Summary: From Kanye to the Ivory Tower, our society has fiercly debated what went wrong in New Orleans in the immediate period after hurricane Katrina, especially as to why the evacuation was handled so poorly and resulted in so many problems. Some, like Mr. West, blame poor decision-making and lack of aid on the part of the federal government, while other commentators argue that the poor have an excessive dependency on the government. These “welfare dependency theorists” argue that “a dependency-induced ‘mentality of helplessness’” prevalent amongst New Orleans residents was responsible for hampering the evacuation. To test the latter theory, Timothy Brezina used survey data to examine the characteristics of those New Orleanians who were trapped in the city after the hurricane. His findings indicate that, contrary to the claims of the welfare dependency theorists, over half of these New Orleanians were employed full time before Katrina hit and many showed great initiative after the storm. Multiple other factors the welfare dependency theorists would predict also did not hold true, suggesting the fault of the evacuations does not lie with the residents of New Orleans.

Summary:

A number of competing theories on the environmental consequences of globalization and modernization and environmental degradation have been proposed over the last several decades.
These debates include:

1. Neoliberal theories [“economic production is not necessarily as connected to natural resource exploitation as many believe” 534];
2. Economic theories i.e. environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis [negative environmental impacts follow an inverted U curve during the modernization process];
3. Ecological modernization [less negative environmental impact as modernization ideas are diffused through the institutions of developing countries];
4. Neo-Marxist and [modernization drives environmental degradation];
5. world-systems theory [wealthy core dominate global economy and utilize a disproportionate share of the world’s natural resources];
6. Metabolic rift thesis [urbanization will consistently lead to the expansion of energy production and environmental degradation].

To assess these theories, York utilizes fourteen economies in Asia over twenty years as data in a magical multivariate cross-sectional time-series analysis. He concludes: 1. population growth is a key force driving the expansin of energy production; 2. modernization generally leads to an escalation in energy production; 3. In terms of globalization, the data supports world-systems theories as export intensity and debt service payments lead to higher rates of energy production.; and 4.“Modernization and globalization are key forces driving natural resource exploitation and the environmental problems stemming from them” 551.