{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","title":"The Stack On Software and Sovereignty","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780262029575","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","id":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","uuid":"24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","title":"The Stack On Software and Sovereignty","normalized_title":"thestackonsoftwareandsovereignty","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780262029575","isbns":["9780262029575"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":517,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/The%20Stack%20On%20Software%20and%20Sovereignty","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/24410bf1-91f1-4e6b-9613-e64f0132d341/search"},"page":{"printed_page":100,"pdf_page":116,"physical_index":116,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"8bbdc953561f2f4518012c4c05ae1fe1faa241c5b6df37c76e9b4eb0cda00b5d"},"chapter":"Fheck The Stack |On Software and Sovereignty Benjamin H. Bratton","content":"At the same time, coalitions of producers can ’ t represent those bearing the brunt of global energy use. Ecopolities of those affected are equally important as polities of producers, and we already see them emerging by emergency. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, New York City introduced a system of zones that differentiated proximity to rising coastal water vulnerability. Citizens living in zone A or zone B might be required to evacuate at different times and might be recognized for different rights of return from those not occupying the same block-by-block micropolity. In this case, the tactical invention of emergency ecojurisdictions as a governing geographical superimposition could not be clearer. As the emergencies that give rise to these inventions become less isolated incidents, these initially temporary jurisdictions become increasingly permanent, and the provisionality of the exception becomes normalized and concretized into a new territory that comes to make demands on its neighbors and citizens. For example, the Alliance of Small Island States emerged during the Kyoto Protocol discussions to represent the interests of low-lying nations that would be most egregiously affected by raising sea levels. The federation of (not exclusively) islands is spread across the world, concentrated along the equatorial belt, and has proven a formidable aggregate voice in global climate talks. Perhaps as well we will see an alliance of those threatened by desertification, or a federation of agricultural regions overrun by migrating insects, or, equally likely, a league of those who, in warmer subpolar regions, will become new agricultural powers, such as Russia and Canada.\n\nThese kinds of ecojurisdictions arise out of circumstances that may persist for generations to come, but the form they take at different geographical scales and their varying ability to demand and defend claims are heterogeneous and asymmetrical. It would seem unlikely therefore that these quasi-sovereign forms will congeal into one master format as regular as the Westphalian-looped state, and so the rights, claims, and forms of identities that different groups are likely to claim will remain diverse, contradictory, and unevenly effective. At the same time, emergency is as emergency does. Ecological instability remaps self-interest and geopolitical multipolarity in strange ways, and in some cases, the claims of those affected are truly existential, such as for “ drowning nations ” such as the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Maldives, and Kiribati. The international law questions provoked by their possible erasure from the surface of the planet are stunning and even bizarre, and no existing legal framework is well suited to answering them. <sup>67</sup> If the entire land of a nation is permanently drowned, is it still a nation? Do former inhabitants still possess even fishing rights in the waters now on top of their homeland? What about the right to issue currency or passport? “ Environmental migrant ” is not a globally recognized legal category of refugee today, though it likely will be, but for whatever nation takes them in, what form of citizenship do the displaced retain? What effective sovereignties (e.g., monetary, legal, geographic) does the state that once represented them (or still does) retain in relation to those offered by their new hosts? Do countries that take in persons permanently displaced by climate change get land, water, and commerce rights in return? The exceptions that necessitate similar improvisations regarding sovereign geographies now scrambled by rapid ecological change will only get more painful, and the solutions only more convoluted and violent. Among the apparently uncomputable accidents of The Stack are the ghost sovereignties of the swelling Pacific, even as they exemplify the most critical geopolitical design questions now set in motion by and for its Earth layer.\n\n100\n\nEarth Layer","previous_page":99,"next_page":101}