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Jim Proctor

In Portland's heart, 2010 Census shows diversity dwindling - 0 views

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    Portland: where sustainability = green = white?
Micah Leinbach

In-Depth Series: Rice 2.0 - 1 views

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    Rice is responsible for feeding half the world, or more than 3.5 billion people. And along its path from paddy to plate, it influences (and is influenced by) a ton of things. This reminds me of other studies we've read that follow one particular item from a diverse range of perspectives. Fun read for an international food perspective very much rooted in the East - perhaps something to chew on for next years symposium?
Julia Huggins

New Maps Show Racial Segregation in Vivid Color - 2 views

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    Looks a lot like GIS to me. But what's this? Not using a broad tract system to generate region averages, but instead more detailed and neighborhood specific system? These maps only show racial segregation, but its a promising basis for the improvements for which Davidson advocates in EJ analysis.
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    Here's Portland's map: http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4982015862/in/set-72157624812674967/ This is an important and significant perspective. Compared to other cities, we're not working with a lot when we talk about diversity and segregation in regards to environmental justice. Comparing our EJ mapping to EJ mapping in cities with much more significant segregation would be interesting! (Who wants to do some more GIS mapping for fun over fall break??)
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    This (http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots) is Bill Rankin's website, the cartographer who first produced one of these detailed maps in 2009 and inspired Eric Fischer to produce all the others (found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157624812674967/with/4981417821/). Check out the downloadable files on Rankin's website (there's one for race and one for income); he includes includes a traditional GIS map of the same data for comparison. (I recommend saving them to your computer and viewing them at a smaller scale to see the patterns more easily.) This is from his website: "There are indeed areas where changes take place at very precise boundaries... But transitions also take place through gradients and gaps as well, especially in the northwest and southeast. Using graphic conventions which allow these other possibilities to appear takes much more data, and requires more nuance in the way we talk about urban geography, but a cartography without boundaries can also make simplistic policy or urban design more difficult - in a good way."
Peter Vidito

Looking to Add Diversity in Environmental Movement - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    "National environmental organizations have traditionally drawn their membership from the white and affluent, and have faced criticism for focusing more on protecting resources than protecting people. But with a black president committed to environmental issues in the White House and a need to achieve broader public support for initiatives like federal legislation to address global warming, many environmentalists say they feel pressure to diversify the movement further, both in membership and at higher levels of leadership."
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    Lisa Jackson has been going around the nations meeting with local environmental organizations for a range of reasons lately, and she has definitely been pushing - perhaps subtly - this agenda. When she came to Milwaukee, where I live, she had her meeting in an urban nature center in the very heart of the inner city, a generally impoverished, overwhelmingly African-American area of town. Not the usual place for high-level government officials to have meetings, so I feel like she means what she says in this article. Anecdotal evidence, but I was still impressed. Makes me nervous given than the new plan for Lisa Jackson is summed up this way: "I think she'll be very much in demand on the Hill, at times not of her choosing," said a former staffer on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "It will diminish her free time, shall we say." I hope the environmental movement really addresses this seriously, if its going to expand to the scale many seem to think it needs to for serious, rapid change. Really interesting article, thanks!
Micah Leinbach

