Adapting to Climate Change: Do We Have the Right Answer Yet?

For this post, I want to build off of my previous post a bit and vary a little from our theme of race and gender, although race and gender are certainly not missing from this discussion.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend two events on adapting to climate change. I was initially excited to attend, as the speakers were excellent and I had done research on adaption to climate change in the past. My research had been on the necessity of adapting to the effects of climate change like building sturdier houses to withstand flooding, or making changes to water storage methods to prepare better for droughts.

These events shared none of those feelings. Rather than discussing how people will have to adapt to climate change, the information presented focused on the ‘benefits’ of climate change — namely, that certain latitudes (the ones the United States, Europe and most developed countries happen to be in) will actually benefit from the warming of the globe. With an increase in warmth, agriculture can flourish more in the lower latitudes, while areas in the higher latitudes around the equator will not benefit from the warmer weather. I'm sorry...we're going to talk about benefits of climate change to developed countries??? Just omit the fact that millions of people with become climate refugees when their homes are demolished by floods. Or the millions of people who will starve because they cannot afford the upkeep on their farms anymore because climate change has pushed food prices up.

Another point made by these climate experts was that there is no concern for water scarcity, because climate change will actually bring more precipitation. Just how that precipitation would occur was not mentioned, nor was how people would be able to collect precipitation that came down in the form of blizzards, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Yes, there will be more precipitation and that will help the higher latitudes grow their argibusiness. But the more intense storms and droughts will do nothing to help or benefit the poorer people in the world, who btw, are mainly people of color. Coincidence that their concerns were not brought up by either of these institutions? I think not. If you ignore people of color, they will just go away, right?

My final point of contention with these events is that both were supposed to be about adapting to climate change in developing countries. Yet developing countries were brought up only a handful of times during both events. At the first event, a seminar at the Elliot School on George Washington University’s campus, developing countries were only referred to as ‘poor people’ and only mentioned to point out that poor people wouldn’t be able to adapt well, and that there wasn’t much hope for them. The speaker just glossed over that, as if they didn't matter. The seminar was only about the good that can come from climate change and how wonderful it will be for the US. Anything to get rid of the responsibility for climate change right? If we claim all the benefits, we don't have to acknowledge the impact of our actions or change the way we live.

At the second event, a mini-conference put together by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, developing countries were brought up as examples of potential markets for genetically engineered seeds and new agricultural technologies. Forget my feelings toward genetically modified food/seeds/ and the switch to ‘modern agriculture,’ the plan for developing countries to adapt to climate change involves opening them up as new markets for technology? Sounds too familiar -- do we really need to resurrect horrible neoliberal policies to screw around with markets even more??

I can manage to give the speaker and presenters at these two events credit for their science — the data for what they were looking at is legitimate. The problem was in what they left out of their models and business plans and scientific research: the people who will be affected. We can’t forget that there is a human face to climate change — and that it is fellow human beings that will be affected. Hearing leading policy makers in the efforts for climate change talk about people in developing countries as if they were disposable was really discouraging, and quite frankly, I was outraged. The key to adapting to climate change isn’t to ignore problems or try to ‘invent our way out’ of them, but to change our lifestyles to counteract what climate change we can no longer change, and prevent any future climate change. And I can't ignore the fact that the people they were forgetting are the same people that are already made invisible by our society's structure. How can anyone pretend that they are presenting on ways to adapt to climate change in developing countries when they clearly have no concern for anyone but the business paying for their research?

I heard a man from Syngenta, a genetically modified seed organization talk about how climate change would be great in opening up markets for them. I was glad to hear him admit that there were problems with their seeds, like the fact that bugs will adapt to them and other technological advances in herbicides, pesticides, and fertlizers. His response? They're excited to be able to present new product lines for their consumers. Excited??? That you're product failed? It doesn't matter that thousands of farmers lost their livlihoods due to those adatptions and now can't afford your new products...those silly small farmers aren't the future of agriculture anyway. It's all about big aribusiness. The solution to all of this was to celebrate the big farmers. Syngenta-man said that organic farming is a fad and not really good for the environment...and pesticides and herbicides and genetically modified foods are??

If we use the model of big agribusiness as the success story, and add the fact that climate change will make farming harder to do in developing countries, then the result is that we have large factory farms producing primarily feed crops and not able to produce the necessary food to sustain a population. This is a problem. Solution? Stop pretending that we know what's best for farming (we killed the small farm industry in the US) and stop pretending that we can just invent our way out of the problem and stop pretending that people of color do not matter. They do.

Sorry for the length. Very Very Angry about this (clearly). Thoughts are welcome!

Read more...

Human Rights: Who Decides?

