I like wolves. As a child, I loved the book “Julie of the Wolves” and as an adult I enjoyed the anime “Wolf’s Rain.”

Wolves are some of the least understood of the predators that humans have pitted themselves against over the ages, others being sharks, bears, and large cats. One of the main reasons is that they compete with humans for resources. These predators won’t usually outright attack humans unless threatened, but humans will and have killed them in scores because of food and resources. This makes it extra difficult to make the case for their conservation in the face of endangerment and extinction.

I received this poster and bumper sticker in the mail yesterday from Defenders of Wildlife, along with a letter and fliers asking me to donate to the organization with the added incentive of receiving a wolf photo book and/or aluminum water bottle.

I have supported them with a donation in the past, but I am doubtful whether I will give again.

I have a few reasons for this. The main one being that this type of physical mail is so gimmicky and quite annoying, that I do not want to encourage them to send me more by responding to it. I’m hoping that by ignoring their waste of paper (even if it is recycled paper), they will eventually stop it. It would be nice if there were a way to opt out of physical mailings and in place of that receive emails, but as far as I can tell from their website, there is no such thing.

But still, I hope that the people who are reached by their campaigns truly consider conservation more seriously than the pamphlets suggest. The materials could be more informative, but I understand that the species-focus has been one of the most successful strategies.

This is where a more scientifically literate society would be very different. Conservation groups would not have to take the single species or simple issue angle in order to garner public support.

In areas of the world where most people live in and with the environment and accompanying wildlife, human culture has deeper understanding of the relationships of the ecosystems. We may not be able to return to that type of interaction with nature in this country, but perhaps with better incorporation of science into society we can achieve something similar.

This is what I hope to contribute to with my work!

We all have a friend who is one. An electricity-hog. A 45-minute-showerer. The drive-to-the-gym-so-I-can-run-in-place kind of person. The most common of these types of habits among young adults today seems to be the excessive bad computing habits, like leaving a computer on when it isn’t being used (especially overnight) and printing things that don’t need to be printed.

Computing and printing habits are some of the toughest to break in our culture of excessive everything (perhaps not as tough as that of food, but still tough).


GreenPrint is a computer software company trying to battle these habits by giving the user more control over what gets sent to the printer. (NYT article and gadgetwise blog) There is also a corporate edition that could really make a difference in the workplace.

However, as useful as GreenPrint may be, it is not really getting at the heart of the issue. There might be less paper being used for each specific print job, but the number of print jobs might even increase because people feel they can print more often since they have been saving up “printing credits.”

Instead of printing something to look at for a few days, hours, minutes, whatever, there has to be a change in judging what is necessary to print or just a better way of having a copy in your hands (perhaps e-ink? E-ink is the technology that is used in Amazon’s Kindles and Sony’s Reader as well as other reading devices).

What really needs to happen is the change in mentality of users. Much like the ideas that Michael Pollan promotes regarding food portion sizes, the solution might not be to force the shaving of fractions of what is being used, but to fundamentally change what we think is an acceptable level of use.


Image credit
GreenPrint http://www.printgreener.com/images/logo.gif

(This piece was written Fall 2007.)

Our perception of Nature has everything to do with the way that we live our lives. People who trivialize the importance of nature to their daily lives take for granted what Nature has given and allowed us to accomplish. It may seem that we may rely on Nature’s resources indefinitely, but at what cost to Nature? Our time on Earth has been but a few blinks of the eye in the great geological scale of time yet the impacts that we have made while “conquering” our domain will most likely last for much longer. Differing perspectives on Nature will define the relationships and the types of interactions that we have with Nature.

Two great thinkers who approach this topic are William Cronon and Aldo Leopold. Both believe that the characteristics of man’s relationship with Nature depend on how man approaches Nature. The overarching Western idea that the Earth with its natural resources were meant for man’s use and progress came to the Americas with the Europeans. Several thinkers argue that this school of thought is deeply rooted in religion, and so is that much more ingrained in the culture. Followers were taught that the resources given to man by nature were limitless and for the taking while in other parts of the world people believe in the interconnectedness of all things in the world. This fundamental difference in thought has lead to many advances in society but at the expense of the natural world (i.e. the Industrial Revolution).

