tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79088481257460730302024-03-13T12:20:20.717-04:00My Munchable MusingsRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.comBlogger599125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-3759284765923185802021-01-01T03:58:00.001-05:002021-01-01T03:58:19.296-05:00What's the Year, Again?<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s my last Thursday in the office before running off on holidays for two weeks. Things have been pretty quiet in the Land Down Under, since Melbourne managed to quash its outbreak with a 112-day lockdown. The Aussies don’t mess around when it comes to public health. So when two new covid cases crop up in the Northern Beaches suburb of Sydney, they make headlines immediately. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-5f263cee-7fff-67d8-3482-a967f41044a5"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lpNk-yka7mU/X-7iLB1Eo7I/AAAAAAAADKo/izCHfxdc-aMVx_iF5orRqRpyaQFdRodfwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/PHOTO-2020-12-19-14-10-02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Don't worry, I got it!" border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lpNk-yka7mU/X-7iLB1Eo7I/AAAAAAAADKo/izCHfxdc-aMVx_iF5orRqRpyaQFdRodfwCLcBGAsYHQ/w240-h320/PHOTO-2020-12-19-14-10-02.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></span><p style="text-align: left;"><span>Friday begins with a 40-minute walk laden with a big pack on my back, a daypack on the front, and a couple of canvas bags with hiking boots I need to return, half a cauliflower, and a hungarian chili plant. While news continues to trickle in, the number of cases in Sydney growing to 28, I attempt productivity. My train leaves for Sydney at 5pm. We are heading to Tasmania for a grand adventure on Sunday. But by the time I make it to G’s house, other States have already banned anyone from the Northern Beaches from crossing their borders.</span></p><div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, the infected suburbs are not particularly close to the central part of Sydney, but I still mask up as I bravely enter a crowded shopping centre to return the shoes. Hardly anyone has a mask on, but until two days ago, there had been no COVID-19 cases in the community. Saturday ticks along at a leisurely pace, with a bit of packing and prep. And then it happens. Tasmania announces a mandatory two-week quarantine for anyone traveling from the Greater Sydney Region … in effect midnight. We’re supposed to be flying in less than 24 hours. The next few hours are a blur. Should we cancel? Should we quarantine? Why won’t the airline website let us cancel? All the trains back to Canberra are booked out for tomorrow? Did we eat dinner yet? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunday morning sourdough blueberry pancakes and virtual coffee club with friends overseas feels normal, relaxed. It’s early, but we have a plan. We’ll head back to Canberra on the first train on Monday morning, and work while waiting out the two weeks before being able to travel to Tasmania. Easy. I’m already packed. Too easy. We head out for an early evening cycle to the beach, just to breathe in the sea spray before heading inland once again. The calm of the little bay. The playful splashing and swimming. Ding. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hey Rachel, A friend just told me that ACT is closing the border to Greater Sydney, at midnight tonight … apparently hotel quarantine, even for residents.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Shoot. It’s already 7pm, a 3 ½ hour drive to Canberra, and we have no car. Do we try to hire a car? Not likely. Can we get the bus back tonight? Too late. Should we take the train tomorrow and just quarantine? Assuming the train still crosses the border… Should we stay in Sydney? What if there is another lockdown? For how long? Can we borrow a car?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two hours later I’m driving back to the house from a friend’s. It’s the first time in over a year I’ve driven an automatic. It feels funny. Smooth. Too easy. We throw everything in the car. We can make it back by 1am. That should be OK, right? Who will be at the border at the strike of midnight? Did we eat dinner? No. It takes a solid hour to emerge from the dancing lights of the metropolitan area, my glasses doing no favours responding to the lights. Then it’s smooth, monotonous, Simon-and-Garfunkel-filled driving back into the desolate capital city. We roll in bleary-eyed. Breathe out. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That weekend felt like a microcosm of the ups-and-downs year. While Australia has remained pretty far out of the pandemic fray, it is in no small part because of this decisive, yet abrupt action (and a generally willing population). I’ve had friends in the US argue that they have more cases in one hospital than all of Australia. Yet this has been paid for with long and stringent lockdowns, the emotional roller coaster of knowing a border could shut at any moment, and the uncertainty of when we’ll be able to leave the island to see family.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JYsY8Vlz_gk/X-7iczoLg2I/AAAAAAAADKw/i_mzJYfAQ2AIkUj5DTsVpm4ROcmcnluDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_4358.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Ah, the serenity!" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JYsY8Vlz_gk/X-7iczoLg2I/AAAAAAAADKw/i_mzJYfAQ2AIkUj5DTsVpm4ROcmcnluDgCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h240/IMG_4358.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">2020 has been mentally and emotionally <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-decision-fatigue-what-it-is-and-how-to-deal-with-it" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exhausting</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for everyone. It seems like a lifetime ago that we sat on the eve of the new year and decade. At the time, a raging fire season was the peak of our worries. But pandemic woes have overshadowed most everything else in 2020, including our environmental consciousness (though, perhaps exacerbated any election year stress). For one, the Trump administration has capitalised on the distraction to </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/21/trump-environmental-protections-rollback-climate-crisis" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accelerate environmental deregulation</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, plow on with an ecologically damaging border wall, and open up protected federal lands to drilling and mining. Unsurprisingly, this year will see an </span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7498239/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">uptick