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thegrandimago · 5 years ago

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Experts concerned young people’s mental health particularly hit by reality of the climate crisis

Over the past few weeks Clover Hogan has found herself crying during the day and waking up at night gripped by panic. The 20-year-old, who now lives in London, grew up in Queensland, Australia, cheek by jowl with the country’s wildlife, fishing frogs out of the toilet and dodging snakes hanging from the ceiling.

The bushfires ravaging her homeland over the past few weeks have taken their toll. “I’ve found myself bursting into tears … just seeing the absolutely harrowing images of what’s happening in Australia – it is overwhelming and terrifying.”

Hogan said her lowest point came when she heard about the death of half a billion animals incinerated as the fires swept through the bush. “That was the moment where I felt my heart cleave into two pieces. I felt absolutely distraught.”

The physical impact of the climate crisis is impossible to ignore, but experts are becoming increasingly concerned about another, less obvious consequence of the escalating emergency – the strain it is putting on people’s mental wellbeing, especially the young.

Psychologists warn that the impact can be debilitating for the growing number of people overwhelmed by the scientific reality of ecological breakdown and for those who have lived through traumatic climate events, often on the climate frontline in the global south.

Until two years ago Dr Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a clinical psychologist from Oxford, had spent his career treating common mental health difficulties including anxiety, depression and trauma. Then something new started to happen. Climate scientists and researchers working in Oxford began to approach him asking for help.

“These were people who were essentially facing a barrage of negative information and downward trends in their work … and the more they engaged with the issue, the more they realised what needed to be done – and the more they felt that was bigger than their capacity to enact meaningful change,” he said. “The consequences of this can be pretty dire – anxiety, burnout and a sort of professional paralysis.”

Kennedy-Williams began to research the topic and realised it was not just scientists and researchers who were suffering. “There is a huge need among parents, for instance, who are asking for support on how to talk to their kids about this.”

When Kennedy-Williams began focusing on young people he assumed most would be older teenagers or at least have started secondary school. But he soon discovered worrying levels of environment-related stress and anxiety in much younger children.

“What I was most surprised by is how young the awareness and anxiety starts. My own daughter was just six when she came to me and said: ‘Daddy, are we winning the war against climate change?’ and I was just flummoxed by that question in the moment. It really showed me the importance as a parent of being prepared for the conversation, so we can respond in a helpful way.”

He says there is no way to completely shield young people from the reality of the climate crisis, and argues that would be counterproductive even if it were possible. Rather, parents should talk to their children about their concerns and help them feel empowered to take action – however small – that can make a difference.

A key moment for Kennedy-Williams came with the realisation that tackling “climate anxiety” and tackling the climate crisis were intrinsically linked.

“The positive thing from our perspective as psychologists is that we soon realised the cure to climate anxiety is the same as the cure for climate change – action. It is about getting out and doing something that helps.

“Record and celebrate the changes you make. Nobody is too small. Make connections with other people and at the same time realise that you are not going to cure this problem on your own. This isn’t all on you and it’s not sustainable to be working on solving climate change 24/7.”

This certainly resonates with Hogan, who has set up Force of Nature, an initiative aimed at helping young people realise their potential to create change.

Hogan’s group aims to target people aged 11-24 with a crash course in the climate crisis that helps them navigate their anxiety and realise their potential to get involved, take action and make a stand.

“This is only the beginning,” said Hogan. “We’re going to see massive, massive widespread climate crisis in every country around the world, so it’s about developing the emotional resilience to carry on, but in a way that ignites really dramatic individual initiative.”

Beyond climate anxiety – the fear that the current system is pushing the Earth beyond its ecological limits – experts are also warning of a sharp rise in trauma caused by the experience of climate-related disasters.

In the global south, increasingly intense storms, wildfires, droughts and heatwaves have left their mark not just physically but also on the mental wellbeing of millions of people.

For Elizabeth Wathuti, a climate activist from Kenya, her experience of climate anxiety is not so much about the future but what is happening now. “People in African countries experience eco-anxiety differently because climate change for us is about the impacts that we are already experiencing now and the possibilities of the situation getting worse,” she said.

She works with young people through the Green Generation Initiative she founded and sees the effects of eco-anxiety first-hand. A common worry she hears among students is: “We won’t die of old age, we’ll die from climate change.”

Extreme climate events can create poverty, which exacerbates mental health problems, and Wathuti says she has seen stress, depression and alcohol and drug abuse as some of the side-effects of climate anxiety and trauma in her country.

Even in the UK, a recent study by the Environment Agency found that people who experience extreme weather such as storms or flooding are 50% more likely to suffer from mental health problems, including stress and depression, for years afterwards.

More than 1,000 clinical psychologists have signed an open letter highlighting the impact of the crisis on people’s wellbeing and predicting “acute trauma on a global scale in response to extreme weather events, forced migration and conflict”.

Kaaren Knight, a clinical psychologist who coordinated the letter, said: “The physical impacts related to extreme weather, food shortages and conflict are intertwined with the additional burden of mental health impacts and it is these psychologists are particularly concerned about.”

She added that fear and trauma “significantly reduced psychological wellbeing”, particularly in children. “This is of huge concern to us and needs to be part of the conversation when we talk about climate breakdown.”

One of the high-profile signatories of the letter, Prof Mike Wang, the chair of the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK, said: “Inaction and complacency are the privileges of yesterday … Psychologists are ready and willing to help countries protect the health and wellbeing of their citizens given the inevitable social and psychological consequences of climate change.”

This rallying of the psychological profession around the climate crisis has led to experts around the world forming groups to research and treat the growing number of people caught up in the unfolding crisis, attempting to help them move from fear and paralysis towards action.

But even for those who are following this advice, the scale of the emergency is taking its toll. Kennedy Williams – who has set up his own group, Climate Psychologists, specialising in climate anxiety – said he and his colleagues were not immune from the psychological impacts of the crisis.

“This is such a universal thing that [we] have all been through our own set of climate-related grief and despair, and we talk about riding the wave between hope and despair … it is absolutely as real for us as it is for anyone else.”

Advice for parents

Remember that you do not need to be a climate expert It’s OK to explore learning together. If your child asks a question you can’t answer immediately, respond by saying: “What a great question. Let me look into that so I can answer it properly.”

Try to validate, rather than minimise, children’s emotions If children express anxiety, it’s much better to say: “It’s OK to feel worried. Here is what we can do about it,” than to say: “Don’t worry. It’s all fine.” But always try to support this emotion with suggestions for positive action.

Negative information hits harder Bad or threatening facts tend to resonate more strongly – and therefore stick in the mind. So try to balance one piece of negative news with three pieces of positive news. Have some examples of good climate-related news ready – for example, successful conservation projects.

For younger children, keep it local and tangible Suggest litter picks and school events. For teenagers, encourage them to stay connected at a wider level – help them write to their MP, take part in protests and join local communities and campaigns.

Set practical goals as a family and follow through Record and celebrate your climate successes together (even a piece of paper on the fridge door). Reinforce the message that small actions can make a big difference.

#science #climate change #environment #psychology #anxitey #climate crisis #climate #climate change anxiety

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rachelcarsoncenter · 6 years ago

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Guest post by Kriss Kevorkian

*Featured image: Jill Hein

Twenty years ago, when I first coined the term environmental grief—the grief reaction stemming from the environmental loss of ecosystems caused by either natural or human-made events—I thought I was the only one grieving the destruction and ecocide I saw taking place around me. Fortunately, a few well-respected scientists told me that I had put a name to a vague feeling people had but couldn’t identify. Environmental grief was exactly what scientists, conservationists, and even science reporters were reacting to as they continued to observe species after species declining in front of their eyes. At a conference at Oxford University in 2006, I presented my research to a group of environmental scientists. When I talked to them, it was as though a light bulb had gone off. They too had experienced something for which, until that moment, they hadn’t been able to give a name to. But, at the time, there were also those who didn’t seem to understand environmental grief at all. At a second conference, several people asked me, “Why would you grieve about the environment?”

There is another form of grief that I coined around the same time as environmental grief and that is ecological grief, the grief reaction stemming from the disconnection, and relational loss, from our natural world. This form of grief speaks to the relationships we have with nature. Many images these days highlight this disconnection with nature—the selfies people take with wild animals comes to mind. There have been instances where a person has gotten too close, not respecting an animal and its space, and the animal has attacked. Other images include people jumping on the backs of sea turtles that are trying to get back to the water, only to be harassed. The worst image I’ve seen was of a group of people who had grabbed a baby dolphin from the sea, holding it up to take pictures. A few years ago, photos emerged of boaters driving over our Southern Resident Orcas (SROs) and disrupting their habitat—a perfect illustration of the lack of understanding or awareness of our relationship with nature .

Sonar Technicians monitoring equipment during a training initiative. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sunday Williams [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

I first joined forces with the Orca Network—which has long been involved in efforts to save the SROs—after they learned about my research on environmental grief, which in fact originally focused on Southern Resident Orcas (Orcinus Orca). These creatures spend most of their time in the Salish Sea, which borders British Columbia, Canada, and Washington, United States. But you’d be hard-pressed to see one today, given that the population has plummeted to just 75. The reasons for this startling decline are all directly related to human activity: Humans have poisoned the Salish Sea with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other toxins from oil, gas, and pesticides from aquaculture; the Navy practices sonar exercises in this area, wreaking havoc on the SROs and their habitat; and boaters eager to see the SROs ignore the legal 200-yard limit. Furthermore, Chinook salmon, the orcas’ preferred source of food, is endangered, which has pushed the J,K, and L pods to the point of starvation.

Those who have been observing the SROs, whether scientist or layperson, are profoundly involved in their lives and know each one’s name and number. For example, everyone knew that J-50 was Scarlet, who died of starvation recently, a little shy of four years old. Prior to her death, we watched Tahlequah, J-35, carry her dead calf for 17 days. The world watched day after day as Tahlequah kept pushing her calf to the surface to breathe, but there was no response. Other members of the pod joined her, offering what to human onlookers might have been considered support.

With these terrible losses and increasing evidence of the damaging impact of human activities on the planet, it is becoming more common today to see scholars, the media, and the public talking about terms like climate grief and eco-despair. The fact that these terms have made their way into the public consciousness and become part of mainstream environmental language is encouraging, because it speaks to an attempt to identify the loss that humankind is facing and feeling, and to reestablish our connection with the natural world.

Tahlequah (J-35) holding up her dead calf. Photo courtesy of the Center for Whale Research.

Scarlet (J-50). Photo courtesy of the Center for Whale Research.

But how are we to deal with this grief? People might react with despair, sadness, frustration, lack of control, hopelessness, and even apathy. It’s understandable, given the enormity of the destruction taking place. It’s understandable to feel powerless when faced with the news of another whale dying, another forest being decimated, or another oil spill. But though it’s important to acknowledge our ecological grief, we also need to use that grief to take action, to get laws changed.

Rights have been given to people, corporations, and even ships. More recently, the concept of legal personhood has been extended to rivers, mountains, national parks, and forests. The entire planet should have the right to live, thrive, and be healthy, which is exactly why we are working towards achieving these same rights for the SROs. We’ve been fortunate to work with groups like the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has helped other communities get rights for various ecosystems including Lake Erie—people in Toledo, Ohio, united for this cause and won. Once we partnered with the Earth Law Center and Dam Sense, we gained momentum, allowing us to build a coalition of concerned citizens who, together, composed a Declaration that we will present to politicians both in the United States and Canada.

Harmful algae bloom in Lake Erie, which has just been granted rights. Photo: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory [CC BY-SA 2.0].

So far, in Washington, Governor Jay Inslee called for an Orca Recovery Task Force to look into possible solutions to save our SROs. Unfortunately, those on the task force came from very different backgrounds and there were those who tried to promote their own business interests, putting profit over planet. The biggest issue was that no one was there to speak for the SROs themselves. Many people, including various Native American Tribes, tried but were dismissed.

The task force recommendations included limiting whale-watching boats, which would lessen the boat traffic that SROs have to contend with. Thankfully our legislature recently voted that whale watching would continue. Many of these whale-watch boat captains keep an eye on the recreational boaters, who might not be aware of the laws to stay 400 yards away from the SROs. The whale-watch captains help police the area and educate those who come to see the SROs in their natural habitat. Scientifically, we’re told that the whale-watching boats themselves really aren’t disruptive to SROs. It’s the amount of vessel traffic that is an issue, and the task force wants to limit that traffic, but there’s no mention of limiting the Naval sonar exercises that cause massive harm to the SROs. Another recommendation has been to kill sea lions that eat the Chinook salmon that SROs prefer. The only problem is that the Northern Resident Orca eat sea lions so the recommendation takes food away from another orca species. With the ineffectiveness of these methods, it seems that the rights of nature is the most reasonable course to follow.

In 2014, Mayor Joan House, of Malibu, CA, passed a resolution stating that dolphins and whales deserve the “rights to their own freedom and lives.” The proclamation included a statement about cetacean rights: “whales and dolphins are known to be highly intelligent and emotional creatures…and therefore deserve the right to their own freedom and lives.”

It’s easy for us to live our lives in blissful ignorance as we eat animals, spill oil in the driveway, use toxins to clean the house, flush medication down the toilet, and throw away old clothing. Many people rarely consider what happens to any of those things. In reality, our fish are filled with antidepressants and toxins thanks to the everyday products we buy and dispose of without a thought, and that clothing often ends up in a landfill that only continues to grow. Regaining our relationship with nature by fighting to afford it rights would do much to curb the pollution and destruction that we have unwittingly (and sometimes very consciously) wrought on our planet. Continuing to pursue rights for the environment and its inhabitants is an important step in making sure that we preserve our ecosystem.

Environmental Grief and the Fight for Nature’s Rights Guest post by Kriss Kevorkian *Featured image: Jill Hein Twenty years ago, when I first coined the term…

#ecological grief #environmental grief #orcas #pollution #Rights of Nature #whales

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csnews · 7 years ago

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What dolphins taught this scientist about effective communication

Jaymi Heimbuch - Apr. 15, 2018

Scientists spend years conducting careful research, but what happens when they can't effectively reach the public with what they've learned? Often, it can mean a change in roles.

More and more, scientists are making the leap from researcher to communicator. A perfect example is Bethany Augliere, who spent years on a research team studying dolphins but finally found her passion in photography and science communication.

We talked with Augliere about her years out with dolphins of the Atlantic, the things she learned about them, and how they inspire her to talk with the public — particularly children — about the natural world.

MNN: You’ve been swimming with dolphins for the Wild Dolphin Project since 2010. That must be an amazing experience! What made you go in this direction for your research?

Bethany Augliere: At Virginia Tech, where I earned my bachelor’s degree, I did undergraduate research on the movement patterns and habitat use of black bears in Virginia. I really fell in love with learning how animals use their space and why. I knew I wanted to continue to do this kind of research in graduate school, and I was open to working on just about any species.

As I began searching for graduate programs, I came across the work of Denise Herzing and the Wild Dolphin Project. I saw that she studied wild dolphins in the Bahamas, but hadn’t published much on their movement patterns. I emailed her that I was interested in her work and studying the home ranges of the spotted dolphins. She ended up accepting me, so I started graduate school with her in the fall of 2009 at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

The project studies Atlantic spotted and Atlantic bottlenose in the Bahamas. What are some of the key aspects of these species that the project wants to learn about?

Herzing started studying these dolphins in 1985, and it’s the world’s longest running underwater study of dolphins. Denise’s original goal was to start a long-term, non-invasive project and learn about dolphin natural history, including information on social structure, behavior, feeding, communication, habitat use and the impact of environmental disturbances. She immersed herself in their world, much like Jane Goodall did with the chimpanzees. Now, Denise has tracked four generations of Atlantic spotted dolphins, and watched calves live to become grandmothers. Since she founded the project, there have been many discoveries on those different topics.

One of Denise’s primary interests is dolphin communication and discovering if they have language. In order to do that, you need to know the context of the vocalizations you’re observing and recording. Is the animal whistling male, female, young or old? Is it a mom with a calf, is it two young males, is this situation aggressive, is it play, mating, feeding, etc. That’s why she first had to figure out who the dolphins were and what their communication signals meant.

You’ve witnessed quite a bit of interesting behavior in your years diving as a research associate. What’s the most amazing thing you’ve witnessed so far?

That’s a tough question; I have certainly seen some amazing things spending so much time with these dolphins. I’ve watched moms teach their calves how to hunt and catch fish, males of two different species fight each other for hours, and youngsters explore their environment, playing with things like seaweed and sea cucumbers. But, I’d say one of my favorite experiences has been freediving with the dolphins at night, just because it’s so different than anything else I’ve ever done.

Most of the time, the spotted dolphins cruise around the clear and shallow sandbank. At night, however, they move off the sandbank into water more than 1,000 feet deep. If conditions allow, we follow them out to this deep water to collect data, like who is feeding, what prey is around, and recording their echolocation. To do that, we get in the water.

It’s nighttime, the stars are overhead, you’re in the water and it’s dark all around, minus some lights from the boat, and these dolphins just come in and out of your field of view, zipping around chasing prey. They’re not interested in playing or interacting because they’re super focused on eating, targeting prey with their echolocation. Sometimes the fish or squid hide around us humans for protection. I’ve had dolphins grab squid inches from my face. If you look past the edge of light, the dolphins almost glow, as they disturb the bioluminescent plankton. It feels like another world.

Have you seen any particular conservation issues arise for these species in the years you’ve been with Wild Dolphin Project?

Yes, a couple things come to mind. The first is that, these dolphins are very habituated to humans. They’re curious of people and love to bowride on the fronts of boats, which means there’s a huge tourism industry to dive with these animals. There’s also just a lot of boats around in general for fishing and other water activities. Sadly, I’ve seen both young and old dolphins with chopped flukes or gashes in their back from boat propellers.

It’s been shown in other areas where people interact with wild marine mammals, like Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest, that boat traffic and eco-tourism can disrupt natural behavior, such as resting, mating or feeding. Most of the operators in the Bahamas that I’m aware of are actually very respectful of the dolphins, but I worry about recreational boaters jumping in and not realizing how their behavior is impacting the animals, even if their intentions are good. I know most people just want to connect with nature, so that’s why I think education and outreach are so important. I give talks to dive shops, schools and nature centers for that reason.

Because of all the boat traffic, one of the questions I’m personally interested in exploring is how noisy their environment is, and if that noise disrupts their communication and behavior.

On another note, I recently co-authored a paper with Denise that described a mass exodus of 50 percent of a resident community of dolphins from one island to another island in the Bahamas, about 100 miles away and required crossing a deep water channel. This kind of kind of movement pattern had never been documented before in Denise’s 30 years, and we wanted to know why they moved. What we found was a change in oceanographic conditions at the original island, which suggested a collapse in the food web. This change didn’t happen at the island the dolphins moved to. So potentially, they left for food. It’s something to keep an eye on as ocean conditions and prey distribution change because of climate change.

There’s a growing movement of scientists who want to become more effective communicators, and you’re a perfect example of that, building your skills in writing and photography alongside your research. What pushed you to gain these skills instead of just focusing on science?

I had been doing research since college, while also taking nature photos personally as well as for my job as a biologist. As my interest in photography grew, I became sort of obsessed with the work of National Geographic photographers like Michael "Nick" Nichols and Paul Nicklen, among many others. I flipped through the pages of the magazine, captivated by the important stories they told with these images. At that time, I didn’t know how to become a professional photographer, so I just continued to pursue my career as a scientist.

After several years working with the Wild Dolphin Project, I had built this catalog of images — dolphins playing with seaweed, moms bonding with their calves and dolphins feeding. I knew the dolphins as individuals with distinct characteristics and I wanted to share their stories, beyond scientific literature. I wondered and hoped if I could tell the stories of these animals, it might inspire people to not only care about the dolphins, but the ocean and environment where they live. I could use photography and writing as a tool to raise awareness and, potentially, inspire an interest in science, as well as positive action toward the environment. So, I started blogging for the project and using social media to share our work and information on the dolphins.

Eventually, I wanted to tell stories of other threatened wildlife and ecosystems at risk, and the scientists working to study and protect them. That’s how I got into science writing and conservation photography.

You’ve said that you really love reaching out to young kids and getting them interested in nature and science. How do they tend to react when they hear from scientists like yourself?

Working with kids is one of the best parts of my job. They are always so enthusiastic and excited. It doesn’t take much to get kids interested in the natural world, and show them why it’s worth protecting.

One classroom of first graders that I visited in Northern Virginia has become dedicated to giving up plastic straws. Not only that, they want to write to their school board and get rid of straws in their school. I know none of them use straws for breakfast or lunch, so that’s 50 less straws a day out in the world.

Sometimes, I even introduce classrooms to scientists from photography projects that I’ve been working on. One of my favorite stories was from last year, when I Skyped in a gopher tortoise biologist in Florida, to this kindergarten classroom in Virginia. The kids got to ask her questions to learn more about tortoises for their nonfiction unit. One of the young girls was visiting Disney World in Florida with her family for spring break. The parents later told the teacher that all their daughter talked about was wanting to visit Amanda, the tortoise scientist, because she knew she was in Florida somewhere. How cool is that?!

Your photography work goes well beyond dolphin research, and has been featured in a diverse range of scientific news articles, from coyote-wolf hybrids to ocean acidification to exploring mountains. Is there any particular topic you’re most excited to pursue for publication right now?

I’ve been working on a project about manta rays in Florida for the past year that I’m really excited about, and it has a very strong conservation angle. I’ve been collaborating with scientists from the Marine Megafauna Foundation who started this new project.

It might be a bit ambitious because it’s challenging photography. The rays are hard to find, solitary, skittish, and often in murky water. But it’s worth it, because it’s a story worth telling. It’s also pushing me as a photographer to still get shots despite tough conditions, and figure out a way to still make interesting images.

#wild #dolphin #cetacean #research #observation #news

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y4s2-20192020 · 5 years ago

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The beginning of “Uninsurable world”

Tipping point is the point at which a series of small incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger change. Which in my case will involve changes in several aspects starting with the current situation of the climate causing a change in the Insurancing section, leading to a new adaptation and trend of “Human lifestyle behaviour and Urban planning” using “Monitored and translation of the data received” from “animals during their migration” to create a different accessible form of proposals. At the same time apart from focusing on tipping points i’m also researching on the structure of a new technology developed, an automated warehouse of OCADO to understand and open up a glimpse of the future state leading to a predicted scenario and combined with the environmental research as a mix of creation that will be explained more.