Cronon’s article titled “The Trouble with Wilderness; or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” discusses the common interpretations during his time of the idea of “wilderness” and why that is important to the way the public views and thinks about Nature. One of his major points is that the “wilderness” to most people during the colonization of this nation was a savage and dangerous place in need of “conquering.” The Frontier was for everyone’s taking. Once the wilderness was conquered, however, the perception of nature is changed. People began to think of the wilderness as something to use for their own benefits and economic gains. Eventually, the frontier no longer existed and this passing of the frontier started people thinking that maybe something should be done to prevent complete loss of their beloved “wilderness.”

Cronon states that wilderness is a human creation, made up to satisfy the needs of man including a means of escape from the civilizations also created by man. He agrees that there is value in the feelings and experiences brought upon man by experiencing the natural world but the search for those places is something that was created because of the detachment of the civilized world from wilderness. Wilderness was the “antithesis of all that was orderly and good”(Cronon). People were “reclaiming” these wastelands to use for their own benefits. This self-righteous ideology gave settlers the power to do whatever they wished with the land and take without second thoughts as to consequences because anything they did with the land was an improvement in their eyes.

Cronon uses the word sublime to describe a worldviews on wilderness. Sublime landscapes were the rare and hard to get to places where nature could envelop you in its vastness and beauty while evoking emotions of awe and pleasure. The value of landscape from this point of view was the emotions and experiences when visiting the landscape. “Visiting” is a critical term because it means for most people these kinds of landscapes were not part of normal life and their grandeur is part of the cause for the awe phenomenon. These vast landscapes were separate from their homes and places of habitation. Segregation creates the idea that nature and wilderness is something to be traveled to and is not part of normal life or thoughts for that matter which makes justifications of the exploitation of places other than “wilderness” much easier.

Eventually the sublime landscapes turned into domesticated wilderness by tourism and were tamed by those who sought it. In a way, wilderness becomes the “pet” of man, its only purpose to amuse while under total control of its owner, who exercises complete power for fear of rebellion of the mastered. Cronon makes the argument that there is “nothing natural about the concept of wilderness.” Even if wilderness is being revered and hailed for its beauty, it is still only being used by man to fit into man’s concept of why nature is here and how nature should be exploited. Man forgets, however, that nature is not just the landscapes that are grand and awe-inspiring but is all around and part of everything.

Nature existed before man did and exists as a part of everything so there is nothing that man does on this world that will not in turn affect nature. What man perceives as “natural” changes constantly to fit the needs at that point in time, whether it is the need for recreational areas or for fuel for our fires. Man seems to need to draw boundaries to justify actions around those boundaries. Behind these perceptions is the notion of property. In Western thought, all man needs is a flag to stake into the ground to claim “uninhabited” lands for himself. Aldo Leopold touched on this in his essay “The Land Ethic.”

Ethics begins with the notion that some actions are socially accepted and others are not. But what is right and what is wrong will be different to people from different parts of the world. The incentive for having ethics is to survive in a world where cooperation is necessary. But where does the natural world fit in? Does it count as a member of the community? The fatal mistake here is in Western man’s unrelenting notions that the only usefulness of nature is for economic means. Granted that we would not be at this point in society and culture if we did not take advantage of innovations in technology and opportunities to increase the standards of living, but sacrificing much of our natural resources is a high price to pay for an “easier” life. Even the use of the term “natural resource” is a form of economic measurement of what presently exists in the natural state of the world. In this way we are all trained to think in numbers and selfishly take what may or may not exist for our taking.

Leopold suggests that the solution to many of these philosophical problems is a change in the content of conservational education. To instill a type of ecological conscience that treats the natural world with the respect that it deserves must start from the lessons learned earliest. We are taught to treat others the way that we want to be treated and to respect our elders. But what of things that exist in nonhuman ways? Are they too unworthy of our respect and consideration? Even most of the conservation practices today must have some sort of economic or social payback in order for them to be practical and effective practices at all. Are we too self-centered to do anything for the good of the community and world that include living things other than ourselves?