in waste generation</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - from just </span><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-total-tests-for-covid-19?time=2020-02-20..latest" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">over a billion tests worldwide</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, countless masks and materials for PPE, packaging from online shopping, and the shift to take-away meals and drinks. That paper also mentions the potential negatives of constant sanitiser and disinfectant use on ecological communities! On the positive side, researchers are finding that reduced travel has potentially contributed to </span><a href="http://sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201208162957.htm" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">improvements in air pollution and water quality</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> around the world. And, it has raised a bit of </span><a href="https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/impact-of-covid-19-lockdown" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">awareness that biodiversity loss</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> can lead to the rise of zoonotic diseases … now we just to do something about it!!</span></p><p></p><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So to end this long post, for this long year, I just want to acknowledge that it has been challenging no matter where you are in the world. But there have been bright spots*, and it’s important to keep those in sight! Here’s looking to a more sane, less eventful, and restorative 2021. Happy New Year!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take a peek at the preceding decade:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="http://bit.ly/35htSgY" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another Decade Bites the Dust - 2019</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="http://bit.ly/38RoJiz" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another Year in the Books - 2018</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://bit.ly/2DsB5lb" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Sun Sets on 2017</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://bit.ly/2ivbE7v" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Best of Times, The Worst of Times - 2016</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://bit.ly/1MIx3NA" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another Decade, Another Degree - 2015</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://bit.ly/1CSQ2pf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One Hodge-Podge of a Year - 2014</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2013/12/whats-cooking-new-years-resolution.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Year's Resolution - 2013</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/fifty-second-friday-year-in-food.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Year in Food - 2012</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/01/whats-cooking-new-year-empty-fridge.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Year, Empty Fridge - 2011</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2011/01/new-years-resolution.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A New Year's Resolution - 2010</span></a></p><h2 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2010/01/its-new-yearac.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's a New Year! - 2009</span></span></a></h2><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">* Did I mention I finished my last (fingers-crossed) bit of higher education, and received my PhD this year?</span></span></p></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-91735469133597886502020-12-13T06:18:00.000-05:002020-12-13T06:18:04.007-05:00Not Your Grandpa's Planet<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.legendsofamerica.com/yr-1919/2/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="700" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0AwGTP1iDMQ/X9X145Sk5MI/AAAAAAAADKE/_-Gxszm2E6MCK7EFRRKvvxYdJNNck2n_ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/SteelStrikeArrestPittsburgPA1919.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Wow, this post has taken a long time to go live. In part, it’s because I’ve felt a bit paralysed by how much has happened and changed in the intervening 18 months. I started writing this musing back in February 2019. My grandfather would have turned 100 at the end of that month. And it was hard to wrap my head around - how different life was a century ago and the change he must have seen during his 95 years. In 1919, the world’s population was hovering around 1.9 billion people, much of the world had just finished the “War to End all Wars” and formed the precursor to the United Nations (the League of Nations), the 19th Amendment that legalised women’s right to vote was ratified by the US congress (and went into effect in 1920), and the first transAtlantic flight was made. But times have changed. We now have <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/populations-around-world-changed-over-the-years" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7.7 billion people</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> occupying a globalised planet, with technological advances previously only dreamed about in science fiction. </span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-4c907510-7fff-41d2-99c8-cfabe88db890"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But perhaps the adjustments my grandfather would have had to make during his 95 years are actually not quite as astounding as the anticipated ones for my generation. While the world was a very different place 100 years ago, how quickly those shifts are happening seems to have increased. Change is a natural progression over time, with both positive and negative aspects. So while examining the changes occurring around us can be interesting, perhaps a more informative barometer in society are the rates at which these changes are taking place. The rate - in this case, some measure of the scale of change over a set period of time - gives a sense of how the changes we're experiencing in the here-and-now compare to those say 50 or 100 years ago. It is also useful when thinking about how people respond and adapt.