Two Peas in a Pod? How Denying or Dismissing Climate Change and the Impact of the US Embargo/Blockade on Cuba are Similar

In this talk, Professor Wolfe will show how the US media, politicians, and even many academics, deny or downplay the severe impact of the 61 year US embargo/blockade of Cuba on the Cuban economy and the wellbeing of the Cuban population, in ways that are wittingly or unwittingly similar to climate change denial or dismissal. Drawing on both quantitative studies and his own qualitative research, he also demonstrates how the US embargo/blockade, especially since 2017 when Trump tightened it and then baselessly re-listed Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism in 2020, exacerbates the impacts of climate change on Cuba and poses the biggest impediment to implementing the country’s innovative climate adaptation program, Tarea Vida (Life Task). 

Mikael Wolfe is Associate Professor of History at Stanford University where he teaches Latin American history,  US-Latin American relations, environmental history, and climate change ethics and geopolitics. His research focuses on the intersection of social, political, environmental, and technological change in revolutionary Mexico and Cuba. 

Livestream Here: tinyurl.com/mwlive23