Recent work by Dr. Thomson:

-  In 2023 Dr. Thomson published op-eds in Maryland Matters and in the Virginia Mercury:

• Class, race and leaf blowers
• Landscape workers’ health is at risk in Montgomery County

- Dr. Thomson was interviewed on BBC News about the US climate and energy bill (9 August 2022).

- Dr. Thomson’s specialty is environmental politics and policy. Her third book, Climate of Capitulation: An Insider’s Account of State Power in a Coal Nation (MIT Press, 2017), won a 2018 PROSE award in Government and Politics.

- Dr. Thomson’s podcast, The Meaning of Green, has attracted listeners from 47 US states and 66 countries on six continents. Podcast guests include prominent experts from the US and other countries on topics like public health, ecology, economics, political science, acid rain, climate change, cost-benefit analysis, trash, and tropical forests.

Season 5 (2024) is about elections and the environment.

Season 4 (2022-23) is about environmental and public health protection in challenging times.

Season 3, launched in July 2021, examines the relationship between place and the environment.

Season 2 started in June 2020 and examines the connections between power, freedom, and the environment, with a special focus on the virus crisis:

-Dr. Thomson publishes Washington Post op-ed entitled “Breathing While Black.” (Jan 2019)

-Dr. Thomson comments on Gov. Northam’s Air Board decision. (Nov 2018)

-Recent paper by Thomson, Huelsman, and Ong in Energy Policy has been covered by ClimateWire, Midwest Energy News, and the national Sierra Club. See the accompanying Story Map here. (Oct 2018)

Professor Thomson’s most recent book is Climate of Capitulation: An Insider’s Account of State Power in a Coal Nation (MIT Press, April 2017), which has been praised as a “must-read,” a “page-turner,” and as “insightful, provocative, vivid, and persuasive.” Professor Michael Mann, winner of the 2019 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, says, “Vivian Thomson kicks ash and names names in this no-holds-barred exposé on the coal industry.”

Her research, lecturing and grants have taken her to Denmark, where she was a Fulbright Professor, to Panama, as Director of UVA’s Panama Initiative, to Germany, as a DAAD scholar, to Brazil, where she has ongoing collaborations with colleagues at the University of São Paulo, and to Italy. Her language skills include Spanish, German, and Brazilian Portuguese. From 2002 to 2017 Professor Thomson directed the selective BA program in Environmental Thought and Practice.

She is interviewed regularly on radio and for the print media for her policy expertise on trash, air pollution, energy and climate change.

Books Professor Thomson’s newest book, Climate of Capitulation: An Insider’s Account of State Power in a Coal Nation (MIT Press, April 2017), is a rare inside story based in part on her years as member and vice chair of the Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board. Her candid insights show how Clean Air Act policy processes work on the front lines, when state policymakers translate legal mandates into source-specific emission limits. Climate of Capitulation’s analysis includes 16 of the most important coal states. The book provides a useful corrective to observers who reduce environmental policy processes to unhelpful slogans (“Policymakers need to understand science better”) or to faulty abstractions (“Citizens don’t matter”). In 2018 Climate of Capitulation won a prestigious PROSE award.

Professor Thomson’s first book, Garbage In, Garbage Out: Solving the Problems with Long-Distance Trash Transport, (University of Virginia Press, 2009), examines interstate trash transport in the United States within a broad social, economic, and cultural context that includes comparisons with practices in the EU and Japan. Garbage In, Garbage Out was a Finalist in the 2010 Reed writing competition.  Garbage In, Garbage Out has been hailed inside and outside academia as a “breath of fresh air,” “original, a substantial contribution to the field of environmental policy,” an “outstanding work,” and a “rich source of information.”

Professor Thomson’s book Sophisticated Interdependence in Climate Policy: Federalism in the United States, Brazil, and Germany (Anthem Press) was published in February 2014.  In this book Prof. Thomson offers domestic and cross-country analysis of state-national relations in climate policy in three powerful federal nations.  The resulting policy framework is called “sophisticated interdependence.” Reviews say the book is “packed with insights,” “provides rich material for scholars and policymakers,” “offers a politically astute roadmap,” and “skillfully identifies common ground to break today’s stalemates.” Click here for testimonials.

National and State-level Policymaker Professor Thomson’s first career was as senior analyst and manager at the US Environmental Protection Agency, first in San Francisco and then in Washington, DC. She was appointed by Virginia Governors Warner and Kaine in 2002 and in 2006, respectively, to the State Air Pollution Control Board, the seven-member body that makes air pollution policy for the Commonwealth of Virginia.  She is past vice chair of the Board.

Click here for Professor Thomson’s detailed C.V.