The “tragedy of the commons,” as it has been named, has yet to be fully challenged and a fitting solution has yet to be found. Leopold brings up the point that most conservation efforts must be left up to the government because private landowners only have personal benefits in mind. If they act for the benefit of the community, it is only with an “outstretched palm,” as Leopold puts it. But is it not only natural to think only about oneself or ones own relatives in the struggle to survive? Darwin based much of his work on the “struggle for existence.” Surely a sign of fitness could be considered financially stability when that means steady flow of food income and opportunities to reproduce. If existence to the next generation were not guaranteed, then an act for the good of the community and future generations would not be profitable enough to be worthwhile.

But that brings up deeper questions of “What does that really mean?” and “Is money really the most important thing in life?” In many cultures money is not the central goal of life but somehow it often is in our culture. The “American dream” is often glorified by the media and has been the collective goal of most people in our nation for hundreds of years. But while people are occupied with efforts to reach a goal that most can only dream about, they forget about the things that sustain them. The milk and cereal for breakfast, the bus that takes the kids to school, the office job that brings home the bacon, none of these would be possible if not for the support that “Mother Earth” gives us.

Leopold introduces the idea of a “land pyramid” where plants are at the bottom because they harvest the energy of the sun, and thus supply all living beings above with energy. All the levels of the pyramid rely on each other and interact in complex ways that have yet to be understood completely but the basic idea is fairly simple. Each level decreases in energy stores because of the expenditure of energy to acquire enough to live long enough to reproduce. Often there are only a few species of living things within a landscape that are useful to humans, so when they are exploited an imbalance in the pyramid is created. In this era, however, we have become so accustomed to having anything we want at nearly any moment that we desire it that we are manipulating the pyramid in ways so that we will not know how the pyramid is being affected until perhaps the farther future. So when people happily go to the movies and go shopping and having a meal with friends, the many resources that go into making that movie, that blouse, and that burger and fries (those that come in wrappers being the most wasteful), really come at a greater cost than the actual dollar amounts. Life in excess has become the ideal life of luxury and the goal of many who live in this country.

This also has to do with the point that Leopold brings up of transportation. It is the costliest of processes that taps into the energy of the environment and changes cycles that usually are local and self-sufficient into ones that cross the globe and so are thinned by stretching. Moviemakers travel around the world to find suitable locations; blouses made in China find their way into department stores in Manhattan; and food is probably one of the most traveled resources of all. These actions disrupt the “land pyramid” which keeps the energy circuits flowing, all for the benefits to humans. Only recently has the realization of some of the consequences really caught up with us and we are stumbling as a society to find ways to prevent the more serious ones from happening.

Cronon and Leopold question our society’s perspectives on the natural world. Cronon thinks about what the standards for “natural” are and why a “separate” view makes it easy for society to behave irresponsibly. He strives to bring home the point that “wilderness” is not the only type of nature that requires management and care because any actions that we take will affect nature in a worldly sense. To Leopold, the “ability to see cultural value of wilderness boils down…to a question of intellectual humility.” By this, he means the realization that the land does not exist solely for our benefit.

The underlying common utilitarian perception of nature is what has brought us to our current situation in the world with its many conservation issues. Nature is not a commodity and cannot fix on its own all of the problems that we have created. When we are able to change this selfish view of nature, we will see that there is a greater purpose for nature which does not include satisfying our every whim and fancy. Though at this point any type of conservation practice may be better than none at all, it may not be enough to stop all of our problems, just slow them down a bit. We cannot sit back and say we are doing what we can. We must change the way we think, the way we interact with nature, and how we use what nature graciously gives us. So, as Einstein once said, we cannot go about solving the problems we have created with the same line of thinking we used while creating it.

There are few things to cover today that I have been meaning to talk about!

I recently read this blog on the New York Times website about President Obama’s recent speech to the National Academy of Sciences.

The author of the blog entry makes an interesting point that Obama is encouraging creativity, over consumerism. I think that is an especially important perspective to take on a lot of our problems. People are deathly afraid of changing their lifestyle, but if framed in the light that they can creatively contribute to society, consuming less can make sense while not damaging our very high standard of living.

