Scientific & Political Change

The Public Science Project situated at the CUNY Graduate Center works in a participatory action research agenda.  They work in collaboration with groups on the ground. The website states:  "PAR Collective, we began our work as a coalition of activists, researchers, youth, elders, lawyers, prisoners, and educators, launching projects on educational injustice, lives under surveillance,and the collateral damage of mass incarceration. Most of our projects have been situated in schools and/or community-based organizations struggling for quality education, economic opportunities, and human rights. Knowledge-sharing research camps set the stage for most of our research, designed to bring together differently positioned people around a common table to design and implement the research: youth and educators; young people who have been pushed out of schools and mothers organizing for quality education in communities under siege; prisoners, organizers, and academics. Most projects have vibrant advisory boards of youth, community elders, educators and/or activists to shape the work and hold us accountable to the needs and desires of local communities." They conduct research, trainings, and consulting services as well as resources for PAR.

an entry point to a checklist of conditions for organizers and facilitators to foster when running a collaborative process. The checklists are organized under four headings: Respect, Risk, Revelation, Re-engagement. The thinking behind these headings is, in brief, that a well-facilitated collaborative process keeps us listening actively to each other, fostering mutual Respect that allows Risks to be taken, elicits more insights than any one person came in with (Revelation), and engages us in carrying out and carrying on the plans we develop (Re-engagement). What we come out with is very likely to be larger and more durable than what any one person came in with; the more so, the more voices that are brought out by the process. The sequence of 4Rs grew out of an an annual series of experimental, interaction-intensive, interdisciplinary workshops that "foster collaboration among those who teach, study, and engage with the public about scientific developments and social change" (http://www.stv.umb.edu/newssc.html). Since we named the 4Rs, we have found ourselves using them to review and redesign our teaching, theories about learning, committee meetings, and, in general, the cultivation of collaborators.

"This article... was written by GRAIN and the Pesticides Eco-Alternatives Centre (PEAC) in China to raise Chinese farmers' awareness about the broad historical context of industrial agriculture, and how it paved the way for the introduction of modern varieties of crops and agricultural technologies."

After Felicia's post about farmer suicides in India related to the use of GMO cotton seeds, I thought some might be interested in a more upbeat article about efforts to raise farmer's awareness about industrialized agriculture, etc.

Felicia - I saw a video about this story a while back with Vandana Shiva (on BBC?) and was amazed at this desperate reality. And the most common way farmer's committed suicide was to drink pesticides.

An amazing timeline map showing GMO introduction to field crops in the USA.

We spent two years working with lawyers to design a contract - learning from the best aspects of other pharmaceutical companies - to ensure that the Amazonian people benefit from a percentage of any profits with conservation and education initiatives. We are distributing the money through trusted, long-term local NGOs. So far we have created a beautiful medicine garden to conserve plants used for women's health. We also want to build a training centre to teach the community the medicine and remedy-making skills I learned, but which the new generation has lost.

This is the book I mentioned in class that conveys a strong sense of: a) how much we depend on that is below (infra) our attention; b) how difficult it is to try to get to understand how it all functions.

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. This article explores issues around UPOV and non USA-EU countries adopting sui generis policies.

The mission of the Lejeune foundation. Contains the following sentence... "The Lejeune Foundation is committed to the inherent human dignity of all persons and the protection of life from conception to natural death."

A group is petitioning France not to make it mandatory for women to be offered prenatal genetic testing. They argue that this amounts to eugenics, and cite the high rate of selective abortions of fetus in which trisomy 21 has been detected.

Provides a tool to compare health care between countries.

A good comparison of the transition to motherhood in France and the U.S. Talks more about health insurance, not about prenatal testing.

2 excerpts from the book presenting two different mothers' perspectives on selective abortion, one from a woman who chose to continue her pregnancy, another from a woman who chose to end hers.

Presents a critique of prenatal testing for disability from a disability-rights perspective.

not an extreme climatic event, but an example of improving science-policy connections

Seems they have radio broadcasts too, so I'll keep an eye open for this talk on their site. But also thanks for sharing this site itself as I was not aware of this organization.

Summarizes the evolution of the plant biotechnology industry in Europe and discuss relevant competitive issues. Also comments on the rise of public opposition to the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture in Europe, and conclude by highlighting key aspects of the emerging European policy on GMOs, and its political economy.

Office publication from the Intellectual Property Office, Newport South Wales

This publication might be helpful in some of your inquiry since it outlines some of the guidelines for determining intellectual property for biotechnology inventions in the UK.

A group of sci­en­tists is call­ing for major fed­eral ac­tion in order to deal with the threat posed by Mon­santo's GMO crops, now pe­ti­tion­ing the EPA to ad­dress the issue head on.

Thanks Felicia - This supports what I had read about Monsanto corn during my CCD research. But I was not aware of the BT-rootworm issue, only the super-weeds mutating because of RoundUp resistance that has also been genetically modified in Monsanto corn. Honeybees do collect pollen from corn when they are desperate even though they are not needed for pollination of corn.

On Point looks at rising water lines on the coasts - A big new prediction of coastal flooding and sea levels rise. We'll look at the moving edge of the water.

This article is by a leading member of the STEPS centre at the U. Sussex, which addresses sustainability, development & environmental change