Boreal forest or known as Taiga is one of the biggest Biomes in the world. Its location covers the area of Russia, Finland, USA, some part of japan and CANADA. It covers 29% of the world’s forest. The dominant plants are coniferous trees.

The forest is a vital organ of our planet but since humans have been entering the area for industrial purposes like logging, mining, oil extraction, these businesses spread around causing damage to natural resources that will follow with many consequences.

One of the biggest consequences is the release of a huge amount of carbon dioxide that is frozen underground. But due to the changing rapid rise of temp, carbon dioxide that was once frozen has been flowing out to the atmosphere.

Plus with human activities and industrial business we are facing a faster rate of temperature rise. Or so called climate change.

Present day we started to notice and realised that we need to put more concern on the environment to return the balance over our own comfort. Aiming to prevent the situation where we actually enter the Uninsurable state and that environment can not be returned anymore. With this we already see some changes, the Insurance section has already taken the lead, creating a trend for other investment sections to follow beneficially in both gaining money and green space. So, how it works ex. is they tend to divest on companies that are more than 5% reliant on coal- fired power. which leads to future trends where green investment will gain more popularity and financial support and Booming in the future. Policy and designs created to put the environmental crisis as an important aspect will become the new norm.

The beginning of the Uninsurable situation has already begun, our overall climate has been moving north following with many consequences.

And one is “The first migration”

Plants and animals that are based on specific places are now migrating and moving from their old habitat. It is due to the rising temp that causes the change of environment and that they will have to find other suitable places.

Boreal forest is a host of many animal species including mammals fish and insects, but what I’m interested most is the birds, because of its number which exceeds 3 billions and its nature that migrates every year same time and route out of the forest to human area, they are the only species that could be specified as the bridge between forest and cities and is truly the master of migration.

Not only that, everytime they migrate, birds take some part of the forest with them, and in this case I'm referring to seeds that are contained in their feathers or the eaten seeds, those will probably grow somewhere along their migration route. Confirmed by researchers that birds are taking a big role in creating our landscape, some species of plants are capable of colonizing new habitats because of birds.

And because I’m interested in birds I’m also doing research on the relationship between humans and birds. So, what I found is this ancient Roman practice called “Augury” actually translated as “One who looks at birds” . Humans have been observing birds for pleasure since a long time before, but what about today? Has this action been gone? The answer is that Augury still exists but it has transformed into a modern version, observing camps , setting up bird baths and nests to attract them, this proves that we actually enjoy their existence.

Even Though we are able to put environmental concerns on top, it is only just beginning, the climate situation is still overwhelmed and we are still moving towards an uninsurable state. What we can do is to slow the rate down as much as possible and it will take a lifetime. So, before that, humans will be facing the coming predicted future, the growth in Technology and the degrowth in the Environment.

The weather will now be Hot/hotter/hottest, Human lifestyle will move from outside to indoors, this will lead to support in networking technology sections, we have already seen some cool VR and video conferences, the future would hold a better version of that. And while some places will be affected from rising temps, not everywhere is habitable. There will be a human migration.

Moving on to the second part of my research, OCADO

Ocado is an online groceries shopping platform. For customers Ocado seems to be a new way of shopping that saves time and energy with an easy operational website. So it’s very simple to use, just create an account - login - put info of your credit card in and you can start shopping. The groceries will arrive at your house within the days you prefer.

The interesting part is their warehouse. It is fully automated, with no humans. The robots are operating receiving orders from one main center computer, this causes no crash between bots. And 99% accuracy.

Even with that there are some jobs that require humans like fixing the robots or packing fragile stuff.

The spaghetti junction shows the complexity of the warehouse, groceries are being sent through these lines without the hand of a human.

Each robot works together as a team to be the fastest, most precise platform ever created. They have the so-called operating network between robots and other warehouses too. Creating a big network of online grocery shopping.

Scenario and Proposals.

So the main goal of my project is to slow down the rate of entering an uninsurable state by using gathered data information from animals during migration that will benefit both humans and the environment, resulting in a new strategy of urban planning : Birds as landscape shapers. With the operational ideas extracted from ocado.

First the Gathered DATA part. So, what data? Humans hold a huge amount of data, researchers already have them and after gathered, it will be analyzed. I’m using the existing data about birds migration, from left to right shows the info of birds name habitat,food,behaviour, exposure to human rate and their route of migration. And on the right shows possible operational areas.

So, what are operational areas? With layering information of birds migration routes and behaviour we will have overlapping routes and areas that different birds species will stop. This overlapping area will become The Operational area. A zone created to embrace the idea of birds as landscape shapers with human exclusion rules and regulations implemented. Not acting as a preservation area but as a mandatory act of a new system of urban planning that nature needs to have their 100% space so that the other nature parts will be able to grow and connect through these operational zones. In this zone information will be received through monitoring. The amount of species migrating in\ amount of plants and animals will be counted and analyzed into an accessible / readable translation. The zones will act like ocado robots with the same goal. Each will have their operational part but once every zone is put together, creating a journey towards connecting the whole forest together again.

Once we have information for example : The amount of birds migrating in more and more every year is at the same time that coniferous trees increase their number, we can actually analyze this to a more readable like “increasing in number of birds coniferous trees” The information can be analyzed many ways and will be gathered into accessible platform for every body to access. Within the people in that area or people who are migrating to the area. And for us humans, zones are not fully prohibited, embracing the idea of insuring our planet through these zones, observing the birds and the growth of trees will be the new norm.

#4 tong Tanyaluck Kittithirapong #Michal Jurgielewicz

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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‘Staying Nimble’: How Small Businesses Can, and Do, Shift Gears

The first week after Cristina McCarter closed her Memphis food tour company, a casualty of the pandemic, she had only tears.“It was a lot of emotions,” she said. “It was like going back to when I first started and everyone said I was crazy to give up my job to be an entrepreneur. I was like, this is what my granddaddy was talking about.”But then, she had an idea. As Ms. McCarter saw restaurants in town reopen to serve takeout, she realized she could take her business, City Tasting Tours, virtual.She could team up with the restaurants to create special meals that she could deliver to clients along with a link to a 30-minute video tour about the food, the chefs and Memphis.“I realized we could focus on the local,” she said. “We’re so used to focusing on tourists, but now is the time to show the locals the richness of what you have.”Like Ms. McCarter, small-businesses owners across the country are looking for ways to survive the coronavirus pandemic, even as they fill out paperwork for federal stimulus funds that they no longer believe they can count on. Instead, they are adapting their business models and innovating products so that they, and their employees, can get back to work.“Small businesses are really great at staying nimble,” said Laura Huang, associate professor at Harvard Business School and author of “Edge: Turning Adversity Into Advantage.” “This is something they’ve been set up to do because they’ve always had to deal with adversity in some way.”But it’s hard, too. The most recent Optimism Index, from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, fell 8.1 points in March — the largest monthly drop in the survey’s 34-year history. Ninety-two percent of businesses surveyed recently by the federation said they had been negatively affected by the virus; just 3 percent said they were better off.The ones that succeed, Dr. Huang said, “understand that even though they are looking to do new, innovative things, they need to grow where they are planted.”That means that small-business owners should not completely change what they do but find new ways to deliver their product, dust off old ideas, experiment with existing strengths, search for new customers or change their story.Even before the coronavirus hit, Kevin Peterson and his wife, Jane Larson, were notably adaptable — they own a scent shop in Detroit that doubles as a bar. Each evening, the shop’s cupboards close, display tables become cocktail tables, and guests sip cocktails served with scent strips designed to enhance their drink.When the stay-at-home order was issued in Michigan, their shop, Castalia at Sfumato, was about to celebrate its second birthday. Mr. Peterson was finally feeling that the business had turned a corner: Their staff was stable, he wasn’t working crazy hours, and there was money left after they paid the bills.That changed overnight. They temporarily laid off their four employees and went into creation mode, since Michigan is not allowing bars to sell takeout or delivery cocktails. In a week, Mr. Peterson had developed their new product: frozen juice cubes that allow home bartenders to mix a perfect drink. All they have to do is add the spirit.“The big thing for me was not thinking of a recipe as just the ingredients but also the dilution, aeration and temperature,” said Mr. Peterson, who went to culinary school and has degrees in physics and engineering. “That’s the big difference between drinks at a bar and drinks at home.”The idea for a take-home cocktail cube had percolated when Castalia first opened, but the couple were so focused on getting people in the bar that they didn’t have time for extraneous products. Now they are making — and selling out of — 750 cubes every weekend. They would do more, but they are limited to the space in their home freezer.“I take solace in doing stuff,” Mr. Peterson said.

Experiment with what you know.

Some businesses find themselves in a position to help fight the pandemic. Distilleries like Cathead Distillery in Jackson, Miss., are converting production to hand sanitizer, while apparel companies, like Simms Fishing Products in Bozeman, Mont., are making hospital gowns. Still others are making masks.But all that product has to find its way to hospitals and homeless shelters. That’s where Garry Cooper comes in. His Chicago technology firm, Rheaply, specializes in connecting resources to the people who need them to reduce waste and overbuying.He normally works with universities, government agencies and the world’s largest companies to help them better manage their inventories. When the pandemic broke out, he realized that there was no single place to go to find out who needed what — and who had it.“This is a breakdown of Supply Chain 101,” Dr. Cooper said. “We are a climate tech company, and we have been thinking a climate crisis would cause what we just saw.”In three weeks, his team built a stripped-down exchange — “a prettier Craigslist,” he called it — where people with masks could list them for donation or sale, and hospitals that needed ventilators could post their requests.So far, 50 organizations have signed up for the free service, and Dr. Cooper is in talks with cities and states about developing custom options. He hired three more employees — and is looking for three additional computer programmers — to manage the workload.That’s the type of pivot that Larry Downes, a senior fellow at Accenture Research, advises businesses to make.“Trying something new is relatively cheap,” said Mr. Downes, a co-author of “Pivot to the Future.” “It doesn’t cost a lot to quickly launch an experiment.”

Search high and low for new customers.

An experiment may be the thing that saves Washbnb, a start-up in Milwaukee that was to open this month.Originally, Washbnb planned to provide laundry service to Airbnb hosts. One of the company’s founders, Daniel Cruz, is a host himself, and he hatched the idea because he was always buried in laundry — and worse, fitted sheets — at the end of each week. His four Airbnb properties created too much laundry for his residential machines but too little for a lot of commercial laundry facilities. When he discovered that others had the same problem, he started planning to build his own facility.But when the pandemic hit Milwaukee, all his Airbnb bookings dried up.“At first, we were actually really bullish,” Mr. Cruz said. “We were talking about investing in another property to add more units. But then we took a week and watched our market evaporate around us.”Instead, he decided to find new customers. He realized that the elderly and people with compromised immune systems might not have laundry facilities or be able to go into laundromats. He and his two partners quickly started a sister company, Washhero, targeting those customers with a curbside laundry service. They offer wash-and-fold for $20 a bag, as well as pay-what-you-can options.In the first two weeks, 22 clients signed up, and word got around to other businesses. Mr. Cruz received calls from restaurants doing takeout that need towels washed and an invitation from a new hotel to bid on its laundry contract. He has been so busy that he has hired three new team members and signed a lease for his laundry facility.“The Covid situation is accelerating our timeline, not only in how we give back but how we build out our own facility instead of relying on partners,” Mr. Cruz said.

Reposition your product.

Sometimes, innovating is as simple as changing the story, or updating marketing to reflect a new reality.“If you have a firm understanding of where your roots are and what your product delivers, then you can think really creatively about all the different ways your product can be beneficial and tell that story,” said Dr. Huang of Harvard.Wheelhaus, a maker of tiny homes and modular cabins, is trying to do just that. It is now marketing its smallest home — just 250 square feet — as a home office. It can be pulled straight into a backyard on a trailer and has all the amenities of a workplace.“It’s kind of funny how these things kick you in the butt,” said Jamie Mackay, founder of Wheelhaus. “It’s like, whoa! You wake up and think outside the box. That’s key right now.”The company manufactures its line of homes in Salt Lake City and normally sells about 180 a year. Demand has slipped, but there has been enough work for Mr. Mackay to keep all 80 employees and subcontractors on the job. There have been seven sales of the $88,000 home office since the new marketing began, and Mr. Mackay said he expected higher demand for small home offices as real estate trends changed and businesses realized employees could work from home.The fact that Mr. Mackay is already thinking about that future pleases Mr. Downes. The biggest challenge facing businesses, Mr. Downes said, is the failure to look forward.“One thing this crisis has taught us is that the distant future can show up fast,” he said. Read the full article

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lcohen35 · 5 years ago

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Assignment 10 Final Draft: Are We Willing to be Inconvenienced For Sustainability?

According to physicist Albert Einstein, ‘A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it’” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 596). This is a perfect analysis of a zero waste lifestyle; zero wasters avoid making trash as a whole rather than looking for solutions of where to put it.

In my opinion, chapter 17 was a weird chapter because it focused highly on the effects of hazards on humans, and not the environment. It didn’t feel like it belonged in this text. Both chapters cited very controversial examples of responsible waste management/recycling, in my opinion. But, I digress. Here’s what I got out of it.

#WhatMajorHealthHazardsDoWeFace?

We face major health hazards from biological, chemical, natural and cultural factors along with our lifestyle choices. Biological hazards include bacteria, viruses, parasites, protozoa and fungi. Chemical hazards include harmful chemicals in air, water, soil and human-made products. Natural hazards include fire, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes. Cultural hazards include unsafe working conditions, criminal assault and poverty. Lifestyle choice hazards include smoking, poor food choices and unsafe sex. The hazard of Coronavirus which we are facing right now is a biological hazard.

#HowDoBiologicalHazardsThreatenHumanHealth?

Biological hazards can be highly contagious, passing from one person to another, but they don’t have to be. The book talks about how the risks of these hazards, like infectious diseases are declining, but still remain relevant in less developed countries. That’s a bit ironic right now because of Coronavirus. The book also mentions how climate change amplifies the effects of these hazards due to their tendency to breed rapidly in warmer climates. This is a bit terrifying with summer approaching. Another major issue threatening humans is that some of the bacteria which causes infectious diseases have become immune to antibiotics, which makes them more difficult to treat and easier to spread. The spread is also made easier by population growth, which forces higher person-to-person interaction as cities become more dense.

Some believe the Coronavirus originated from bats in a Chinese province. If that is true, it wouldn’t be the first time a disease spread from one animal to another (us). There is a whole field of medicine called Ecological Medicine which studies this connection. Their findings have shown that it is increasingly important to regulate the consumption and trade of exotic animals to prevent the spread of infectious disease. However, in reality, I can see how this can be quite difficult and can come off as colonialistic, in imposing western culture on different cultural norms than our own.

Figure 1. Solutions to Infectious Diseases (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 452.)

#HowDoChemicalHazardsThreatenHumanHealth?

Some chemicals in the environment can cause cancers and birth defects, and disrupt the human immune, nervous and endocrine systems. Toxic chemicals can cause temporary or permanent damage or even death to humans. The EPA has found that almost ½ of the fish tested in 500 US lakes and reservoirs had above safe levels of mercury (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 453). Mercury is a toxic metal naturally released into the air. However, ⅔ of the mercury existing in our atmosphere comes unnaturally from human activity: coal, industrial plants, cement kilns, smelters and solid-waste incinerators. Since Mercury is an element, it cannot be broken down, and it builds up in whatever area it comes to pollute. Humans are exposed to mercury through the food we eat or the air we breathe. This exposure to mercury can cause reduced IQs and nervous system damage.

Figure 2. Movement of Different Forms of Mercury Through the Environment (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 454).

Figure 3. How to Prevent/Control Mercury Inputs (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 454).

Certain chemicals can affect the endocrine system because they have structures which mimic natural hormones. This can allow them to disrupt sexual development and reproduction. Some of these chemicals, or hormone disruptors, include the ones which are used to make plastics more flexible. Specifically, BPA has been a controversial material used in plastics, because research has shown that low levels of BPA can cause brain damage, early puberty, decreased sperm count, cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver damage, impaired immune function, impotence and obesity. Consumers have the power to choose BPA free products, but some manufacturers have just replaced the chemical with a similar synthetic, which defeats the purpose.

The book suggests that a simple way to help ourselves is to just switch to cleaner products. However, the book fails to recognize this is not accessible for many people in the US, because “clean” products tend to be more expensive.

Figure 4. Ways to Limit Exposure to Hormone Disruptors (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 455).

#HowCanWeEvaluateRisksFromChemicalHazards?

Scientists use animal testings, case reports, and epidemiological studies to estimate the toxicity of chemicals. They evaluate dosage, solubility, persistence, and biological magnification, to name a few factors. There are many ethical factors which go into animal testing, and since more humane options exist, consumers have the option to buy products that do not test on animals.

“‘Toxicologists know a great deal about a few chemicals, a little about many, and next to nothing about most’” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 459). Though toxicologists are working hard to evaluate these risks, they overall recommend pollution prevention to reduce our exposure to harmful chemicals. Living in a developed country, we have all likely been exposed to potentially harmful chemicals, but we should avoid it whenever possible.

The book specifically cites 3M and Dupont as business leaders in chemical recycling, which is laughable. Both Dupont and 3M have been involved in environmental scandals of their own, ruined communities, and then tried to deny it when the time came to own up. I can’t fathom why the book would cite these two as examples of responsible businesses following the precautionary principle.

In order to follow the precautionary principle we (businesses, government, individuals) must:

assume new chemicals and technologies could be harmful unless proven otherwise

remove the existing chemicals and technologies that have been assumed safe thus far from the market until proven so

The European Union has already begun to apply the precautionary principle through pollution prevention by phasing out the dirty dozen.

Figure 5. Potentially Harmful Chemicals Found in the Home (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 460).

#HowDoWePercieveAndAvoidRisks?

We can avoid risks by becoming informed, thinking critically and making conscious choices. The best ways to avoid individual health risks are to avoid smoking, lose excess weight, reduce consumption of sugary foods, eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, exercise regularly, drink little to no alcohol, avoid excessive sunlight and practice safe sex. Technological risks can be difficult to estimate due to their complexity. But we can do so by calculating their probability of success (Reliability=Tech Reliability x Human Reliability).

Designer William Mcdonough came up with the cradle-to-cradle approach to the life-cycle of products; “we should think of products as part of a continuing cycle instead of becoming solid wastes that end up as litter or being burned or deposited in landfills” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 574). This is a form of biomimicry, a cycle which replicates the cycle of nature. This way of thinking has also been called closed-loop, and needs to be implemented at the design stage of a product, planning out every step of consumption.

It is important to note that some people are unable to avoid risks. The poor and unimmunized are particularly susceptible to disease. There's a privilege to being able to avoid contact, as in many areas people live with many members of their family in tight quarters and are unable to avoid contact with germs. This fact outlines how for some communities, even if you know the risks, you might still just have to live with them. The cycle of poverty is also worsened during a pandemic due to lower level client facing jobs increasing the susceptibility to disease. The poor are also less likely to receive medical assistance and less likely to have health insurance. The intersection of vulnerabilities is an important factor to consider when avoiding risk. The basic rule of thumb is, the more vulnerable you are before a disaster, you are exponentially more after the fact.

#WhatEnvironmentalProblemsAreRelatedToSolidAndHazardousWastes?

Solid waste contributes to pollution and contains valuable resources that could be reused or recycled. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is what we throw out in our lives everyday–huge amounts of trash. We also produce industrial waste through agriculture, mining and industry. Without humans, this problem of this type of waste wouldn’t exist, because the natural wastes of one organism become nutrients or raw materials for another. We will always produce some waste, due to the law of conservation of matter, but cradle-to-cradle design could help reduce our waste and environmental harm by 80%. The United States produces the most waste in the world, “enough MSW to fill a bumper-to-bumper convoy of garbage trucks long enough to circle the earth’s equator almost six times” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 576).

Figure 6. Composition of MSW in the US and Where It Goes After Collection (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 576).

Many people have the misconception that landfills operate as huge compost piles where biodegradable waste will eventually break down in a short time. But in reality, decomposition takes a long time in a landfill due to lack of sunlight, water, and air.

Hazardous waste contributes to pollution, natural capital degradation, health problems and premature deaths. This type of waste is corrosive, toxic, flammable, can be explosive and cause disease. The two major types of hazardous wastes are organic compounds and toxic heavy metals. E-waste is a large source of this type of waste. Much of e-waste is shipped to foreign countries where the labor is cheap and environmental regulations are lax. “More developed countries produce 80-90% of the world’s hazardous wastes, and the United States is the largest producer” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 577). This means as human societies progress, we degrade the environment that allowed us to do so.

#HowShouldWeDealWithSolidWaste?

We should deal with solid waste by reducing our production of it, reusing or recycling it and safely disposing of it. Waste management is imperative to dealing with solid waste, but prevention and reduction are more effective. Integrated waste management combines all of these approaches, and is the most realistic.

Figure 7. Priorities Recommended by the US National Academy of Sciences for Dealing with MSW compared with The Reality (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 579).

The 4 R’s by priority are

Refuse: Don’t use it.

Reduce: Use less of it.

Reuse: use it over and over.

Recycle: Upcycle, compost, and follow local recycling rules.

The question becomes, is it the responsibility of individuals to take these actions, or the responsibility of the system to change and make it really easy for individuals to do so? I think a combination of both. Producers of trash tend to focus on source separation as the most cost effective form of recycling. However, this puts a lot of owness on the consumer to be knowledgable on their local recycling practices.

6 Strategies that industries and communities can use to reduce resource use, waste and pollution:

Change industrial processes to eliminate or reduce harmful chemical use.

Redesign manufacturing processes and products to use less material and energy.

Develop products that are easy to repair, reuse, remanufacture, compost or recycle.

Establish cradle-to cradle responsibility laws.

Eliminate and/or reduce unnecessary packaging.

Use fee-per-bag solid waste collection systems.

#WhyAreWeRefusingReducingReusingAndRecyclingSoImportant?

We refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle what we use to decrease our consumption of matter and energy resources, reduce pollution and natural capital degradation and save money.

Questions to ask yourself to avoid a throwaway economy:

Do I really need this? (refuse)

How many of these do I actually need? (reduce)

Is this something I can use more than once? (reuse)

Can this be converted into the same or a different product when I am done with it? (recycle)

Figure 8. Some Ways to Reuse (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 582).