Which brings me to the Bigger Better Bottle Bill in New York State. (It is almost a reality! It recently passed in Albany.) This bill has been bouncing around for years, and has never had the right amount of momentum to get passed, which is a shame because the Returnable Container Act that is in place is over 25 years old. The update to the Act would allow more types of beverage containers to be redeemed for 5 cents, or more like in Michigan where it is 10 cents.

The redemption rate hovers above 70% in New York state, whereas in Michigan it is 95% or higher. Note that this is not the same as recycling rate, just the redemption of beverage containers that have a deposit on them. (For more info on how deposits work, check out http://www.bottlebill.org/. Also check out a piece I posted earlier on recycling.)

In 1982 when the Returnable Container Act was passed, the majority of beverages were sodas and beer (both being carbonated). Since then, the types of beverages sold have grown exponentially to include juices, sports drinks, and water.

Going back to what President Obama said, we could creatively pass policy that will promote consuming less. We could be actively reforming old and outdated policy that no longer is adequate or effective for today’s society.

While I agree that young people should be encouraged “to be makers of things, no just consumers of things,” I think this motto can be applied much more widely than just in the sciences. Fresh, creative thinking and innovation should be driving forces in every field!


Incubus – Warning

Image credit: Patricia Pooladi, National Academy of Sciences

A discussion about vertical farming and some of its environmental implications
(Portions of the quoted text have been edited from the raw transcript.)


Vertical farming has been brought into the forefront recently, with a spot in the film FUEL, articles in TIME, Scientific American, as well as others in the past 6 months. What this concept entails is growing food in a controlled indoor environment in vertical structures that could be built in cities, urban centers, and as annexes to new buildings being constructed. Plants can be grown hydroponically, and even some livestock can be raised. The technology is there, as is most of the ecological understanding.

The man behind this concept is Dickson Despommier, Ph.D., a professor of medical ecology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He is the kind of guy who gives away copies of The Lorax to spread love for the environment. He even keeps extra copies of them on his shelf in his office at Columbia’s Medical Campus. I visited him at this office, which, by the way, has a great view of the Hudson River. When asked how this vertical farming idea developed, Despommier tells the story about how the idea came out of a somewhat failed class project investigating rooftop gardening in New York City.

What came immediately after was further investigation and, later, years of adding detail to the concept. He and his wife spent that first summer talking out the concept. They learned a lot about what technology out there and even revisited some old favorite stories. Despommier explains it, “She put me onto a book she got as a kid—it was called Old MacDonald Had an Apartment House. And it was about Old MacDonald, who moves to the city and grows his food, all of his crops, inside the apartment house he’s in. And of course he grosses out everybody else in the apartment building. And they all move out, and in that case, he just took the whole thing over, but they come back in the wintertime to see where their old apartment was and they look in the bottom of it, and there’s a greengrocer, selling fresh produce. Wow! You know, they actually forgave him for doing all of this. Of course, that was the story, right?”


Making the connection between vertical farming and our daily lives may seem like a stretch, but put into the perspective of the global human impact, it begins to make sense.


Despommier is personally invested in vertical farming because, as he says, “[at] no time in the history of the earth has any one organism dominated the scene like we have. And it’s created huge problems…. [F]or every indoor acre of farming that you create, you can save five to ten to fifteen outdoor acres of land.” This encourages the hope that we may decrease our dependency on the environment as well as relieve some pressure on the farmers. He continues, “Seven billion people have an agricultural footprint the size of South America. Another three billion, which will happen in another forty years, will require an additional Brazil. We already use 80% of the land to farm.” So if something doesn’t change in the way we grow our food, millions more people will not have enough to eat.

Because vertical farming requires less land, a big incentive to make it work on a large scale is that it would allow more people to live in urban centers. Social pressure, specifically as it affects livelihoods, is an important factor that influences density of settlements. “Failed farms result in a migration of farmers to the cities, every time. What happens to the land? In fact, there’s been a recent trend—which is quite amazing, actually—Landsat photographs from space will tell you that the forests have recovered over 5% in the last three years.” Vertical farming will not induce failed farming on conventional agricultural lands, but it will create alternatives to a system that has no future for expansion. If the right social pressures are created and people are given the choice, vertical farming may be one of the solutions to growing problems.