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NBu2lKr-OaE/X9VqzhZAhfI/AAAAAAAADJ4/hpTo-E9o8-sQJzHdm_sVsg_fmT12lkABACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Jakarta-Skyline-from-Bund.jpg " imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="738" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5utalCU1huQ/X9X2OMm5NxI/AAAAAAAADKM/2MR5w3L35HYGJbb-X6CrNUO_Wt49FWLywCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/indonesia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>While I’d like to say entering a new decade in 2020 prompted this post, rate of change is actually something I started thinking about while in Indonesia. The shiny new subway system in Jakarta was set to open a month later, and I was astounded by how much development had occurred in the city over the past couple of years. Going back home to Seattle only reinforced these thoughts, as the city has been undergoing rapid development in the last half decade, with increasing wealth and population driven to the region. We see this around the world, with </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/12/why-hundreds-of-completely-new-cities-are-being-built-around-the-world" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">completely new cities being built</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/these-are-the-megacities-of-the-future" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">existing ones reaching scales</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> never before experienced in human history.</span><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it’s not just about the rate of development. In fact, one might argue that pales in comparison to the impacts of rapid progress of technology and subsequent impacts on society, the economy, and the environment. The phenomenon, the “</span><a href="https://www.nature.com/news/polopoly_fs/1.19431!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/530398a.pdf?origin=ppub" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Law of Accelerating Returns</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”, refers to exponential advances in technology, completely </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/2018/08/29/the-age-of-change-is-coming-and-these-tech-trends-will-drive-the-next-decades-economic-growth/?sh=7aa3351b31fd" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reshaping the world as we know it</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and suggests it may be difficult to even imagine where we will be in 100 years. I think Tim Urban in an article on ‘</span><a href="https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wait, but Why?</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’ about artificial intelligence (AI) articulates the issue well. He muses that “while 1500 and 1750 were very different, they were much less different than 1750 to 2015. The 1500 guy would learn some mind-bending shit about space and physics, he’d be impressed with how committed Europe turned out to be with that new imperialism fad, and he’d have to do some major revisions of his world map conception.” But to see the same extent of change as between 1750 and 2015, he might have to go “all the way back to about 12,000 BC, before the First Agricultural Revolution gave rise to the first cities and to the concept of civilization”.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="440" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cmCSQyacwBY/X9X2c277h-I/AAAAAAAADKQ/2g4IL4dMZ50Rl6Evp1lVeba1TXnMlWY3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/440px-Emergency_hospital_during_Influenza_epidemic%252C_Camp_Funston%252C_Kansas_-_NCP_1603.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Finally, it’s worth noting that one-hundred years ago, the world was just emerging from a global pandemic (H1N1 influenza strain), which killed around 50 million people and infected a third of the world’s population. While in some ways </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29036.The_Great_Influenza" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">it seems like we haven’t come very far</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> - COVID-19 is still raging a year in, politics and misinformation also counter productive efforts, and scientists race to find a “cure” - there are some key differences that make today an entirely different beast, largely due to technology. Social media, virtual communication tools, and widely accessible internet resources mean that we’re more connected than ever, in isolation. But it has also opened the door for an unprecedented reliance on technologies that are advancing at warp speed (check out </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/netflixs-the-social-dilemma-highlights-the-problem-with-social-media-but-whats-the-solution-147351" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The Social Dilemma</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Sometimes I wonder, as we absorb such massive changes so quickly, what are the long-term consequences? Are such enormous shifts desirable? And if not, what can be done to slow things down? While it may be that only time can tell, it may be necessary that we may not have that time. </span></div></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-52592831410954029892020-03-29T21:48:00.001-04:002020-03-30T03:10:38.285-04:00Climate In the Time of Coronavirus<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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“wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”<span class="authorOrTitle"> - Gabriel García Márquez,
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Love in the Time of Cholera
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Full disclosure, I haven't actually read Love in the time of Cholera (GGM of choice at uni was <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/320.One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude">One Hundred Years of Solitude</a>). But what I really wanted to write about right now, was the environment in these trying times of SARS-CoV-2 and its disease counterpart of CoViD-19. The scale and spread of this pandemic have increasingly dominated headlines since late January, when the cases in China began to make the international news. Yet during this time, there has also been concern that the all-consuming nature of dealing with a pandemic has already eclipsed some current natural disasters and may <a href="https://time.com/5795150/coronavirus-climate-change/">distract from making meaningful progress towards addressing another existential threat - climate change</a>. I'll start with the negatives, and end on a slightly more optimistic note.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/laika_ac/29211043425" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 0.5em;" title="Locust Swarm"><img alt="Locust Swarm" height="400" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/8420/29211043425_b31697086c_b.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Locust Swarm in Madagscar. Source:<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/laika_ac/29211043425"> Laika ac</a></td></tr>