A climate change movie for non-believers. - 1 views

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    The film itself is interesting, but not surprising in its general concept - instead of apocalyptic imagery and fear, embrace a more positive, benefits centered climate change thing. What I thought was more interesting was how they intentionally draw from a whole range of cultural perspectives, which I think is most significant when read as an implicit statement that issues of relating to other cultural mindsets and attitudes, rather than just having solid science and good ideas, may make the difference in solving environmental issues. Perhaps its an obvious statement, but it is worth remembering as we sit on a campus fairly lacking in cultural or ideological diversity. Other people see the world in certain ways, and sometimes we have to convince them through those ways rather than via the logic of our own worldview. But do we sacrifice our cause by trying to achieve our goals via means/arguments we don't neccesarily agree with?
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    I just watched the trailer, but I think I still got the point. Why not encourage consumption of cleaner, more-efficient renewable energy as opposed to trying to change the values of a whole culture and come off as a proselytizing environmental-elitist? It would sure be a lot less stressful way to try to enact change. I'd have to see the film in its entirety but it seems that they are taking something of a "let markets fix the problem" approach, but in a way that I can agree with. We have to come to terms with the fact that Americans aren't going to magically start consuming less just because us conservationists think it's the right way to live. I love the line where one guy says not to [support renewable efficient energy] because you care about the environment, do it cause you're a greedy bastard and want cheap power. People aren't going to change exactly how we want them, so let's just work with them.
Micah Leinbach

Human Battery - 4 views

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    This is straight out of the matrix - you know how the whole AI system runs of humans producing energy like batteries? These guys are seriously looking at doing just that. This story comes from GlobalPost, a new site that has great international reporting (when a lot of big papers had to fire their journalists as the industry started to decline, GP picked a lot of their international folks up as freelancers, so they developed a good set of connections around the world fast). They're doing a series on power and energy around the world, "Powerland", which this is a part of. Very cool news organization. In a new twist in the progress of the global energy system, Japan is now looking to reduce its energy dependence on Nuclear Power (a source so many other places are looking to for reducing their energy dependence on oil, coal, etc...) So the company featured in this video comes in with an interesting mix of waste diversion/energy production at the same time. The little, marginal bits of energy thrown about when ever anyone does anything - taking a step, talking on a phone, sitting down and chilling - is harnessed to power things in its surroundings. It is sort of like using exercise equipments rotations to generate energy, which some colleges have gotten major press for. I know the military was also looking at putting something in the soles of boots that would create energy when compressed, so that marching or walking could actually power some of a soldier's personal electronics. There are no numbers to see how scalable this is, but looking at the energy margins is interesting. They do add up - one step is nothing, but if you're in Tokyo and there are millions of collected steps all the time, that is a lot of energy-producing floor vibration. One has to wonder as to how serious an alternative this sort of technology is to other types. Almost like being able to paint solar panels onto things, and just take advantage of wherever the sun hits. Its almost desperate, b
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    For a different thing to pay attention to, listen to the street activist (I think - not clear what the source is) message at the very beginning of the video. Interesting the stance Japan seems to be taking, at least within some parts of its culture, in response to the Fukushima incident.
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    I noticed that the Powerland series on GP is being sponsored by Shell, which raises some interesting questions. Multinational energy corporations may be turning to energy alternatives because they know that oil is going down the proverbial drain. Paying attention to where companies like Shell, BP, and Chevron-Texaco might yield some worthwhile information about our energy future.
Micah Leinbach

More complex economics, but easier to understand - 4 views

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    This article highlights a neat project that does two things to some branches of modern macroeconomic study. First, it complicates some basic economic ideas, moving beyond GDP to a range of other valuable metrics for measuring economic success (including, for example, diversity and resilience). Second, it takes those more complex approaches to economic systems and uses neat graphical interfaces and visual media as a means of presenting them effective. The images shown as samples are colorful, visually pleasing, and they convey a lot of information. As one author points out: "Our brains have been processing letters, symbols, and numbers for the last 10,000 years, but as animals, our ancestors have, for millions of years, been developing the eyes and the visual cortex of the brain. The eyes are able to process visualized information much more quickly then they can process symbols. We tried to express very complex information in a way as visual possible, so that we can use the most efficient parts of the brain as opposed to the inefficient. A computer can beat a human at chess, at calculations. But a computer has enormous difficulty recognizing a face. A human can do that without thinking." Couldn't help but think of the posters, maps, graphs, websites, and other forms of sharing data that are used through environmental studies. It ties back to another thought I have that perhaps the messenger (or medium) often matters more than the message, at least in terms of how it is received.
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