Businesses are also forming out of people’s desire to avoid waste, such as rental clothing, furniture and child’s toys. Additionally recycling businesses are arising to give people points for recycling, or to recycle non recyclable products. Terracycle is a company that partners with brands to recycle their packaging in order to divert it from a landfill (Terracycle 2020).

Recycling is a complex and expensive process, so it is not the most sustainable form of waste diversion. Additionally, incorrect sorting for recycling is ineffective.

Figure 9. Advantages and Disadvantages of Recycling (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 585).

#WhatAreTheAdvantagesAndDisadvantagesOfBurningOrBuryingSolidWaste?

Figure 10. Trade-Offs of Burning Solid Waste (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 587).

Figure 11. Trade-Offs of Landfills (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 588).

#HowShouldWeDealWithHazardousWaste?

We should deal with hazardous waste by producing less of it, reusing or recycling it, converting it to less hazardous materials, and safely storing it. Most countries follow these priorities poorly. The long-term solution is prevention, but short term the other options will suffice. Hazardous waste can be detoxified physically, chemically or biologically. Additionally plasma gasification can be used to treat the waste, but it is quite expensive. Burial of hazardous waste is the most common form of storage in the United States and abroad due to low cost. But the environmental costs of leakage into groundwater are high. The current regulation for this type of storage is inadequate. Actually, 95% of the hazardous and toxic wastes produced in the United States are unregulated, and even less are regulated in less developed countries. The consequences of this is that about $1.7 trillion is spent on the cleanup of toxic waste, not including legal fees. And we pay for it through our taxes!

#HowCanASocietyShiftToALowWasteEconomy?

“Shifting to a low waste economy will require individuals and businesses to reduce resource use and to reuse and recycle most solid and hazardous wastes at local, national and global levels” (Miller and Spoolman 2016, 594). Bottom-up campaigns are essential in the process including sit-ins, concerts, protests, rallies, and petitions. Manufacturers of waste feel that it needs to be managed, while citizens feel that waste needs to be reduced; it is a constant struggle.

3 Factors hinder reuse and recycling

The market prices of products are not applying full-cost pricing.

The economic playing field is uneven because resource extraction usually receives more subsidies than reuse and recycling industries.

The demand and the price paid for recycled goods fluctuates since it isn’t a high priority for consumers.

We can reverse these factors by attaching deposit fees or fee-per bag charges and governments can pass laws requiring companies to take back, recycle and/or reuse packaging and e-waste. Overall, a change in mindset must be adopted to the way in which we consume in the following ways.

We must understand:

Everything is connected.

There is no “throw away” for our wastes.

Producers and polluters should pay for their produced wastes.

We can mimic nature by reusing, recycling, composting or exchanging MSW.

(Miller and Spoolman 2016, 596).

Additionally, I watched No Impact Man for this post, where Colin Beavin asks, what if we tried not to hurt the environment? And what are we willing to give up to do so? He spent a year living zero waste, only buying food within a 250 mile radius, and only traveling by foot and bike. He shopped at local farmers markets, turned off his electricity, homemade cleaning products and in the end adopted a different mindset towards life. Beavin began to understand the disconnection between humans and nature through consumption. Personally, I have been pursuing zero waste for 3 years, and even I thought the guy was a bit extreme. His critics felt the same way. In the film, Beavin noted how some environmentalists had reached out to him saying he was giving the rest of us a bad rep. But I think it’s important for people to understand the validity of the experiment, and how little thought goes into most peoples’ everyday impact. This strikes a nerve in American culture because we are a society built on American corporate capitalism. Through No Impact Man, Beavin also balanced the question of individual versus collective action. Some other critics said if we could do it without government and business aid, then what’s the problem? I think the problem is that living how Colin lived is seen as extreme and unrealistic for most people due to the inconveniences it causes. Individual action requires people to be engaged, and creates the demand for the world to look differently.

Figure 12. Zero Waste. Personal Photo.

Word Count: 3000 Words

Question: How can zero-waste lifestyles be more attractive and accessible?

Works Cited

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2016. Living in the Environment: Nineteenth Edition, 441-596. Canada: Cengage Learning.

Wurmfeld, E. (Producer), & Gabbert, L. (Director). (2009). No Impact Man [Motion Picture]. Toronto, ON : Mongrel Media.

Terracyle. 2020. “About Terracycle.” Accessed April 6, 2020. https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/about-terracycle?utm_campaign=admittance&utm_medium=menu&utm_source=www.terracycle.com

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visualcultureconference2019-blog · 6 years ago

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Abstracts: Day 1, March 19

Seeds of Knowledge: The Power of Beautiful Animation (Mimosa Wittenfelt)

In order to create a constructive discourse about nature from one generation to the next, I believe that one must first enable an understanding of nature itself. One of the ways to do so is through the media that children consume. Animation has unique possibilities in how it expresses its core messages to its audience. It can and has been utilised as a pathway to encourage the younger generation’s innate curiosity and strive to learn through their entertainment. In my paper, I will explore how the film My Neighbour Totoro uses the beauty of animation to encourage children to learn about nature. Rooted in Japanese Shintoism, the portrayal of nature in My Neighbour Totoro is one of spirituality and mystery, beauty and comfort. By using aesthetic theory and analysing what the fan anime community has dubbed “sakuga” (here meaning “beautiful animation”) as well as Célestin Freinet’s pedagogical ideals, I will show how My Neighbour Totoro gives a template for how to encourage its younger demographic to learn by giving them an example that plays into the wondrous imagination of children, while still being planted in reality.

Visualizing Space: Visual Investigation from Saturn to the Moon (Emily Hsiang)

Modern science such as physics and math are becoming progressively abstruse, in this array of studies, one field stands out for its abundant visual images - space exploration. With growing numbers of unmanned spacecrafts exploring the Solar system, astronomical images captured by spacecrafts become not only important tools to visualize scientific concepts, but also as proof for successful discoveries. Could these images be a new type of landscape? Could they be the force of communication between the widening gap of abstract political and scientific discourse? What does the commodification of space images mean for humanity’s view of the Universe? Using images from unmanned spacecraft Cassini-Huygens mission and images taken from the Moon, I attempt to address these questions using WJT Mitchell and Verschaffel’s theories on landscape, as well as Arendt’s “The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man”.

Analyzing Visual Representations of Climate Change on Social Media (Victoria Grant)

Visual communication across social media platforms is a critical but frequently underestimated contributor to the social and cultural life of environmental issues. My presentation hopes to use content and discourse analysis to examine visual representations of climate change on social media within the US. The US is currently one of the leading polluters, whilst simultaneously having a large population of climate change sceptics. I will examine images that appear on social media in distinction to 3 areas - science, politics and society. My presentation, which focuses on image- language interactions, leads me to determine that climate change is being inconsistently narrated to Americans through social media platforms. Although research suggests that social media can be an agent of positive impact by encouraging greater knowledge, enabling the mobilization of activists and providing an online forum for discussion through visual communication, it rarely galvanises sceptics into becoming agents of change for the environment. To combat this, I suggest that a modification of visual imagery in one area alone can positively impact science-society-policy interactions in regards to climate change.

Art, Ecology & Science (Kerstin Jakobsson and Jasmine Cederqvist)

ARNA is the only organization in the world to develop the Cultural Dimension of Sustainability as a tool for storytelling about a changing world.

They connect all their work to The Avian Kingdom, now the planned core for a new UNESCO biosphere reserve in Sweden, called Vombsjösänkan. The area is a rural valley, rich in history and ecological values. Rooted in this specific landscape ARNA's projects explore subjects in connection to Man and Nature with the aim to support a sustainable development. Their vision for Vombsjösänkan is for it to become the world's first UNESCO biosphere reserve to include the Culture Dimension of Sustainability from start.

With the starting point of Vombsjösänkan, the ARNA-project Art, Ecology & Science explored the connecting points, if there are any, between two different worlds; the nature in a biosphere reserve and the high-tech science facilities for material studies at Brunnshög just outside Lund. The project involved artists, natural scientists and children through the theme Perspective through details. The outcome is a rich variety of art works, photos and reflections through films and texts. All adding their story to Art, Ecology & Science.

HIDDEN LIFE AND DEATH (Ninette Koning)

As an artist nature is of great interest for me. I become aware of the subtle stuff which lies outside the focus of attention. For me it is a way to develop intuition, the unknown. My main field of art is within site-specific installations, which means that I take location and cultural history into account while planning and creating my artworks.

At ARNA I went out in the countryside with my gardening tools, bucket, gloves, bags for collecting materials and making photos. My way of thinking and exploring is through my hands. Thinking about a topic = thinking in material = thinking with my hands. I worked in the forest and made physical sketches on the beach of Vomb with materials as leafs, twigs, stones, sand, fish scales and fish bones.

The outcome of this artist in residence is the connection that I have made between life and death in Skåne; the burial sites, the presence of the army in the landscape, the birds in the Avian Kingdom, the use of colours in science technology, ancient Skåne-weaving and astronomical photography. Hidden life in the ground, in the sky and in the material at MAX IV.

From mystery to mastery: a human perspective of nature through photography (Ana Laura Bezzi)

The need for images began with the simple fear of the unknown. Before any photographic image, the unknown nature was sacred. Mountains and oceans were here when we arrived on this planet - and they will most definitely see us leave. Even with all its greatness, humans tend to see Earth as a subject - to be lived on, to be discovered, to be exposed. Photography came as a proof of that. Somehow, the visual knowledge of nature makes us feel like we are conquering - instead of belonging. Landscapes end up connecting us to ourselves, rather than to nature. Jean Baudrillard used to say that “between reality and its image, there is an impossible exchange” - meaning that we are never actually in the real presence of an object. Because the more images we have, the more the idea of landscape becomes a cultural construction. Perhaps the only absolute truth in nature is seen through vivid experience. Therefore, if art is made by humans to humans, photography should not be seen as a solid form, but as a value.

Living with Nature – A dichotomy between the wild and the tamed within eco-aesthetics (Fannie Baden)

In the past few years there has been in increasing trend incorporating plants and other green vegetation as home décor. The rise of eco aesthetics can not only be measured by the greenery in the home but also in the popularity of rustic furniture and other natural elements in the home. The act of including these ‘genuine’ ‘raw’ materials perfectly represents of the sublime through environmental materiality can be conquered. This power dynamic, in regard to physical ownership, is especially depicted by the ‘showing off’ culture on Instagram. This presentation will question the power relation between man and natural elements in the living space. It asks key questions to determine how the visual scheme corresponds with the environment: Do natural-based material goods really increase nature’s aesthetic value or does it decrease by shallow nature appreciation? With the use of aesthetic theory, the presentation looks at the subject form a contemporary point of view. With the use Instagram for visual evidence and notions from historical sources, the presentation enlightens the dichotomy between the wild and the tamed ecoaesthetics. What happens to our homes when we bring in nature, asking what kind of knowledge we need to appreciate nature as is or at home?

Rootless Trees will Fall A brief history of Skåne (Loek van Vliet)

In the past ten years I’ve been exploring landscapes as a visual artist through the medium of photography. How we experience specific landscapes (Sacred Grounds), how through visual representation we identify with landscapes (Natural Climatebuffers), how the landscape is being experienced differently in different eras (Earthly Windows), and in this most recent body of work (Rootless Trees will Fall) our experience of an area through details, distance, perspectives and abstractions. The short stories created in this body of work are an exploration of what happens within the landscape. Landscapes, either in the experience of walking, or in the form of painting and photography, have always fascinated me. In many ways they show how we as a society see and use the world. These ‘stories’ are created as part of a one-month Artist-in-Residence in Harlösa, Sweden. As part of the project Art Ecology and Science. While being guided through the area, and meeting different experts in the field of science, physical geology and archeology a research question arose. How can a photographic approach give a new perspective on the Skåne landscape?

#day1 #abstracts

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sosation · 5 years ago

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Panarchy and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900

As with the other natural disasters that we have covered in this class, many different things came together to engender what would become to be known as The Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Nature is unpreventable. The hurricane was going to come and how things were handled before it made landfall could have been a lot better. As often happens with natural disasters, negative synergies piled up and created a disaster greater than the sum of its parts. In this paper I aim to explain how “rebuilding the familiar,” as a human condition, created problems for Galveston -- then and now, as well as demonstrate the increased complexity in the Texas coast how that leads to increased vulnerability, and to explain the concept of Panarchy and how it relates to all of this.

First, let’s start with Panarchy to use as a foundation to build the rest of this paper on.

Panarchy, as defined by Crawford Holling, famed Canadian ecologist, is an “adaptive cycle” of growth, collapse, regeneration, and growth that “embraces two opposites: growth and stability on one hand, and change and variety on the other.” (1) The example he used was the adaptive cycles of a forest ecosystem, in our example we will use coastal ecosystems. During the early part of the growth cycle, the number of species increases at a rapid pace to exploit the “available ecological niches.” Small fish, algae, turtles, plankton, birds, and sea mammals alike increase in population. As Homer-Dixon puts it, “the flows of energy, materials, and genetic information between the (coastal) organisms become steadily more numerous and more complex. If we think of the ecosystem as a network, both of the number of nodes in the network and the density of the links between the nodes rise.” (2) As time passes further into the growth phase “the mechanisms for self-regulation become highly diverse and fine tuned.” Efficiency increases and, as time passes, this “fine tuning,” increased complexity and connectivity leads to greater vulnerability to disruption. Once the system is in the later stages of growth, there are fewer niches to exploit and fewer opportunities for varieties of species to develop. The super-connectivity achieved by this time means a shock to the system can affect many different niches simultaneously. A shock could be a forest fire, or in our case a hurricane. This inevitable systematic failure IS part of the cycle. Hurricanes are a natural part of our planet and therefore are part of this natural system. The result after collapse is that “the organisms that survive become much less dependent on specific, long-established relationships with each other. Most important, collapse also liberates the ecosystem’s enormous potential for creativity and allows for novel and unpredictable recombination of its elements.” (3) It gives the “little guys” of the system who survived, those who weren’t able to flourish in the old system, the ability to flourish under these new conditions, creating more diversity and starting the cycle over again.

The final point to this theory is that “no given adaptive cycle exists in isolation.” It’s cycles all the way down, and a healthy super-system has cycles that are on different rhythms and pacings. This means that if one cycle fails, the slower rhythm of a higher cycle would provide stability from an entire collapse. A larger systematic failure involving several or many systems will eventually regenerate but the amount of time that is necessary to reach equilibrium again is vastly longer. (For example, the Galveston coast, specifically, would be one cycle, and the regional climate pattern would be a higher cycle. As long as the climate remains stable then the coast will regrow in a normal amount of time after a hurricane resets the cycle. But if the climate changes, say, due to directional changes in the jet stream caused by melting of the polar ice caps, then the systematic failures will cascade through as many systems possible, not just being focused specifically on the Galveston coast but, perhaps, the entire Gulf Coast region and into other ecosystems and surely human systems as well.) The concept of Panarchy isn’t just exclusive to ecosystems, but all systems- be they economic, political, commercial, industrial or social.

Now let’s consider Galveston in 1900. The way the city was built and the way the geography around the city was composed, considering the bay behind (north of) the city and the gradual slope of the shoreline similar to that of Bangladesh (incredibly shallow), demonstrates a unique cross section of human systems and natural systems. The bay has its system, the coast has its and they are connected, but all of the real estate and commercial developments on the island and the coast were present as well. Before the hurricane there were bath houses built right on the beach as well as the large Beach Hotel, which had a great view but was particularly susceptible to collapse from a storm surge. There were even train trestle tracks that were built right on the water and connected to parts of the island. At the time, storm surges were not attributed to hurricanes. In fact it was Isaac Cline, the Weather Bureau representative who experienced the hurricane first hand, who was the first to say that hurricanes brought with them storm surges. After the hurricane, and the disaster it wrought, the people of Galveston raised the level of the city and built a seawall. And though these measures were better than what they had done previously in protecting them from a hurricane, which was nothing, they didn’t account for the fact that most of Galveston Bay flooded the city from the north before the storm hit. This means that the south-facing seawall would have no effect on bay waters. Even more so, they built another hotel right on the beach, again. The Galvez. Which is a beautiful hotel, I’ve stayed there numerous times when I was a kid, but for whatever reason, it was important for the people of Galveston to rebuild the familiar and put another hotel on the beach, across the street from the seawall. It is still vulnerable to another catastrophe, as is the entire city, if the conditions align. Fortunately they haven’t yet.

But my concern for the Texas coast wouldn’t be just solely for Galveston. In the past 116 years, the systems on our coastlines have become much more complex, in large part because of human development on them. That development includes shipping infrastructure as well as oil and gas infrastructure and other types of industrial infrastructure that require a water source or a shipping channel. The city of Houston is the second largest port in the United States and it also has “one of the most important shipping points for natural gas liquids.” (4) The complexity of our age, as well as the increased efficiency, if viewed through the “Panarchy” lens, leads to increased vulnerability. Case in point, the Murphy’s Oil spill in St. Bernard Parish, LA. “Where flooding from Hurricane Katrina ruptured a storage tank, releasing more than a million gallons of oil and ruined approximately 1,800 homes.” That is just one single storage tank. In Houston, there are an estimated 4,500 storage tanks, “many of them along the ship channel. If even two percent of those tanks were to fail because of storm surge, the results would be catastrophic.” (5) This is just taking into account the complex oil and gas networks that criss-cross the bay area. The shipping channel alone accounts for the movement of hundreds of millions of tons of American product, second only to the Port of South Louisiana.(6) The trading coming in and going out of the port would be disrupted for an extended period of time and would cost the United States an estimated $100 billion in damages alone, not even accounting for the lost trade. Which is difficult to calculate. (7)

There have been some efforts, however feeble, to address the hurricane issue. However, getting the local and state governments to fund and implement these measures is another issue entirely. When Hurricane Ike struck in September of 2008, it “killed nearly 50 people in Texas alone, left thousands homeless, and was the third costliest hurricane in American history.”(8) This would be a perfect time for the state of Texas to ask for federal assistance to better prepare for hurricanes in the future. Unfortunately for everyone, two days later Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and kicked off what would become the economic crisis of 2008. After that, getting funds for “nature stuff” was out of the question, we had to save the economy. Or in other words, we had to prevent this failing system (economic) from cascading into other systems and it obviously took priority over many other things.

Despite this, two main research teams have been developing ways of dealing with the next big storm. Bill Merrell at Texas A&M Galveston has been developing the “Ike Dike,” which is a 55-mile-long “coastal spine” meant to disrupt high storm surges. It’s estimated cost is between $6 and $13 billion dollars but still doesn’t address bay flooding and could potentially create a “Lake Okeechobee effect” wherein the spine acts to keep the bay water from washing out to see and still causes massive flooding. (9) Dr. Phil Bedient at Rice University proposes building a “mid-bay gate” that could be closed to protect the channel from a storm. However there is little political will to do anything to address this problem. Alas, as this class has taught me, a disaster must happen to really get people to react. This is all part of that Panarchy cycle. Out of a disaster come copious amounts of creative energy. Out of the destruction of Galveston came Houston. And yet, Houston did not learn the lesson from Galveston and developed in a very familiar way with little regard for the power of the sea. Due to our greater connectivity and efficiency, the speed at which we can communicate can be nearly instantaneous, and as we result we are more vulnerable and things can be brought down just as instantaneously. All of this new technology and infrastructure that has been developed over the past century just goes to make the Texas coast more vulnerable than ever.

In order for the societies on the coasts of our planet to be more sustainable, we need to, as a society and a race, be educated of our global systems and understand them to better prepare for the inevitable outcome, and to consciously delay that outcome for as long as possible. We all need to understand that hurricanes are not “disruptive,” but rather natural processes of this planet that are beneficial to coastal ecosystems. Rather than trying to live against these storms, we need to try and live with them, or simply get away from the coasts. Education is the first step. With better education, hopefully, we can all make better and more informed decisions down the road to make our societies more sustainable.

Anthony Sosa

Dr. Christopher Morris

HIST 4388

12-12-16

Bibliography

1.Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington: Island, 2006. 226-28. Print.

2.Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington: Island, 2006. 226. Print.

3.Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington: Island, 2006. 228. Print.

4. Scranton, Roy. "When the Next Hurricane Hits Texas." The New York Times 7 Oct. 2016: n. pag. Print.

5. ibid.

6. ibid.

7. ibid.

8. ibid.

9. ibid.

10. Larson, Erik. Isaac’s Storm. New York: Penguin Random House, 1999. Print.

#Panarchy #Galveston #Hurricane #History #TexasHistory #1900 #Texas #Houston #Climate #climate catastrophe #climate change

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myflowerfriends · 5 years ago

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Final Blog Posts

Blog 7: Unsaturating the World

Figure 1: Saturation in boardwalk photo, https://www.adorama.com/alc/0008627/article/100-in-100-Dont-be-a-super-soaker-saturater

In photography, to saturate an image is to edit it so that all of the visible colors are intensified against the white; the right side of Figure 1 is saturated to bring out the vibrancy in the greens and blues. The lowest form of saturation is greyscale, where the photo loses all colors and becomes simple variations of white and blacks. I kept thinking of this term, saturation, while doing the readings for this week. It feels like humanity has taken hold of the saturation scale in Adobe Photoshop and is steadily turning the world greyer. This week’s post looks at the causes of biodiversity loss and extinction, particularly in chapters 9 and 10 of the textbook.

One of the first times I really felt a deep empathy for the environment was when I must have been about eight years old, and I was flipping through a magazine in my dad’s dental office. On the cover there was a polar bear, and on the inside there must have been an editor’s note that stressed how sad and absurd it was that the editor’s children might live to see a world where polar bears go extinct. It completely blew my mind. Polar bears going extinct?! But they’re such iconic animals!

Figure 2: Polar Bear on Time Magazine, 2006. Not sure if this was the exact magazine I was flipping through, but it carries the same energy. http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20060403,00.html

What I didn’t realize then was that every twenty-four hours, between 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird, and mammal go extinct.[1] And according to Miller and Simmons’ text, “20-50% [is the] percentage of the earth’s known species that could disappear this century primarily because of human activities.”[2] The guilt on the shoulders of humankind should be there, but it is not. There is hardly any action being taken to preserve these species, or at least ease their suffering—and hardly any action being done to do the same for our human sisters and brothers.