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Yes, <a href="https://time.com/5795150/coronavirus-climate-change/">cancelled meetings and the prospect of economic recovery</a> are likely to derail negotiations and international coordination on climate action, but Mother Nature is letting herself be known in other ways that are just not getting the attention they deserve. And while <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">COVID-19 and complications has already killed over 30,000 people globally</a>, it is important to recognise that persistent <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/quick-facts-global-hunger">challenges like hunger</a> have profound impacts on far more people annually. Climate-change-exacerbated disasters this year have already undermined the ability of residents in many countries across the low latitudes to meet their food and livelihood needs.</div>
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In the last few months, locust swarms - t<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-51618188">he worst seen in 25 years</a> - have decimated crops in parts of Africa and the Middle East. Why are locust swarms <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20032020/locust-swarms-climate-change">more severe under climate change</a>? The likely culprit is a combination of higher CO2, warmer temperatures, and heavier rainfall from cyclones stimulating plant growth and ensuring both favourable breeding conditions and food supply for these little hoppers. Numbering in the billions, locusts can consume 80-100% of the crops in an infested region, furthering undermining food security for<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/locust-plague-climate-science-east-africa/"> tens of millions of people</a>.</div>
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In other news, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-06/vietnam-s-mekong-delta-declares-emergency-on-devastating-drought">Vietnam's Mekong Delta has experienced extreme drought and salinisation</a>, putting the country's major rice growing region at risk. In contrast, more <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/13/climate-crisis-blamed-for-rains-and-floods-that-have-killed-150-in-brazil">extreme rainfall has caused flooding and landslides in Brasil</a>. Finally, closer to my current home, people in Australia are still recovering from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/12/were-all-just-waiting-nsw-south-coast-residents-still-in-limbo-three-months-after-bushfires">bushfires late last year,</a> which burnt nearly 25million hectares of forest and displaced thousands of people. And, on top of all this, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/25/great-barrier-reef-suffers-third-mass-coral-bleaching-event-in-five-years?">Great Barrier Reef is bleaching</a> ... <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/world/australia/bleaching-great-barrier-reef.html">again</a>.</div>
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Although all this makes the world seem like it's falling apart, having a pandemic force the global cogs to a grinding halt has some ancillary benefits. For one, economic slowdown and fewer vehicles seem to have <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-covid-19-is-doing-to-our-pollution-levels">reduced levels of air pollution</a> in some major cities and regions, such as <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/response-to-one-pandemic-covid-19-has-helped-ease-another-air-pollution/">Beijing, China</a> and Lombardy, Italy. On the climate change mitigation side, <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-worlds-response-has-slashed-co-emissions-heres-how-to-keep-them-down-134094">people are traveling less on both air and land, and emissions have consequently gone down</a>. In the last two weeks, commercial air traffic has <a href="https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/charting-the-decline-in-air-traffic-caused-by-covid-19/">plunged 40% from 2019 levels</a>, and airlines continue to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/travel/international-airlines-service-cuts-coronavirus.html">cut international routes!</a></div>
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However, the effects on both air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions are directly tied to the lock-down circumstances we as consumers currently find ourselves in. A <a href="https://environment.yale.edu/news/article/the-complex-implications-of-covid19-on-global-energy-markets-consumer-behaviors/">researcher at Yale suggested</a> that the longer CoViD-19 sticks around, the deeper into recession the global economy will fall. This usually corresponds to lower emissions, but also potentially less investment in alternatives to fossils fuels. That said, I do wonder if the current adoption of certain key behaviours - such as "telecommuting" and more awareness around <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200326-covid-19-the-impact-of-coronavirus-on-the-environment">food supplies and waste</a> - might in fact act as a catalyst for shifting behaviours more permanently. If anything, we are testing the boundaries of virtual work, teaching, and socialising environments. </div>
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Going back to Garcia-Marquez's all-too-apt warning, in the case of the climate and our environment, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/24/covid-19-climate-crisis-governments-coronavirus">we can't afford to wait for hindsight</a>. The loss of lives and damages to communities because of this virus are tragedies. Yet, and perhaps even moreso to avoid further such loss and damage, I think we are confronting an unparalleled opportunity: to build a more conscientious and resilient society, and to embrace some drastic shifts in how humanity currently operates. The question is, will we take the plunge soon, or wait until the wisdom comes to us ... </div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-78839195330748669692020-01-03T07:11:00.000-05:002020-01-07T00:39:14.487-05:00Another Decade Bites the Dust<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We’ve finally reached that fabled year of 2020. This has seemed a far distant marker for so long, often serving as a benchmark for reaching ambitious targets or achieving technological advances. Yet, it simply marks another one of Earth’s orbits around the sun. As such, expecting earth-shattering changes to suddenly manifest seems a bit unreasonable. That said, the issues we’ve explored in this blog have indeed evolved over that time. I wanted to take a quick look at a few big topics of interest in 2019, and reflect a bit on what is still a challenge and where we’ve made progress since 2010.
