Geoengineering: People vs. Planet?

1 Reply

A new method of potentially earth-saving technology has come about, but its consequences may outweigh its benefits. Geoengineering is the process of changing the earth’s climate in order to counteract global warming. Scientists have adapted this idea and a large part of their evidence has come from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991.

This massive eruption in the Philippines released 20 million tons of Sulfur Dioxide into the atmosphere. These particles of Sulfur reflected the suns rays back into space and lowered the earth’s average temperature by half a degree. Scientists are looking to utilize the same earth-cooling process without erupting any more volcanoes.

One plan to use Geoengineering was introduced to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity. This plan entails releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere in order to cool the earth’s temperature. In addition to its effective results, this process would also be very cheap.

On the other side of the argument, some people are worried about the affects that these changes could have on our life. Is global cooling worth the potential for drastic rain changes that could cause massive issues in areas of the world that depend on constant rainfall? As of now, Geoengineering is halted until the scientific research has been concluded and regulations have been set up.

Obama visits India

President Obama is on a trip to Asia to promote economic relations between United States and the region. He is spending three of the ten day visit in India, where he has been welcomed with open arms. However the students at St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai, asked some tough questions during his talk there. In India, Obama Faces Questions From Students, a article in the New York Times, discusses some of the questions asked by the students. For example, one of the questions that piqued my interest was about Pakistan, and why the United States hasn’t labeled it a “terrorist state”?  Granted that this is India, there was bound to be questions regarding Pakistan, however, India needs to take a look at itself.

Like Pakistan, India has also not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation  Treaty, which calls for non-proliferation, disarmament, and peaceful use of nuclear energy. India is an asset to the US, especially considering its proximity to China, and its developing market, but is it right for us to overlook certain qualms to achieve a peaceful relationship with India?

Environmental Justice Scorecard

1 Reply

Hey everyone,

I thought I’d share the environmental justice mapper since Cire and I didn’t have a chance to in class.  Scorecard is a pollution information site that provides information on environmental justice and distribution of environmental burdens.  I entered in the zip codes of some major U.S. cities, and if you’re interested, try entering your hometown.  There isn’t data for every town, though.  Also keep in mind that the numerical values on the bar graphs are indicators rather than actual pounds of pollution released or actual number of cancer cases.  Here’s a website to look up zipcodes if you don’t know them: Zip Code Database.

-Nick

Canada Declares BPA, a Chemical in Plastics, to be Toxic

1 Reply

I thought I’d share this article about a chemical widely found in plastics that is thought to be toxic (at least by the Canadians). I came across this article for biology because we’ve been learning about hormones and the chemical in the article, bisphenol A or BPA, is thought to act as an endocrine disrupter. But I also thought it related to our class, especially in how different governments have reacted and the role that industry has played.

Just food for thought…

  • How large a role should the federal government play in protecting the health of their citizens? (vs. states, health agencies, etc.)                                                                                                                                                                                                     “In the United States, about half a dozen states have banned BPA in children’s products. The federal government has taken no action, saying there is no proof of harm in humans. But health and regulatory agencies have concerns about BPA and have commissioned more studies.”
  • How is it that Britain and the U.S found it to not be toxic, while Canada, France, and Germany did (based on the same scientific evidence?)                                                                                                                                                                          What does this show about these countries interests? (Note the line: “Canada’s move, which was strenuously fought by the chemical industry….”)
    What makes Canada so different?
  • Do you think the American Chemistry Association’s argument, that Canada’s announcement will “unnecessary confuse and alarm the public”, is legitimate?
  • Why do some health issues get more media attention than others?
    “The compound was formally listed as being toxic to both the environment and human health in an official notice published online by the government without fanfare, a noticeable contrast to the earlier baby bottle announcement, which was made by two cabinet ministers.”
  • Does BPA’s high prevalence in products add or take away from an argument against it?

Also, I noticed that even though the federal government has not declared BPA to be a toxic substance, water bottle companies like Nalgene are still now making “BPA free” bottles…..

A Man Like Christopher Hitchens Doesn’t Come Around Too Often

1 Reply

A Man Like Christopher Hitchens Doesn’t Come Around Too Often

Christopher Hitchens is an exceptional and highly controversial writer. He has authorized many books including god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Why Orwell Matters, and The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. He contributes regularly to Vanity Fair and Slate. After being recently diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus Charlie Rose arranged an interview with him to look back on his life. Hitchens led a bohemian existence as a writer. It is only relatively recently that he has not been living pay-check to pay-check. Friendship, writing, alcohol, cigarettes, sex and books defined his lifestyle. Despite this outward appearance as an indulgent intellectual he is a brave and humble man. Rose pointed out his courage, loyalty and consistency displayed over the years. Hitchens has put himself in numerous potentially career-ending and life-ending situations. Rose asked if he could summate his life as a fight for freedom, to which Hitchens modestly dismissed as a grandiose claim. But Rose is right. His life really has been a fight for freedom.