“Given the pace and scale of change, we can no longer exclude the possibility of reaching critical tipping points that could abruptly and irreversibly change living conditions on Earth.” [3]This quote comes from the World Wildlife Populations Down 50% in Last 40 Years video, which explains just what the title says. There are critical tipping points that are coming closer and closer to being reached each day, and very little being done to reduce the strain of these.

One way to remember the reasons that are causing this biodiversity loss is through HIPPCO: Habitat destruction, degradation, and fragmentation; Invasive (nonnative) species; Population growth and increasing use of resources; Pollution; Climate change; and Overexploitation. Habitat destruction is at this time the most common damaging action being taken, and is a difficult one to stop. It can be difficult to realize too; people in industrialized parts of the United States took great pity on the wildfires being burned in the Amazon Rainforest in late 2019, but were hypocritical to the land that was destroyed so that their city or suburb could be built.

This also reminds me of an interaction I saw on Instagram the other day. There was a post by National Geographic on how salmon are being overfished and losing their wild habitat. One of the top comments stated something along the lines of, “this is why we need to farm salmon! Stop fishing in the wild, it’s the only way to protect them!” And it made me think, because if the problem is that isolated—salmon in the wild are disappearing, so just eat the ones that are farmed—then that would work, maybe. But the issue with salmon, or any species, is that they do not exist in a vacuum. They are an integral part of ecosystems in their natural habitats; farming salmon would eliminate a lot of the benefits that salmon have in the wild.

I was just having a discussion with my brother about this too, and we started making a list of things: what if cows were wild? Would they look the same or had hundreds of years of domestication made them softer and bigger, as chickens have become? Farms make evolution work differently.

As do zoos. Is there any real chance of zoos integrating animals back into the wild? I support animal education, and I get that it’s easier to study animals in zoos than in the wild sometimes.

Figure 3: A photo I took in February, 2019 of the South African Lion and Safari Park website where they acknowledge that they do not feel comfortable with their own lion-petting exhibits but continue to have them for economic purposes. The website has since been renovated and this page was completely removed.

But zoos tend to really get me questioning their ethics. Are they necessary for people to understand why it’s necessary to protect them, or is watching high quality documentaries enough to give humans a change of heart? I had a huge fallout with some friends of mine while we were studying abroad in South Africa because they went to a Lion Park where lions are bred and adults are euthanized. I heard lots of, “but you connect with the animals! You learn to respect them for their conservation! They do scientific research there!” And then the question is, how different is using horses for entertainment? Is it not practically the same as breeding lions for human entertainment? This isn’t the section of the course dedicated to philosophy, but the unanswered questions remain, bring the choice back to whether we will keep the turning the world grey or work on brightening its diversity.

The Critical Thinking Question #5 on page 218 is a tough one: what would you do if a wild boar invaded and tore up your yard or garden?

Currently my dad is having an issue where these strange moth-type bugs build cocoons on the pine trees separating our house from our neighbors. They’re killing the pine trees, because when they make their cocoons, they eat the needles. My dad asked me, as an environmental studies major, what the best option would be: let the bugs take over the trees and once they turn brown, cut them down? Or use pesticides to kill the trees?

Critical Thinking Question # 5 on page 250 asks: Are you in favor of establishing more wilderness areas in the United States?

To that I say: YES TO MORE WILDERNESS AREAS!!!! More old growth forests means more biodiversity! Any disadvantages would just be hidden advantages; for example, less room for suburban sprawl would give more space for the earth to heal.Less private space allows for more public space, which can be used by humans, vegetations, and wildlife.

WC:1189

Question: It is interesting too, that some species are considered accidentally introduced/invasive. Are humans accidentally introduced to places, or do we make possible the ability to sustain life on any corner of the earth because we were designed to do that?

Blog 8: Eat or Be Eaten.

Aquatic Biodiversity Loss and Extinction

Figure 1: Lake Erie, 2015, https://www.nps.gov/piro/learn/nature/images/Waves-on-shore_1.jpg?maxwidth=1200&autorotate=false

Unless you have seen one of the Great Lakes with your own eyes, you cannot fathom what they are really like: vast, powerful bodies of water, with big waves and long stretches of sandy beaches; comparable to an ocean. I grew up living about a block away from Lake Erie, and when I was younger, I really hated my hometown. I wanted to live in a big city. My parents countered my arguments by emphasising how lucky we were to live in the Great Lakes Basin. It wasn’t until I attended a March for Science that I realised how important it was to protect the lakes — see me pictured below with my generic sign, and my friend Max holding a sign that my mom crafted; she’s the one taking the photo.

Figure 2: Cleveland’s March for Science Protest, 2017. Photo by author.

Part of my love of the Great Lakes, and of open bodies of water in general, comes from me living so close to them. But as Sylvia Earle is quoted in the beginning of chapter 12, “With every drop of water you drink, with every breath you take, you are connected to the sea, no matter where on Earth you live” (253).[1] Even if you live in a desert, every decision you make can in some way affect aquatic ecosystem services. Take, for example, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Figure 3: Eastern Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 2019.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottsnowden/2019/05/30/300-mile-swim-through-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-will-collect-data-on-plastic-pollution/#4b2a7f36489f

There are actually two large garbage patches with some connecting debris in-between them; the greater of these patches is just off the coast of California, and is about 600,000 square miles, and in some areas, several feet deep. It is an island floating on the surface of the water, made up of plastics and microplastics. Because plastic is not biodegradable, the Garbage Patch continues to grow, and many animals, such as the albatross pictured below, die due to ingestion of these plastics, which Chris Jordan documents hauntingly well in the film Albatross.[2]

Figure 4: Albatross Bodies with Plastic, 2018,

https://www.albatrossthefilm.com/ourstory

One thing that I think could have been better written about in this chapter is water distribution. I stumbled through this very briefly in my presentation while explaining biophilia and the damaging effects of trying to make Las Vegas into an oasis in the desert. I understand that this chapter is focused more on the biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems, but I still think that concept 11.5 of this chapter could go more in depth with the ownership rights of water sources, or perhaps the section on the Great Lakes in the previous section could explain how although the Great Lakes are the largest collective body of freshwater in the world, water diversions are pretty much limited to regions within the Great Lakes Basin, and why it is important that it stays that way.

Critical Thinking Question #2, p. 280:

Three Greatest Threats to Aquatic Biodiversity

1. Ocean Acidification

2. Plastic Pollution

3. Coastal Wetland and Watershed Protection

4. Overfishing (if there are fish left after the above 3 are increased!)

The list above is my answer to the Critical Thinking Question for this chapter. All of them are caused by humans on the land. The greatest threat according to me is that of ocean acidification, or the increasing amounts of heat and acidity in the oceans. This stems from increased Co2 in the atmosphere. One of the main factors contributing to that, is animal agriculture.

Soil, Agriculture, and Food

Figure 5: You Can Smell the Methane in This Photo, 2014

https://www.wilderutopia.com/health/cowspiracy-animal-agriculture-despoils-land-water-and-climate/

Chapter 12 in the textbook discusses the effect of food production on the environment. I act like I know a lot about this when people ask me why I’m a vegetarian, but this chapter was full of great information and details that I didn’t fully understand until now.

The issue with animal agriculture is not only that Co2 is basted into the atmosphere through gasses released form the animals and humans which eat them, and the clearing of land for the animals. With the depletion of biodiversity to allow animals grazing land, vital natural habitats for other species are lost, as shown in George Monbiot’s brief video on rewilding the countryside and rural areas.[3]

Truthfully, I expected the chapter to be much more focused on animal agriculture alone. But other forms of farming are nearly as bad, as pictured below.

Figure 6: Effects of Food Production of Any Sort

https://slideplayer.com/slide/6187595/

I’m also glad that the chapter covered a comparison of overnutrition and malnutrition. I found the quote: “We live in a world where, according to the WHO, about 795 million people face health problems because they do not get enough nutritious food to eat and at least another 2.1 billion (29% of the human population) have health problems stemming largely from eating too much sugar, fat, and salt.”[4] The greed of modern civilization never ceases to amaze me.

Critical Thinking Question #1 p. 320

Figure 7: Vertical Harvest of Jackson Hole, 2013.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2056017617/vertical-harvest-of-jh-a-growing-system-for-change

If I were a member of Growing Power Inc. and in charge of turning an abandoned shopping center into an organic farm, I would begin by getting a perfect team together; potentially including some of the students in this class (networking!). I’d do my best to dismantle the concrete and debris of the shopping center, and reuse whatever I was able to on the spot. As it is in the Case Study, my farm would be powered partly by solar electricity and solar hot water systems, and would be structured like a green house to keep the produce supported year round. As it is in Jackson Hole’s Vertical Harvest organic urban farm, my employee positions would first be open to disabled peoples who are working on communication skills, training in this center for jobs elsewhere.[5] We would be deeply integrated into the community, selling our produce locally and donating to food banks and soup kitchens whenever possible. That sounds too good to be true, but we’ll leave it at that.

Question, and I think about this every day: which is better for the environment, to be vegan and avoid animal products entirely but eat non-local tofu or other forms of meatless protein; or to eat only locally sourced food which would make animal products more of a staple to the diet?

WC: 1156

[1] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Chapter 11: Sustaining Aquatic Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020.

[2] Jordan, Chris. Albatross. https://www.albatrossthefilm.com

[3] Smith, Peter. “George Monbiot on reqilding countryside and rural areas” YouTube, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1KW-0YbO3Q

[4] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Chapter 12: Food Production and the Environment, p. 286. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020.

[5] “Vertical Harvest Jackson Hole,” Vertical Harvest, https://www.verticalharvestjackson.com/our-mission.

Blog 9: Fight the System by Appreciating Soil and Supporting Local Farmers !

Symphonies of the Soil

Figure 1: Cover Artwork, 2012, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2229397/

When I began watching this documentary, I braced myself for what I thought was going to be a long, boring hour-and-a-half. But by the end of it, I think it may have changed the trajectory of my summer plans.

The first half of the documentary is an almost meditative description of different types of soils found across planet earth, backed by an orchestral score. Ironically, one of the first phrases of the narrator is: “most of the planet is non-living.”[1]And it is. As my sister pointed out, even humans are mostly CHON: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Yet plots of land are not 100% soil; half of it is the compounds that make up soil, and half of it consists of spaces for air, water, and microorganisms which use soil to survive.

Figure 2: Andy Foraging for Mushrooms in Washington, 2019, photo by author.

This point leads to another: you cannot grow good produce in a void. If you were to strip a type of soil down to its purest form and attempt at planting anything in it, it likely would not be successful. This seems to be the thesis of the second half of the documentary: farmers need to feed soil the natural ingredients it needs to be nutritional.

As I don’t have a very strong science background, some of this went over my head, such as the part about the lupines and nitrogen fixation. This summer, as long as the pandemic settles down, I hope to get an internship or job working in permaculture or vertical harvesting. It’s very odd to me that I can talk so much about the environment but know so little about it in a physical way. Although I try to shop mostly locally or from farmers markets, the development I grew up in didn’t allow gardens aside from flower beds, so I have had very little connection to soil or the ground I live on.

A critique I have of this film is that they paid very little attention to indigenous practices of cultivating soil, or hunter-gatherer ideas. They looked at how the harmful processes began, with civilizations in Europe flattening out the hillsides and beginning monocrop farming during the agricultural revolution, and they did discuss the Law of Return, but I thought there might be more references with how the soil had been used in previous human populations, and perhaps a discussion on primitivism. The discussion that was had in the film was more focused on finding a structured form of rewilding agriculturally, which I support, but still I thought the film could show the other side, and give more credit to the indigenous groups that have been pushing for this rewinding for centuries.

Figure 3: Stone Age Reenactment Group, http://www.jutulskinn.no/stone-age-gathering.

No matter how far you think society should dive into with a return to primitivism, the message of this video is clear: we can do a better job at how we farm, in order to produce healthier more sustainable products. It feels as though this shouldn’t be too difficult—but with the rigid constraints set forth by the corporations involved in the agricultural industry, farmers have very little say in how their crops get produced, and animals have become far removed from from the agricultural process, removing a great source of natural fertilizer as well. The next film explains that a bit more.

Food, Inc.

Figure 4: Food, Inc. Cover Image, 2008, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/mediaviewer/rm3514966016.

Food, Inc. uses various segments to explain the systems put in place to produce food, and how rigid those constraints are within the law-and-order system of the United States of America. These segments range from showing statistics, interviews, and video clips of what the world of agriculture is really like.

I found the Polyface Farms clips to be fascinating, because it was so difficult to watch and listen to, but was still the best possible scenario for meat farming. The cattle fertilize and mow the variety of greens they eat; there are no shipments of corn that have to be made. As Joel says, “it’s all real solar dollars….we’re every bit as efficient, especially if you plug in all of the inefficiencies of the industrial system.” [2]

Figure 5: Joel at Polyface Farms, http://www.temeats.com/polyface-farms/.

I think this will be the hardest connection for people to make, especially because we need food to sustain ourselves. Someone can be addicted to nicotine and cut it out of their lives, or can choose to avoid it altogether. But they cannot simply ignore food. People can ignore bad food, but the temptation is always lingering as a possibility, and if you grew up like I did—eating processed foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until I was about sixteen and realized I needed to be healthier—breaking away from those habits can feel like the single most challenging thing to accomplish. And when fast food is the only option due to income levels, the cycle gets even more challenging to break.

Figure 6: Elk in Wyoming, https://content.osgnetworks.tv/petersenshunting/content/photos/bull-elk-bugling.jpg

I am reminded of an argument that put me on bad terms with my boss at my summer job as a waitress at a guest ranch near Jackson, Wyoming. Elk lived in the meadows just outside the property and were hunted and sold locally. One of our most popular items on the menu was elk tenderloin, and once I had a guest ask how local the elk we served was, a reasonable assumption as our website says that our kitchen sources locally and is as sustainable as possible, even though the menu does not specify what is or is not local. Upon speaking with the head chef I learned that the elk was actually shipped in, frozen, from Austria. The more getting-into-everybody-else’s-business that I did, the more I realized that the only ingredients we used that weren’t shipped in from Sysco were a weak amount of herbs from the farmers market. That guest was from Philadelphia and could have had fresher elk had he shipped it from Austria to Pennsylvania rather than Austria to Utah to Wyoming.

Along with that, our menu was incredibly meat-and-potatoes based, following exactly the prediction that humans are hard-wired to crave salt, fat, and sugar.

Something my mom makes fun of me for saying all the time is “it’s supply and demand!” as if all the problems in the world could be that simple. But in truth, they can be. And I hope that just as my generation has severely damaged the tobacco industry, the next generation can put an end to big corporations controlling the food industry, so that 30% of the United States’ land base will not be corn, and the choice between medication or buying vegetables will be unfathomable, and local food companies will overrule the 4 major meat companies in charge now.

A critique I have of Food, Inc. is that there is very little said about the dairy and fishing industries. I felt that there could have been an additional segment on those in the film—perhaps they aren’t as bad as the meat and corn industries, but I do not feel as though they are righteous enough to be counted out of this conversation.

I also am a bit confused by the Monsanto segment and hope to discuss that in our class time.

Question: Food, Inc. is very focused on the United States of America. What are food systems like in other parts of the world? Is there a correlation between colonized places having more fast-food?

WC: 1257

[1] Garcia, Deborah Koons, director. Symphony of the Soil. YouTube, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDZVKMe2FTg.

[2] Kenner, Robert, et al. Food, Inc. 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smk2xq2l3Ig

Blog 10: The Health of the Environment, The Health of Humans

Figure 1, COVID-19 illustration, https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/11/disease-caused-by-the-novel-coronavirus-has-name-covid-19/

This week’s focus is on hazards and waste on human health and the environment. Chapter 17 in the textbook begins with a discussion on diseases stimulated from biological and chemical hazards and how these can be linked with environmental causes. The chapter ends with a discussion on risks, and how decision making can affect the world around us.

One of the most frustrating, common, and powerful diseases is cancer. Cancer’s direct cause in an individual is unknown. The title of the article “Breast Cancer: prevention or Cure? Why Is Breast Cancer Awareness/Cure Run By Major Chemical Companies?” gives good insight to the confusion around cancer research. The article goes on to explain the intricacies behind cancer research and bring to light the distrust that many people rightfully have towards corporations that are in control of cancer funding and research. Again, I see these problems tying so deeply into capitalism: individuals finding ways for their own selves to be as successful as possible without working towards the greater good.

Ethics always comes in to play and is very noticeable in this chapter. If malaria is such a murderous disease, and malaria is spread by mosquitoes, how bad would it be to just completely wipe out the mosquito population? I admit that I will appreciate any bug that lands on me, or gently flick them off, unless they are a mosquito. I do not like the inconvenience of mosquito bites, and killing mosquitoes gives me a weird sort of satisfaction that I could not achieve from the death of any other living being. In my biology class last semester, we looked at a case study of several scientists who were considering wiping out mosquitoes entirely in areas of the world susceptible to malaria. After long debates, no conclusion was reached. It feels wrong to eliminate a species that is annoying to us—if this is possible, then who’s going to stop the wolves in the western United States from eating cattle on ranches encroaching on their wild territory? At the same time, this could be a heroic achievement and an extreme stress-reliever for humankind.

These things seem like such simple solutions: page 455 of the textbook lists some ways to avoid exposure to hormone disrupters. Yet the article of the man who eliminated plastic from his life yet still got microplastics from his milk which was stored in a mason jar but filtered through a plastic lining proves that even when trying desperately to follow that advice, it is still just about impossible to be rid of them completely.

Figure 2, Microplastics Diagram, https://www.java-biocolloid.com/event/the-threads-of-microplastics-in-food-8721

I recently read the chapter “The Indian Healer” out of The Indian Giver, a book by Jack Weatherford in which he goes through the various ways that Native American peoples have contributed to modern medical technology or found the basis for medications. Native American practices of healing should be can be used to encourage well-being in medical practices, so as to put into action ways that advance views on the interconnectedness of community, the environment, and medicine overall.

I can’t help but think of what it felt to be alive before the industrial period began. I generally do feel better when I have spent some time in fresh air—but any fresh air in this day and age still has toxins in and around it, and no food nor water is completely free of microplastics or

A quick critique I have about all the extra informational videos and articles is that although they are very interesting, they are quite outdated. In other classes I am not allowed to cite articles older than five years old, and all of these are from the mid 2000s. I understand needing to learn the history of how we perceive chemicals in the body, but there was no range for that either. I’m curious as to what research has been put out within the last few years—or months.

CTQ #7 on p. 468 asks to name some risks that I face and how to eliminate or reduce those risks. This causes me to check my privilege once again; even when I come across pollution, I will likely have access to the best healthcare to heal me from whatever risks may concern me. There are risks that I can avoid, but that I still choose; I have chosen to live in Manhattan, with all its pollution, instead of living in a pristine area out west. Yet perhaps my education in New York will allow me to strengthen my ties with academia so that I can preserve those lands out west.

Solid and Hazardous Waste

I also recently read Waste Seige: the Life of Infrastructure in Palestine by Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, who’s covering the discussions behind environmental, economic, and social issues that in occupied Palestine. Through illegal occupation, Israeli settlers are forcing neo-capitalist practices in the area, leading to more forced consumption, leading to more waste in an area that cannot contain it, and does not have the finances nor the leadership to create more sustainable waste options, such as those shown in the textbook. Palestine has become a literal dumpsite, and the effects of the toxins in the various wastes infiltrating the area is murderous. There is an ironic “Polluter Pays Principle” in use, where the governmental organizations have Palestinians pay higher taxes because technically they are the ones who are polluting—it is their sewer systems overflowing, their land that has the burning dump sites, and their people who are being cheap, non-sustainable products. Ironically, the sewers are flooding because Israeli-settler waste flows directly into them as well; landfills in that region are almost all located in designated Palestinian areas; and the suffocation of the economic process in Palestine keeps their people from having any upward mobility.

Figure 3, Landfill in Palestine, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israel-s-solution-for-expelled-bedouin-between-garbage-and-junkyard-1.6158225

CTQ #1 p. 600: List three products you use and make them cradle-to-cradle.

The past two years I have begun having an immense feeling of guilt if I purchase something that isn’t made sustainably, or that isn’t able to be recycled or composted. When I need to buy something new (key word: need), I spend a lot of time looking into which company I can trust. I get most of my products from Package Free Shop. But as I keep saying, it goes back to economics. I’m sure anyone who uses their shampoo and conditioner bars and natural face oils would prefer it over whatever drugstore brand they use currently, but that price difference is what makes it so unreachable. To circle back, this is highlighted in Chapter 17’s discussion on HIV: lifesaving drugs are expensive, and simply cost too much to be used widely both in less-developed countries and in impoverished areas of industrialized countries.

Question: With marijuana becoming a much more common recreational and medicinal drug, I would have appreciated an unbiased discussion of it in this chapter, instead of it being left out completely. Does smoking marijuana affect your lungs as badly as smoking tobacco? Are there any studies being done on dab pens, which include THC but don’t include nicotine like traditional vape pens?

WC: 1105

Blog 11: Water (cont.)

Had I been patient with blog 8, I may have realized that there would be a whole other blog dedicated to water, filling in the gaps that I felt were left out in the previous readings—chapter 20 really digs into the inefficiencies of Ohio water treatment. This is that blog post, looking at chapters 13 and 20 in the textbook.[4]

Figure 1. Water Dispersal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources

Chapter 13: Water Resources

Water is stored in many ways in the earth’s surface, but only 0.024% of the earth’s water is readily available as a liquid freshwater. Due to climate change, areas that are dry are becoming drier, and areas that are oversaturated are becoming wetter and with saltwater, not freshwater. With that small percentage of water that is usable to humans, about 70% is used to irrigate cropland and raise livestock.

Industrialized nations in particular treat water as if it is free; Miller and Spoolman note that “we have no substitute for this vital form of natural capital” (325). Things that don’t seem to be made of water need large amounts of it in order to be produced, such as blue jeans and lettuce; producing a quarter-pound hamburger takes about 2,400 liters of freshwater. “About 66% of the freshwater used in the world and about 50% of the freshwater used in the United States is lost through evaporations, leaks, and inefficient use” (342). Water really is our most necessary resource, and we absolutely take it for granted.