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Deforestation, biodiversity loss, and fires, oh my!</i>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My Munchable Musings was largely founded on the concerns over connections between deforestation, biodiversity loss, and food production systems. And while I’ve written a fair bit about drivers of forest loss <b id="docs-internal-guid-4f902e2f-7fff-0bfd-804e-74afcd905a49" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2011/01/planting-for-oil.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">e.g. oil palm</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) and </span><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2015/05/can-biodiversity-and-development-ever.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">conservation of biological diversity</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, fire has not featured prominently on the </span><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2015/09/of-earth-wind-and-fire.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">blog in the past</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></b> But this year, forest fires across the world have made headlines, repeatedly. The Huffington Post even called 2019 the <b id="docs-internal-guid-68506f4e-7fff-9aa0-2948-40f6844cceac" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wildfires-california-amazon-indonesia-climate-change_n_5dcd3f4ee4b0d43931d01baf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Year the World Burned</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, citing massive fires in Australia, California, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, and Lebanon. </span><a href="https://fortune.com/longform/forest-fires-2019-map-world-amazon-rain-forest/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Global Forest Fire Watch estimated</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that in 2018, around 3.6 million hectares of tropical forest was lost to fire, an area the size of Belgium (though, note, that this year over 4 million hectares of forest have also </span><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/2019-the-year-rainforests-burned/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">burned in Australia</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> alone).</span></b>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The implication of these losses are not just the immediate effects on habitat, species, property, and air quality: burning vegetation releases carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change and elevating fire weather conditions; humid forest fragmentation and loss influences local precipitation and can possibly cause a shift to more arid ecosystems like savanna; and forest habitats often take decades to recover, leaving wildlife without a home for the intervening years. If you want a rundown on the year for tropical forests,<b id="docs-internal-guid-68b569a7-7fff-d587-b6d1-ce9c22ef120f" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/2019-the-year-rainforests-burned/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mongabay has put together a pretty comprehensive retrospective post on the topic</span></a></b>. Although fire has been a common part of many of these landscapes, a combination of poor policy decisions, destructive land use practices, and climate-change-induced higher temperatures and drier conditions have pushed fire from a concern to a catastrophe in the last decade. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Climate marchers start young!</span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Climate strikes and climate emergency </span></i>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On a related yet separate note, climate change has also steam-rolled its way into the public consciousness this year. Changes in climate - including increased global average temperatures, more intense extreme weather events, and shifts in rainfall timing and intensity - have been projected, refined, and communicated with increasing urgency over the last few decades. Ten years ago, <b id="docs-internal-guid-ee3484e2-7fff-1437-3f44-a846f74a044a" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://unfccc.int/process/conferences/pastconferences/cancun-climate-change-conference-november-2010/statements-and-resources/Agreements" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the Cancun Agreements</span></a></b> were established at the 16th UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference, which set the groundwork for financing of climate projects in developing nations and highlighted adaptation. And while the world may have briefly rejoiced at the end of 2015, when the most ambitious agreement was made in Paris, international climate policy has merely limped along (not to mention a slightly disappointing UNFCCC this year). In the past year, however, we’ve seen a massive rise in public outcry over climate inaction, <b id="docs-internal-guid-a9db14a6-7fff-59d8-87ad-1715844d032c" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">catalysed by none other than a Swedish high-school girl</span></a></b>.
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">While I still worry that, on the whole, we are doing too little too late, I feel inspired and more optimistic by the fact that climate strikes spear-headed by youth have grown rapidly in the last year. The last two <b id="docs-internal-guid-763bedc9-7fff-e326-560f-7a8041affe93" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/greta-thunberg-mass-protests-defined-year-climate-change-n1107526" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fridays of September marked massive climate marches</span></a></b> across the globe, trying to elevate the issue to the emergency it deserves. It was also such a contrast to the levels of energy and urgency at the first climate change rally I went to back in 2013. There were 35,000 people marching through the streets in Washington, DC. On 27 September, in Montreal, half a million people took to the streets. So despite some critical political incompetence, I think there is hope that the tables are turning and change can happen quickly. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">How to feed the world </span></i>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first two topics in this post mostly focus on problems, but this last one could be considered solutions-oriented: plant-based diets. Now, understandably, this blog has sat in the vegan camp for the last decade, but I have <b id="docs-internal-guid-b5bf5566-7fff-43ed-8b4a-02e3e22f2845" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/best-of-mmm-veggie-considers-meat.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">discussed meat</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the</span><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/best-of-mmm-musing-on-meat.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> impacts of livestock on the planet</span></a></b> at length before. The crux of the issue is that raising livestock (especially those bovine belchers…) contributes substantially to greenhouse gas emissions through land clearing for pasture and feed production, and natural ruminant gut processes. Mid-decade, we started to see a <b id="docs-internal-guid-66e303c3-7fff-80be-2416-8d0d6f11479b" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bit.ly/22RAURx" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">growing number of researchers </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">calling for a reduction in meat in people’s diets or even complete global transitions to vegetarianism </span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/815c9d62-14f4-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in response to environmental and health concerns</span></a></b>. But I think the biggest development in the last year or so, is the rise of mainstream fake meat products and the stir they’ve caused on the global stage.