Htichens’ father was a navy commander. Like George Orwell – whom he wrote a book about – Hitchens did not like the empire or the armed service, but was brought up under its ethics. As a boy he emulated the flinty virtues of duty and courage, and continues to today. He said he felt honored to have been a friend of Salman Rushdie. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling on all Muslims to kill Rusdie because of his blasphemous book The Satanic Verses.  Hitchens passionately fought for his friend and continues to fight for free expression. Since then has appeared on numerous news and talk shows defending the Danish cartoonist. Hitchens admires Tony Blair despite his unpopularity when he takes risks for points of principle. Blair saved Sierra-Lionne and smashed the RUF, which effectually prevented another Rwanda. He respects Blair when he said ‘we cannot coexist with totalitarian ideologies’. As a result of this openness Blair was pursued with defamation and slander.

Hitchens is a man of principle. Critics have attacked Hitchens for his apparently sudden shift in politics to supporting the Iraq war. He explained that his support of the Iran-Iraq invasion should have been expected; “the one thing I have been is consistently anti-totalitarian”. He was maintaining his loyalty to the Iraqi-Kurdish opposition to Hussein when they were being massacred. In fact, in many of his public appearances the Kurdish flag can be seen on his lapel.  The theocratic dictatorship in the Middle East is an amalgam of everything Hitchens opposes: fascism, genocide, totalitarianism and theocracy. According to Hitchens, the one-party state is a fantasy. The utopian idea that humans can be hammered into another compulsory state cannot be brought about. Only misery is caused by the attempt.

Hitchens still defends the Iran-Iraq invasion. Saddam Hussein was measurable distance from nuclear weaponry and “if a fight was picked I’d rather it be on our terms than theirs”. Hussein’s goal was to complete the national outline of Iraq and Kuwait was the missing province. To say the very least he was not pleased when Saddam Hussein was in power. The war allowed an attempt at a federal constitution. Disputes between Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish would have been solved at the electoral level. The hope was for Iraq to control its own resources, have free press, and create Kurdish autonomy.

Hitchens is an extraordinary man in many ways; he once said his daily intake of alcohol was enough to kill or stun the average mule. Joking aside, the virtues shown by Christopher Hitchens are truly worth emulating. His courage, enthusiasm and dedication are inspiring. Vanity Fair still sees articles written by him despite all his time spent in recovery and chemotherapy.  “I’m leaving the party earlier than I’d like”. This is the side of ‘The Hitch’ we love. We know that he wants to be out there right now.

Here is the interview: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11168

Understanding Social Determinants of Health

1 Reply

Understanding the Social Determinants of Health: Breaking the Link between Poverty and Health

Brown graduates working with Project Health (program where college students work in local health clinics) based in Providence, Rhode Island. Samantha Murder (Program Manager) and Hanna Nichols (National Talent and Technology Coordinator)

Cycle of Poverty

  • MONEY is needed for healthy food, healthy housing, childcare (so you can go to work), education and school, clothing (job interviews), health care, utilities, medicine
  • in order to get money you need a JOB
  • in order to have a job, you need EDUCATION

Need education and a good job for money, but need money for education and chance for a job! Not a linear path and a difficult cycle to enter.

Project Health works to provide resources and knowledge.

Social Determinants of Health- “economic and social conditions under which people live which determine their health”

  • The Big Five: Food, housing, energy, education, and employment/insufficient income.
  • Shaped by the distribution of money, power, and resources (influenced by policy choices)
  • Social determinants are mostly responsible for health inequities

What do we mean by Poor?

Mentioned that the federal poverty line has been used a lot throughout the symposium as a measure of poverty. They stressed that people are struggling for money well above the federal poverty line. The federal poverty line for a family of 4 is $22,050, but, in suburban Illinois for instance, a family needs at least $58,000 for necessities (study done by NCCP -see budget calculator)

FOOD

Food insecurity greatly increases likelihood for poor health (ex. low birth weight for mothers)

Compared nationally, Vermont is doing well, subsidized lunches and breakfasts at school are critical (50% of kids in Essex county use this) Essex also has high levels of low birth weight.

What’s out there? Resources to combat food insecurity

ENERGY

Heat or eat?

Energy insecure households- 22% increased chance of being hospitalized since birth

What’s out there?

