March 17, 2014
Selection 25 - Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?; by Lester R. Brown
Brown talks about the issue of global food shortages in this text, focusing on why they are or are about to occur and how do we avoid disaster.Brown emphasizes that a collapse in our global society is possible if we do not deal with our environmental problems. Demand for food on this planet is growing faster than its supply. Food shortages have already lead to the fall of some countries such as Somalia and Iraq for example. These ''failing states'', countries where government can no longer provide basic needs, threaten global political security. Piracy, terrorism and hijacking of resources are growing issues in these countries.
Brown notes that the cause of food shortages has changed in recent years. In the 20th century, shortages were ''event-driven''; driven by droughts, floods and heat for instance. Today, they are trend-driven. Trends include, but are not limited to, population increase and the diversion of grain to ethanol. The diversion to ethanol is of serious concern because the ''grain required to fuel one 25-gallon SUV with ethanol could feed 1 person for an entire year.
Freshwater shortages, loss of topsoil and soil fertility, and rising temperatures are the key causes of limited growth of food supply. Wells and aquifers in many coutries are drying up and in some countries this could mean the end of agriculture. In addition, according to Brown, a third of the world's croplands are seeing rates of erosion that are faster than soil replenishment.
A growing concern in the past few years has also been an increase in export bans and restrictions. Some countries have been doing this for their own benefits and threaten food security for other countries.
Finally, Brown proposes a ''Plan B'' to fixing the food shortage crisis. This includes cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2020, stabilizing Earth population to 8 billion by 2040, eliminating poverty and restoring forests, soils and aquifers. Brown emphasizes that this plan needs to be adopted NOW, because time is ''our scarcest resource''.
Critical thinking question:
Q: According to Lester Brown, what is the greatest threat to global political stability?
A: According to Brown, the greatest threat to global stability is ''failing states''. The root causes of failing states are especially food shortages and overpopulation. However, the consequences that result from failing states are what result in significant threats to global political stability. Law and disorder are rampant in failing states, and these consequences spread across the globe. These countries are sources of piracy, terrorism, drugs, refugees and weapons. As the number of failing states increases, the global security threat will only worsen. In fact, if food shortages worsen, even healthy, affluent countries may begin their decline. This would have catastrophic consequences on global civilization becausem as Brown notes, these countries control the spread of disease, manage the international monetary system and control terrorism. If these controls were lost in addition to the food shortages, we as humanity may be in serious trouble.
Selection 37 - Women's Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation; by Vandana Shiva
In this text, Shiva compares the views of women farmers in Third World countries and multinational corporations towards biodiversity. She emphasizes that women's knowledge is key to preserving biodiversity.First, Shiva relates our destructive nature towards biodiversity to the marginalization of women. Man has trouble coping with differences. In addition, diversity is seen only for its commercial gains.
If we are to protect biodiversity, Shiva emphasizes that we must look at how women treat nature. Women produce through biodiversity whereas corporate scientists produce through uniformity, or monoculture. Women see biodiversity as having intrinsic value, while corporations view biodiversity only as raw material. Women farmers in Third World countries have developed these views due to the role they play in their societies. They perform a very large number of tasks and have gained knowledge through millenia. Their knowledge includes the production and preparation of plant foods, breeding and feeding animals, and the use of the forest to do these.
Women's biodiversity conservation is much different from the notion of biodiversity conservation to corporations. Women see all the elements of the farm as interrelated and biodiversity is culturally-embedded. In contrast, corporations only see these elements as independent.
The seed is a great example of the difference of views between women farmers and corporations. Women farmers see the seed as the continuation of life, whereas corporations see it more as a discontinuity in life. Corporations, for profit, do not allow ''their'' seeds to have offspring so that farmers have to buy their seeds every year. Corporations see seeds as their ''creation''. Shiva notes that this is not correct because nature and Third World women farmers have made these seeds themselves for millenia. They are being robbed by corporations.
Unfortunately, according to Shiva, indigenous women's knowledge is being lost. ''Progressive'' technologies that destroy biodiversity have been replacing traditional methods in Third World countries. Unfortunately, this shift from polycropping to monoculture leads to loss of employment, poverty and the destruction of livelihoods. This is because less manpower is needed with these monoculture technologies.
In summary, Shiva emphasized in this text that women's knowledge about biodiversity needs to be conserved to preserve biodiversity.
Critical thinking question:
Q: In what sense, according to Vandana Shiva, is Third World-women's work in agriculture ''invisible''?
A: According to Shiva, Third World-women's work in agriculture is invisible especially because they work in a way that is different from how corporations view things. For example, women farmers work in between 'sectors', or in other words, they bind the forest, the crops and the animals together. This is in sharp contrast to the view of corporations where the elements of and around the farm are viewed independently and the interrelations between them are insignificant. For this reason, women farmers who work in between these elements, or 'sectors', are often overlooked.