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are well passed the age of Garden Burgers and Tofurkey deli slices that characterised my teen and university years as a vegetarian. With the development of more passable meat substitutes, like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat, <b id="docs-internal-guid-122c0929-7fff-e980-6636-8678f65096bb" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/the-new-makers-of-plant-based-meat-big-meat-companies.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fast-food chains and even meat giants</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> like Tyson have embraced the trend and rolled out plant-based options. </span><a href="https://worldin2019.economist.com/theyearofthevegan" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Economist</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> chalked up some of this proliferation to a shift in lifestyle and the associated high demand for vegan products among Millennials; however, the total </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/06/28/532880755/is-a-no-meat-world-really-better" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">vegetarian and vegan population</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> remains woefully low (less than 5%). Despite strict meat-free diets remaining firmly in the minority, there has been conspicuous speculation about the consequences of the world going vegan (not all of which are positive - e.g. negative impacts on developing countries). But that’s what is a bit confusing to me;</span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160926-what-would-happen-if-the-world-suddenly-went-vegetarian" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> this is not an all-or-nothing affair</span></a></b> nor does it seem likely that the entire world is trending toward plant-based. But better meat-free options mean that people have choices, which make it easier to reduce consumption if not necessarily eliminate it. And for high-meat-consuming developed countries, like the USA and those in Europe, this is what really matters. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hopefully, that brought this post back to a positive note. Since I’ve been completely remiss about blogging this past year, I don't have much to rehash from a year of posting. But, since I just submitted my PhD thesis, keep an eye out for more musings in 2020! </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Catch up on the last ten years… </span></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-6bf34de5-7fff-dcf5-2675-7404a00df77b" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bit.ly/38RoJiz" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another Year in the Books - 2018</span></span></a></b></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-6bf34de5-7fff-dcf5-2675-7404a00df77b" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bit.ly/2DsB5lb" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Sun Sets on 2017</span></span></a></b></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/2ivbE7v" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Best of Times, The Worst of Times - 2016</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1MIx3NA" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another Decade, Another Degree - 2015</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1CSQ2pf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One Hodge-Podge of a Year - 2014</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2013/12/whats-cooking-new-years-resolution.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">New Year's Resolution - 2013</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/fifty-second-friday-year-in-food.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A Year in Food - 2012</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/01/whats-cooking-new-year-empty-fridge.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">New Year, Empty Fridge - 2011</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2011/01/new-years-resolution.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A New Year's Resolution - 2010</span></span></a></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-6bf34de5-7fff-dcf5-2675-7404a00df77b" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2010/01/its-new-yearac.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's a New Year! - 2009</span></span></a></b></div>
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Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-27901315962042008182019-07-28T22:49:00.003-04:002019-07-30T04:49:51.098-04:00Missing the Forest for the Trees?<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/81309666@N05/35452581171/in/album-72157682499348632/" title="DSC_0524"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img align="right" alt="DSC_0524" height="213" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/4256/35452581171_bf7e490ec4.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you pay any attention to environmental conservation issues, you've probably heard of the big bad three: agriculture, logging, and mining. Most of the blame for habitat destruction and degradation, and biodiversity loss, is placed on these industries (and there's even a <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/biodiversity-the-ravages-of-guns-nets-and-bulldozers-1.20381">Nature Comment piece</a> telling us this is the case ... but also hunting). Discussions naturally turn to how we can stop such harmful activities in places that have been deemed areas of high conservation value. We create national parks and <a href="https://livereport.protectedplanet.net/">protected areas</a>, restricting the extent and intensity of these activities, policing the borders for infractions. We get companies to sign onto <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/companies-to-miss-2020-zero-deforestation-deadline-report-says/">zero deforestation commitments</a>. Sovereign nations sign onto treaties, <a href="https://www.cbd.int/history/">conventions</a>, agreements, that say they pledge to save X% of land, set aside Y% of coastal areas or the exclusive economic zones in marine systems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">T<span style="font-family: inherit;">his may get us somewhere - though the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/conservation-effectiveness/">evidence we're actually conserving things is limited </a>at best. But to me, it seems that we are treating little cuts and scrapes, when there's actually internal bleeding. We can keep bandaging our wounds, but the deeper issues are not going to get better on their own, and they will probably end up killing us in the long run. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ok, that's pretty melodramatic! How do my mediocre medical analogies relate to conservation? Well, for one, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2012/09/agriculture-causes-80-of-tropical-deforestation/">agriculture is a major driver </a>of <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/scientists-reveal-how-much-world-s-forests-being-destroyed-industrial-agriculture">forest loss and land cover change</a>, and so we do things to keep agriculture out. But this is a proximate cause. We have agriculture because there is demand for livestock<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> feed, for oil crops to use in processed foods and beauty products, for food to sustain a massive and growing population despite astounding amounts of waste. These ultimate driving forces are part of bigger societal challenges and forces of globalisation; conservation does not happen in a bubble.