The United States has lots of freshwater resources, particularly in the eastern states. The book reads, “the United States has more than enough renewable freshwater to meet its needs. However, it is unevenly distributed and much of it is contaminated by agricultural and industrial practices” (329). Freshwater shortages are becoming more common and will continue to expand as climate change increases. Aquifers are losing their water faster than the rain is refilling them—in some parts of the United States, four times as fast—and much of this water being taken out is going to waste. There are other frightening results that come from too much groundwater being pulled out of the earth, such as sinkholes, as pictured in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Sinkhole in Guatemala City, 2007. https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-sinkhole-photos-2014-9

There is an option of tapping deep aquifers that lie beneath the surface of the ocean, but this is dangerous in that they are nonrenewable on a human timeline, little is known about what effects doing this may have, no international treaties govern these areas yet, the costs are unknown, and the water is likely still contaminated with some salt, arsenic, and uranium.

Dams are also not an ideal way to increase water supplies, because even though they help humans in many ways, they can destroy the natural environment in many ways, which in turn brings destruction to humans after a matter of time. Desalination is another option, albeit a costly and perhaps inefficient one, though more research is being done in the search to find better desalination technology.

The 4 R’s of recycling (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle) may be the best way to work with water. Refusing unnecessary amounts of water, and reducing one’s usage of necessary water, are two prime first steps to take when trying to heal water issues. Part of what will make this easier for people to remember to follow is if water is treated by society as a necessity, through higher prices of freshwater (and perhaps a Universal Basic Income – style user pays approach) and redirecting government subsidies to being more efficient. Simple household changes, such as installing low-flow toilets, fixing leaks as soon as they are noticed, and redesigning lawns and outdoor spaces with vegetation that suits the ecoregion can also help limit the amount of freshwater wasted. Vaster options can include incorporating infrastructures in communities that reuse greywater in areas that are able.

Water has no substitute. Sure, you can drink LaCroix or Coke Zero and treat that as your liquid intake for the day, but freshwater is at the base of those items. Without some form of h2o in our systems, humans would not survive for more than a few days.

Chapter 20: Water Pollution

The previous chapter had its focus on freshwater, and how to be efficient with it. This one focuses on what happens if that freshwater gets polluted. In some parts of the world, mercury, pathogens, metals, and other nutrients can kill people drinking the water if it is not treated properly. In some areas, this does not directly affect humans intake, but can affect humans lives in other ways—for example, all of northeast Ohio becoming a laughing stock when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire in the late 1960’s (see Figure 3).

Figure 3, Cuyahoga River fire recolored, June 1969. https://1960sdaysofrage.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/burn-on-big-river-cuyahoga-river-fires/

But in the textbook, Miller and Spoolman start this discussion of as saying that the Cuyahoga River fires were a success story. I rode my bike by the Cuyahoga River just the other day and it was not ablaze—there were fishermen and ducks in it. Still, most of the world’s major riverways are heavily polluted, with “80-90% of the raw sewage in most cities in less developed countries [is] discharged directly into waterways” (548). Yet there is hope that these rivers can heal, though it will take a tremendous amount of strength from the humans who have caused this incredible pollution in the first place.

Balance is another important factor into keeping water clean. No water, not even the “clean” water humans drink, is pure h20—that would kill us. We need small traces of other elements in it too. Too many nutrients, though, can lead to eutrophication, which is when a shallow body of water has too many nutrients, causing dense growths of organisms which decompose and suffocate the body of water, giving it a greenish-teal color.

Question: Why are some mountain lakes so brightly colored? Does it have to do with eutrophication, even if they are pristine?

WC: 1112

Blog 12: Future, No Future

Figure 1: Protestors rally against pipelines being put into Wet’suwet’en land in Canada

First off, I would like to disagree with Justin Trudeau’s statement made at the Houston Energy Conference in 2017 where he says that “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.” I would like to believe that I, and many people with unselfish morals dedicating their lives to environmental justice, would let those oil barrels STAY IN THE GROUND.

I was surprised that Trudeau was the one to say it, as when I was younger, I thought he could do no evil; I was quite a little liberal. But now I see his desire for economic greed showing through his attempted democracy, just as I thought the Paris Climate Agreement was exactly what the world needed, and now see that there’s a lot of flimsy rhetoric in there. But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, the reading:

Chapter eleven of Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin’s The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocenetells how there are three possible future for the world: continued consumer capitalist development, collapse, or a new mode of living. [5]

Continue

Figure 2: Consumerism, http://links.org.au/node/1972

I think it’s interesting that they even gave continued consumer capitalist development a chance—I feel as though they could have just grouped that with collapse. I recognize that not many people (ie. My family who I am quarantined with) think the way I do, so I am glad they gave the explanation. Business as usual cannot continue. We are heading for collapse.

I suppose in some kind of sense, you could say that it can continue. But that’s because what’s continuing isn’t really capitalism in the first place. The small changes are already being had. For example, our right-wing president is dishing out monetary stimulus checks to bolster the economy, which smells a lot like socialism to me (delicious).

Lewis and Maslin explain our current economic system as being driven by positive feedback loops which end in fundamental changes. The factors which underlid all human societies are changing faster and faster as time moves onwards—it is true exponential growth. It is consumers acting as though we have infinite resources even while living on a finite planet. It is contradictory. But even in it’s core, our current system is one of change.

Perhaps the change requires all cars to be electric, but the increase in demand for electric cars requires an increase in demand for the lithium mined in Bolivia. Maybe there is no realistic, futuristic plan to put in place that will efficiently and sustainably save the world. Maybe I just need to read up more on this. Lewis and Maslin do offer some good suggestions, though, including Universal Basic Income and Half-Earth.

A New Way of Life?

Figure 3: Half-Earth website screenshot, https://www.half-earthproject.org

Universal Basic Income (UBI) and the Half-Planet theory are the two most clearly stated pathways for success of our planet that we have studied thus far.

UBI: I know a lot of professors don’t like to talk about their politics, but I was trying to figure out where yours lie as someone who knows so much about the interweaving’s of politics and the environment. A few months ago you dropped that you were a big proponent of UBI, and I thought, “aha! so Andrew Yang is the one who will save the environment!” But my impression of Yang’s UBI felt more focused on Artificial intelligence—I really just didn’t know a lot about UBI in general. (side note: I am REALLY excited for it to be summer so I can stop having deadlines and start just immersing myself in the random topics I want to learn more about. This course gave me a lotta suggestions.) After reading about it in this chapter, I think that UBI is really promising. Lewis and Maslin state that, “[UBI] breaks the link between work and consumption; we could work less and consume less and still meet our needs…those working in the fossil fuel industry would have the security of income to retrain” (406). This sounds incredibly promising, but there are still questions involving culture (some people feel more “manly” working in a coal mine) and how this would play out with refugees and non-citizens residing in the United States, etc. Still, I think a solid attempt at integrating this into our economy would help the world in lots of ways.

Half Earth: I am very interested in the idea of giving half the earth to other species, and perhaps indigenous groups as well. Again, I look at the suburbs and think of how seemingly easy it would be to develop rewilding techniques. All it would take is one popular suburban mom changing her front lawn from monoculture bluegrass to being a large garden—or whatever a local environmental rewilding consultant would suggest—and the rest of the neighborhood would follow suit. Half-Earth may seem like an enormous task to take on, but I genuinely have faith that it is possible.

Collapse

Figure 4: Quarantine Meme That My Mom Thought Was Real, https://www.boredpanda.com/nature-healing-quarantine-jokes/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

As an environmental studies and anthropology double-major, people would ask me where those two overlap. I even felt that I was choosing two very different subjects because I was so scatter brained—I’d study a little about the environment, a little about humans, and figure out what I was going to do with that somewhere along the way. I let myself feel belittled for choosing two of the “easiest” subjects—no intense economics, no organic chemistry to work through. Just a lot of thinking too much about things which some people may consider completely irrelevant, a task which I am very good at. So it made me feel a lot better when, I believe it was you Dr. Kindervater, who said: “These two scientists think there is time for economic and political changes to save human kind. Culturally, though, do we believe it?”

For a long time I really thought that collapse was the only path our planet was headed towards—that Jane Goodall was bullshitting us all with her Reasons For Hope, and that if Bernie Sanders didn’t become president and begin balancing out the wealth gap and making changes to environmental legislation, then we might as well all be dead now and let whatever remaining species reclaim the earth before we make them go extinct too. I guess, if you’re someone who prefers life over death, (and I suppose we are all those types of people as even if we want to kill ourselves, we haven’t done it yet!) the we might as well have hope for the future, and continue working towards the new path.

“With great power comes great responsibility” is a quote from Uncle Ben in the Spiderman series, which Peter Parker/Spiderman keeps close to his heart as he begins to realize his powers, and is constantly questioned with the choice to use them selfishly or for the greater good. With increased technology, humankind collectively has the power to transform the earth or destroy it. I hope that soon we recognize what is at stake with our planet, and learn how to efficiently reduce the destruction being caused. It might not bring dolphins into the heat ponds of Washington D.C., but it would certainly allow for a lot of other miracles to happen.

Question: My concern with UBI is, how can you make sure that people aren’t spending it irresponsibly? Would it be better to just raise the minimum wage, or expand the amount available for people to get food stamps and free healthcare? Would UBI allow people to get their basic needs met, or would it provide for spending money on sustainable/fair trade products?

WC: 1251

[1] Vidal, John. “UN Environment Program: 200 Species Go Extinct Every Day, Unlike Anything Since Dinosaurs Disappeared 65 Million Years Ago,” Huffpost May 2011. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/un-environment-programme-_n_684562

[2] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Chapter 23: Economics, Environment, and Sustainability. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020.

[3] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26ybub

[4] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott Spoolman. Living in the Environment . 19th ed. S.l.: Cengage Learning, 2018.

[5] Lewis, Simon L., and Mark A. Maslin. “Chapter 11: Can Homo Dominates Become Wise?” The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene, Yale University Press, pp. 367–416.

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floraexplorer · 6 years ago

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Everything I Learnt Backpacking Bolivia in Three Months – A Traveller’s Guide

I spent an unforgettable three months backpacking Bolivia.

Bolivia is one of the cheapest countries in South America for backpackers – particularly compared to its neighbours in Chile and Argentina. Many visitors travel Bolivia for the Salt Flat deserts, the witches markets in the breathlessly high city of La Paz, and the mysterious Lake Titicaca – the world’s highest navigable lake.

But there’s so much more to see in Bolivia.

I chose to spend three months backpacking Bolivia, and my Bolivia itinerary was scattered and circuitous. I volunteered in La Paz, fell in love in Sucre, drank local wine in Tarija and stepped inside dinosaur footprints in Parque Torotoro. I danced under the full moon beside Illimani mountain and lived in a tiny village without running water. I hugged llamas beside the highest lake in the world and slept within walls made of salt.

When I think back to the three months I spent backpacking Bolivia, it’s just as easy to remember tiny moments and details. Crisp blue skies. Brightly patterned textiles. Sunburnt cheeks. I remember chewing coca leaves to alleviate the light-headed sensation I felt in high altitude. I remember queuing for breakfast at Sucre’s Mercado Central each morning, squashing onto a plastic stool to eat papa rellena with a chipped spoon.

Whether I was travelling in cities, villages, canyons, deserts or worryingly rickety buses, I found Bolivia to be one of the most fascinating, frustrating, hilarious, eye-opening countries I’ve ever travelled through.

To put it simply, Bolivia is an incredible place.

Things to know about backpacking Bolivia

What’s the weather in Bolivia like?

Because much of Bolivia is at a high elevation, it’s hot in the fierce daytime sun and cold at night. That means plenty of suncream and plenty of layers! It’s also advised to carry a waterproof because the weather can turn pretty quickly.

What’s the best time of year to visit Bolivia?

Most recommend the dry winter season of May-October for travelling in Bolivia, as opposed to the rainy summer season of September-March.

I didn’t know this beforehand, so I was travelling in Bolivia between September and December; the tail end of the cooler months, transitioning into spring. That said, the altitude affects everything: September in La Paz (altitude of 3,640m) was warm in the bright sun but chilly in the shade. My next month in Sucre felt like constant springtime, despite being October, and the tail end of the year ranged from freezing (Potosi, at 4,067m) to balmy (Tarija at 1,866m).

Some destinations, like the Salar de Uyuni, can change drastically depending on the time of year. If you visit in March/April you’re most likely to catch the ‘mirror effect’, when high rainfall allows the Salt Flats to reflect the sky. However, that same rain also makes it harder to visit Fish Island. Most people visit the Salar de Uyuni between May and October – lots of sun, and not much rain.

What food can I eat in Bolivia?

For a country highly focused on grains and potatoes, I still really enjoyed the food in Bolivia – although if you’re vegetarian then it might require some research. That’s because, as in most of South America, meat is a staple part of most plates of Bolivian food, and asking for a meal without meat will often confuse people.

Here are some of my favourite typical Bolivian foods:

Salteñas – little hard pastry shells filled with meat, vegetables and gravy, which you can buy at the side of the road. The gravy inside has a tendency to spill everywhere, so the trick is to bite off the top then drink the gravy before eating the rest.

Papas rellenas – a ball of fried mashed potato with egg, meat or vegetables in the centre, topped with spicy onion and tomato sauce. Because it needs to be eaten from a bowl, papas rellenas is usually bought and eaten at a market, where you’ll squash onto a plastic stool amongst the other customers and hand back your bowl when you’ve finished.

Tucumanas – these deep-fried pastries are the larger version of a salteña. Make sure to ladle on the various sauces available at a street food stand – or enjoy them with a delicious side salad at Condor Cafe in Sucre!

Buñelos – this fried cheese snack is oily as anything but seriously delicious.

Pique macho – if you’re feeling the after-effects of the night before, you should opt for this hangover-worthy plateful of French-fry style chips and bitesize slices of steak, along with onions, hard-boiled eggs, mustard, mayo and ketchup.

You should also get used to eating an almuerzo each day: a set meal of two courses eaten at lunchtime, which usually includes a bowl of soup and a segundo of meat, vegetables and rice, along with a postre (dessert) and a glass of juice. The almuerzo is usually the cheapest thing on the menu as the working Bolivan day revolves around it: restaurants are packed between 12-3pm and it’s the best place to mix with plenty of local Bolivians.

Finally, markets are a way of life in Bolivia. If you spend more than a few days in any location I’d suggest frequenting your closest food market to do your food shopping and barter for some fresh produce. It’s a great way to practice your Spanish too!

Read more: eating traditional Bolivian food in Sucre

What’s the political climate in Bolivia like?

Generally speaking, most Bolivians are hospitable and friendly (although many aren’t the smile-on-first-meeting type). However, Bolivia itself is a very politicised country so protests, marches and blockades are pretty common. They’re usually peaceful – I spent a morning in La Paz chatting to nurses and medical staff who were out on the streets to protest for higher pay – but sometimes it can become more violent, involving tear gas from police and objects thrown by protestors.

Is Bolivia safe for backpackers travelling alone?

Bolivia is quite a poor country but isn’t particularly unsafe. You just have to keep your wits about you, trust your gut instincts, and take care of your valuables.

– Ask questions before paying for things. As tourism increases in Bolivia, there are more untrustworthy tour companies and guides – so ask plenty of questions before handing your money over.

– Watch out for scams. There are also a number of common scams in Bolivia including the ‘false police’ scam, which involves a policeman asking for your ID and then demanding payment of a fine. If you’re ever stopped by the police in Bolivia, demand to see a warrant and contact your Embassy.

– Don’t take drugs. As one of the world’s largest cocaine producing countries, Bolivia’s drug problem is ever-present. Travellers are often attracted to a legendary underground cocaine bar in La Paz called Route 36 (found by asking a taxi driver to drive you to its ever-changing location); however, backpackers in South America should be aware that being caught with cocaine in Bolivia could carry a sentence of up to ten years in San Pedro prison. This La Paz destination was made famous thanks to a memoir called Marching Powder which was written by a British inmate in 2011, and the book has prompted hundreds of tourists to queue up outside the prison and attempt to tour it.

Conversely, the laws surrounding hallucinogenic substances like ayahuasca and the San Pedro cactus are more blurred. Both substances can be seen for sale at the Witches Market in La Paz – but from personal experience, I’d recommend against buying them yourself, and only partaking in ceremonies with trusted shamans.

Read more: my all-night dancing experience with the San Pedro cactus

Do I need travel insurance for Bolivia?

Yes, absolutely! You should have comprehensive travel insurance when backpacking South America – or anywhere, for that matter. I usually use World Nomads as it’s designed for adventurous travellers.

Can I drink the water in Bolivia?

It’s definitely not a good idea to drink the tap water in Bolivia – stick to bottled, unless you’ve brought a filtration system you trust.

Do I need to speak Spanish in Bolivia?

Although it’s certainly possible to travel through Bolivia without any Spanish, there are significantly less English-speaking locals here than in other South American countries.

Luckily, Bolivia is also one of the best South American countries to learn Spanish, thanks to their clear and neutral accent, and it’s also one of the cheapest. Plenty of language schools offer individual or group classes: I spent a month taking daily one-on-one classes at Pico Verde in La Paz and improved from beginner to semi-fluent.

If you don’t have time for lessons, I’d still highly recommend using a phone app like DuoLinguo to practice on while you’re travelling in Bolivia, and at the very least try to have the basic greetings, numbers and simple conversational phrases written down somewhere.

I spent 18 months learning Spanish in South America –– read my ‘Spanish Challenge’ series here!

Travelling around Bolivia

What kind of transport can I take in Bolivia?

Travelling around Bolivia is almost exclusively via public bus. This can be both a blessing and a curse: the journeys are long but extremely cheap; the roads are stunningly scenic but full of potholes; the passengers and accompanying stories can be really fascinating, but often you’re worried that the drivers are drunk.

Apart from buses, there’s the option of private taxi hire, renting and driving your own car, or even taking the few train routes through the country. It’s also possible to fly between major cities to avoid the lengthly road distances – the bigger cities like La Paz, Sucre, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz are all connected by daily flights.

However, all of my Bolivian travels were by bus.

Bus routes and ticket prices in Bolivia:

La Paz to Sucre: 100 Bs for 10-12 hours, semi cama seat. This is usually an overnight journey, leaving 7pm and arriving 7am.

Sucre to Potosi: 15 Bs for 3 hours, normal seat, departing every hour.

Sucre to Tarija: 12 hours, costs 80 Bs, departs at 8pm and arrives 7am.

Potosi to Tarija: 80 Bs for 10 hours, semi cama seat, departing in the morning and evening.

Tarija to Tupiza: 80 Bs for 7 hours, semi cama seat. This overnight route is an infamously rough ride, so pack some anti-sickness pills.

Tupiza to Villazon (Argentinian border): 20 Bs for 2 hours, normal seat.

Uyuni to Potosi: 30 Bs for 5 hours, normal seat.

Potosi to Cochabamba: 60 Bs for 7 hours, semi cama seat.

Cochabamba to Torotoro National Park: 25 Bs for 5 hours, normal seat. This winding route has two daily departures at 6am and midday.

Cochabamba to Sucre: this 12 hour journey is on an unpaved road so you won’t sleep much.

Cochabamba to La Paz: 70 Bs for 9 hours, semi cama seat. There are six departures daily.

La Paz to Lake Titicaca: 40 Bs for a 3-4 hour journey on a normal seat.

La Paz to Uyuni: 12-15 hours, only overnight departures.

Read more: A guide to dealing with bus travel in Bolivia

Tips for bus travel in Bolivia:

– Buy your bus tickets at bus stations. Trying to decipher the online booking systems is nearly impossible and besides, you might get turned away with a blank stare unless you do it in person. Also this is the prime time to haggle and question the various company operators.

– Bring layers. There are always people selling garishly patterned blankets at bus stations, and for good reason: often the air con will be cranked up to freezing temperatures, so it’s worth having plenty of clothes to keep you warm. I often took my sleeping bag on board and used that.

– Aim for daytime journeys. On a long travel day, it’s worth having the scenery to stare out at (unless, like me, you have a strong fear of heights when driving the winding mountain roads!). There’s also enough cautionary tales about drunk and overtired drivers to warrant a daytime journey – not to mention stories of nighttime muggings and bus hijackings.

– Prepare for protests and road blockades. On our way into Cochabamba, our bus stopped 25km away from the city because the highway was filled with multiple blockades and protestors. We had no choice but to shoulder our bags and start walking – and all the other Bolivian passengers didn’t seem phased by this turn of events at all. As a result, I’d recommend bringing luggage you can carry relatively easily to Bolivia!

Where should I stay in Bolivia?

Bolivia has probably the cheapest accommodation in all of South America. There are plenty of cheap hostels in Bolivia to suit all kinds of backpackers, including various branches of the Wild Rover and Loki hostels (infamous party hostels in South America) and just as many budget hotels in the touristy areas.

It’s also possible to rent out apartments in Bolivia on Airbnb – sign up here and get £25 off your first booking!

Check Prices of Bolivia Hostels Here!

Hostels in Bolivia

Location Hostel Why stay here? La Paz Loki La Paz A definite party hostel, Loki still boasts good security and friendly staff. Their rooftop Skybar is pretty special too Sucre The Celtic Cross This chilled out Irish-run hostel is also a language school and has weekly BBQs for all guests Potosi Eucalyptus Hostel Great views of the city from the roof, a cosy reading area and warm showers (much appreciated in this chilly city!) Tarija Kultur Berlin Tarija Guesthouse This quiet, family-run place is close to the main plaza with a delicious breakfast Tupiza La Torre Hostel A combination hostel/hotel with fantastic tours on offer – for both the Salt Flats and southwest Bolivia in general Cochabamba Cabana Las Lilas This lovely place has a huge garden and a relaxed vibe – and Alex is the most helpful hostel owner you’ll ever meet! Torotoro Hostal Wilma A simple, clean hostel with a campsite attached. They also make boxed lunches! Lake Titicaca La Cupula Gorgeous views of Lake Titicaca from the individually designed rooms. There’s an amazing restaurant on site, a lovely sloped garden and hot tub too

How do I get in and out of Bolivia?

Because Bolivia is a landlocked country, you can either fly into one of the three international airports (located in La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz) or you can cross overland at one of Bolivia’s borders – of which there are many.

– Flights: I flew into El Alto airport in La Paz, where I was given a 90 day visa on arrival. This was the most expensive flight I paid for in South America, but after hearing various stories I learned it was also the most foolproof way to get my visa.

