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Deficits, debt and India’s growth prospects
Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an opinion article for Financial Express about the fiscal architecture necessary to managing public debt and deficits in India.