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I'll elaborate on this shortly, but you might be wondering what prompted this serious musing. Well, the 29th <a href="https://conbio.org/mini-sites/iccb-2019/">International Congress for Conservation Biology</a> just wrapped up, where over 2,000 natural and social scientists and conservation practitioners came together to inch along towards solving some of our major conservation crises. It was the question after I presented on community forests that caught me off-guard: is it fair? Who are we to demand that communities take on responsibility for conservation? Now, this was definitely not the message I was going for, but the question struck a chord and got me thinking about how much conservation redirects responsibility. While likely not conscious, this tendency might have roots in</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/16/how-conservation-became-colonialism-environment-indigenous-people-ecuador-mining/">colonial legacies</a></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">, but it also mirrors other environmental justice issues. For instance, the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20281">countries emitting the highest levels of greenhouse gases are not the same</a> as those most vulnerable to climate change and least able to adapt. The nations that are the most to blame are also not stepping up and drastically reducing their emissions (but we sure are suggesting how other countries should develop). <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Many of us, in the west-centred conservation field, focus on trying to fix what is "broken" in other places, while side-lining the major role we play in breaking it in the first place. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://psmag.com/environment/whats-driving-global-deforestation" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Curtis, et al. 2018. Science." border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m_v230p2_eY/XT5SjOAj0HI/AAAAAAAADFU/z0VszJt5g7srtya3WUAYdVt6z1jbfOQqACLcBGAs/s320/18_gfw_tree_loss_by_class_map_v2-01_this_one.png" width="287" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So let's come back to our big bad three; I'll focus on agriculture, which is the single largest culprit. Expansion of crop and grazing lands has been estimated to account for <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/scientists-reveal-how-much-world-s-forests-being-destroyed-industrial-agriculture">over a quarter of forest loss</a>, and up to <a href="https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/land-use/industrial-agriculture">80% in tropical and subtropical forests</a> (and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/05/alarming-rise-in-queensland-tree-clearing-as-400000-hectares-stripped">Queensland</a> is no exception). The <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/stop-deforestation/whats-driving-deforestation">Union for Concerned Scientists published a report</a> a few years ago that put the microscope on the industry: beef and dairy cattle ranching (about half the deforestation in South America) is the largest driver; soy production has doubled in the last two decades for livestock feed and oils;</span> area under oil palm has skyrocketed in Southeast Asia to supply processed foods needs and biofuels; and finally timber and wood products still drive about 10% of deforestation globally.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We know that the bulk of this forest (and savannah!) loss occurs in South and Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. While beef consumption is apparently often in the same country of production, consumption of animal products generally <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/meat-and-seafood-production-consumption#meat-consumption-tends-to-rise-as-we-get-richer" target="_blank">positively relate to a country's GDP</a>. China, the USA, India, and Brazil may be the largest consumers of soy, but Mexico, The Netherlands, Japan, and Spain also sit among the <a href="https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/1201/" target="_blank">top importers</a>. Palm oil's biggest consumers are <a href="https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/land-use/industrial-agriculture/palm-oil" target="_blank">China, India, and the EU</a> (none of which are major producers).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's not that nothing is happening to address these activities. There are initiatives through the <a href="https://www.iucn.org/theme/business-and-biodiversity">IUCN</a> and <span id="goog_664843744"></span><a href="https://www.cbd.int/business/">CBD<span id="goog_664843745"></span></a> to build a business case for conserving biodiversity.<a href="https://www.isealalliance.org/"> Sustainability standards</a> for industry and finance are increasingly visible. And individual companies adopt corporate social (and environmental) responsibility policies. However, these industries will always be pulled toward profit and filling global demand. Government regulation can stymy rampant expansion, but it can't curb everything without shifting consumption patterns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
I don't have answers. Yet what seems to be missing in conservation is acknowledgement that proximate drivers of habitat and biodiversity loss aren't the root causes, and that we need more serious discussion around the deeper issues of consumption more generally. There needs to be more conversation like the one at <a href="https://degrowth.org/2015/08/11/conservation-biologists-question-the-economic-growth-paradigm/">ICCB in 2015 on countering capitalistic conservation</a>. Perhaps we need to interact more with the <a href="http://theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224">Degrowth</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332230990_Degrowth_within_-Aligning_circular_economy_and_strong_sustainability_narratives">Circular Economy</a> communities. Regardless, business as usual is not going to get us where we need to be. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Related posts:</span></i></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/conservation-effectiveness/">Lesson's from an empty stomach</a> (May 2018)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://bit.ly/2i134gr">Jingle the waste away</a> (December 2016)</span></span></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://bit.ly/1wdtPkb">What is natural?</a> (February 2015)</span></span></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-4843484562917042042019-07-16T03:01:00.000-04:002019-07-17T02:45:36.236-04:00Pies and Procrastibaking<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; float: right; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 1em; orphans: 2; padding: 6px; text-align: right; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><tbody style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<tr style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tm7Edx1Mix0/XSmqsHD96II/AAAAAAAADEo/5_TlAI77kT4S9_E03NVaidx6zP0kvH3DgCLcBGAs/s1600/67C8C45E-EBA5-4629-AE0C-B2A559C7983B.