– Border crossings: Bolivia shares borders with Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, and Chile to the southwest and Peru to the northwest. I attempted to cross into Argentina at Villazon to renew my Bolivian visa but it didn’t quite work (read more about exactly why here). Luckily, my eventual departure from Bolivia was more successful – I crossed into Peru via Lake Titicaca (although I almost lost my passport to the lake waters because an overly cocky Peruvian border guard thought it’d be funny to dangle it…)

In total, there are thirteen places to cross in and out of Bolivia. These are the most popular border crossings:

To/from Brazil and Paraguay: Santa Cruz is the best city to catch buses to these borders – either to Corumba in Brazil, or to Asuncion in Paraguay along the Trans-Chaco Highway.

To/from Argentina: catch a local bus from Tupiza in Bolivia towards the border crossing at Villazon – it takes about an hour. Once you’ve queued and entered Argentina, catch a bus from La Quiacha towards Salta, which takes approx 8 hours (though the route also passes through Humahuaca and San Salvador de JuyJuy).

To/from Chile: lots of the Salt Flats tours will end by dropping you at the Chilean border, as well as arranging your onward bus journey towards San Pedro de Atacama – much easier than heading back to Uyuni first. Once you cross the border, it takes just over an hour to reach Calama and a further two hours to San Pedro de Atacama.

To/from Peru: a bus runs from La Paz to Puno in Peru (4.5 hours), which also stops at Copacabana, Lake Titicaca, on the way. This border crossing actually takes place in a little hut beside the lake – probably one of the most picturesque crossings I’ve ever had!

What visa do I need for Bolivia?

As a UK citizen with a British passport, I was given a 90 day Bolivian visa on arrival at the airport (their usual offering is 30 days but I specified at the time that I wanted the maximum 90 days). However, it’s not as simple for other nationalities. There are 3 groups of countries:

Group 1 – countries whose citizens do not require a visa (i.e. Australia, Britain, Canada, most of Europe)

Group 2 – countries whose citizens must obtain a visa prior to entry for free/upon arrival for a fee (i.e. USA, Iran, China and Taiwan)

Group 3 – countries whose citizens must obtain a visa in advance with special authorisation (i.e. Israel, Pakistan and Indonesia)

However, it’s probably easiest to check Wikipedia for your country’s visa policy for Bolivia, and your country’s embassy pages too.

Where to go in Bolivia?

Explore La Paz, the world’s highest city

There’s something magic about the air in La Paz. Perhaps it’s the altitude (3,640m, which makes it the highest administrative capital in the world); or perhaps it’s the way the pink sunset melts into the mountains each evening.

It’s a city of drama and intrigue, where street parades seem to be a daily occurrence, there’s a constant background noise of honking car horns and eager street vendors, and every new street corner offers up an untold story.

I spent two weeks living in La Paz, studying Spanish in the mornings and volunteering in the afternoons. At first I found the city somewhat obtrusive and the people to be standoffish, but the more I explored the quicker I learned to love it.

What to do in La Paz, Bolivia

Learn the history of coca leaves at the Coca Museum. The coca leaf is everywhere in Bolivia – and not because of cocaine production. Chewing on the leaves alleviates altitude sickness, reduces hunger pangs and keeps people alert, so you’ll often see Bolivian men with a bulge of leaves in their cheek. It’s also a sacred plant used in plenty of Bolivian ceremonies, and the Coca Museum documents the leaf’s role in Bolivian culture.

Rappel down the side of a five-star hotel at Urban Rush. This fifty metre descent takes you from the 17th floor right down to the pavement, either by rappelling or abseiling. It costs 150 Bolivianos ($22USD) and you even get to choose your own superhero outfit!

Ride the ‘Mi Teleferico’ cable car across the city. Like many experiences in La Paz, the ‘Mi Teleferico’ is the world’s highest cable car ride – but it’s also a pretty spectacular one. Stretching from La Paz to El Alto, the cable car has cut commuting time from an hour to just ten minutes, costs just 3 Bolivianos one-way (while a one-way bus ticket is 5 Bolivianos), and offers incredible views of the city and surrounding mountains.

Explore El Alto market. Every Thursday and Sunday, there’s a huge open-air market in the neighbouring city of El Alto. While tourists are discouraged from visiting alone due to pick-pockets, it’s a fascinating place – check out the yatiri fortune tellers in the blue huts beside the bus station!

Read more: Traditions and superstitions at Bolivia’s El Alto market

Watch a cholita wrestling match. There’s a bizarre entertainment on offer in El Alto: watching traditionally dressed cholita women wrestle each other in front of an audience. It’s got all the pantomime qualities of WWE but with bowler hats and frilly skirts – what’s not to love?

Visit the witches market on Calle de las Brujas. This tiny cluster of street stalls is where the superstitious side of Bolivia comes to the fore. You’ll see old women selling stone talismans, love spells and llama foetuses

Climb Huayna Potosi. It takes two to three days to summit the most popular mountain climb in Bolivia – but you’ll need to prepare for using crampons on an ice wall, breathing with oxygen tanks and spending at least one full day training. Once you reach the top at 6,088m, you’ll be rewarded with insane views and a spectacular sunrise. Tours cost between $150-300.

Cycle down ‘The Most Dangerous Road in the World’. The narrow track which winds through the steep Bolivian mountains is known by locals as Yunga Road – but tourists know it better as Death Road. It’s now closed to public traffic, so it’s just the daily mountain bike tours which skitter downhill past sheer hundred-feet drops and around hairpin turns. My fear of heights prevented me from cycling Death Road, but I’ve heard from many sources that Gravity is the most reputable company to go with.

Climb the Chacaltaya glacier. If you ever wanted evidence of global warming in Bolivia, just look to Chacaltaya. It used to be the world’s highest ski run, but so much ice has melted in the last few decades that the glacier has effectively disappeared (see that tiny derelict hut in the photo? It used to be the ski lodge). It’s still possible to summit Chacaltaya mountain: an organised day trip can drive you up to 5,200m, allowing you to climb the last 200m and reach the peak. The air is thin enough up here to notice the effects, but not bad enough to require oxygen.

Book Your La Paz Hostel Here

Read more: the impromptu street parades of La Paz, Bolivia

Settle into the slow life in Sucre

Sucre was the only place in Bolivia where I properly settled down. I was volunteering with Biblioworks each day and had rented an apartment, so I had the luxury of being able to cook in my own kitchen – which also meant buying fresh ingredients at Mercado Central and ‘befriending’ (in my eyes, at least) various ladies at their respective stalls.

It’s hard not to fall in love with Sucre: the city has a slow, ambling pace of life, the weather is gorgeous and it’s filled with plenty of travellers and expats who’ve found it somewhat impossible to leave.

What to do in Sucre, Bolivia

Soak up the lovely weather. Constant blue skies and spring-like temperatures all year round make Sucre the perfect place to chill out – and there’s plenty of cafes and coffee shops to do that in!

Explore Sucre’s General Cemetery. I’d heard stories about this cemetery, but was still totally surprised to discover it felt more like a tranquil park than anything else. Being here for Dia de los Muertes meant seeing how Bolivians celebrate the memory of their loved ones each year by decorating the graves and spending all day there. It’s a beautifully happy way to deal with death, and really eye-opening.

Read more: the most beautiful cemetery in Bolivia

Learn about Bolivia’s cultural background at Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore. There are plenty of museums in Sucre, but this is one of my favourites: filled with costumes and masks from religious ceremonies and festivals.

See ancient dinosaur footprints at Sucre Dinosaur Park. El Parque Cretacico is 40 minutes outside Sucre and features a near-vertical limestone wall which is covered with over 5,000 ancient dinosaur tracks. Millions of years ago this used to be the ocean floor and it’s the largest collection of dinosaur prints in the world! There’s also a small garden with dino sculptures and a museum of dinosaur skeletons.

People-watch in Plaza 25 de Mayo. I spent a lot of time in this plaza because there was always something to see – from protesters, troupes of musicians and children dressed in indigenous clothing to the costumed zebras helping people cross the road!

Plaza 25 de Mayo, Sucre

Where to eat in Sucre

Condor Trekkers Cafe: a firm favourite amongst Sucre backpackers, Condors is part non-profit tour company and part cafe. The latter serves amazing food – the daily set lunch is always tasty, and the tucumana with side salad is particularly excellent.

Churrasqueria Bisonte: this no-frills steak place near the bus station is set in an internal courtyard with plastic tables, but it served the most fantastic steak I’ve ever eaten.

Abis Patio: the barbecue burgers are lovely, and chatting to the incredibly friendly restaurant owner is even better!

Mirador Cafe on Recoleta Plaza: a short walk uphill from the centre of the city is Recoleta Plaza, a lookout point where you can lie back in deckchairs and share a pitcher of fresh lemonade. It’s a great spot to while away the afternoon.

Mercado de Pescados: this local market in a car park serves freshwater fish on the grill at lunchtime. It’s a neighbourly affair – you squish onto a row of tables and eat fish, corn and potato with your hands – and it’s seriously delicious.

Look For Your Sucre Hostel Here

Read more: Eating all the Bolivian food during a month in Sucre

Drink the world’s highest wine in Tarija

Tarija is Bolivia’s wine country. Thanks to the altitude, they produce the highest wine in the world here, and though Tarija tourism isn’t particularly developed yet, the town still feels like a holiday destination – it boasts Mediterranean weather and a tranquil, laid-back attitude to life. Gone are the frenzied traffic jams and political protests of La Paz: Tarija is where locals smile at you when they pass and ladies with palm tree brushes sweep streets free of garbage.

What to do in Tarija, Bolivia

Visit the local vineyards. Bolivian wine producers like Campos de Solano and Casa Real have their wineries in Tarija, and you can either join an official wine tour or plan your own ad-hoc visit with public transport. We opted for the latter but it would’ve been much easier to be part of an organised group tour! Typical prices are between 100-170 Bolivianos.

Wander the parks in Tarija. This is a very laid back city, and once you’ve enjoyed a few bottles of wine it’s even more pleasant to chill out in Plaza de Armas Luis de Fuentes y Vargas, or wander along the Guadalquivir riverbanks.

Look at fossils in the Museo Paleontologico y Arqueologico. Just off Tarija’s main plaza, this little museum has a fantastic collection of dinosaur bones and collected fossils from across Bolivia. Although things seem dusty and cramped, it’s an interesting place to spend an hour or so.

Eat lunch at Casa Vieja. This beautiful restaurant is set in the vineyards of Valle de la Concepcion, a short taxi ride away from Tarija. Casa Veija is famed for their huge plates of roasted pork, fresh from a turning spit in the courtyard – a plateful costs 60 Bolivianos, and a jug of local wine doesn’t cost much more.

Find Your Tarija Hostel Here

Read more: Going wine tasting in Tarija

Learn Bolivia’s hidden histories in Potosi

Potosi is a city of faded grandeur, harking back to its original status as the capital of Bolivia. The city also lies at the foot of Cerro Rico mountain, which was first discovered to contain silver ore in 1545 and is still a working silver mine in the present day.

Sadly, that seemingly inexhaustible supply of silver has led to untold deaths of miners and slaves over the last five hundred years – an estimate six million lives have been lost here. It’s also rumoured that a devil spirit named ‘El Tio’ lives inside Cerro Rico, so to ensure that he doesn’t cause havoc he’s placated every day with offerings of cigarettes and alcohol left at the numerous ‘El Tio’ statues inside the mine.

What to do in Potosi, Bolivia

Take your time with the altitude. Potosi has an elevation of over 4,000 metres and is one of the highest cities in the world. It’s also built on a steep hill, so I often found myself getting breathless if I walked too quickly.

Prepare for the cold climate. The altitude means a drastic drop in temperatures up here – be sure to bring lots of warm layers and ask for extra blankets at your hostel!

Tour the working silver mine in Cerro Rico mountain. There are daily tours inside the Cerro Rico silver mine, where visitors are kitted out with overalls, a hard hat and a torch in preparation. Before heading inside, they also make a stop at a local market to buy dynamite and coca leaves to gift the miners with (or to make an offering to one of the many El Tio statues inside the mine).

NB: Although I considered doing this tour, I ultimately decided against it: part claustrophobia, part discomfort about being a tourist in a place where miners have a life expectancy of 35 years old. That said, the experience is an important part of the Bolivia backpacking trail as it highlights a terrible element of work conditions, tourism and societal influence in Bolivia. Just make sure you’re joining a Cerro Rico mine tour for the right reasons.

Visit Bolivia’s National Mint. The Casa Nacional de la Moneda was the first mint in South America, and converted Potosi’s mined silver into coins before shipping it all over the world. Now it’s a fascinating museum which documents the city’s history through exhibitions and original machinery. There are plenty of tours – we tacked ourselves onto an English-speaking tour which was worth the sneaky behaviour!

Go swimming in the hot springs at Ojo del Inca. Apparently it’s no longer safe to swim in, but this geothermal pool is nonetheless a beautifully natural spot to visit, and it’s only a half hour bus ride from Potosi.

Drink hot chocolate at La Plata. This lovely restaurant is right on the main plaza, and it’s the perfect place to sit in one of the window seats and spend an afternoon people-watching.

Walk around the colonial buildings. Potosi’s colonial past is still in plain sight. When the sun begins to set, there’s a beautiful orange light which touches dozens of old buildings: it’s the perfect time to wander past perfectly preserved examples of Spanish architecture.

Book Your Potosi Hostel Here

Explore cowboy country in Tupiza

Tupiza feels like Bolivia’s version of the American Wild West. Surrounded by craggy red hills and close to the border with Argentina, I half-expected to see cowboys trotting past on their horses, tipping their wide-brimmed hats to us.

This little town gets most of its backpacker traffic from those who choose to start their Salt Flats tour here instead of from Uyuni. By travelling on this route (going south to north instead of the more popular north-south route), you still visit all the same sites but can avoid the crowds of tourists as you reach them at different times of day. You’ll also save seeing the salt flats for the final day of your trip.

What to do in Tupiza, Bolivia

Explore the Bolivian desert. This dusty strip of southern Bolivia is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid apparently met their dramatic end, and it’s worth heading out into the badlands – otherwise known as the Cordillera de Chicas. There are plenty of options, but the most popular is via jeep tour, on horseback, or a good old-fashioned hike.

Walk up to Cerro de la Cruz. For a birds-eye view of Tupiza, spend a couple of hours on this hike which takes you just outside the city, up a hill via a rough staircase, and onto a plateau covered with graffiti and sporting a Jesus statue to rival its counterpart in Rio de Janeiro. If you make this climb just before sunset, you’ll see the afternoon rays hitting the red mountains. It’s something special.

Cross the Bolivian border into Argentina. I had to extend my Bolivia visa while we were in Tupiza, so I headed for the Argentinian border. Although the experience didn’t go according to plan, this is a potentially good place to cross into Argentina and continue your downward route through South America.

Read more: That time I went to Argentina for absolutely no reason

Book Your Tupiza Hostel Here

Drive through the Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats

The Uyuni Salt Flats sit at 3,600m above sea level and are one of Bolivia’s most famous attractions for good reason – they’re completely surreal.

The prehistoric lake bed of Salar de Uyuni covers a distance of 12,000 square km. When the original lake dried up under the fierce sun, it left behind puddles of water and a huge amount of shining salt deposits due to the water’s high salinity. Today, the Uyuni Salt Flats contain over half of the world’s lithium reserves (currently being extracted) and it’s the largest salt flat in the world.

But the Salt Flats are actually part of the sprawling Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve, which means there’s so much more to see: islands studded with cactus, bizarre rock formations, fluorescent coloured lakes, and the famed groups of pink flamingos.

What to see in the Salt Flats, Bolivia

Choosing the length of your Uyuni Salt Flats tour can be a tricky decision – particularly when it involves being stuck in a cramped jeep for potentially four days straight. Many people visit the Salt Flats in one day, but I’m so glad I chose a four day trip because I was actually more impressed by the stunning scenery than the Salt Flats themselves!

Laguna Verde. The green colour of the lake is caused by arsenic and other minerals in the water, and the shade varies depending on how the lake’s sediment is disturbed by the wind.

Laguna Colorada. Its a shallow salt lake coloured red by the algae in its waters. Laguna Colorada is also home to lots of flamingos who stand in the water and munch on the abundance of plankton.

Pink flamingos. They love feasting on the algae growing in the lakewater – and they make for pretty fantastic photos! The Salar de Uyuni is actually a major breeding ground for four different species of flamingo, some of which never leave the lakes they live in.

Llamas and vicuñas. Although it sometimes feels like this is a barren landscape, there are plenty of herds of llama and vicuña rambling about the National Reserve. Not so much on the Salt Flats though, which are virtually devoid of any vegetation or wildlife.

Hot springs. They’re a little underwhelming, but it’s nonetheless quite possible to stop for a dip in the thermal waters and warm up – most tour guides will suggest it.

Arbol de Piedra. This is a famous sandstone formation which has been eroded by relentless winds into the shape of a tree. Very Dali-esque.

Isla del Pescado. This rocky outcrop covered in cactus, officially known as Incahuasi, is your final stop before the actual salt flats – most jeeps will pull up here to serve breakfast or lunch. You can hike to the top of this cactus island in about 20 mins, but be prepared to pay an entry fee of 30 Bolivianos.

The Uyuni Salt Flats. To capture the best perspective-skewed shots, set your camera focus to infinity and get snapping! It’s worth taking some props for your photos (we used a water bottle, a Lonely Planet guidebook, a half-eaten cookie and a Dora the Explorer doll I found in a market in Potosi) – there are some excellent shots to be had using toy dinosaurs, cooking pots and even each other! Hopefully you’ve become friendly enough with your driver that he’ll want to help you take photos. Unfortunately ours was pretty grumpy and just slept in the drivers seat for two hours while we pranced about.

How to prepare for the Salt Flats

– Take snacks and alcohol. Meals are included on the trip, cooked each day by the porters, but when you’re spending all day in a car it’s worth having some sweets and crisps to snack on. If you fancy a beer in the evenings you’ll have to bring them with you as most

– Combat the hot, dry weather. Drink lots of water, use sunscreen and lip balm as the combination of wind, strong sun and all that salt everywhere can really dehydrate your body and your skin.

– Pack lots of layers. It may be seriously sunny during the day but the temperatures drop significantly at night. For the first days of the tour, you’re sleeping in simple accommodation without heating: plenty of blankets are provided but you should still bring enough warm clothing to feel snug. There’s also strong winds at some points on the trip so it’s good to have a jacket easily accessible while you’re in the jeep.

On the final night, you’ll stay in a salt hotel which, yes, is entirely made of salt – even down to the walls, tables and beds!

Read more about my journey through Salar de Uyuni here

Chill out in Cochabamba

I still can’t think of the word ‘Cochabamba’ without hearing the cries of ticket sellers in every bus station in Bolivia. “Cocha-cocha-cocha-cocha-bamba! CochaBAMBAAAA!” It’s an ear-worm of the most wonderful variety.

Our arrival into Cochabamba was pretty unique: when our overnight bus was still more than twenty kilometres away from the city, it stopped on the highway thanks to hundreds of protestors flooding the streets. We started to hike along the highway until I luckily managed to phone the manager of our hostel in Cochabamba – who drove as far through the city as he could in his car and then used a succession of motorcycle taxis to reach us and transport us back to his hostel! It was literally the best hostel service I’ve ever had.

Image via Jan Beck

What to do in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Tour the Convento de Santa Teresa. Check out the views from the roof of this beautiful old convent building.

Visit Palacio Portales. This over-the-top yellow house was built in 1927 by tin baron Simon Patino. It’s a great example of what Bolivia used to be like in its golden age.

Ride the teleferico to El Cristo de la Concordia. Apparently this Christ the Redeemer statue is even bigger than the one in Rio (by 44cm, at least) – but the view of Cochabamba from here is pretty great.

Climb Cerro Tunari mountain. A day trip into the Cordillera Tunari allows you to climb up to 5000m above sea level. Be sure to go with a guide as parts of the climb are pretty technical.

Stay at Cabana Las Lilas hostel. Even if Alex, the incredible manager at Las Lilas, hadn’t saved us from the protests, I’d still be singing this hostel’s praises. There’s a big common area with a fireplace, pool table and book exchange corner, and a huge garden and swimming pool out back. Many of the guests here had extended their stay and we found it hard not to do the same.

Take a weekend trip to Parque Torotoro. Use Cochabamba as a base to visit the nearby dinosaur park – the bus ride takes six hours from the corner of Avenidas Republica and Barrietos to Torotoro Village (and it’s a bus decorated with dinosaurs!).

Book a Bed at Cabana Las Lilas Hostel Here!

Image via Eduardo Ruas

Follow the dinosaurs in Torotoro National Park

Torotoro Park is like the land that time forgot. Torotoro is most famed for the prehistoric dinosaur tracks which have been preserved in the rock for hundreds of millions of years – but the geology of this part of Bolivia is equally fascinating.

There are canyons, caves, waterfalls and mountains, all perfect for hikers, climbers and general all-round adventurers. I was somewhat forced into going caving, and although I didn’t exactly relish the prospect of crawling for ages with a vast expanse of rock above my head, once I’d done it I was pretty proud of myself!

Canyon de Torotoro, Bolivia

What to do in Toro Toro National Park, Bolivia

Pay the entrance fee. To enter Parque Toro Toro, all visitors have to register at the Toro Toro Tourism office in the town’s main square and buy an entrance ticket (nationals: Bs. 20, foreigners: Bs. 30).

Catch a jeep into Torotoro Park. Hiring a guide is mandatory: we hired one along with six other backpackers we’d collected from outside the tourist office. He drove us all around the park in his jeep, which was a bumpily enjoyable way to experience Torotoro!

Follow the dinosaur tracks. The closest tracks are near the village on the other side of the river, behind a locked fence. There are plenty of other tracks around the park, and your guide can explain what dinosaur species made each set.

Ciudad de Itas. A set of bizarrely shaped caverns with equally odd acoustics, where you can also go scrambling up boulders.

Cañon de Toro Toro. This huge gash in the rocks plummets more than 250 metres, and is equally stunning seen from the top and from deep down inside.

Umajalanta Cave. In Quechua, it translates as ‘water lost in the darkness of the deepest earth’ – and it’s a pretty apt name, because Caverna de Uma Jalanta is one of the longest (4600m) and deepest (164m) caves in Bolivia. It goes about 118m under sea level, and tourist groups usually spend two hours journeying through the cave’s rock faces, narrow tunnels, stalagmites, stalactites, blind fish, and underground waterfalls. For the more claustrophobic visitors (like me), there’s an approximately eight-metre-long section of narrow, squeezable space.