In another sense, the work of a woman farmer is overlooked because what they produce never actually ends up on the market (Women's Agricultural Community, 2014). What they produce is used to feed their livestock, their families and their own communities.
According to Shiva, there are yet two other reasons why the work of women farmers seem invisible. For one, gender bias creates an underestimation of women's work. Finally, it is also due to today's view that science is above all. Women testing seeds at cultural festivities are viewed as unscientific and therefore are not valued.
Selection 9 - Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems; by Peter M. Vitousek, Harold A. Mooney, and Jerry M. Melillo
In this text, biologists Peter M. Vitousek, Harold A. Mooney and Jerry M. Melillo talked about how humans have substantially altered and dominated Earth's systems. They illustrated this with numerous statistics showing the extent of our influence and its resulting consequences. The biologists emphasized that the extent of which humans have modified the environment is uncomparable to any species at any other time in history. Human enterprises such as agriculture, industry, fishing and international commerce have had profound impacts on the environment. These enterprises have led to great land transformations, the alteration of Earth's cycles, changes in our oceans and changes in genetic diversity.
According to the biologists, direct human impacts on land include agriculture, urbanisation and industrialisation (which now cover 10-15% of Earth's land surface) as well as conversion to pastureland (which cover 6-8% of Earth's land surface). Indirect impacts include increasing carbon dioxide, hunting and fragmentation. Increased carbon dioxide in particular affects 100% of Earth's land. All of these land transformations are the main drivers to the loss of biodiversity.
Oceans are also impacted by humans in many ways. For one, 60% of humanity lives within 100 km of a coastline. Wetlands along coastal regions have thus been greatly impacted. Fish declines have resulted thanks to increased algal blooms and fishing. In fact, as of 1995, 22% of recognized marine fisheries were overexploited or depleted and this number continues to rise. In addition, fisheries tend to focus on fishing top predators which causes great alterations to marine ecosystems.
Humans have also severely altered Earth's carbon, water, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and other natural cycles. Carbon dioxide in particular has been added by fossil fuel combustion, land alterations and mining. Different species react to increased carbon dioxide differently leading to great changes in ecosystems. As for water, humans currently use more than half of the available freshwater and 70% of this is used for agriculture. Humans also alter the flow of water, increasing evaporation rates. Increased evaporation as well as transpiration by agriculture have led to increased precipitation and storms in semiarid regions.
Lastly, humans have caused great changes in genetic variability and have increased extinction rates beyond the background rate. According to the biologists, a quarter of Earth's bird species have gone extinct in the past 2,000 years. The loss of genetic diversity has led to reduced resiliency of species. In addition, accidental and intentional introduction of invasive species have also caused health concerns to native species and humans and have caused further extinctions.
The biologists finished their text with some recommendations. First, we need to reduce the rate at which we change Earth's systems to allow for sufficient time for ecosystems to adapt. Second, we need to increase our understanding of the Earth's systems and how we affect them. Lastly, we need to maintain ecosystems and species.
Critical thinking question:
Q: Would it help to reduce the human impact on the Earth if we could reduce the human population?
A: Yes, our impact on Earth would definitely reduce if our population reduced. However, I believe it is only one piece of the puzzle.
Increased population means an increase in demand for the basic necessities to support us. Food, water and shelter demand increase as population increases. As a result, as our population increases, more land and resources are needed to be extracted and altered to meet our demand. In addition, more people means more fossil fuel combustion as more people need vehicles to get from point A to point B. These may all lead to a continual decrease in biodiversity as habitat destruction and fragmentation increase. As a result, I believe it is very important that our population stop increasing at such a rapid pace if we want to reduce our impact on the Earth.
However, I do want to note that consumption plays another major role in human's impact on Earth. What this means is the more each person consumes, the more impact humans have on Earth. As a result, in my opinion, both population and consumption are the two major factors in human impact on Earth.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Activity - Eric Sanderson pictures New York -- before the City:
This was a presentation by Eric Sanderson about a project him and his collegues worked on named ''The Mannahatta Project''. They took an old map of Manhattan from all the way back to the time of the American Revolution. With this map, they tried to visualize and understand what the island may have looked like centuries ago. In addition, they overlayed an existing map of today's Manhattan with its streets, parks and skyscrapers. What they found was quite impressive. Manhattan was once an immensely diverse system comprising of as many as 55 distinct ecosystem types. Wetlands, numerous streams, beaches, forests, hills, grasslands and ponds were just some of the features that once dominated the island. The vast majority of these no longer exist. They also found there would have been a very diverse interconnected web among various species.
They made visualizations of how the island may have looked 400 years ago. I found these were particularly amazing to look at. Me, being born in the early 90's, I have never known a Manhattan differently from what it is now. Seeing those visualizations gives a huge impression of how much humans have altered the landscape.