According to Despommier, “If we could supply everybody with enough water and enough food, you could have ten billion people on the planet, because most of them will choose to live in cities, just like you and I. Make the cities imitate nature in terms of ecological process, and you’ve got it made. Your agricultural footprint goes very, very small. The rest of the world recovers.”

At the heart of the issue is the disconnect between humans and the environment. The overwhelming attitude towards the environment and resources is one of utilitarian values. This worldview is not only destructive for the earth, but for our species and our existence. “If you look at nature and say what’s the difference between us and them,” Despommier suggests, “the answer comes back, there’s no difference. Because we are them. We are nature. We are an expression of nature.”

“However,” Despommier continues, “we don’t behave like a single species. We don’t behave like one termite mound, for the greater good of the termite mound.” This type of behavior makes it difficult for collaboration towards a common goal. The goal must be large enough that all humans find purpose in it. Maybe we are reaching that point in the face of the threats presented by climate change, but we have yet to make any progress.


“So here’s my question,” he says, “my question is how can humans behave like the rest of nature? The rest of nature self limits themselves by the amount of resource that they have available to them, and the availability of their niche that they live in. That’s an ecological concept that is immutable. Everyone believes this, everyone except us. Isn’t that crazy? So if we are a natural species, just like everything else, and if we are creating for ourselves a world that is non-sustainable, then it behooves us to use our intelligence to create a sustainable world.”

Just like with any invention, Despommier points out that, “The way you make a vertical farm work is you don’t assume it’ll work to begin with. The assumption is I will get it to work. How? By applying science and technology at all levels.” The mindset that things must immediately work, that they must be an immediate solution, is impossible to live up to. Nothing really ever works that way in any other sector, so we shouldn’t expect that from this one. There may be hidden factors to consider and several issues to work out, many more than to mention here, but that happens with every new human endeavor and can be overcome by investment in innovation.

The right mindset is to ask the right questions to help progress along the way. “So, how do I make this building behave like an ecosystem?” he asks. “I want this building to reflect that process. We create cities. We love ‘em. Let’s live in them. Let’s make them ecological units. Let’s encourage people to live in the city.”


However, we should remember that the social factors are just as important as the ecological ones. “Old MacDonald moved to the city!” he exclaims. “Remember, remember, he wanted the social services, for his kids. He wanted to go to the movies every now and then. He wanted to visit the library. He wanted social services to take care of…he didn’t want to have to worry about his water anymore, his heating, that’s all taken care of.” So maybe the solutions to human problems are also intertwined with solutions to environmental problems, and we cannot view or approach them as completely separate things.


Close to the end of my time with Despommier, I asked, “For vertical farming to happen, what is the next barrier to overcome?”

“Money,” he says. “Social will and political impetus. I think in another year, those 2 things will go away. They’ll go away because the virtue of this is to prescient not to want to do it.” So we can hope to imagine the future, with adequate investment in this new technology, we could have self-sufficient communities and a more sustainable lifestyle.


“Cool stuff,” Despommier comments. “It’s like a living building. It is a living building. I want it to be inside my city. I want to live near it. I want to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning and be able to make myself a Caesar salad by going to the green market that’s open 24 hours a day and buying something that was picked 10 minutes ago. And take it back to my apartment and chop it all up and put some nice stuff on it and sit down and eat it. That’s what I want.”

Ever thought that maybe the energy expended to shake your booty at a dance club could be converted to useful electricity?

I haven’t been clubbing in a long time, but when I do it is usually a good workout, mostly from the bouncing around. Piezoelectric energy allows mechanical stress to generate electric potential. The panels put in a dance floor, or any flooring actually, generate electricity whenever the weight of a person pushed the floor down.

Here is a video that explains this concept:


There is talk of putting this technology in high traffic areas such as terminals for public transportation (in the turnstiles especially), or on sidewalks, or roads. There are some real life examples of this technology in use in Tokyo subways and dance clubs. In some cases, the piezoelectricity generated could provide up to 60% of the power needs of the dance club.

I’m interested in where this technology can go. There are, of course, limitations, as does every type of technology. But there is a lot of potential for piezoelectricity to develop into an important component for construction and retrofitting in urban centers. I think that the best part about this is that it is taking mechanical energy from people doing things they would normally do without a noticeable impact, and returning it into a useable form which is electricity.

