Daniel Aldana Cohen
Daniel Aldana Cohen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is Director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2, and serves as a faculty affiliate in the graduate program on Political Economy. He is also Founding Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive climate and economy think tank. He has been a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar (2021-24) and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (2018-19). He is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso 2019).
Cohen works on the intersections of the climate emergency, housing, political economy, social movements, and inequalities of race and class in the United States and Brazil. As Director of (SC)2, he is leading qualitative and quantitative research projects on Whole Community Climate Mapping, green political economy, and eco-apartheid. He was also co-founder and co-PI of the Superstorm Research Lab, in New York City.
Cohen's research and writing have appeared in Nature; Environmental Politics; Public Culture; Scientific Data;The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research; City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action; Environmental Justice; NACLA Report on the Americas; The Century Foundation; The Guardian; Time; The Nation; Jacobin; Dissent; and elsewhere. He is the co-editor of a special issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas, A Green New Deal for the Americas: Mobilizing for Climate Justice from Above and Below. He is co-host of the Hot & Bothered podcast, and has guest-hosted The Dig.
Cohen is also mobilizing collaborative research for Green New Deal policy development in partnership with social movements and progressive elected officials in the United States and Brazil. He led the research for the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act introduced in Congress by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Sanders. He serves on the policy team for People’s Action’s Homes Guarantee campaign.
Cohen has been cited for his research and public engagement in The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Vox, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Huffington Post, Energy & Environment News, Gizmodo, and elsewhere.
Follow him on Bluesky @aldasky.bsky.social.
Photo: Genevieve Shiffrar.
Journal articles
Besbris, Max, Rebecca Elliott, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Ruth Gourevitch. 2024. The housing regime as a barrier to climate action. npj Climate Action. (3)1. DOI: 10.1038/s44168-024-00150-0.
Ummel, Kevin, Miguel Poblete-Cazenave, Karthik Akkiraju, Nick Graetz, Hero Ashman, Cora Kingdon, Steven Herrera Tenorio, Aaryaman Singhal, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Narasimha D. Rao. 2024. Multidimensional well-being of US households at a fine spatial scale using fused household surveys. Scientific Data. 42(11). DOI: 10.1038/s41597-023-02788-7.
Cohen, Daniel Aldana, J. Mijin Cha, Nick Graetz, Aaryaman “Sunny” Singhal, Raka Sen. 2022. Securing Climate Justice Federally:A Political Economy Approach to Targeted Investments. Environmental Justice. Online first. DOI: 10.1089/env.2022.0047.
Graetz, Nick, Kevin Ummel, and Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2022. Small-Area Analyses Using Public American Community Survey Data: A Tree-Based Spatial Microsimulation Technique. Sociological Methodology. 52(1):53-74. DOI: 10.1177/00811750211057572.
Cohen, Daniel Aldana. 2021. New York City As “Fortress of Solitude” After Hurricane Sandy: A Relational Sociology of Extreme Weather’s Impact on Climate Politics. (30)5, 687-707. Environmental Politics. (30)5: 687-707. DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2020.1816380.
Cohen, Daniel Aldana and Thea Riofrancos. 2020. Latin America’s Green New Deal. NACLA Report on the Americas. (52)2: 117-121. DOI: 10.1080/10714839.2020.1768726
Cohen, Daniel Aldana. 2020. Confronting the Urban Climate Emergency: Critical Urban Studies in the Age of a Green New Deal. City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action. (24)1-2 (February-April 2020): 52-64. doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2020.1739435
Rice, Jennifer, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Joshua Long, Jason Jurjevich. 2019. Contradictions of the Climate‐Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco‐Gentrification and Housing Justice. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Online first. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12740
Cohen, Daniel Aldana. 2018. Water Crisis and Eco-Apartheid in São Paulo: Beyond Naive Optimism About Climate-Linked Disasters. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. “Spotlight on Parched Cities, Parched People” series. November.
Wachsmuth, David, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Hillary Angelo. 2016. Expand the frontiers of urban sustainability. Nature, 536:7618, 391-393. DOI: 10.1038/536391a
Cohen, Daniel Aldana. 2016. The Rationed City: The politics of water, housing, and land use in drought-parched São Paulo. Public Culture, 28:2, 261-289.
Cohen, Daniel Aldana and Max Liboiron. 2016. New York’s Two Sandys. Metropolics. 20 October 2014.