The past two days I had the opportunity to get knee deep in water at a Right to Water conference in Syracuse NY. While there is so much that I could sit and write about regarding water, water, rights, women and water, I won't. Mostly because it would take forever. But you should ask me about it (seriously. ask). There is one thing that really resonated with me as a place where the discussion about the right to water clearly demonstrated the intersections of race and human rights. One presenter, Rocio Magana, spoke about criminalizing water.

Before I summarize her main points, I want to throw out some ideas about the right to water, the right of water, and water rights. The right to water is often framed in a human rights discussion -- basically that all humans have a right to access to clean water because it is necessary to live. The right of water is more of an ecological approach, talking about the respect that water deserves and thus it should be clean. Water rights include things like rights to fish in streams, ownership of water etc.

Ok so back to Rocio. Her presentation focused on the case of a man being taken to court in Las Vegas for littering in a national park. What was he found to be littering? Gallon jugs of water he was leaving for migrants trying to cross the Sonara Desert just over the border from Mexico. The man is just one of the many volunteers and organizations that work to provide water for these migrants. Thousands of migrants die of dehydration, heat stroke, and other heat related illnesses when trying to cross the desert. These group function on the principle that no one should be denied water regardless of where they come from or whether they are legal immigrants or not.

Obviously, border patrol and other civilian border control groups are not a fan of these groups. The migrants are illegally crossing the border in the United States and should not be aided in any way.

So here are my questions for you: Where should humanitarian aid stop? We are talking about people dying in this country -- so many that they can't even collect them all from the desert. Does anyone deserve to die of thirst? Yes they are crossing illegally, but once they are here, I think they should be treated as citizens and given the right to water. No one should be denied that right. To me, it is the same as seeing that someone is starving, having plenty of food in front of you, and not giving her any of your food. It is consciously depriving someone of what they need to survive, and who are we to deny someone that? Doesn't that makes us akin to murderers?

The water being handed out is free, it comes straight from a tap (no bottled water here!!!) and the empty jugs are picked up and recycled in most cases. The water jugs are placed along trails that are thought to be frequented by migrants. This is not a program where the volunteer stand along the trail to hand out water, like at a race. The jugs are left in certain areas for migrants to come across. This is why the only charge that can stick is a littering charge, and the groups are using that charge to call into question the definition of garbage (is laying out something that would sustain life really the same as throwing garbage out?) and to come out in greater numbers.

If we define water as a human right, how can we deny the right to water to a group of people -- specifically one race of people? It seems to me that this borders on the realm of eugenics. One race is denied a basic human right with the intention that they would die without it. I realize that may be going a little far, but I think its important to think about this in that framework of human rights. Who deserves the basic human rights and who does not? and who gets to decide?

Thoughts?

Read more...

The Bachelorette and Feminism

First a confession: I watch the Bachelor. Religiously. It is trashy and goes against so many of my values but I just can't help it. It's delicious trashy fun. I would like to think that I will be able to resist this next season, but the truth is that I will probably watch the new Bachelorette despite the huge major issues I have with it. I fully acknowledge my hypocrisy here.

In case you are not also an avid watcher of trash TV, let me fill you in. Jake, the most recent bachelor, was down to four women. One of his top four, Ali, found out that if she did not go back to work the next week she would lose her job. (I'm assuming that she was taking all of her vacation time + unpaid leave time and was hoping that if she got this far in the competition, she would be able to work something out with her employer.) She was really upset, because she was "falling in love" with Jake, and didn't know whether to quit her job and take a chance on it working out, or go back to her job and wonder what could have happened with them. So far, I totally get this. For women in our mid-twenties, work and relationships have major roles in our live and when they conflict, there is going to be dissonance and some emotional decisions to make. She and Jake have long, tortured, tearful talks in which he tells her that he is definitely planning to give her a rose this week, but cannot guarantee if she will make it to the final one. To me, that's kind of a major red flag, Ali. If someone REALLY loves you, even if you're on a game show, he would be willing to break the rules, and tell you he wants to be with you, no matter the consequences. He begs her to stay (which he knows means she will be let go), although the most he can offer her is a spot in his "final three" (AKA the sex dates). Eventually, she said "I have to go" and my inner feminist cheered. Here was a woman who had found a career that she enjoyed and a job that she loved, and was not willing to sacrifice it on an off chance! A woman who showed that modern women need men who are willing to build a life that includes their career goals, rather than men who want you to deny your own needs for his! Could it be? A woman on the bachelorette faced a realistic relationship issue and decided to put herself first!

Nope. I should have known better. The next episode showed Ali phoning Jake and begging to come back (although the massively staged nature of this scene leads me to conclude it was actually added in later), and him telling her that he's moved on. (Those overnight dates must have been pretty great if he is now willing to cut off the woman who he couldn't live without last week!) She wails that she "made a mistake" by choosing work over love! Now, she is back as the next Bachelorette (and considering the time demands of filming, and the fact that she has apparently used all of her allotted vacation time for the year anyway, I'm guessing the job is history) and the spin is: this time, I won't let love slip away! I've learned my lesson, and I will never sacrifice love for a job ever again!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!