Sanderson and his collegues also made some visualizations of how Manhattan may look a few centuries away from now. Transportation by then would be mainly by bicycle, by foot or via public transportation. Streams and forests would be rehabilitated and replace sewers and some streets. Roofs would be green, covered in vegetation, and wind mills would provide electricity. The city would also be downsized. The 12,000,000 people that currently live in the city would only cover 36% of the land they currently do as the city significantly densifies. Farms, wetlands and marshes would replace the land that is no longer habited.
I found this talk an eye opener into some of the issues with cities. I particularly approve the idea of densification. I believe it is very important that cities densify instead of expand almost what seems to infinity. Here in Canada, suburbs, particularly in cities like Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, keep expanding and taking up more and more farmland and natural landscape. I disapprove this form of development because it is expensive, invasive and is built in a way that supports cars rather than people. I have lived in suburbs my entire life, and I can't believe how difficult it is to get from point A to point B. Everything is far away, requiring automobile transportation. Not only is this expensive and bad for the environment, but it reduces the amount of interaction we have with people. Instead of biking and walking where interaction with people is stronger, we're stuck in our cars locked away from everything else and everyone else. To me, a world where you could bike and walk anywhere you needed to go would be ideal. The suburbs also eat up a lot of natural habitats and ecosystems and agricultural lands, reducing biodiversity and our ability to grow more food.
The talk made me wonder of how I would like Winnipeg to change in the next few centuries as well. I believe densification is key, which means attracting people around the urban core. The city cannot keep growing outwards forever. Traffic in and out of the suburbs is already a serious problem in the city and will only get worse if the suburbs keep expanding. The costs of upgrading roads in and out of them is high. As a result, I hope to see more high rise projects in the urban core in the years to come. These and additional parks and open spaces could replace all the nasty-looking parking lots in our downtown, moving our city from a car-city to a walkable-city.
_________________________________________________________________________
Reflections:
Q1: What roles if any should zoos play in conservation/education?A1: Zoos can help to conserve biodiversity, and can also educate and show people the importance of the animals. Overall, I think zoos are important for these reasons. For one, people visiting zoos can see how precious these animals are and seeing them may begin to influence their thoughts about them. I believe it is easier to attain a sense of empathy for these animals when you can actually see them in real life, instead of just on a tv screen or in a book. Seeing them in real life may remind people that these creatures are real. This along with educational tours or educational bilboards or flyers can help to educate the public about the importance of these animals and make people more aware of how they impact them in their everyday lives.
I also personally believe zoos can help to conserve biodiversity, as long as the enclosures of the animals are suitable to their needs. If a species does not exist in the wild anymore, then at least we have managed to conserve them in zoos. Scientists can also study animals in a zoo by monitoring their behaviours and needs, to better understand them.
Q2: Is it ethical to keep animals in zoos?
A2: Although there are some advantages to zoos, I still do not believe it is ethical to ''imprison'' animals in zoos. I tend to compare a zoo to a prison for humans because the animals are confined in a tiny space compared to their natural habitat and are hand fed. In addition, taking them from the wild also seperates them from their pack (''family''). As a result, I do not believe it is ethical to trap innocent animals in the wild and forceably confine them in a zoo. I find this analogous to the government coming to my house and forceably, without my consent, banish me to prison for life, despite doing nothing illegal. Sure they would feed me, but I would prefer being able to choose my diet instead of being forceably fed something. In addition, I would no longer be able to see my family and friends. This is how I see animals that end up in zoos. Morally, it is just not fair for the animals.
Q3: Do you enjoy visiting zoos?
A3: I do find a certain amount of interest in visiting zoos, because I love seeing the diversity in animals. Biodiversity is not something that we get to see in the city, and as a result, visiting a zoo is a unique experience. However, I always have a guilty feeling when I'm in a zoo. Seeing the animals in tight enclosures, alone and depressed, can be very depressing at times. I don't believe it is ethical to keep animals in zoos as discussed in question 2. These guilty feelings make my visits to zoos quite rare, and it must have been at least 7 years since I last visited a zoo.
References:
- Women's Agricultural Community [Internet]. Who are women in agriculture? Retrieved on February 22, 2014 at [ http://www.safs.msu.edu/womenag/aboutus/worldwide.htm ]
- TEDGlobal. 2009. Eric Sanderson: New York -- before the City. ted.com [internet]. Retrieved on March 2, 2014 at [ http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_sanderson_pictures_new_york_before_the_city.html ]
- Easton, Thomas A. Classic Edition Sources - Environmental Studies, 4th Edition. New York. McGraw Hill. 2012. p. 121-125, 180-183 and 33-40.
No comments:
Post a Comment