NB: There’s no cash machines in Torotoro Village, so make sure you have enough cash for food, accommodation and activities before you arrive.

Find Your Torotoro Hostel Here

Read more: Facing my Fear of Heights & Small Spaces at Torotoro National Park

Relax in Copacabana, Lake Titicaca

At 3,812m above sea level, it’s hard to exert that much energy in Copacabana – which is perfectly acceptable in this chilled town by the water.

Lake Titicaca itself is sacred: the Incas believed it was the birthplace of the Sun, and duly built a number of temples to celebrate their gods.

Most people come here and head straight towards Isla del Sol, but Copacabana is worth exploring too. Take a day or two and relax!

What to do at Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

Hike up to the top of Cerro Calvario. This is a sacred pilgrimage for many Bolivians, which explains the candles and markers which line the edge of this lookout point. There are also a number of crosses, part of the Stations of the Cross: to follow the route properly, start in town at the Cathedral of the Virgin of Copacabana, and climb the long flight of steps up the hill until you see Copacabana laid out in front of you.

Go on lots of walks. The area has plenty of other places to wander. We initially struck out for the little village of Yampupata but didn’t make it because of the combined heat, sun, and lack of water.

Don’t forget the suncream. Lake Titicaca has very little shady spots so keep drinking water and slathering on the sunscreen!

Hire a bike. Riding along the water front is a lovely way to spend a few hours.

Chill at the water’s edge. Plenty of restaurants and cafes dotted along the front. Sit out here with beers and watch the sun go down. It’s got a weirdly beach-esque vibe despite being a lake!

Eat fondue at La Cupula’s restaurant. This hostel/hotel has an on-site restaurant which serves the most delicious food – including a cheese fondue with actual Gruyere cheese (not exactly easy to find in South America!) and a chocolate fondue for dessert.

Stay at La Cupula Hostel. If you’re looking for somewhere to treat yourself, La Cupula is the perfect place. The hostel’s individual cabins are all designed differently, and situated at the end of a winding pathway on a rising slope of manicured garden above the lake – ours was fully circular with a wood burner and skylight to see the stars through.

Book Your Copacabana Hostel Here

Read more: The cheese and chocolate co-operatives of Salinas de Guaranda, Ecuador

Hike across the mythical Isla del Sol

This peaceful island, just a short boat ride from the shores of Lake Titicaca, is around 70 square kilometres and is covered with more than eighty archeological ruins built by the Incas in the 15th century.

There are three different central communities living on Isla del Sol (about 800 indigenous families in total), who all have differing opinions about how island tourism operates. Since 2017, the north of the island has been closed to visitors, so make sure you check accessibility before heading out.

You can easily catch a boat from Copacabana to Isla del Sol – boats run twice a day at 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m, returning at 3:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Getting to Yumani takes about 1.5 hours, and the ticket costs 25 Bolivianos one-way or 40 Bolivianos for a return.

NB: Verify the boat times when you buy your ticket as schedules do change!

What to do on Isla del Sol, Bolivia

Climb the Inca stairs.

Enjoy being in a car-free zone. There are no vehicles on Isla del Sol, so all exploring has to be done on foot via the network of trails which criss-cross the island. Although the island slopes significantly in places, lots of the trails are relatively flat. Bear in mind that the altitude can make it tough going for some people.

Hike across the island. Start walking from Yumani, the biggest and most developed settlement, and head towards Cha’lla on the central east coast. Cha’llapampa, on the northern side of the island, is where the gold museum and most of the ruins are located. Crossing the entirety of Isla del Sol takes approximately three hours, so you can walk the entire island in a day.

Eat a lunch of fresh trout from the lake. Ever since the fish was introduced into the lake in the 1930s, fried trout has become a very popular local speciality dish, and all the local restaurants serve it.

Stay the night in simple accommodation. Although it’s possible to see Isla del Sol on a day trip, it’ll mean rushing around the island to catch the last boat which isn’t too relaxing. Most of the restaurants and hotels are in Yumani, and it’s probably best to book a bed before your arrival. I stayed at Hostal del Sol and it was basic but more than enough for a night’s stay.

Watch the most incredible Bolivian sunset. Isla del Sol is famous for its spectacular sunrises and sunsets, the latter of which lights up the peaks of the Cordillera Real mountain . What more could you want?

Book Your Isla del Sol Hostel Here

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Understanding The Lack of Diversity Within the Environmental Movement

By Hava Chishti

As someone who considers myself an environmentalist, I’ve always admired the environmental movement. This movement fights to protect the Earth and eliminate environmental issues by using education, advocacy, legislation, and many other powerful tactics. Once I got more involved in the movement’s efforts, I noticed that the people representing the environmental movement were predominantly white men. Though I noticed a decent amount of women working in the movement, the men always seem to hold the positions of power. As someone who sees myself having a future in this movement, I wanted to try and understand why there is a lack of diversity within the movement, what can be done to make it more inclusive, and what benefits will a diverse environmental movement have. To record my research and share it with others, I decided to write an article that addresses this topic and is hopefully understandable to teenagers and adults. I found this topic extremely interesting, but the research was much more complex than I anticipated. Because of this, I didn’t get to cover as many topics as I would have liked in the article, but I do believe that I have a decent amount of information that introduces and explains many of the issues.

My article focuses on two aspects of diversity: gender and race. For the gender aspect I am exploring the meaning of ecofeminism and why women often report more concern for the environment but have fewer leadership positions within the movement. Similarly, for the race aspect I have been focusing on environmental concern in minority communities (because it is often perceived that minority communities face more pressing challenges) and why there are fewer people of color in leadership positions within the movement. I also hope to discuss what it means to be a “privileged environmentalist” and how masculinity and systemic discrimination is affecting the environmental movement alongside many other parts of our society.

Gender:

Though women’s work in the environmental movement was gaining recognition in the early 20th century, the idea of ecological feminism arose around the 1970s. Soon after, the term “ecofeminism” was coined and became the link between feminist and environmental issues. As simple as it sounds, ecofeminism is actually a very complex topic, and finding a consistent definition is not an easy task.

I read the article, What Exactly is Ecofeminism? when I was beginning my research on the topic. Before I had any sort of understanding of the topic, I was introduced to the different perspectives of ecofeminism through this article, which mainly highlighted two lenses: cultural and radical ecofeminism. The cultural perspective focused on the idea that women have a unique connection to the environment through natural occurrences such as childbirth and menstruation. The radical perspective takes a more “empowering” point of view, and links the treatment of women and the treatment of the environment to dominating patriarchal powers in society. As I continued my research, I found that the “radical perspective” mentioned in this article is generally the most widely accepted view of ecofeminism. The cultural view can often be seen as a step in the wrong direction for most feminists, since it perpetuates typical stereotypes of women that are enforced by the patriarchy. Though these two perspectives differ in philosophy, their fundamental beliefs both align with the notion that there is a link to the way women and the environment are treated in society.

Since the term was created, ecofeminism has evolved to become a more generally accepted term used by scholars and experts in the environmental field. These experts typically define ecofeminism as a subject that links the treatment of women by society to the treatment of the environment (something that I was able to decipher from my initial research.) Though this perspective was commonly used when explaining ecofeminism, it fails to acknowledge the need for intersectionality when discussing feminism.

Intersectionality is defined by Miriam Webster as “a word [that is] used to refer to the complex and cumulative way that the effects of different forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, and yes, intersect—especially in the experiences of marginalized people or groups.” Without including intersectionality in feminism, and more specifically ecofeminism, we neglect the voices of many who feel left out and held back by society in similar ways. Luckily, a more inclusive and intersectional definition of the term is now being used by more professionals. In the book Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature, the author Karen J. Warren defines ecofeminism as “the position that there are important connections between how one treats women, people of color, and the underclass on one hand and how one treats the nonhuman natural environment on the other hand” (xi). Warren acknowledges that her definition of ecological feminism is a new addition to the common literature of the term, and analyzes the term, “from a variety of cross-cultural and multidisciplinary perspectives”(xi). Through further research, I found that intersectionality when addressing women’s rights within the environmental movement is still frequently forgotten or ignored.

Race:

While researching the massive topic of racial diversity within the environmental movement, I came across several research sources and studies done by Dorceta Taylor. Dorceta Taylor is a professor at the University of Michigan, where she teaches and researches topics such as environmental justice, food insecurity, urban agriculture, and many other related subjects. Before she became a scholar of environmental justice, Ms. Taylor got her Ph.D. at the Yale school of Forestry and Environmental Studies and also managed to earn a master’s degree from Yale’s department of Sociology. As it says in her biography on Yale’s website, “in 1991 Taylor became the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. at F&ES.”

The first book I read about environmental justice and inequalities was Dorceta Taylor’s book, Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility. This book is a collection of various case studies that describe communities across the country that have become the location for toxic and dangerous facilities. These affected communities are disproportionately subjected to hazardous conditions, but are not the government's priority for many reasons. These communities are predominantly lower-class and minority neighborhoods, which means that the government has historically, and still currently, prioritized the treatment of white and upper-class neighborhoods over minority neighborhoods. One line from the book’s back-cover description states that, “Due to entrenched segregation, zoning ordinances that privilege wealthier communities, or because businesses have found the ‘paths of least resistance,’ there are many hazardous waste and toxic facilities in these communities, leading residents to experience health and wellness problems on top of the race and class discrimination most already experience.” This quote is emphasizing that the disproportionate placement of dangerous conditions is clearly having an impact on the lives of the nearby residents, adding an additional inequality to the way they are treated by society.

It quickly became clear to me that this problem of environmental hazards in minority communities was not only discrimination from the government, but also a direct implication that there are a lack of minorities in positions of power. If there was greater minority representation when making company or governmental decisions, the assumption that minority communities are “paths of least resistance,” as said in the Toxic Communities description, would no longer exist. From what I can interpret, a diverse set of decision makers and leaders would instead create a “path of equal resistance” when dealing with issues such as locations for hazardous facilities.

Besides the obvious hazards that these toxic areas produce for local community members, these facilities also have an extremely destructive environmental impact. One example from Toxic Communities explains the impact of a chemical factory in Triana, Alabama. At the time of this problem, Triana’s population was 75% black. This chemical facility was dumping their waste into nearby bodies of water, pouring DDT into the water that this community used for drinking and fishing. As time went on, this factory continued to dump their waste into the water, but the local community was not informed of the health risks that excess DDT in their water supply might have. Suddenly, the fish started disappearing from the creeks in the DDT affected areas, which led to testing and concern for the wildlife in Triana. Though concern for the wildlife is extremely important, the locals who were eating the fish were not tested. When it was discovered and confirmed that there was DDT in the fish, which became illegal when this problem was occuring, the people of color who lived in the area were not told about the health risks for another three decades! This is just one example of a community that faced danger and discrimination parallel to the poor treatment of the natural environment.

In addition to writing this informative book, I discovered that Dorceta Taylor has written and organized several studies about diversity within the environmental movement, specifically within environmental organizations. These organizations are the main advocators for environmental causes since they do things such as educating the public, making legislative changes, working hands-on, and taking many other beneficial steps towards addressing issues like climate change. Most of these organizations are non-profits, meaning that they rely heavily on funds from donors and operate with help from volunteers. In 2014, Taylor prepared a study for Green 2.0, which is “an initiative dedicated to increasing racial diversity across mainstream environmental NGOs, foundations and government agencies.” This report, The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations (SDEO), summarizes the study done about gender, race, and class of these organizations’ boards and staff.

I was so lucky to have come across this study because it highlights my main areas of curiosity and explains a somewhat confusing topic in much simpler and easily understandable language. I was really surprised by how easily I understood this report and it ended up being a major part of my research. The study’s focus on environmental organizations was initially confusing to me, but after reading the report, I began to understand that the environmental movement depends on these organizations to be the driving forces of positive change. They are the people in power within this movement, and reading about the lack of diversity within these organizations made it very clear to me that those who are leading the movement are not representing the diverse set of people that want to see a change. After all, the goal of the movement is to protect the planet, not just the areas that the decision makers represent.

The SDEO report is broken up into numerous points, each addressing a major issue related to diversity that was found within environmental organizations. The first point claims that many organizations have actually made progress related to gender diversity, but the positions have mostly gone to white women. In fact, women are actually the majority of new hires within environmental organizations. This prioritization of white women over women of color when expanding gender diversity is a common theme seen in many settings across the country and the world, so I wasn’t necessarily surprised by this. As I said earlier in the article, there is a a huge need for intersectionality when working with problems related to gender equality.

Many companies or organizations claim that they are making progress with gender diversity, and they are, but they are not offering the same opportunities to minority women as they are to white women. The second point made by this report puts the information into perspective. This point says that even though there are now more women in these organizations, the most powerful positions within these organizations are more likely to go to the men. According to the report, “more than 70% of the presidents and chairs of the board of conservation/preservation organizations are male.” Men also dominate in government environmental agencies, environmental grant making organizations, and board membership within all forms of environmental organizations.

As the report continued, I discovered that while the lack of gender diversity within environmental organizations is problematic, the lack of racial diversity is much worse. One claim from the report says, “Despite the growth in the ethnic minority population in the U.S., the percentage of minorities on the boards or general staff of environmental organizations does not exceed 16% in the three types of institutions studied.” That statistic accounts for the general staff of these organizations, not necessarily positions of power. I found in the report that less than 12% of ethnic minorities hold leadership positions within these organizations. I also found that ethnic minorities are much more likely to be hired in the science and engineering field than anywhere in the environmental field. There is one position, however, that minorities seem to hold more than white people: diversity manager. Though it is a huge step for an organization to have a diversity manager, and a person who is actually a minority in that position, there are very few environmental organizations that actually have a diversity manager or a similar position.

As I said earlier, these organizations rely heavily on volunteers. This report found that very few minorities are volunteers for environmental organizations. The report doesn’t give any reasoning for this, but one can assume that there are numerous reasons why volunteers are predominantly white. The lack of representation and lack of minority outreach are just two reasons that I can think of.

To get to the heart of the problem, I wanted to find out how these organizations were hiring people and who was applying for these jobs. From the SDEO report, I discovered that a majority of jobs in the environmental field are filled through word of mouth and informal recommendations, creating an environment that prioritizes those with connections over other valid candidates. Additionally, job recruiters are reported to mostly spend time in upper-class and wealthier areas when looking for new staff members. This makes getting a job in this field especially hard for people of color because the current (predominantly white) workforce is slightly closed off and discriminatory.

Conclusions:

To truly understand this topic, I decided that I should speak with some leaders in the environmental field. I wanted to hear about personal experiences from minorities in leadership positions and also get their opinions about the movement’s state of diversity. Since I live in New York City and have a large interest in sustainability, I have come across the name Majora Carter several times. Ms. Carter is an urban revitalization strategist who mainly works in the South Bronx (where she grew up). She founded Sustainable South Bronx and has spent her career improving and developing low-status communities. Through a connection with one of my teachers, I was able to get in touch with Majora’s husband, James, and set up a time to have an interview with Majora. On the day of the interview, I went to meet Majora downtown. However, she wasn’t available, so I spoke with her husband for several minutes about Majora’s work. I was hoping to hear stories about Majora’s journey to being a powerful advocate for minorities and environmental justice and also speak to her about how she sees the movement in regards to diversity. I wanted to know if Majora thought there could be a more diverse future for this movement, but sadly I wasn’t able to get any notes or quotes from her to use for this article.

Though it was quite disappointing to prepare for an interview with one of my role-models and not be able to speak with her, this experience opened my eyes to the reality of being a leading member of the environmental movement. Majora Carter is clearly a busy woman who has committed herself to her work, so I admire her tenacity. Hopefully our paths will cross again one day and I can speak with her about her experience as a woman of color in the environmental movement. I still think of her as one of my role-models and as one of the strong and influential leaders of the environmental movement.

Having made no success with speaking to an expert, I decided to reach out to Dorceta Taylor, the woman who wrote several of the sources that I reference in this article. Ms. Taylor’s work was crucial to my understanding of the state of diversity in the environmental movement, and I thought it would be interesting to hear about her research and her experience as a woman of color in the environmental movement. I reached out to her via email and explained my project, but never got a response.

Both of the women who I attempted to interview were not able to speak with me, which was disappointing, but I feel like I already learned so much from my research. In fact, I have much more to learn about this topic. Adding personal experiences would have been a nice touch to this article, but I am happy with the information I have so far, and I plan to continue writing and learning about this topic until I have a complete article.

Overall, it has been proven that minorities have the same level of interest in improving the environment, (in some cases more interest) but they are given far fewer opportunities to be members of the environmental movement. Through my research, I’ve learned that this lack of diversity due to bias and discrimination is not just a problem within the environmental movement, but a problem in many parts of society. Rather than finding ways to change the environmental movement’s lack of inclusivity, there needs to be a systematic and societal shift in the way we view minorities. If the environmental movement wants to reach its goal of protecting the planet, there needs to be a diverse set of people leading the movement. This movement represents a global issue, and without a diverse set of contributors, supporters, and leaders, the environmental movement will not be able to make the change that it aims to make.

To Be Continued- Topics to Add:

Interviews

Expand on topics I have already written about

How to make a difference as a teenager

“How to Raise an Environmentalist” article - what does it mean to be an environmentalist?

0 notes

topsolarpanels · 7 years ago

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Where global warming get real: inside Nasa’s mission to the north pole

The long read: For 10 years, Nasa has been flying over the ice caps to chart their retreat. This data is an invaluable record of climate change. But does anyone care?

From the window of a Nasa aircraft flying over the Arctic, seeming down on the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, its easy to find why it is so hard to describe climate change. The scale of polar ice, so dramatic and so clear from a plane flying at 450 metres( 1,500 ft) high enough to appreciate the scope of the ice and low enough to sense its mass is nearly impossible to fathom when you arent sitting at that particular vantage point.

But its different when you are there, cruising over the ice for hours, with Nasas monitors all over the cabin streaming data output, documenting in real day dramatising, in a sense the depth of the ice beneath. You get it, because you can see it all there in front of you, in three dimensions.

Imagine a thousand centuries of heavy snowfall, piled up and compacted into stone-like ice atop the bedrock of Greenland, an Arctic island almost a one-quarter the size of the US. Imagine all of modern human history, from the Neolithic revolution 12,000 years ago when humen moved from hunting and meeting to agriculture, and from there, eventually, to urban societies until today. All of the snow that fell on the Arctic during that entire history is met up in simply the top layers of the ice sheet.

Imagine the dimensions of that ice: 1.71 m sq km( 656,000 sq miles ), three times the size of Texas. At its belly from the top layer, yesterdays snowfall, to the bottom layer, which is made of snow that fell out of the sky 115,000 -1 30,000 years ago it reaches 3,200 metres( 10,500 ft) thick, virtually four times taller than the worlds highest skyscraper.

Imagine the weight of this thing: at the centre of Greenland, the ice is so heavy that it warps the land itself, pushing bedrock 359 metres( 1,180 ft) below sea level. Under its own immense weight, the ice comes alive, folding and rolling in solid stream, in glaciers that slowly push outward. This is a head-spinningly dynamic system that we still dont fully understand and that we really ought to learn far more about, and rapidly. In hypothesi, if this massive thing were fully drained, and melted into the sea, the water contained in it would stimulate the worlds oceans rise by 7 metres( 23 ft ).

When you fly over entire mountain ranges whose tips-off scarcely peek out from under the ice and these are just the visible ones its possible to imagine what would happen if even a fraction of this sum of pent-up freshwater were unleashed. You can plainly see how this thing would flood the coasts of the world, from Brooklyn to Bangladesh.

The crew of Nasas Operation IceBridge have seen this ice from every imaginable angle. IceBridge is an aerial survey of the polar regions that has been underway for nearly a decade the most ambitious of its kind to date. It has yielded a growing dataset that helps researchers document , among other things, how much, and at what rate, ice is vanishing from the poles, contributing to global sea-level rises, and to a variety of other phenomena related to climate change.

Alternating seasonally between the north and south poles, Operation Icebridge mounts months-long campaigns in which it operates eight- to 12 -hour daily flights, as often as weather permits. This past spring season, when I joined them in the Arctic, they launched 40 flights, but had 63 detailed flight schemes prepared. Operation IceBridge seeks to create a continuous data record of the constantly changing ice by bridging hence the name data retrieved from a Nasa satellite that aimed its service in 2009, called ICESat, and its successor, ICESat-2, which is due to launching next year. The Nasa dataset, which offers a broad overview of the state of polar ice, is publicly available to any researcher anywhere in the world.

In April, I travelled to Kangerlussuaq, in south-west Greenland, and joined the IceBridge field crew a group of about 30 laser, radar, digital mapping, IT and GPS technologists, glaciologists, pilots and mechanics. What I insured there were specialists who have, over the course of nearly 10 years on this mission, mastered the arts and science of polar data hunting while, at the same day, watching as the very concept of data, of fact-based discourse, has disintegrated in their culture at home.

On each flight, I witnessed a remarkable tableau. Even as Arctic glaciers were losing mass right below the speeding aircraft, and even as raw data gleaned directly from those glaciers was pouring in on their monitors, the Nasa technologists sat next to their fact-recording instruments, sighing and wondering aloud if Americans had lost the eyes to see what they were assuring, to see the facts. What they told me revealed something about what it means to be a US federally money climate researcher in 2017 and what they didnt, or couldnt, tell me uncovered even more.

On my first morning in Greenland, I dropped in on a weather meeting with John Sonntag, mission scientist and de facto field captain for Nasas Operation IceBridge. I stood inside the cosy climate office at Kangerlussuaq airport, surrounded by old Danish-language topographical maps of Greenland, as Sonntag explained to me that the ice sheet, because of its shape, can produce unique weather patterns( the ice isnt flat, its curved, he said, making a little knoll shape with his hands ).

The fate of the polar ice has occupied the last decade of his life( Im away from home so much its likely why Im not married ). But at pre-flight weather meetings, polar ice is largely of fear to him for the quirky style it might affect that days weather. The figure in Sonntags mind this morning isnt metres of sea rise, but dollars in flight hour. The estimated price tag for a flight on Operation IceBridge is about $100,000; a single hour of flight time is said to cost $10 -1 5,000. If Sonntag misreads the weather and the plane has to turn back, he loses flight time, a lot of taxpayers money, and precious data.

I would come to view Sonntag as something of a Zen sage of atmospheric conditions. He checks the climate the moment he wakes in the morning, before he eats or even uses the bathroom. He told me that it wasnt simply about knowing what the weather is. With weather, there is no is. Whats required is the ability to grasp constant dynamic change.