  • LIHEAP (covers a large amount of monthly winter heating bill, if you can’t meet cutoff your utilities will be shut off- difficult to pay back. Grants are getting smaller)
  • local neighborhood funds
  • Special protections for disabilities
  • Payment plans (utilites prefer some money)

HOUSING

Related to health. Household mold (makes you 2.2 times more likely to experience asthma!), cockroaches, cold, lead poisoning, unsafe housing conditions, stress from not being able to pay rent contribute to asthma and low nutrition, hospitalizations, poor health

Housing is considered not affordable when it costs more than 30% of income.

Housing in context- Vermont. Top 10 occupations in Vermont include retail salespeople, cashiers, janitors and cleaners- none of whom have a salary high enough to pay for housing. Not a livable salary! Poverty is “not just about getting a job”

What’s out there

  • public subsidized housing (projects)
  • private subsidized housing (contracted out)
  • housing choice voucher Program (Section 8)- pay up to 30% of income and government pays rest- HARD TO GET, 5 to 8 year wait for voucher in Rhode Island
  • shelters
  • transitional housing
  • rental assistance
  • legal action- something unsafe in house- legal pressure on landlord (less expensive than moving)

EDUCATION

They highly suggested the film “Waiting for Superman”! (check out the trailer)

What’s out there

  • GED classes
  • ESOL classes (English is 2nd language)
  • Adult basic education
  • Computer literacy
  • Child enrichment
  • Head start and early head start (includes literacy classes for parents, checkup for kids, losing seats right now)

INSUFFICIENT INCOME/ EMPLOYMENT

Related to obesity and other health issues. Not knowing what will happen raises stress and sickness- lack of locus of control.

People below the poverty line live an average of 9.6 health adjusted years less than Americans above the poverty line!

What’s out there

  • Child care subsidies
  • Food stamps

PROJECT HEALTH

Founder noticed underlying health problems involved with evictions

Doctors could do nothing for patients suffering from unemployment, poor housing.

Student in project health connect families to resources/volunteers. For example, they often connect families to food pantries or call utilities to arrange payment plans.

HOW THEY WORK

  • guided referrals
  • resource knowledge
  • identification of barriers
  • creative solutions
  • education
  • advocacy
  • connections

Conversations about food security and housing are important to both doctors and patients, but those conversations weren’t happening. Health services often don’t have the time or the knowledge to refer people, which is where Project Health steps in. Project Health also works to collect data that can be used in advocacy movements and campaigns.

Located in 6 cities, with 600 volunteers, and has helped over 5,000 families.

If you’re interested, check them out here!

The Corrosion of America

5 Replies

Bob Herbert writes, in The Corrosion of America, that, “Aging and corroded pipes are bursting somewhere every couple of minutes. Dilapidated sewer systems are contaminating waterways and drinking water. Many local systems are so old and inadequate — in some cases, so utterly rotten — that they are overwhelmed by heavy rain.”

This is creating a very dangerous situation throughout the US.  And if you look at this “corrosion” and couple it to Fred’s post, below, about poverty, then

If this were a first-class society we would rebuild our water systems to the point where they would be the envy of the world, and that would bolster the economy in the bargain. But that would take maturity and vision and effort and sacrifice, all of which are in dismayingly short supply right now.

We can’t even build a railroad tunnel beneath the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York.

Improving water systems — and infrastructure generally, if properly done — would go a long way toward improving the nation’s dismal economic outlook. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, every dollar invested in water and sewer improvements has the potential to increase the long-term gross domestic product by more than six dollars. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created if the nation were serious about repairing and upgrading water mains, crumbling pipes, water treatment plants, dams, levees and so on.

Millions of jobs would be created if we could bring ourselves to stop fighting mindless wars and use some of those squandered billions to bring the nation’s infrastructure in the broadest sense up to 21st-century standards.

Harlan Beckley – US Poverty “It’s Time to be Ashamed”

6 Replies

I attended the Student Organized Symposium’s (Topic of US Poverty) opening lecture today. Dr. Harlan Beckley gave insightful presentation on the ethics of the US poverty rate, while focusing on how to aid the more disadvantaged communities. Working closely with Washington and Lee University and Middlebury Alumni, Nancy Shepherd, Beckley is the founding program director for the Shepherd Program, which is a program that promotes the academic study of poverty and human capability to undergraduate and law students. The program strives to combine this academic rigor with the personal experience of its students. The resulting goal is a cognitive approach and initiative to engage in various endeavors to counter this rising conflict. I found that Beckley himself exemplified this in his lecture by combining his mastery of economics with the behavioral struggles poverty causes.

