LCENVS

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?

A fascinating brief video of a very strange man standing right near where the shots were fired at President Kennedy...and ultimately a strong argument against believing in conspiracy theories supported by the most convincing of anecdotal evidence. Don't we do this all the time when sleuthing out the eco-enemy?

One economist's view on the 'local food movement'. He explores whether local food is really more efficient. Views along the same lines as this one are pretty common among many economists.

I've been looking for a good defense against the local food system, though something more in-depth would be interesting. This brief analysis shows the other extreme, a situation in which ALL food was produced as "locally" and "organically" as possible. It seems that the local food movement could expand further to increase local food production (and therefore fresher, better quality) while still gaining economic benefits (since it is indeed better quality) as well as environmental ones. However, an increase in local food also may cause social stratification, as it could increase the gap between people who can and can't afford local, organic, fair trade, etc. I'm duly aware that the majority of the people at the PSU farmers market every weekend are equally well-endowed as I.

An interesting exchange by two philosophers re. the relationship between the humanities and the sciences. Our students in ENVS 220 may have a good deal to bring to this discussion!

The title phrase is a well-known book title as well, from Robert Heilbroner's Worldly Philosophers of 1953. Both this article and Heilbroner's book, however, are talking about economics. These authors argue that economics has, over the last several decades, approached problems much like dentists, "modest people who look at a small part of the body but remove a lot of pain." For all its virtues, this approach provides no nuance nor guidance when everyone plainly realizes that our economic system is a mess, and we need informed people to ask big questions about it. They see the Occupy movement as asking these questions, and call on economists to offer answers. This recommendation rings at the heart of a liberal arts education, and is why in ENVS 220 we collectively struggle to connect the data and methods we work with to larger theories and frameworks, larger philosophical stances that remind us there are choices to be made in how to understand and fix this world.

Levi Strauss and other companies are realizing that water shortages due to climate change have the capability of being a major threat to their success and existence. Jeans consume water in the irrigation of cotton, the process of making the jeans, and certainly the number of times a pair of jeans is washed in water. With such a strong dependency on water, Levi Strauss is working to conserve water and support organizations and companies trying to do the same.

This article highlights the efforts to make Asian Carp, the next big threat to the Great Lakes (and the multi-million dollar fishing and tourism industries there) the next big food hit (or at least big enough to get people to fish them out). After all, as one expert says, "there's a worldwide need for cheap protein, and I think it's one of those things that fit the bill." But I have to say, I'm a little concerned. One, I know this is not a new strategy - people tried to turn garlic mustard into the next major salad ingredient, without much luck. But I think it could end up creating even greater threats in the long run. For example, if the idea is to get rid of the fish, it isn't a sustainable model for a business to follow. Why build a plant for a fish we're trying to get rid of? When the plants are built, the question changes: why get rid of the fish? In Darwin's Nightmare we saw how an invasive fish became a boon and blessing to the local economy. The Midwest is different, but some of the same forces are at play. Second, in my eyes the most legitimate argument against invasive, non-native species is that they don't provide ecosystem function. The ecosystem concept is rooted in relationships that help carry out nutrient/energy flow, etc... and these species don't really relate to others. By giving them a functional role as a food source, we give them a little more function to a species we really care about - us. Again, the plan to actually get rid of them may backfire as their benefits appear to outweigh their costs. The question does remain, is that a bad thing?

As most of us are aware, the world's population recently passed the 7 billion mark and we're scheduled to hit 9 billion by 2050. This article discusses 7 problems that we'll have to worry about as population continues to rise. We, as ENVS students, are already aware of these issues; water, climate change, and food security to name a few. However, some of the academics interviewed have very interesting ideas about solutions to these challenges (no-growth economy for example). For the feminists among us, Roger Short states that "We need to feminise the world and look first and foremost at the interests of women because they're the ones that are going to decide our future and it is their determination to limit the size of their families which will be the saviour of the world," which I thought was pretty interesting.

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.

Play with the visuals here: http://atlas.media.mit.edu/app/treemap/export/usa/2009/

This week in ENVS 220 we'll be discussing a variety of qualitative analysis methods-including narrative analysis, typically consigned to the humanistic side of the Great Divide. But this article tracks a neuroscience pioneer who discovered how spinning coherent stories is how a part of our brains works...no matter how partial or factual the evidence. Perhaps culture and the mind work in similar ways, but at different scales?

