In the News: Matthew T. Huber

Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment, says the VP debate was “evidence of the sad state of our climate discourse.“

Playing into those politics are gasoline prices, which have become a partial barometer of economic security, says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and environment. He also notes that that the oil and gas industry has history of funding research that contradicts climate science.

Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment spoke, spoke to The Guardian on the Inflation Reduction Act’s residential tax credits and how the programs have disproportionately benefited wealthier Americans.

Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment, highlights the infrastructural advantage France has to promote sustainability. “France is known for having one of the most decarbonized electric grids in the world because they have about 70% of their electricity coming from nuclear power, which is zero carbon energy,” Huber says.

“If we can’t find a way to do decarbonization and climate policy, in addition to materially improving working people’s lives…I really do fear that a lot of working people aren’t going to be that sympathetic to the climate agenda,” says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

“Now this is where we reached this impasse where if we really want to totally restructure the grid, totally grow it in ways that can serve decarbonization, and AI...then perhaps this sort of more integrated, more central planning, more coordinated and socialized investment model could be more useful than this very scattered and sort of fragmented system we have now,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

“The turn to a ‘politics of building’ is a welcome change in environmental thinking, but the green Left is still at odds in important ways with the labor movement, which better understands what is needed for deep decarbonization and, most importantly, has the power to help bring it about,” writes Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

"President Biden promised a 'whole of government' approach to the climate crisis after taking office. But his absence at the COP28 meeting signals a lack of interest in the dangers of the ongoing climate crisis. Given that the United States is the world's largest emitter, this should be an international scandal," says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

In his two-part essay on the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), Professor of Geography and the Environment Matthew Huber examines the labor question and assesses dubious campaign claims that BPRA is a climate victory.

Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment, calls the outcome of the strike a huge victory for the United Auto Workers and its workers. “It shows that when workers harness their collective power through strikes, they can force employers to give in to workers’ ambitious demands,” he says.

"Rather than tackling the problem of who owns and controls fossil-fuel based production (a relative minority of society), carbon behaviouralism aims its sights on the “irresponsible” choices of millions of consumers of all classes," writes Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

“The UAW…strike action is ultimately trying to realize one of the Biden Administration’s core policy goals and political selling points: you can have good, family-sustaining union jobs alongside climate action. The problem is the automakers see EV production as a way to trim labor costs and shift production to non-union plants,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

“This is a perfect sweet spot for a public power entity to take on some of that risk, to try to really get a technology that we need off the ground,” Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment, says of TVA’s small modular reactor program. ​“They have the resources and the social mission to do that, where private capital wouldn’t.”

"So if we can pair climate decarbonization with more increased secure access to people's basic material needs, you could start to build a much broader popular base," says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment. 

“It’s a generational thing,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment. “A lot of younger generations are really fixated on climate and understand that nuclear is one our best options to deal with climate, so we gotta keep it on the table.”

The fact that the costs of compliance are typically borne by workers and consumers is a fundamental flaw of carbon pricing programs, says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment. It’s one that, he suggests, has led to the Biden administration’s relatively skeptical stance on cap-and-trade programs.

“I don’t think they’ve proven to be effective in actually coming up with a kind of international agreement with binding limits on countries that would penalize them if they were not to abide by the pledges,” Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment, tells the Toronto Star.

"Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet," written by Professor Matthew Huber, was reviewed by Real Change News.

Matther Huber, professor of geography and the environment, discussed his new book, "Climate Change as Class War," in The Nation article, "The Green Transition Must Be Union-Powered."

Huber, professor of geography and the environment, focuses on the everyday material struggle of the working-class over access to energy, food, housing and transportation. Huber argues that these necessities are core industries that need to be decarbonized.