Research

My research agenda spans 3 major categories, all emphasizing climate justice: (1) Military-adaptation complex across the Pacific, (2) Climate obstruction, colonialism, and military greenwashing, and (3) Placed-based stewardship as climate activism in diaspora.
1. Military-adaptation Complex
The United States controls multiple Pacific islands and coastal areas where it is developing military infrastructure as a part of the largest buildup since WWII. While militaries are immense contributors to climate change, the U.S. military is also engaged in coastal adaptation, particularly through the Army Corps of Engineers, which plans and implements civil works such as sea walls and coastal road repairs. This adaptation may be necessary for local communities, but is also another process through which the U.S. military exerts influence by shaping environments and infrastructure beyond bases. Grounded in fieldwork in Guåhan and California, I develop the framework of the "Military-adaptation Complex" to explain how adaptation can serve as a process to reinforce military power over local communities, enable warfare, and produce further degradation.
2. Climate Obstruction and Greenwashing
The existential threat of climate change requires action to transform current institutions that produce harm and unequal impacts. However, these same institutions such as state governments and militaries often fight against ambitious international mitigation targets or transformative forms of adaptation. This research aims to demonstrate how military benevolence through "green" interventions enables obstruction of climate change action. Further, I analyze how non-self-governing territories in particular are left behind by international and U.S. federal policy concerning climate action.
3. Place-based Stewardship as Activism
As climate change shapes many aspects of diasporic and marginalized communities' lives and cultural identities, it is important to center the role of connection to place, as these connections are being put under strain. These social-environmental relationships are being existentially threatened but also are deeply important for preserving unique cultural relationships to lands and seas. This research analyzes how cultivating relationships with home and settled environments relates to the forms of climate activism diasporic communities engage in. I support Pacific Islanders in the San Francisco Bay Area to cultivate Pacific plants, and in parallel am a participant-researcher in a queer stewardship affinity group.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Rudge, K. Colonialism, justice, and Indigenous knowledge: A critical analysis of climate change adaptation scholarship on U.S. territories. Environmental Development (2025).DOI: 10.1016/j.envdev.2025.101353 
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Reade-Malagueño, B.*, Rudge, K.*, Moss, S., D’Odorico, P. From shallow to transformative water justice, Water Alternatives (2025). 

Rudge, K.*, Perez, S.*, Cutter, G., Kammerer V. Relocating occupation: A critical environmental justice analysis of the U.S. military migration from Okinawa to Guåhan, Human Geography (2024).DOI: 10.1177/19427786241290137

Frain, S., Rudge, K., Tilton, N. Democratic Deficiencies and the Price of Security: Diplomacy, Environmental Justice, and Genuine Security for Guam and the Mariana Islands, Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs (2024).
 
Rudge, K. Leveraging critical race theory to produce equitable climate change adaptation, Nature Climate Change (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01690-9
 
Rudge, K. Participatory climate adaptation planning in New York City: Analyzing the role of community-based organizations, Urban Climate (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101018
 
Rudge, K. The potential for community solar in Connecticut: A geospatial analysis of solar canopy siting on parking lots, Solar Energy (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.solener.2021.10.038
 
Rudge, K. Changing climate, changing discourse: Analyzing reporting of climate change and economic development in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Climate Risk Management (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.crm.2021.100350