No, this not a Mac vs. PC rant. According to Jobs' biographer, he lacked the sheer brainpower of a Bill Gates, but had something far greater in many ways: genius, or at least ingenuity. And this knack is described in ways that resonate with our ENVS Program learning goals, including a creative blending of the humanities and sciences and attention to visual modes of thinking. So if you are still worried about your physics friends getting jobs and you getting nowhere, this Jobs may have a lesson for you.

Our beloved president and his stance on sustainability, and how it should be integrated with academics. And I'm into that. But, I'm not sure he had a lot of substance behind his writing. I don't think it is a great leap forward to just say "we should integrate academics and issues of sustainability on college campuses." While I agree with Dr. Glassner in that it isn't happening, really at all, anywhere and should therefore be brought into the dialogue, I wish he had waited until we had something to show off to the world as an institution to add a little heft to the argument. I'm hoping this year's Sustainability Council can be a force that comes up with some of those ideas that can get a lot of buy-in, really teach students something as they engage with the work and ideas of sustainability. But it could use some solid environmental studies students to back it up. So blatant plug, if you think you have an awesome idea, the council has funding and could help you out. Find a member (I'm representing undergraduate students, but there are others to go through as well) and maybe we can come up with a proposal.

With the recent Wall St (and everywhere else) protests going on this article seemed appropriate. A Zurich research team using economic data from Orbis has revealed 147 closely knit corporations that control %40 of the wealth of the entire network studied (about 40,000 corporations in total).

Here is a story we have heard many times for many different species; what have we learned from these other efforts that may help us successfully conserve the chambered nautilus?

Students in ENVS 220 recently learned how to georeference historical air photography in ArcMap; well, here are some other ways to do it with maps for eventual input into GoogleEarth!

In lieu of ENVS symposium, I'm very interested in how the physical environment shapes the people that live there. This article discusses the role of place in the recent Wall St. protests and other movements around the world.

On Tuesday, our ENVS 490 class (Culture and Environmental Conflict) will be touring Bonneville Dam, site of a major conflict over how to remove federally listed California sea lions, who have found the site a handy spot to dine on the endangered spring Chinook run (and others). The use of lethal force was approved, then court-retracted; what will happen to these pinnipeds come this spring?

Citizen science is science done, not by highly trained experts, but by your run-of-the-mill citizen on the street. Which makes a lot of sense, since science is conceptually a very simplistic, mindless, algorithmic process (in certain forms, granted) which makes it very powerful (for anyone doubting the power of simple, mindless, algorithmic processes see evolution) . This article highlights the use of video games to channel citizen science towards things that the science community struggles with. For reference as to how cool this is, a problem regarding the AIDs virus that scientists struggled with for over a decade was solved in 3 weeks via this system. Other neat programs like this include World Without Oil, designed to put people in the place of a post-peak oil society via a Role Playing Game, where they use their own lives as the basis. People actually enacted real world change, building gardens, biking instead of driving, and reporting on it to the public, as a result of the game. It is a really convincing way to generate change, and well worth looking at just for the concept. The same company is looking at creative ways to solve other global crisis by making "mini worlds" that encourage people to have a little more agency and creativity, so that those ideas can be translated to the real world. How neat is that?

done right, science is so not a mindless algorithmic process.

Two wolves of the Imnaha wolf pack in NE Oregon are planned to be killed due to livestock depredation. I talked to my mom, who works for ODFW in La Grande, and she informed me that no one involved has any desire to kill any wolves. However, in accordance to the management plan written in 2005, the wolves must now be killed because over 14 livestock have been killed by these wolves. The alpha male of the pack was radio collared, and the GPS locations were matched to the kill sites. Unfortunately, this means that there is a chance the whole pack will dissipate, with the alpha male gone. However, there is a second pack still unaffected in Imnaha, and another pack with pups was just caught on camera: http://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2011/august/082211c.asp

A silicon solar cell was recently developed at MIT. This "artificial leaf" breaks down water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen gas, which can be used as a fuel source. I just thought it was really cool. And here's a video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEEhxk-CiOQ&feature=player_embedded