All recent writing
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, H. Jacob Carlson, Ruth Gourevitch, Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2024. "Green Social Housing at Scale: How a Federal Green Social Housing Development Authority Can Build, Repair, and Finance Homes for All." Climate and Community Project. June, 1-51.
Besbris, Max, Rebecca Elliott, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Ruth Gourevitch. 2024. The housing regime as a barrier to climate action. npj Climate Action. (3)1. DOI: 10.1038/s44168-024-00150-0.
McDonald, Kira, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Ruthy Gourevitch. 2024. “The Case for a Green New Deal for Public Housing.” Climate and Community Project. March, 1-40.
Ummel, Kevin, Miguel Poblete-Cazenave, Karthik Akkiraju, Nick Graetz, Hero Ashman, Cora Kingdon, Steven Herrera Tenorio, Aaryaman Singhal, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Narasimha D. Rao. 2024. Multidimensional well-being of US households at a fine spatial scale using fused household surveys. Scientific Data. (11)42. DOI: 10.1038/s41597-023-02788-7.
Kevin Ummel, Miguel Poblete-Cazenave, Karthik Akkiraju, Nick Graetz, Hero Ashman, Cora Kingdon, Steven Herrera Tenorio, Aaryaman Singhal, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Narasimha D. Rao. 2023. Multidimensional well-being of US households at a fine spatial scale using fused household surveys: fusionACS <https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.11512>
Patrick Bigger, Batul Hassan, Salma Elmallah, Seth J. Prins, J. Mijin Cha, Malini Ranganathan, Thomas M. Hanna, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Johanna Bozuwa. 2023. Ceasefire now, ceasefire forever: No climate justice without Palestinian freedom and self-determination. Climate and Community Project. December 13.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2023. Saving Freedom From its History - Pierre Charbonnier, Affluence and Freedom: An Environmental History of Political Ideas (Cambridge, Polity, 2021, 327 p.). European Journal of Sociology. Online first. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975623000188.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2023. Reconsidering the Future. Law and Political Economy Project. February 23.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2023. "Should We Start Preparing for the Evacuation of Miami? Yes." The Nation. February 3.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, J. Mijin Cha, Nick Graetz, Aaryaman “Sunny” Singhal, Raka Sen. 2022. Securing Climate Justice Federally:A Political Economy Approach to Targeted Investments. Environmental Justice. Online first. DOI: 10.1089/env.2022.0047.
Patrick Bigger, Johanna Bozuwa, J. Mijin Cha, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Billy Fleming, Yonah Freemark, Batul Hassan, Thea Riofrancos. 2022. "Inflation Reduction Act: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly." Climate and Community Project. August 2.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, J. Mijin Cha, Nick Graetz, Aaryaman “Sunny” Singhal, Raka Sen. 2022. Securing Climate Justice Federally: A Political Economy Approach to Targeted Investments. Environmental Justice. Online first. DOI: 10.1089/env.2022.0047.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2022. “A Green New Deal for Housing.” In Craig Calhoun and Benjamin Fong eds. The Green New Deal and the Future of Work. New York: Columbia University Press, 237-254.
Daniel Aldana Cohen and David Bond. 2022. "Toward a Theory of Climate Praxis: Confronting Climate Change in a World of Struggle." In Didier Fassin and Axel Honneth eds. Crisis Under Critique: How People Assess, Transform, and Respond to Critical Situations. New York: Columbia University Press, 271-292.
Yonah Freemark, Billy Fleming, Caitlin McCoy, Rennie Meyers, Thea Riofrancos, Xan Lillehei, Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2022. “Toward a Green New Deal for Transportation: Establishing New Federal Investment Priorities to Build Just and Sustainable Communities.” Climate and Community Project. Report co-sponsored by (SC)2. March 8.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, J. Mjin Cha, Nick Graetz, Raka Sen. 2022. Discussion Draft: Securing Climate Justice Investments in New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2. University of California, Berkeley. March.
Nick Graetz, Kevin Ummel, and Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2021. Small-Area Analyses Using Public American Community Survey Data: A Tree-Based Spatial Microsimulation Technique. Sociological Methodology. Online first. DOI: 10.1177/00811750211057572.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2021. How will humanity endure the climate crisis? I asked an acclaimed sci-fi writer. The Guardian. December 9.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2021. Interview: Kim Stanley Robinson on Science Fiction and Reclaiming Science for the Left. Jacobin. November 21.