What Im doing, he said, is correcting my current reading against my previous one which he had made the last possible moment the night before, just before falling asleep. Basically, Im calibrating. The machine that he is calibrating, of course, is himself. This, as I would learn, was a pretty good summary of Sonntags modus operandi as a leader: constantly and carefully adjusting his reads in order to better navigate his expeditions shifting conditions.

Nevertheless, despite the metaphorical implications of his weather-watching, Sonntag was ever focused on the literal. At the climate meeting, I asked him about his concern over some low cloud cover that was developing a situation that could result in scrubbing the flight. Was his concern for the functionality of the aircrafts science equipment, its ice-penetrating radars, its lasers and cameras?

John Sonntag on board Nasas Operation IceBridge research aircraft at Thule airbase, Greenland. Photograph: Mario Tama/ Getty Images

On that day, as it turned out, Sonntag was more worried about pilot visibility. You know, so we dont fly into a mountain, he explained, without taking his eyes off the blob dancing across the monitors. That kind of thing.

A few weeks before I fulfilled Sonntag, a reporter had asked him: What stimulates this real to you? The topic had startled him, and he was evidently still thinking about it. I honestly didnt know what to say, he told me.

Sonntag cuts a trim, understated figure in his olive green Nasa flight suit, fleece coat and baseball cap, and his exuberances and mellowed ironies tend to soften his slow-burn, man-on-a-literal-mission intensity. I could imagine how a reporter might miss the underlying zeal; but get to know Sonntag and youll learn why, even three weeks later, that topic was still rattling around his head.

Im still kind of at a loss, to be honest, he told me. What attains it real ? I mean, wow, where do I start?

It is indeed a strange question to ask someone who was once on a high-altitude flight when temperatures fell so low that the planes gas turned solid, almost sending it straight down into Antarctica, directly on to the ice, in the middle of the darkest of nights. Each of the 63 flight plans for this season in the Arctic was the result of months of meticulous planning. A team of polar scientists from across the US situateds the research priorities, in collaboration with flight crews, who make sure the routes are feasible; the mission is managed from Nasas Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Sonntag is there at all phases, including at the construction and installing of the scientific instruments, and he is the person in the field responsible for executing the mission. He is supposed to have a plan for every contingency: if the plane goes down on the ice, hes get plans for that, too. He is responsible for making sure that his crew have adequately backed up and stored many terabytes of data, and that their own creature comforts are taken care of. On days off, he cooks gumbo for them.

The reporter probably had something else in intellect. The melting of ice, the rising water, and all the boring-seeming charts that document the connections between the two what builds that real? To Sonntag and his crew, it is as real as the data that they have personally helped fish out of the ice.

Sea levels, which were more or less constant for the past 2,000 years, have climbed at a rate of roughly 1.7 mm a year in the past century; in the past 25 years, that rate has doubled to 3.4 mm a year, already enough to create adverse effects in coastal regions. A conservative estimation holds that waters will rise approximately 0.9 metres( 3ft) by the year 2100, which will place hundreds of millions of people in jeopardy.

Given the scale of sea- and ice-related questions, the vantage point that is needed is from the air and from space, and is best served through large, continuous, state-supported investments: hence Nasa. There is a lot we dont know and a lot that the ice itself, which is a frozen repository of past climate changes, can tell us. But we need the eyes to see it.

First built during the cold warto track Russian submarines, the P-3 Orion aircraft, a four-engine turboprop, is designed for long, low-flying surveillance missions. IceBridges P-3, based at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, is armed with a suite of instruments mounted under the plane and operated by technologists sitting at stations in the cabin. A laser altimetry system which bounces laser beams from the bottom of the aircraft to the top of the ice and back determines the height and topography of the uppermost layer of ice; a digital mapping system takes high-resolution photos of the ice, helping us find the specific characteristics in which it is changing shape; and a radar system sends electromagnetic pulsings through the ice, thousands of feet and a hundred thousand years to the land beneath.

This data shows us where the ice is growing and where it is shrinking, and helps researchers ascertain its current mass. The IceBridge data has also helped create a 3D map of an ice-locked land that no human eyes have ever seen: the territory of Greenland, its mountains, valleys, plains and valleys, and also a clear opinion of the layers of ice that have grown above it. Nasa repeats its IceBridge flights annually, to chart how the ice changes from year to year, and, by comparison with earlier satellite data, from decade to decade. For the integrity of the data, it is best to repeat the flights over exactly the same terrain. The path of each IceBridge flight must adhere to a line so narrow that they had to devise a new flight navigation system, which Sonntag cannot help but describe with boyish glee( We basically trick the plane into thinking its landing !).

In trying to grasp how the ice runs, its necessary to know the shape of the underlying terrain: in places where the land slopes up, for instance, we know that ice will flow slower. IceBridge data helped discover and chart a canyon in northern Greenland the size of the Grand Canyon. In addition to being a wondrous discovery in its own right, this was useful in understanding where, and how, the ice is moving. One effect of this giant canyon system can be seen at the coast, where sea water can seep into cavities, potentially melting lower layers of ice. Other aerial data has shown how glacier fronts, which served as corks holding back the ice flow behind them, have decreased and unleashed the flow, causing more ice to flush into the sea at increasingly rapid paces.

Fantastic 3D maps of the ice sheet created with IceBridge data have also helped researchers situate rare, invaluable Eemian ice, from more than 100,000 years ago. This was an epoch when the Earth was warm similar to today and in which the seas were many feet higher, which resembles the world to which we are headed. By drilling deep into the ice, glaciologists can excavate ice cores containing corpuscles of materials such as volcanic ash, or frozen bubbles that preserve precious pockets of ancient air that hold chemical samples of long-departed climates. Because of IceBridge data, researchers know where to look for these data-rich ice layers.

These are among the reasons that John Sonntags head hurts, and why he doesnt know where to begin or what to think when people ask him what builds this real for him. Behind even well-meaning topics is a culture of ignorance, or self-interested indifference, that has stimulated it easy for a Republican-led, corporation-owned US government to renege on the Paris climate arrangement, to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, and to slash billions of dollars of climate change-related funds from the federal budget this year. When the White House recently proposed cuts to Nasas climate-change research divisions, the media has enabled them along by interring the story under speciously positive headlines: Trumps Nasa budgetary support deep space travel, crowed CBS News. The worlds coasts are facing catastrophic sea rise, but at the least Americans can look forward to watching their countrymen grill hot dog on Mars.

The US built Kangerlussuaqs airfield in the early 1940 s, and they still maintain a small airbase there. In 1951, America constructed a giant fortress on the ice, Thule Air Base, in north-west Greenland strategically equidistant from Russia and the US where it secretly kept armed atomic weapon. In one of naval history more ambitious armadas, the Americans cut through the ice, generated a port, and effected a conquest second in scope merely to the D-day invasion. And all they had to do was uproot an Inuit settlement.

The USs history in Greenland gives the lie to the notion that ice research is inherently peaceful, much less apolitical. Glaciology advanced as a field partly through the work of US scientists serving the needs of their countrys rapidly growing nuclear war machine in the 1960 s, helping to build Camp Century, a fabled city under ice in northern Greenland and designing Project Iceworm, a top-secret system of under-ice tunnels nearby, which was intended as a launch site for concealed nuclear rockets. In 1968, at the high levels of the war in Vietnam, a nuclear-armed B-5 2 crashed near Thule. A fire, started when a crewman left a pillow over a heating ventilate, resulted in four atomic weapon hydrogen bombs plunging into the ice, and releasing plutonium into the environment.

When our flight landed in Kangerlussuaq, we passed quickly through passport control, but our pouches were nowhere find work. For 40 minutes we could see the one and only commercial airplane at this airfields one and only gate simply sitting on the tarmac, with our pouches still in it. This wasnt a serious problem Kangerlussuaqs one hotel was just up a short flight of steps from the gate but it did seem odd that the bags hadnt come through customs. Another passenger, sensing my embarrassment, approached me.

Yankee? he asked.

Yankee, I replied.

Customs, the man told me, was actually merely one guy, who had a propensity to mysteriously disappear.

By the route, he added conspiratorially. You know customs here has a special arrangement with the Americans. The customs guy, the stranger told me, turns a blind eye to liquor headed to the US Air Force bar on the other side of the airfield.

Kangerlussuaq( population 500 ), or as the Yanks prefer to call it, Kanger, still feels like a frontier station. Most locals run either at the airport or at the hotel. Next to the airfields main hangar, local people house the huskies that pull their sledges. The roads of Kangerlussuaq can be dicey; there are no sidewalks. Once you leave the tiny settlement, there arent roads at all; and if you go north or east, of course, theres only ice. Decommissioned US air force Jato bottles airplane boosters that, to the untrained eye, resemble small warheads are ubiquitous around Kangerlussuaq, usually as receptacles for discarded cigarette butt. In the hotel cafeteria you can see American and European glaciologists, greeting one another with astound and hugs, because the last time they met was a year or two ago, when they ran into each other at the other pole.

Kangerlussuaq in Greenland. Photo: Arterra/ UIG/ Getty

When I ultimately got my container, I stimulated my way down to the 664 barracks, where the crew was remain. But before I met the crew, I fulfilled the data itself. In a small, slouchy barracks bedroom, near the front doorway, I encountered two Nasa servers. IT engineers could, and often would, sit on the bed as they worked.

The window was cracked open, to cool the room and soothe the crackling servers, whose constant low humming, like a shamen chant, was accompanied by the pleasant aroma of gently cooking wires one of the more visceral stages of the daily rite of storing, transferring, copying and processing data captured on the most recent flight. After years of listening to Americans debate the existence of data demonstrating climate change, it was comforting to come in here and fragrance it.

When I first arrived, I found one of the IT crew, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and slippers, and with big, sad, sleepy, beagle eyes, reclining next to the server, his feet up on a desk, chowing on a Nutella snack pack. He explained the irony of his struggle to keep the servers happy in the far north. A week earlier, when IceBridge was operating its northern flights from Thule Air Base, they couldnt seem to find any route of get the server rooms temperature down: Were in the Arctic, but our problem is determining cold air.

For a moment he paused to consider the sheer oddness of life, but then he shrugged, and polished off his Nutella snack. But we just chug on, you know? he said.

This attitude captured something essential about IceBridge: its scrappy. Its the kind of operation in which the engineers are expected to bring their own off-the-shelf hardware back-ups from home.( As one radar tech told me: if your keyboard breaches in the Arctic, you cant just go to Walmart and buy a new one .) More than one crew member described IceBridges major piece of hardware, its P-3 aircraft, as a hand-me-down. When the Nasa crew “was talkin about a” their P-3 they sometimes voiced as though they were talking about a beloved, oversized, elderly pet dog, who can act dopey but, when pressed, is astonishingly agile. IceBridges P-3 is 50 years old, but as one of the navy pilots told me, they baby the hell out of it. It just got a new pair of wings. I got the strong sense that this climate data gathering operation was something of an underdog enterprise the moodier sibling of Nasas more celebrated deep-space projects.

But these unsung flights are not without their own brand of Nasa drama. The IceBridge crew would tell me, with dark humour, the story of the time a plane was in such dire straits that everyone aboard was panicking. One man was staring at a photo of his children on his phone, and in his other hand, was clutching a crucifix. Another man was pinned to the ceiling. Someone actually hollered Were gonna die !, like in the movies. John Sonntag, on the other hand, sat there, serenely assessing the situation.

During my time in Greenland in April this year, I didnt witness Sonntag manage a distressed aircraft, but I did watch him carefully navigate a Nasa crew through a turbulent political season. In the week I was there, the group was preparing for two anxiety-provoking scenarios, courtesy of Washington, DC. One was an imminent visit from several each member of Congress. As one engineer put it to me, We just get nervous, honestly, because we dont know what these politicians agenda is: are they friend or foe?

The other was an impending shutdown of the entire US federal government: if Congress didnt make a decision about the budget by Friday that week, the government would close all operations indefinitely.( The sticking point was budgetary questions related to Trumps proposed border wall .) If the government shut down, Operation IceBridge was done for the season; the Nasa crew would be sent home that day.

This had happened before, in 2013, just as IceBridge was en route to Antarctica. Congressional Republican shut down the governmental forces in their effort to thwart Obamas diabolical plot to offer medical care to millions of uninsured Americans. Much of the 2013 mission was cancelled, with millions of dollars, many hundreds of hours of preparation, and, most importantly, critical data, lost.

I still cant truly talking here that without feeling those feelings again, Sonntag told me. It was kind of traumatic for us.

The crew of IceBridge was facing an absurd scenario: living in anxiety of a shutdown of their work by Congress one day and, shortly thereafter, having to smile and impress members of that same Congress.

Conditioned by the tribulationsof modern commercial airline travel, I was unprepared for the casualness of my first Nasa launch. The impression in the hangar before the flight, and as the crew prepared to launch, was of change workers who are hyper-attentive to their particular tasks and not the least concerned with gratuitous formalities. The flights were long and the deployments were long; the key to not burning out was to pace oneself and to not linger over anything that wasnt essential. Everyone was a trusted pro and nobody was out to prove anything to anyone else.

Shortly before our 9am takeoff, I asked Sonntag what the plane should feel like when everything was going well what should I be looking for? He smiled sheepishly. To be honest, if you assure people sleeping, thats a good sign.

On the eight-hour flights, ensure engineers asleep at their stations meant international instruments below their feet were blithely collecting data. For some stretchings, there wasnt even data to collect: hours were spent flying between data target sites.( Over the intercom, a pilot would occasionally ask, Hey, we sciencing now or simply flying ?) Flight crew, who attend to the plane but are not directly connected to the data operation, occupied the cabin like cats, curled up proprietarily, high up on fluffy, folded-up engine covers.

This permeating somnolence the hypnotic hum of the propellers, the occasional scene of crewmen horsing around in their flight suits, which devoted them the appear of sons in pajamas coupled with the low-altitude sweeps through fantastic mountains of ice, devoted the whole situation a dreamlike quality.

From the windows of the P-3, at 450 metres, you dont need to have read anything about glaciers to know what they are. At that low altitude, you can see the deep textures and the crevasses of the ice, and just how far the glacier widens across the land. The eye immediately grasps that the ice is a being on the move, positively exploding ahead, while also not appearing to move at all, like a still photo of a rushing river.

A rift across Antarcticas Larsen C ice shelf, seen from an IceBridge flight. Photograph: UPI/ Barcroft Images

Seeing the polar ice from above, you get a very different view from that assured by novelists in past centuries, who saw this scenery, if at all, by boat or, more likely, from a depict. But the vision, to them, was clear enough: it was the Objective, the annihilating whiteness of demise and extinction. Herman Melville described this colour as the dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide scenery of snows a colorless all-color of atheism from which we shrink. This is where so many of those old narratives discontinued. The Arctic is where the ogre in Frankenstein leaps off a ship on to the ice, never to be seen again. Polar decideds spell doom for Poes sailors, and Captain Nemo, who are pulled into the icy maelstrom. And celebrated real-life travellers did, in fact, die gruesomely on the ice, in search of the Northwest Passage, or the north pole.

But, from the window of Nasas P-3, that old narrative seems inaccurate. Deem that whiteness, which so frightened Melville and Poe, who objective his Antarctic tale The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym with a horrifying italicised refrain on the word white. But polar snow and ice, precisely because it is white, with a quality known as high albedo, deflects solar energy back into space and helps keep globes climate cool; the loss of all this white material means more hot is absorb and the earth warms faster. In a variety of other routes, including moderating climate patterns, the ice helps makes life on globe more livable. The extreme conditions of the poles, so useful for instilling dread in 19 th-century readers, actually stimulate the world more habitable.

Our bias against the poles can be seen even in that typical term of praise for this icy scenery, otherworldly. This description is precisely incorrect: the Arctic is intimately connected with every other part of the planet.

This, too, is something you can see. Flying over it, at a low altitude, I was struck by the familiarity of the thing, how much of Greenland was a visual echo of my northern homelands. In the muscular frozen ripples of its glaciers, created by an intensely pressured flow, I considered the same strong hand that profoundly etched those giant scratchings into the big boulders of Central Park in New York City. This isnt an analogy: those marks in Manhattan were made by shifting ice, the very same ice layers that still have a foothold in Greenland. I grew up, and have expended the majority of members of my life, in Ohio and New England, places that were carved out by that ice: ponds originally made of meltwater from the last great ice age, low mounds smoothed over by retreating glaciers. That old ice gave shape and signature to almost every important place in my life, and in the lives of so many others. And, in the future, this ice will continue to shape the places were from, right before our eyes. It is merely our ignorance that attains us call it otherworldly.

But even as we passed through this scenery, even as the lasers and radars took their deep gulp of data from the ice, I could hear expressions of nervousnes from the data hunters. At the same day that were getting better at assembling this data, we seem to be losing the ability to communicate the great importance to the public, one engineer told me four hours into a flight, during a transit between glaciers.

You can hear this anxiety surface in the witticism floating around the crew. I heard one engineer joke that it might be easier to merely rig up a data randomising machine, since many people out there seem to think thats what their data is anyway.

I mean, itd be much easier, and cheaper, to do upkeep on that, he pointed out.

In another conversation, about how to increase public awareness about climate change in the US, I asked one of the senior crew members whether they would greet a novelist from Breitbart aboard one of these flights.

Oh, utterly, he said. Id love for them to see what were doing up there. I believe sitting on this plane, assuring the ice, and watching the data come in would be incredibly eye-opening for them.

His optimism was inspiring and worrisome to me.

The mantra of the crew is no politics. I heard it said over and over again: merely stick to the job, dont speak above your pay grade. But, of course, you dont need to have a no-politics policy unless your work is already steeped in politics.

Glaciers on the Greenland ice sheet, observed by the IceBridge crew. Photograph: Jeremy Harbeck/ Icebridge/ NASA

Speaking with one of the scientific researchers mid-flight, I got a very revealing reply. When I asked this researcher about the anthropogenesis of climate change, the tone changed. What had been a comfy chat became stilted and deliberate. There was a little eye-roll toward my audio recorder. Abruptly my interlocutor, a specialist in ice, got pedantic, telling me that there existed others more qualified to speak about rising sea level. I offered to turn off my recorder. As soon as it was off, the researcher spoke freely and with the confidence of a leading expert in the field. The off-the-record view expressed wasnt simply one of sober arrangements with the scientific consensus, but of passionate outrage. Of course climate change is related to human activity! Weve all assured the graphs !

The tonal discrepancies between this off-the-record answer and the taped answer that I should consult someone else told me all I needed to know. Or so I believed the researcher then asked me to turn my recorder back on: there was one addendum, for the record.

Richard Nixon, the researcher said, looking down at the red record sunlight. Nixon established some good climate policy. Theres a tradition in both parties of doing this work. And, I entail, if Nixon

The researcher chuckled a bit, realising how this was sounding. Well, thats what Im hanging my hopes on, anyway.

Over the planes open intercom, there was abruptly, and uncharacteristically, talk of the days headlines. While we were in flight, people around the world were marking Earth Day by demonstrating in support of climate rationality and against the present US regime. On Twitter, #MarchForScience was trending at the exact moment Nasas P-3 was out flying for science. There was even a local protest: American and European scientists took to the street of Kangerlussuaq for a small but high-profile demo. While it was happening, one of the engineers piped up on the P-3s intercom.

Anyone else sorry to be missing the procession?

But the earnest question was only met with silence and a few jokes. Among the Nasa crew, there had been some talking here trying to do a flyover of the Kangerlussuaq march, to take an aerial photo of it, but the plan was nixed for logistical reasons. The timing was off. The senior crew seemed relieved that it was out of the question.

Later that week, after my second and final flight making a total of 16 hours in the air with Nasa the crew retreated to the barracks for a quick science meeting, beers in hand, followed by a family-style dinner. We dont seem to get enough of each other here, one of the engineers told me, as he poured a glass of wine over ice that the crew had harvested from the front of a glacier the day before. One of the engineers asked a glaciologist about the age of this block of ice, and frowned at the disappointing answer: it probably wasnt more than a few hundred years old.

Well, thats still older than America, right? he said.

Outside, the sky wasnt dark, though it was past 10 pm. In a couple of months, there would be sunlight all night. After dinner, one of the crews laser technicians lounged on a couch, playing an acoustic version of the sung Angie over and over again, creating a pleasantly mesmerising impact. Two crew members talked of killer methane gas. But most sat around, drinking and telling stories. One of the pilots tried to convince someone he had assured a polar bear from the cockpit that day. These deployments are tiring, someone told me. Bullshitting is critical.

One of the crew spent his off-days on excursions with a camera-equipped drone, and had attained spectacular videos of his explorations, which he edited and set to moody Bush tunes. I joined the crew as they gathered around his laptop to watch his latest. There was something moving in considering these people who had spend all day, and indeed many months and years, flying over ice and obsessing over ice-related data now expending their free time relaxing by watching videos of yet more ice.

As usual, politics soon snuck into the picture. The next video that popped up was footage recently shot at the Thule base. The video indicated some of this same Nasa crew hiking through an deserted cement bunker, a former storage site for US Nike anti-aircraft rockets. Today its simply an eerie, rusted, shadow-filled underground space, its floor covered in thick ice. When these images came on the screen, the crew fell quiet, watching themselves, only a week ago, putting on ice skates and doing figure-eights over the wreckings of their countrys cold war weapons systems.

An engineer chipped a shard off the frozen block harvested the day before. Perhaps sensing my mood, he dropped it into a glass and poured me some whiskey over ice older than America and said: Well anyway, maybe thisll cheer you up.

Early the next morning, before the crew boarded the P-3 for another eight-hour flight over polar ice, a rare political debate broke out. Four of the crew were discussing the imminent Congressional visit, which inspired one of the veteran pilots to recite, once again, the mission mantra: Stick to science: no politics. But because that approach felt increasingly less plausible in 2017, one of the ice specialists, feeling frustrated, launched under a small speech about how Americans dont take data seriously, and how its going to kill us all. Nobody disagreed. Someone jokingly said: Maybe its best if you dont fly today. To which another added, Yeah, you should stay on the ground and only do push-ups all day.

Finally, John Sonntag who had been too busy reviewing flight plans to hear the chatter stood up and tapped his watch. OK guys, he said. Lets run. Its is high time to fly.

Main image: Nasa/ Joe MacGregor

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