EARTH DAYS: PBS Monday 4/19 at 9pm

WGBH Preview here.

News From South America: James Cameron goes Native

See this audio slideshow of James Cameron in the Amazon, with his face painted like a native here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/11/world/americas/20100411-brazil-cameron-amazon/index.html?ref=americas

On a more serious note, Cameron teemed with native inhabitants of the region to fight the construction of the Belo Monte dam on the Amazon River, which the Brazilian government plans to build, that would be the 3rd largest dam in the world.

The natives were shown the movie "Avatar" shortly before Cameron's arrival, as most of them did not know who he was.

The accompanying article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/americas/11brazil.html?src=me

- Sarah

The economics of climate change

Just saw this article in today's New York Times Magazine, written by Paul Krugman. I haven't yet read the whole thing but the crux of his argument seems to be this:

"once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost."

The link to that article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_macfarquhar

An interesting tidbit about Krugman, who I know a lot of people love to hate (I'm rather ambivalent). Apparently his wife is also an economist, and the reason for his success. According to a recent New Yorker article, she is the brains behind many of his NY Times columns, edits each of them, and is essentially the reason for his success. Why isn't her name listed alongside his byline?
(that article - here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_macfarquhar)

Friends of Nature (China)

Here is a great place to read about current Chinese environmental issues. I visited the place in the summer of 2008 while in China. It is one of, if not the first, Chinese NGO. It has an English-language quarterly. It is run by a lovely couple (both scientists) who are fluent in English if anybody chooses to contact them. (Husband was educated in the U.S., and the wife in the U.K.) I tried to find the clip I took of his lecture but it is trapped on my dead laptop. Sorry.

http://www.fon.org.cn/channal.php?cid=616

Silent Spring/Rachel Carson

Hello! Here are two good sites for Carson. The first is the organization set up to celebrate her legacy. The second is the one Professor Deese referenced in class, an "anti-Carson" site. Apparently, she was the devil - or not. You decide.

http://www.rachelcarson.org/

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.html

This third one, nobody will visit. It's dry and boring but it will give you idea what is going on in the scientific realm of chemical use. It's for the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

pubs.acs.org/journal/jacsat

Joachim Radkau gives me food for thought

On page 68, Joachim Radkau writes:

"Nomadism is not a primeval way of life, nor is it likely to have evolved directly out of the stone age hunting way of life; instead, nomads generally live from trade with sedentary cultures and already presupposes [sic] the domestication of animals. For those nomads who moved across the wide expanses of the desert, the fundamental innovation was the domestication of the camel, presumably achieved around 3,500 years ago".

I recently asked myself how it could be that in the region with the longest, arguably richest history of sedentarism nomadism-- a philosophy in which people refuse to be settled-- could be stronger than anywhere else in the world. For those not all that familiar with the credentials of the Middle East in the history of sedentarization, Catal Huyuk, located in modern-day Turkey, is recognized as mankind's first major attempt at settling-down; the crops cultivated earliest anywhere were figs in what is now Israel; the pioneer cities on Earth were in "the land between the rivers" in present-day Iraq; Egypt, which today could be called part of the Middle East with little argument, was of course the site of the most mythologized, perhaps most revered early riverine civilization; and Damascus, the capital of Syria, is said to be the municipality that has been continually occupied for the longest time. I was not aware of how dependent on settled peoples and processes associated with settlement Middle Eastern nomads likely were in laying the groundwork for their way of life until reading the above passage. Now, I can see that one could argue that Middle Eastern nomads are so seemingly set in their ways (and adept at violently defending them if need be) because they have had such a lengthy history of interaction with the settled communities in their vicinity, which are of the greatest antiquity of any on the planet.

I am always trying to come up with subjects about which I could possibly write books, and the sedentarism-nomadism paradox of the Middle East, which before struck me as one such subject, now seems to me to be a matter already settled (pun). So, as for the subjects of books that could possibly come from me, I am now left with my plan for Africa, my theory about the psychology of evaluating people's physical attractiveness (it hit me in 2006 and has only gotten stronger since), and something relating to my first (and what will almost certainly prove on my deathbed to have been my only) love, professional wrestling. If there is any interest at all out there in responding to this, I would like to know from other people in the class what books (preferably ones unlike others already out there) they think they could write.

intellectual history of the environment

Has anyone read this? Seems a bit like Worster's "Nature's Economy" - Bill McKibben covers romantics, imperialists, mechanism, and the crucial shift from thinking about nature as a spiritual subject to considering it a valid object of scientific, empirical study. But this book comes with some modern updates to Worster's study - the incorporation of significant people who are not dead white guys, including Alice Walker as well as Al Gore (ok, he is a white guy, but he's still alive and active in shaping current environmental thinking). It looks like he's very interested in showing the internal conflicts in the field of environmental policy-making and demonstrating that activists do not now and have not really ever agreed on what the "right way" of thinking about the environment is. Plus, McKibben even specifies right there in the title ("American Earth") that this is going to be a history of AMERICAN environmental thought...something I wish Worster had done.