Akira Drake Rodriguez, Erika Kitzmiller, and Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2021. Now Is Our Chance to Rebuild U.S. Public Schools To Address Both Climate Change and Racial Inequality. TIME. July 30.
Akira Drake Rodriguez, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Erika Kitzmiller, Kira McDonald, David I. Backer, Neilay Shah, Ian Gavigan, Xan Lillehei, A. L. McCullough, Al-Jalil Gault, Emma Glasser, Nick Graetz, Rachel Mulbry, and Billy Fleming. 2021. "Transforming Public Education: A Green New Deal for K–12 Public Schools." Philadelphia: Climate and Community Project. Report co-sponsored by (SC)2. July 15.
Johanna Bozuwa, Thea Riofrancos, Sarah Knuth, Patrick Robbins, Suzanne Baker, A.L. McCullough, Kira McDonald, Chelsea Mackin, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Billy Fleming, Nick Graetz, Neilay Shah. 2021. “A New Era of Public Power: A Vision for New York Power Authority in Pursuit of Climate Justice.” Philadelphia: Climate and Community Project. Report co-sponsored by (SC)2. April 22.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Rachel Mulbry, A. L. McCullough, Kira McDonald, Nick Graetz, Billy Fleming. 2021. A Green New Deal for Public Housing to Deliver Racial, Economic, and Climate Justice. Philadelphia: Climate and Community Project. Report co-sponsored by (SC)2. April 19.
Akira Drake Rodriguez, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Kira McDonald, Nick Graetz, Erika Kitzmiller, David I. Backer, and Billy Fleming. 2021. A Green Stimulus for K-12 Schools. Philadelphia: Climate and Community Project. Report co-sponsored by (SC)2. March 13.
Daniel Aldana Cohen and Mark Paul. 2020. The Case for Social Housing. The Justice Collaborative, Data for Progress. November 2.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2020. With Joe Biden, There’s Still a Case for Climate Optimism. Novara Media. October 28.
Mark Paul and Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2020. The Green New Deal’s Public Infrastructure Should Be Funded by the Public. Dissent. September 21.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2020. New York City As "Fortress of Solitude" After Hurricane Sandy: A Relational Sociology of Extreme Weather's Impact on Climate Politics. Environmental Politics. (30)5: 687-707. DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2020.1816380.
—Pre-print, no paywall.
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2020. Green New Deal: liberdade para viver. Piseagrama (Brazil). August.
Akira Drake Rodriguez, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Billy Flemming, and Xan Lillehei. 2020. Memo: Critical Components of a School District Covid Education Plan. Prepared for the Office of Jamaal Bowman. August.
Daniel Aldana Cohen and Thea Riofrancos. 2020. Latin America’s Green New Deal. NACLA Report on the Americas. (52)2: 117-121. DOI: 10.1080/10714839.2020.1768726.
—Cohen and Riofrancos co-editors of the journal's 11-article special section on the Green New Deal in the Americas. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2020.1768726
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2020. How a Green Stimulus Would Lift Up Workers and Communities and Rebuild Our Infrastructure. The Century Foundation. May 29.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2020. Confronting the Urban Climate Emergency: Critical Urban Studies in the Age of a Green New Deal. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action. (24)1-2 (February-April): DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2020.1739435.
Graetz, Nick, Kevin Ummel, and Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2020. Small-Area Analyses Using Public American Community Survey Data: A Tree-Based Spatial Microsimulation Technique. Social Science Research Network. Uploaded April 13. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3574679.
Daniel Aldana Cohen and Daniel Kammen. 2020. Climate crisis will deepen the pandemic. A green stimulus plan can tackle both. The Guardian. April 20. Reprints: National Catholic Reporter, Oklahoma Observer; translation to Portuguese: EcoDebate.
J. Mijin Cha, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Mark Paul, Julian Brave NoiseCat. 2020. Voters Want a Green Stimulus. Data for Progress. March 24.
Bozuwa, Johanna, J. Mijin Cha, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Billy Fleming, Jim Goodman, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Daniel M. Kammen, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Mark Paul, Raj Patel, Thea Riofrancos. 2020. A Green Stimulus to Rebuild our Economy: An Open Letter and Call to Action to Members of Congress. Medium. March 22.
—Our letter inspired, and was cited in, a congressional letter urging green stimulus that was signed by 60 representatives in the House of Congress.