Here is another fun video:

New Energy Generation – Ruslana

(This piece was written in Fall 2008.)

Climate change is important to any analysis for the future, environmentally, socially,
economically, or politically. The IPCC projects that with rising temperatures, there will be a
global increase incidence of droughts, desertification, and extreme precipitation events (IPCC
2007). The increase in temperature will also allow range expansion and better survival or
overwintering rates of disease carrying vectors such as mosquitoes. Perhaps the more terrifying
outcome for human societies could be a great reduction of food production as a result of several
factors brought on by global climate change. Any combinations of these may threaten security
within and between nations. The impacts of climate change on future food availability and public
health may increase the likelihood of resource related conflict in the most vulnerable parts of the
world.

Barnett and Adger (2007) discuss the idea that conflict can be stimulated by “changes in
social systems driven by actual or perceived climate impacts.” Their main arguments are:
1. climate change may affect human security by reducing access or quality of natural
resources,
2. human insecurity affected by climate change may increase risk of violent conflict,
3. climate change may affect the capacity of states to promote human security and
peace,
4. and that these direct effects on livelihoods and indirect effects on state functions
due to climate change may increase the risk of conflict (Barnett and Adger 2007).

Jones et al. (2008) suggest that emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) have a strong
correlation with socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors and have identified
several “hotspots” for EIDs. Vector-borne diseases made up 22.8% of the EIDs in their database
(Jones et al.). With rising temperatures due to global climate change, this percentage has the
potential to increase dramatically. Warmer temperatures and changes in rainfall and humidity
may allow for insect disease vectors to expand their range to areas where it historically did not
have the right conditions for them to survive. In some areas in Kenya, malaria has returned to the
highlands, where they were eradicated in the 1960s, and its reestablishment has been attributed to
increased temperatures that allow for mosquitoes to live to the life stage during which they are
infectious (Alsop). These climate changes may improve the survival, reproductive or
overwintering rates. These effects could lead to increased incidence of diseases such as dengue
and malaria in human populations. Other impacts may include changes in host-parasite and
disease-vector dynamics. Mapping of malaria risk in combination with socio-economic models is
an approach that has potential to predict future areas of risk (Huntingford et al.). Disease may not
be directly linked to conflict, but it may be an indicator of areas of the world that may be at risk
because of the stress that disease may add to already struggling communities. Knowing what
areas have a high chance of disease outbreak may be helpful in conflict prevention measures.

Among other predictions of the impacts of climate change is the increase in frequency
and intensity of extreme weather events such as drought, flooding, and severe storms. Any one of
these events could destroy communities, infrastructure and crops. It would probably claim many
lives or at least cause mass migration (Podesta and Ogden). Natural disasters on this scale could
be devastating enough to destabilize already weakened institutions if they are not able to respond
adequately, increasing the likelihood for conflict to break out.

On October 1st, 2008, SIPA hosted a panel on the global food crisis where Jeffrey D.
Sachs, Sir John Holmes, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, and Ajaykumar Manubhai Vashee spoke about
the crisis that has been going on for decades and what must be done to alleviate some of the
pressure and solve the food problem. At the heart of the issue seems to be uncontrollable
population growth, land degradation, and lack of resources for farmers to climb out of poverty.
Jeffrey Sachs suggests that the solution will be to provide farmers with the right seed and
fertilizer so that they may be able to grow what they need as well as a massive voluntary
reduction in fertility. These types of solutions, however, do not account for long term climate
change impacts. Having seed and fertilizer is all fine, but what do the farmers do in times of
drought? Irrigation is an option only for those who have access to enough water. Especially in
areas where there is an unequal distribution of water resources, farmers have no way to cope
with drought and other severe events (e.g. plant disease wiping out crops, which can happen
partly because, with today’s ease of travel from one side of the globe to the other, pathogens can
travel large distances in short periods of time). Conflicts over resources could develop very
quickly and be difficult to deal with.