http://www.slate.com/id/2207168/

Environmental issues in the Middle East

Hi guys - this whole website (greenprophet.com) about environmental issues in the Middle East is incredibly interesting, but I thought you'd think this article was particularly cool, especially after we talked about Edmund Burke's argument that the people of the Middle East (especially under Muhammad Ali - the ruler of Egypt, not the boxer) have largely been responsible for their own building projects. Also, Hassan Fathy's book "Architecture for the Poor" sounds like a good read - something that would interest both Brand and Guha!

http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/02/26/17943/hassn-fathy-sustainable-architecture/

Protest against the Stewart Brand view

Good Afternoon again friends! This is a CNN article about Greenpeace protesting against genetically modified corn in Mexico. This link should create some discussion if mixed in with Stewart Brand. The issue raised by environmentalists was that the genetically altered corn could mix and ruin the native corn crop of mexico. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/20/greenpeace.mexico/index.html?iref=allsearch

Africa and Environmentalism

Good Afternoon friends! This is a rich website pertaining to the idea that climate change will negatively impact the third world countries first. http://allafrica.com/sustainable/

Empire Forestry Association becomes the Commonwealth Forestry Association

Homepage: http://www.cfa-international.org/index.html

Brief history in the Handbook: http://www.cfa-international.org/Handbook_conspectus.html

"In 1962...the Empire Forestry Association changed its name to the Commonwealth Forestry Association by a Supplemental Royal Charter"

Check out their Global Warming/Sustainability/Reforestation Video:

Human History and Energy Regimes: Empathy is the Key?

When you google "human history and energy regimes" you come up with a lot of posts about Jeremy Rifkin's new book The Empathic Civiilzation. http://empathiccivilization.com/about

Rifkin claims that "[n]othing could be more important at this juncture in our history as a species than to have a meaningful cultural debate about the role empathy has played in the development and conduct of human affairs. Our ever more complex energy-consuming global civilization is careening the human race to the very brink of extinction. We need now, more than ever, to retrace our steps, to understand how we got here, so that we can find a new, more secure footing that can free us from the entropic shackle and allow us to thrive while living more lightly on Earth and in harmony with our fellow creatures and the ecosystems that nurture life. Our scientists tell us that we have but a few years to find a new economic road map for civilization -one that takes us into a new energy regime that is more sustainable and able to break the fever that is heating up the biosphere.

To accomplish this undertaking requires that we know how human consciousness has developed over eons of history as we transitioned into a succession of ever more complex energy-consuming civilizations. By rediscovering our cognitive past, we find important clues to how we might redirect our conscious future. With our very survival at stake, we can no longer afford to remain unmindful about how empathic consciousness has evolved across history and at what expense to the Earth we inhabit."

Jeremy Rifkin:

According to his website promoting the book: http://empathiccivilization.com/author

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Rifkin

OR, "As head of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C., leftist political activist Jeremy Rifkin has organized demonstrations, formed coalitions, and initiated lawsuits in behalf of a number of causes, most recently against persons, groups, and institutions whose activities in biotechnology--especially genetic engineering--he sees as a potential threat to life." according to Biography Resource Center [Snell Library Databases page]: Biography from Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2010. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010. http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/servlet/BioRC Document Number: H1000082959

Climate Change in literature

So, while listening to NPR in the car a few days ago I heard this really fascinating interview with the British novelist Ian McEwan. After taking a trip to the arctic with a group of other artists, writers, and humanists, he was inspired to write a novel about climate change, the recently-released book, Solar. As I'm writing my paper on books about the history and science of climate change, I think it is interesting to consider how contemporary writers are incorporating the issue into fiction.

I've not yet read the book, so I can't vouch for it's quality (reviewers have mostly agreed that it's not McEwan's best book). But this is the first book of contemporary literature I have come across that grapples with the question of climate change and what it means for humanity, which in itself is interesting, given that climate change is the issue of the day. It seems a difficult topic for a novelist to tackle, given that it is such a heated political topic and there is much uncertainty surrounding what course climate change will take in the future -- unless the novelist is a science fiction writer, I suppose. I'm interested to read it and see how (and if) McEwan successfully gets a moral point across without sounding too preachy . . .

Anyway, the interview is here:
http://www.wbur.org/npr/125470747

And a review here:
http://www.wbur.org/npr/125434400

- Sarah

"Resources and Conflict": A Post Related to My Final Paper

When I was looking for videos on African environmnetalism and development on the internet, I inevitably came across features on the venerable Wangari Maathai, with whom all of us should be quite familiar at this point. Many of the videos with Maathai are over ten minutes long, but some were nice and short. One such "quickie" can be watched at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA0qGlnc-30&feature=fvw. Its topic inspired this post, and many of Maathai's remarks in the video gave me points to address herein.