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Thea Riofrancos. 2020. We Can Waste Another Crisis, or We Can Transform the Economy. Jacobin. March 14.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Thea Riofrancos, Billy Fleming, Jason Ganz. 2020. Green Industrial Policy for Domestic and Global Climate Justice is Popular. Polling Memo. Data for Progress. March 13.
Steven Highside, Billy Fleming, Hayley Richardson, Emily Mangan, Scott Goldstein, Ben Fried, Ashley Pryce, Natalee Rivera, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Xan Lillehei, Katie Lample, Nick Graetz, Julian Brave NoiseCat. 2020. A Green New Deal for City and Suburban Transportation. Data for Progress. March.
John Ray, Billy Fleming, Steven Highside, Emily Mangan, Katie Lample, Xan Lillehei, Julian NoiseCat, Sean McElwee, Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2020. Voters Want a Better Transit System for America. Data for Progress. March
Billy Fleming, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Nick Graetz, Katie Lample, Alexandra Lillehei, Kira McDonald, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Mark Paul. 2019. Public Housing At Risk: Adaptation through a Green New Deal. Research Report. Data for Progress. December 16.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Billy Fleming, Kira McDonald, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Nick Graetz, Katie Lample, Alexandra Lillehei, Mark Paul, Anunya Bahanda. 2019. A Green New Deal for American Public Housing Communities. Research Report. Data for Progress. November 22.
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. Strike for Sunshine. The Nation. November 20.
Daniel Aldana Cohen and Julian Brave NoiseCat. 2019. Bernie and AOC’s Green New Deal for Public Housing Act Would Transform America. The Nation. November 14.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Billy Fleming, Kira McDonald, Nick Graetz, Mark Paul, Alexandra Lillehei, Katie Lample, Julian Brave NoiseCat. 2019. A Green New Deal for New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Communities. Research Report. Data for Progress. November 14.
Sean McElwee, John Ray, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Julian Brave NoiseCat. 2019. The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act Can Stand Up to Scrutiny. Polling Memo. Data for Progress. November 14.
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. New York: Verso.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Tara Raghuveer, Sean McElwee, Jack Nicol, John Ray. 2019. The Green Homes Guarantee is Popular. Polling Memo. Data for Progress. October 19.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. A Successful Climate Plan Must Also Tackle the Housing Crisis. The Guardian. October 1.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Sean McElwee. 2019. Americans Want to Live in a Just Society. Blog. Data for Progress. September 25.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. A Green Homes Guarantee Is Popular. Blog. Data for Progress. September 18.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. Mitigate Housing and Climate Risk through a Green New Deal for Housing. Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. September 10.
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Thea Riofrancos. We Need a Global Green New Deal. Tribune. July 22.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. Eco-Apartheid is Real. The Nation. July 26.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Thea Riofrancos. 2019. For a Global Green New Deal. In Road Map to a Green New Deal: 3.N Internationalism. Common Wealth. London, July, pp 4-11.
Daniel Aldana Cohen and Kevin Ummel. 2019. Follow the Carbon: The Case for Neighborhood-Level Carbon Footprints. Policy Digest. Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. July 2.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. Review: Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds, by Sara Ann Wylie. In American Journal of Sociology, (124)6, 1862-1864.
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. "Working Class Environmentalism." In Eric Klinenberg, Caitlin Zaloom, and Sharon Marcus eds. Antidemocracy in America: Truth, Power, and the Republic at Risk. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kasia Paprocki, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Rebecca Elliott and Liz Koslov. 2019. The Useful Discomfort of Critical Climate Social Science. In SSRC Items. May 7.
Jennifer L. Rice Daniel Aldana Cohen Joshua Long Jason R. Jurjevich. 2019. Contradictions of the Climate‐Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco‐Gentrification and Housing Justice. In International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12740
Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. A Green New Deal for Housing. Jacobin. February 8.
—Reprinted in Portside; translated to Italian in Jacobin Italia.
Alyssa Battistoni and Daniel Aldana Cohen. 2019. AOC's Green New Deal Starts Strong. Jacobin. February 7.
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. A Green New Deal can give us the freedoms to allow humanity to flourish. The Guardian. February 7.
—Reprint of Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. The Green New Deal's Five Freedoms. Jacobin. February 6.
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. Only a Green New Deal Can Save Us. A Green New Deal to Win Back Our Future. Jacobin. February 5.
—Reprinted as Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. Only a Green New Deal Can Save Us. Jewish Currents. February 5.