Beckley commenced by explaining that the set poverty rate for a US household of four is under $22,000 and currently 14.3% of the US population lives under that statistic.  What’s even more disappointing is the break-up of that percentage. Both Single Parents and 31% of people who have not acquired a high school diploma directly affect the high poverty rate. As a developed nation, it is essential that we have an organized method of countering this portion, but I feel there is a reluctance of the public to look for these statistics rather than maintaining an “Illusion of Happiness” that doesn’t confront this reality. Yet, the sad truth is still that one in every five children currently lives under impoverished conditions, and if you are Black/Latino your chances of living below the poverty line are also multiplied by three.  Our infant mortality rate is also repulsively higher than most developed nations, confirming 21 countries with better rates. Yet, Beckley also pointed out however that the poverty rate for citizens above the age of 65 has been reduced as a result of social security. So if we can identify an importance in protecting our elderly in this system, than why not our infants and children? Why can’t we improve living conditions for our bottom wing? Is this the result of inequity of voice in our society?

I also found remarkable how Beckley compared the Poverty Rate to Per Capita GDP. His statistics exhibited that Per Capita GDP of a nation may rise, but the poverty rate does not have to fluctuate as a result. So a nation can undergo vast economic growth and while having half of its citizens still below the poverty line. I was shocked to see Beckley’s statistic, which illustrated a wage comparison between the poorest wings in the USA to that of Germany. The lowest economic branch of US Citizens, still having a Per Capita GDP that is 20% greater than Germany, collect less than half the wages of the lowest Germans. This is the income inequality that the forces society to have unequal environmental concern, and class struggle. If wages aren’t going to be properly distributed, how can we expect market forces to act accordingly? This also made me wonder, if GDP wasn’t even a recorded statistic, could the US possibly be considered a developing country?

A reason we study history is to learn not repeat the same political mistakes our species has made in the past. However, we still consistently make the same mistakes in other things, like how we value numbers. Would it be ranting to be connecting the “Illusion of Wealth” our GDP creates to the “Illusion of Wisdom” in our SAT scores? If not, that comparison should run parallel to a history lesson.

Here’s a link to the Shepherd Program: http://www.wlu.edu/x12034.xml

Commenting on Is there hope?

Personally I believe that the move to detergents with less phosphates is a step in the right direction. Rarely have producers knowingly lowered the quality of their goods to become more environmentally friendly. Usually, corporations only try to “go green” as long as it doesn’t hinder their economic success. Although this change is coming as a result of government interference and not because groups such as Cascade are voluntarily altering their products, it is still comforting that some people out there are beginning to make at least moderate changes. However, despite the good intentions behind the switch to detergents with less phosphates and although I view it as a positive, it will take a while for the public to buy into this concept. The reasoning for going green in this case was to help preserve lakes and reservoirs that these harmful phosphates enter and pollute. Yet, this is not the main concern of the consumer. Fortunately, more and more states are starting to force companies such as Cascade to decrease the amount of phosphates in the detergents, but when given the option of buying a product of high quality that is harmful to the environment, or one that is “green” but will leave your dishes almost as dirty as when you put them in the dishwasher, people are going to go with the former, at least for now. Just look at the article. Quote after quote, people are saying things like, “this is the worst product ever made for use as a dishwashing detergent.” It’s a sad truth, but most people are going to look out for themselves first, and the world after.

In addition, many people feel that this switch to environmentally friendly detergents is futile because although there may be less phosphates in them, the new methods required to successfully wash one’s dishes are almost as hazardous to our planet. For instance, one of the negative quotes that particularly caught my eye was that of Thena Reynolds, a 55 year old from Texas. She says, “If I’m using more water and detergent, is that saving anything?” when talking about how she has to do the dishes twice to fully clean them. She feels that the move was too extreme and that there should be a “happy medium somewhere.” I hate to bring up economics in an environment class but this quote made me think of one of the basic principles of econ- weighing costs and benefits. Yes, lakes and streams will most definitly benefit from the move to less phosphates but if people are going to be wasting more water and detergent, as well as leaving their tap water running as many tend to do if they are washing their dishes by hand, is the change even worth it? Clearly detergents with many phosphates and detergents with less phosphates have their flaws, but in deciding which path to go down, we should consider which will be more beneficial to us as a whole in the long run-personal interests aside. So to answer Joey’s two questions at the end of his post, I do think this is the start of a trend of changes that will help the environment, but it is a very small one. No one thing will completely get us out of a crisis but if this type of action and involvement in environmental issues, we will soon start improve. In order for this to happen though, the public must be on board. Corporations may not want to “go green” but things escalated to the point where they might need to. However, if the consumers refuse to buy their environmentally safe products, these changes are useless. They are not completely in the wrong for rejecting these new detergents, but not matter the changes that are going on, everyone has to be on the same page for anything to work. There cannot be a clash between the producers, or more directly, government policy, and the people.