Foreign aid is one possibility, but it cannot be the long term solution. The independence
of a nation and of its inhabitants is important for sustainability. The speakers discussed how the
World Bank has changed their stance on the food crisis. After 25+ years of inaction, they have
decided that intervention is necessary. Part of their framework for action includes capacity
building and efficiency. An interesting argument that came up during the panel was the idea that
the demand for biofuels has also affected the amount of food produced. Dr. Vashee stressed that
energy independence is an important requirement to solve the food crisis because fields
otherwise used for food crops are being used to grow biofuels. It could therefore be imagined
that social conflict may arise from this clash between need for food and need for income.

Sir John Holmes stated that with current population growth rates, it is possible that we
will need 50% more in food production by 2050. However, if other predictions that there will be
a loss in productivity by up to 6%, that combined with population growth could mean a
worldwide food catastrophe. It is likely that many people in Africa will have to deal with these
problems at the same time as disease outbreaks are peaking. Families are already working day in
and day out just to have a decent harvest. If their health is compromised, the amount of labor
available will decrease and potentially affect the success of the crops. There are many other
issues that are inherently interconnected with these, and there are probably many more that we
will not be able to anticipate. It is certain, though, that any conflict prevention strategy should
account for the impacts of climate change, especially of those on spread of disease and future
food production potential.

References

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Climate change 2007: The physical science
basis. Summary for policymakers.

Alsop, Zoe. “Malaria Returns to Kenya’s Highlands as Temperatures Rise.” The Lancet 370.9591
(2007): 925-26.
Barnett, Jon, and W. Neil Adger. “Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict.”
Political Geography 26 (2007): 639-55.
Huntingford, C., et al. “Impact of Climate Change on Health: What Is Required of Climate
Modellers?” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 101
(2007): 97-103.
Jones, Kate E., et al. “Global Trends in Emerging Infectious Disease.” Nature 451.21 (2008):
990-94.
Podesta, John, and Peter Ogden. “The Security Implications of Climate Change.” The
Washington Quarterly 31.1 (2007): 115-38.

The New York Times Magazine recently put out a piece by Jon Gertner about environmental decision-making and the different social dynamics that are involved. The author discusses several different studies that involve individual and group decision-making. One group doing such research is the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions is an interdisciplinary based at Columbia University that receives funding for their research from the National Science Foundation.

Gertner brings up several interesting points such as the ethics of using “frames” and “nudges” to send signals and possibly influence decisions. The idea behind these terms is that the way that a choice is “framed” could affect the outcome by taking advantage of our cognitive biases and that nudges “structure choices so that our natural cognitive shortcomings don’t make us err.”

I find it fascinating to read about studies involving decision-making, especially the ones that compare individual versus group actions. Gertner talks a little bit about the comparisons between carbon taxes and offsets, and how there generally is an aversion to the word “tax,” when in reality taxes and offsets function in nearly exact ways. Gertner also cites a study that suggests that group decisions for which individual preparation beforehand was not allowed leads to better inclusion of long term goals. This is also interesting as part of the discussion of the general bias towards information received early on in the decision-making process.

So maybe one day we could frame questions and choices so that we nudge people into making the right decisions, or at least set up a fair situation for all choices considered. But who decides what is best in the long term interest? And who is to say those who are deciding aren’t also affected by similar cognitive bias related phenomena? Possibly even some being phenomena that we are not yet aware of?

Decision-science seems to be a very pertinent field, especially in the realm of climate change related decisions. However, very little of the funding going towards climate research is going to social science studies such as these. I think that being open to these types of questions of cognitive shortcomings will become increasingly more important as challenges brought on by climate change become more complex and intricate.

Overheard conversation in class about an assignment to be handed in:
A: “Were we supposed to print double or single-sided?”
B: “I don’t know.”
A: “Well I wasn’t sure, so I did both. I didn’t want to get points off for something silly like that.”

Our previous assignment requested that we print double-sided. It would make sense to do the same this time, especially if you understand the main reason for why that was requested, which is to save paper. Printing both a double-sided and a single-sided copy defeats this purpose and truly makes me sad.

Student A was so fixated on not losing any points the assignment was worth that the greater understanding was missed. The student may not totally be at fault. (S)he may be a product of a results-driven education system. In any case, this type of narrow mentality and misunderstanding is still very much prominent even among the supposedly-conscious younger generation.

Thoughts?




Modest Mouse – Steam Engenius