Climate Change And the Rise of Authoritarian Regimes
The price of ‘freedom’ in a warming world?
Carlos Yulo leans back in his airplane seat. Now reclined, the sun’s rays enter at the perfect angle to reflect on the pair of Olympic gold medals hanging around his neck. Yulo could — and should — be ecstatic, but the golden gleam only bridges to opposite memories of his still-ravaged homeland.
Perturbed, he lowers the window shade and sits in troubled rumination as the plane heads toward Manila, where the country is waiting for its latest national hero. Because behind the cheers, Yulo is acutely aware of the deeper fractures in his country’s history — wounds that no amount of athletic success can mend.
In November 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Yolanda) devastated the Philippines, claiming thousands of lives and reshaping its political landscape.
Amid the wreckage, Rodrigo Duterte, then mayor of Davao City, rose as an unlikely figure of national focus. Using aggressive relief efforts and the controversial rhetoric to “shoot any…
