LCENVS

This is an in depth look into how we need to change the way we look at changing government in the context of East Africa

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.

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??)

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."

An opinion piece that offers a few thoughts to try on regarding this ever so popular LC fashion source.

So, we can (and should) address domestic poster-child questions such as "what is nature?", but let's not get complacent about the bigger questions: this article talks about the fact that the reality in which we're trying to sustain our existence may not even exist. What to do?

Here's one of those studies that apparently shatters our intuition: energy efficiency won't help reduce the use of energy??  Read on for the reason why, all about the "rebound effect" and indirect vs. direct energy consumption.  Again, looks like sustainability requires that we address the bigger picture.

This brings up some concerns I have about the environmental movement in general. I often feel like our emphasis is in the wrong place. Even before it was acceptable to question environmental activism (without being labeled a no-good capitalist hippie-hater) I have felt uncomfortable with some of the campaigns and goals out there. Alternative Energy is a key one for me. I dont think we have an energy source crisis, I think we have an energy use crisis. I dont just mean "energy use" in terms of petroleum (CO2 emitting) energy either. Even if we find alternate energy sources (like the solar panels article I posted on the LCENVS220 group), or more efficient machines/lights, we still will expect the same (or more) amount of work to be done from external energy sources. I think we should focus on realizing what energy already exists in our natural systems and learn to synchronize with that to accomplish our goals, instead. This, I think, will address broader (and dare I add more important?) problems than CO2 emissions.

Interesting thoughts on environmentalism taking place in Orion magazine these days...see essay, online comments, and audio discussion.

I read this the other week. I don't know if I liked it or not though. I remember that he critiqued environmentalism for putting up wind farms instead of coal plants, though they are still destroying natural beauty. And he almost fetishized "the good old days" when people (read: hippies) used to get together and occupy a place with songs and community. I understand why one could be frustrated, but I think it's also important to realize that it will be a gradual change toward environmentalism, we can't all just run to the hills with our guitars to sit around the campfire to protest a six lane motorway. But y'know, we're ENVS majors, so let's just find a way for both narratives to coexist and play off of each other, perhaps they're both integral parts of checks and balances within the environmentalist movement.

Wisconsin is one of two states to have a "State Cartographer," and man does he have some interesting stuff to say. The interview here speaks to GIS software and technology, but also the broader perspectives on exactly what it is a map does, and how it does it. Particularly interesting when he speaks about values - every map has them, he says, they are not neutral parties. Is this true for other tools we have for conveying information?

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?

Upcoming limits on use of antibiotics to promote faster growth in livestock turn out to be far less than many food activists want, and far more than many farmers want. Is there any possibility for getting producers and consumers on the same page?

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?

An example of GIS in real life! Danielson Castillo is using geographic information system (GIS) mapping to layer several sets of data on a computerized map. The depth and breadth of the mapping project, completed last month, is unheard of on a community level in Minnesota. The project was funded with a $20,000 grant from the McKnight Foundation, but Danielson Castillo and Matson believe it's a tool that will become increasingly common and affordable for community organizations. Danielson Castillo already has given demonstrations of his GIS map to a number of community organizers.

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!

This new graduate school in Japan is opening. It doesn't have departments, and it encourages mixing of disciplines. Sounds pretty familiar, eh? Too bad it's natural sciences only. Hope it will turn out well.

"What's particularly tragic, and what I had never realized, is that the misery and suffering was the result of human action. Encouraged by a combination of well-meaning governmental incentives and predatory schemes by land investors..." This brief synopsis includes an overview of how large-scale farming and government subsidies can unknowingly create environmental disasters.

Timothy Egan is a well-known contributor to the New York Times on environmental issues, especially those affecting the U.S. West. I'd assume his book is eminently readable. If you're interested in the Dust Bowl, one classic is Donald Worster's Dust Bowl (1979; new Oxford edition 2004).

A fascinating review, certainly to understand the technological advances of this "sustainable city" but also to understand its shadows: "[the designer's] fantasy world is only possible as a meticulously planned community, built from the ground up and of modest size. What Masdar really represents, in fact, is the crystallization of another global phenomenon: the growing division of the world into refined, high-end enclaves and vast formless ghettos where issues like sustainability have little immediate relevance."  Is this what we are after?

Understandably, at first glance one would be skeptical because this article seems to have greenwashing written all over it. Still, it is an important step in the right direction, and as the Super Bowl isn't going anywhere we might as well applaud efforts to be aware of it's footprint.

At face value, this doesn't look terribly environmental. And the explicit content really isn't (unless you count carbon emissions from burning tires in the streets and such), though no doubt there will be impacts on resource decisions, etc... if we dig for it. I bring it up more because of the implications it has for our ability to predict developments in the future. In ENVS 160, this applies pretty directly to the Limits to Growth model we've been discussing (as readily as it applies to optimistic predictions of world growth - predictions either way). It brings us to that ever present thorn in the side of decision makers: we don't know what the future holds, or what will make it get there. Where someone parked their car impacted the course of a nation, and the international focus on Egypt today can show how that has widespread impacts as well. If we're cautious and uncomfortable with the mystery of the future, resilience may be a way to hedge our bets, relating to another issue in the class. Otherwise, it largely seems to be a gamble. Even the broad trends can jump. How much will we ever be able to model, when it comes to systems this complex? A recognition of the limits of prediction, not a statement to their being invaluable (no one predicted the car, and it mattered in the outcome. But people could have predicted social unrest resulting in many people in the streets, and that was needed to take advantage of what the car provided)