1. This is inherently a false dichotomy. Women, if you are in a position where you are forced to choose between career and relationship, look more closely. In a good relationship, both people make sacrifices. BOTH people. Sometimes, you may have to give up your needs for your spouse, but sometimes it should be the other way around. A good husband (Hi Randy!) wants you to be successful, and wants you to explore your career options. When problems like this come up, you solve them together. You find a solution that works for best for you as a couple, whatever that may be.

2. The man wants you to give up a good job (according to the internet, a marketing position at Facebook) in a terrible economy but is not willing to make any concessions on his part. That is an ultimatum. Get out.

3. Finally, the feminist issue: this whole "whoops, silly me, thinking I needed a job to be happy when what I really need is a man!" seems a little too fifty years ago. She is sending a message that a job is a way you while away your time until you meet the man of your dreams. I thought we were past that. (*note: this does not mean that choosing to be a stay at home parent after marriage is anti-feminist. if that is a choice made by both spouses that best meets the needs of the family, than that's the best thing for that family. see #1.) Women need to develop their own independent identities in order to be able to fully enter into a loving adult partnership. Doing so does not mean that you're giving up love in favor of you. It means that you are sure enough in your own identity to wait for a relationship that embraces and strengthens that identity. Read more...

Color-blind or color-conscious?

A friend on mine passed this article onto me awhile back, and it's been sitting in the back of my mind since then -- this part especially:

We’re very comfortable now talking to our kids about gender stereotypes: we tell our kids that women can be doctors and lawyers. Heck, Barbie can be a computer engineer! What Bronson and Merryman point out is that we should say the same thing about race: doctors can be any skin color.

So often in my classes we use race as a kind of marker, or blueprint for how gender should be discussed. I'm not sure I've had a class were we didn't compare the issues of gender to the issues of race. Has gender really surpassed race as something that is mainstreamed? Does it signal the end of feminism (making my chosen field completely irrelevant...)? Or is it just easier for white parents to talk about gender equality than it is to talk about racial equality?

Sometimes I wonder if we've made it so difficult to have an honest, open discussion about either race or gender through our desire to not offend anyone. I'm in no way advocating a less-PC world, or one where we can all just say what we're thinking all the time -- respect for people's differences is too important. I am wondering if we've made it so hard to make a space where these questions can be answered truthfully that it's easier/better to just be 'color blind' or 'gender blind' which as the article points out, doesn't help anything.

On the other hand, its dangerous to go too far in the other direction too. I recently attended a forum when one of the speakers spoke about how there was a need for development programs to be gender-neutral because men were being forgotten. Her point was that we should have a more community focused approach that aimed to help both men and women, but it's a statement that comes from the backlash against feminism in global development -- all the programs focusing on women have left men out in the cold or turned men's lives on their heads. We are not ready yet for development programs to be gender-neutral -- they are still not gender-equal.

Its almost as if we push so hard for things to look equal that we force it to be so before its ready. We are so anxious for the fantasy of a color-blind society to be real that we make it so, at the cost of teaching real understanding. Rather than teaching that race or gender doesn't matter to achievement, we teach that there's no such thing as race differences. There's a fine line out there somewhere. Thoughts on where that is?

Read more...

What is race?

I have talked about race a lot in my life. I have thought about it even more. (The whole growing-up-biracial thing tend to do that.) I realized today, though, that I'm still not sure exactly what that is. My urban education class just finished reading Jay MacLeod's Ain't No Makin' It, which looks at a small sample of "project kids" and their experiences over twenty years. (Quite an interesting read.) Some of them (mostly white) have checked out of the system, rejecting school because they don't think that it will make any difference in their circumstances. Another group (mostly black) are determined to play the game and make something of themselves by graduating from high school. The results are varied (and the sample size is small), but to me the most startling aspect was how much worse off the black students who checked out of the game ended up than their mostly white friends- although all were poor, addicted to drugs, and had frequent run-ins with the police. It seems as though race matters more than attitude, even among people in the same socioeconomic class. Now I am wondering: what do I do with this? The truth is, working hard will not necessarily fix your problems when the deck is so stacked against you, but not working at all makes things even worse.
Back to my original question: what is race? I have no idea. To some extent its a social construct, but it has a physical (biological) aspect as well. The genetics of race are still hazy (are you what you have the most genes of? How do you define someone with genes from multiple races, which is most of us these days?) Race affects how people view you and how you view others. It can be a way to define who is like you and who is not. It gets tangled up with ethnicity and appearance. Race can mean skin color or eye shape. It can mean who you were raised by. Although race has played such a major role in how I think about the world, I have trouble coming up with a concise definition of just what it means. Thoughts? Read more...