I believe it was Stewart Brand who told us that mega-wars engendering grave depopulation will be the result when there are too many people to be supported given the prevailing methods of food production and general harnessing of environmental resources. With the unprecedented population growth in Africa in recent decades, for which states as a rule have been unprepared, wars over resources which bring about the death of scores and scores may, then, prove hard to avoid. Wars over resources (which are typically within existing states) are already alarmingly common in Africa, however, only more as a function of political instability than overpopulation. Of the three books on which I will be writing my final paper, The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai-- who of all the authors tries the hardest to discuss all African problems-- is the only one that touches on resource wars, Crisis and Opportunity overlooking violent seizure in its examination of economical resource management and Africa's Ecology, as for the science of land surfaces and the science of human aggression and appeasement, only concerning itself with the former. Her writing on the northern Sudan-Darfur-Chad imbroglio is what stands out to me the most on the matter.

To talk, now, of goings-on in our class, Professor Deese asked me if I was aware of the incredible mineral richness of Congo-Kinshasa. I am, and I am also aware of the atrocities to the end of material enrichment that have been going on there since its conquest by the much, much smaller Belgium and conversion into a personal fiefdom of King Leopold II (who, as it disgustingly turns out, never actually visited the place). After independence from Belgium, whose rule was so murderously demanding of rubber and other commodities that, I remember reading in King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild, in certain places the vultures had been able to consume so much carrion that they, having become grossly overweight, could no longer fly, Jospeh Mobutu in short order built a reputation as one of Africa's (and the world's) most blackhearted dictators, monopolizing for himself and his stooges the country's superabundant resources through perpetual conflict. Mobutu, in his raping of his own country, helps us understand the social science tenet known as the Weingast paradox (named after Barry Weingast, reading "any institution with the power to protect property also has the power to take it away"), as he chose time and time again to "take away" rather than "protect," which the United States Government, excepting forfeiture through criminal conduct or nonpayment and the occasional case of "eminent domain," always does. To get back to my plan of border adjustment for Africa, Congo-Kinshasa should definitely be partitioned, both because it is humongous at present and its resources being split up, as evenly as possible, among several new states should make the government of each state more likely to choose to "protect"-- because there would be less to "take away," if for no other reason.

To connect "resources and conflict" to the concept of changing Africa's state setup on which I gave a speech, I of course think that altering Africa's borders in a way informed by ethnic distinctions and environmental disparities would serve to decrease fighting for resources both between states and inside of them, and I wish to express that such feuding would be even more regular if only some states were not so miserable, so downtrodden. Niger is, from a human standpoint, the last country in the world in which one should want to live, according to the UN Human Development Index, and the appalling underdevelopment there is largely attributable to the horrific environmental situation. It is resource-poor, and it is the country I had most firmly in mind when I spoke of some states being straitjacketed into being both desertified (the expansion of the Sahara, I am guessing, impacts Niger more negatively than any other country) and landlocked. The government of Niger, I am sure, is too cash-strapped and disorganized to launch a strike against a neighboring state with the aim of bettering its resource situation; the "conflict" over "resources" relevant to Niger comes when natives of the country, having recognized that Niger is effectively unlivable as is, are persecuted by those in the polities (which include Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire) to which they have fled who feel they are taking up too much space, et cetera. Before independence, Niger was governed by France as just one section of the huge French West Africa, meaning it was politically tied to much naturally wealthier parts of the continent and, ultimately, a worldwide empire stretching from St. Pierre and Miquelon to the Marquesas. It was never meant to be self-sufficient under formal imperialism, and it is not, by any stretch, self-sufficient when left to its own devices-- so Niger needs to cease to exist as a self-contained state, for the good of its people!

Equatorial Guinea is a different case entirely, as it is one of the higher-functioning sub-Saharan African states and conflict for its oil and gas stores could be on the horizon. An irony here is that Equatorial Guinea, the only part of Africa south of the Sahara granted to Spain at the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884, went to the Spanish, by the end of the nineteenth century mostly a nonfactor in power politics, because it was a sliver of territory thought to have few prospects. Now its small size and economic attractiveness mean it could be fodder sooner or later for the adjacent countries of Gabon (which is also a respectable oil producer, in fact an associate member of OPEC) and Congo-Brazzaville (which is less potent than Gabon but still potent enough to be a threat); the relative homogeneity of the population and the mere fact that there has not been historical precedent indicates to me that serious internal resource conflict is unlikely. The decent prosperity of Equatorial Guinea (whose most famous animal export, the first and only of its kind known to science, the mascot of Barcelona even after its death, can be seen at: http://www.virginmedia.com/science-nature/wildlife/albino-animals.php, on a big-time aside) should be spread around maximally, so as not to precipitate conflict, and the refiguring of Equatorial Guinea, if its people would assent to as much, could certainly be of assistance in that beneficent evening-out process! But I will finish by confessing that invasion by Gabon or Congo-Brazzaville is not all that likely and Equatorial Guinea and Botswana, on the basis of their solid development and social cohesion, are the sub-Saharan African nations least in need of participation in a program like the one I am proposing, at least for strictly their own benefit.