Category Archives: aid and imperialism

Roundtable: Local/Global (9:30-11)

In this session, we learned of both local (Middlebury) and global (Bangladesh and NE Brazil) health and sustainability projects.

Abul Hussam, Center for Clear Water and Sustainability Technologies, Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry, George Mason University.

Dr. Hussam’s project originated because his family has been drinking water laced with arsenic, a huge problem in Bangladesh.  His talk emphasized sustainable technologies (SONO arsenic filter) and the social implications, though he dealt less with this aspect.

He highlighted 3 UN Millennium Goals that his project is tackling:

  1. MG1: eradication of extreme poverty and hunger
  2. MG7: ensuring environmental sustainability (water <>sanitation<>hygiene)
  3. MG8: develop a global partnership for development

Water is interconnected with sanitation and hygiene — the problem of sanitation has to be solved simultaneously.  In Bangladesh, people get their water from 5 sources:

  1. surface water, the most popular and dangerous
  2. groundwater (tube- wells) — where we find a lot of arsenic
  3. deep tube wells
  4. dug wells
  5. rainwater harvesting (very difficult to do  because if it sits it develops bacteria and other organic “things” and it has to be filtered quickly, which is difficult and expensive)

People who drink water with arsenic for long periods develop Arsenicosis, which can look like this.  Thus, from arsenicosis multiple problems arise: marginalization, lack of opportunity, and the labeling “poor.”  Arsenicosis is a disease of poverty.

So Dr. Hussam and colleagues developed the Sono arsenic filtration system.  They’ve been able to get this filter to thousands, but new technologies have to be developed and the commercial segment has to enter into the picture thus lowering costs.  It took 2 years to get people to buy into the filters because once the water is cleaned it tastes different and people were used to drinking their polluted water and saw this as the “right” water.

Maria Carmen Lemos, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan

Professor Lemos’ work concerns how people use information, particularly climate change, to make informed decisions about development.  She said that all issues of development are linked to — or have to be linked to climate change since it affects everything we do.  The affects of climate are not distributed evenly. For instance, those who have affect climate change the most, will be least affected by these changes; those that have affected climate change the least, the poor,for instance, will be most affected.

She gave us a vulnerability function, which makes a lot of sense: Vf(E,S, AC) = Vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

The rest of her talk focused on Adaptive Capacity:

  • the ability of a system to adjust to climate change, to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope w/ consequences
  • set of resources, and the ability to employ these resources, that are prerequisites to adaptation

Thus, Adaptive Capacity is a positive (+). But we’ve lived with the notion that more is better — more knowledge, more spaces, more of everything is better (sounds like McKibben, here, in our reading/syllabus).  More, says the professor, has failed so we have to change this idea.

How do we reframe adaptive capacity in climate change since the following characteristics [of adaptive capacity] make it difficult? :

  • latent nature
  • dynamic
  • lack of baseline date
  • difficult to measure
  • what scale?
  • there are many unknowns (such as how do we measure social capital?)

She advocates a 2 tier approach: Generic (income, education, health, safety, political access) and Specific (drought response, disaster relief, climate information)

You have to build adaptive capacity before the disaster, before the risk becomes manifest.

Dr.  Brian Saltzman, Dentist, Middlebury, Vermont, Open Door Clinic, Addison County

Most prevalent childhood disease in childhood is dental decay.  Dr. Saltzman is therefore tackling this issue through his Open Door Clinic and through education, focusing on the marginalized, particularly the migrant worker.

He spoke about “Dental IQ,” which is the knowledge  of diets and foods, which really comes into play with socio-economics.

Dr. Saltsman sees EDUCATION as the primary problem and the solution — we need more people and more bodies to help in this.

Panel: Finding Meaning

2 Replies

The main idea of the panel was to discuss the complicated issue of global health. The first speaker was Katherine Ott, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.  She argued how culture relates to the issue of public health. Ott says, “We live in a world surrounded by stuff,” referring to the material objects that control and manipulate our society. She discusses the fact that medicine has extended its purpose into mainstream society. It is no longer just a remedial drug, something used to help people recover, but it is now a part of everyday life. With this progression, society has also developed a fear of medicine such as date rape drugs and workout pills.  This transformation from a drug used strictly to help people to something that assists and enhances many facets of someone’s life shows how society has become just as concerned if not more concerned with profit and material wealth as the well being of humans.

The other speaker was Richard Keller, a professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  He suggested that medicine was essential in building strong empires which is a concept taken directly from Dr. Paul Chatinieres.  Throughout history, powerful nations such as the United States and France have offered medicine to people in underdeveloped countries.  Keller questions why these institutions would provide such help. To most it may seem as if these powerful nations are providing help to be moral and helpful but in reality, some countries are simply trying to gain more resources and expand their nation. There seems to be a linked distrust in two areas you might not necessarily expect- warfare and medicine. In both cases, less fortunate countries are concerned about the help that “wealthier” or more advanced countries are providing. For example, in Morocco, a French based country, Hubert Lyautey stresses the necessity and power of physicians due to their ability to assist and save the lives of those who are suffering. In addition, in recent time, Colin Powell talks about the importance of NGOs  and how they are an important part of our combat team. Obviously the military is the most significant facet, but Powell considers the NGOs almost as important due to their daily interaction with the people in these struggling nations. Due to the language barrier and the dissimilarities of their culture, citizens of impoverished countries do not believe the intentions of countries such as America to be honorable. For instance, David Brooks talks about how many countries such as Haiti resist assistance of different cultures which is often the cause of their problems. There is an existence of a voodoo religion which some believe causes Haitian people to reject and resist outside help. As a result, they are are unable to deal with problems such as the earthquake.

-AJ and Joey