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; clear: left; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tm7Edx1Mix0/XSmqsHD96II/AAAAAAAADEo/5_TlAI77kT4S9_E03NVaidx6zP0kvH3DgCLcBGAs/s320/67C8C45E-EBA5-4629-AE0C-B2A559C7983B.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">No new pies! These have been on the blog before...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm not going to lie, it's been a while. If you thought things were bad while I was finishing my masters, the five month hiatus we've just experienced might have you reconsidering. Although the blog may lie neglected while 99% of my writing energy goes into thesising, the baking has prospered. Some may call it "stress baking" (I do at times), but the term I find most appealing at the moment is "procrastibaking". The former suggests that this enjoyable past-time is stimulated by periods of anxiety, but I find that makes up only a small percentage of the driving forces behind my baking activities. More often, it is for one of three reasons: </span></span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">as ritual or routine - I start a sourdough loaf every Friday night or Saturday morning and then relish the wafting aroma of bread fresh out of the oven as the sun rises on Monday morning; </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">to express gratitude, affection, and other warm fuzzy feelings - exhibit A: for a while, my sister would find in her mailbox a little tin of homemade shortbread cookies in late January for her birthday. Even if they were slightly stale, they were baked with love...; or</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">to slow down, meditate, and avoid other less gratifying tasks - feeling the flour, sugar, and oil come together between my fingers often is both relaxing and much more tangible outcomes than typing away at a computer.</span></span></li>
</ol>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lZHMRtitc4s/XS7DqatLF0I/AAAAAAAADE8/g8iZJ2WcpFgnAhtsQVdx2VrzXBsiWO83wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lZHMRtitc4s/XS7DqatLF0I/AAAAAAAADE8/g8iZJ2WcpFgnAhtsQVdx2VrzXBsiWO83wCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_0010.JPG" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My housemates are hilarious...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The last reason captures the essence of procrastibaking. Interestingly, r<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">ecent research has linked procrastination to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/procrastination-is-an-emotional-problem-2019-6/?r=AU&IR=T" target="_blank">emotional barriers</a> rather than an inability to manage time well. While, I'd like to think procrastibaking doesn't go quite as far as the "self-harm" described in this <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html" target="_blank">New York Times article</a>, putting "short-term mood repair over the longer-term pursuit of intended actions" seems to fit. Procrastination is a classic case of discounting and distancing - that presentation or thesis chapter outline (or job search...) are future self's problems. Plus, baking is almost always going to be a lot more fun! </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">But perhaps it's not fair to associate baking with procrastinatory behaviours, which have s<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">uch a negative reputation.</span> For those of us who love some nice science to back up our whims, there has also been a recent bit of research suggesting that baking has positive psychological effects and can improve mental health. According to<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/feeling-down-scientists-say-cooking-and-baking-may-help-you-feel-better-180961223/" target="_blank"> a couple psychology studies</a>, baking can be seen as a little act of creativity that promotes positive emotions, or even a form of mindfulness and meditation, which can help manage symptoms of depression. Apparently, a cake can also be worth a thousand words; <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/baking-for-others-psychology_n_58dd0b85e4b0e6ac7092aaf8" target="_blank">baking for others</a> often communicate messages in ways that words can't, particularly during difficult situations, like after the loss of a loved one. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, baking justified. As such, maybe it's not too great a leap to convey the joys of baking pies and feeding them to people. It's been nearly five years since my last pie post. This seems like an egregious state of affairs. And so, in celebration of celebrating my birthday with pie (for the fourth time, apparently), I will leave you with favourites from the last ten years.
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<br />
<b>A Patchwork of Pies</b></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1KgXPAi" target="_blank">Chocolate Garden Pie</a> (and reminiscing about dirt cups) - September 2015 </div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1h0alD9" target="_blank">A Classic Pumpkin Pie</a> (and some seed saving) - February 2014 </div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/29Z6dYJ" target="_blank">Spiked Rhubacot Pie</a> (and a birthday pie party) - July 2013 </div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/best-of-mmm-local-flavor.html" target="_blank">Cardamom Peach Pie</a> (with some food musings and a pie contest) - December 2012 </div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/03/whats-cooking-pie-party.html" target="_blank">Mushroom Spinach Quiche </a>(and a previous pie party) - March 2012 </div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2010/07/farms-in-my-backyard-and-pie.html" target="_blank">Rhuberry Peach Crumble Pie</a> (and some history) - July 2010</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Past Birthday Posts</b></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2016/07/the-end-of-era-some-perspective.html" target="_blank">The End of an Era? Some Perspective </a>(2016)</div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1qHS42e">A Birthday Musings</a> (2014)<i><b> </b></i></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1uKS0OS">Another Year, Another...Pie?</a> (2013)</div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1SQ73rb">What's Cooking? Casado Vegetariano</a> (2012)</div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/2a7aFXR">Of Wine and Weather</a> (2011)</div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/29Gp8F7">Another Year as an Eater</a> (2010)</div>
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<b> </b></div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-85805732258074836922019-02-10T06:15:00.001-05:002019-02-10T08:12:45.879-05:00These Feet were Made for Walking<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pPfar7ft_Co/XGAHITjzsNI/AAAAAAAADDs/CXm9nirEH606OXF0k30dzZ9aEs3CFwpTACK4BGAYYCw/s320/DSC_3725.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Worth noting this is from a NZ meander, not Brisbane</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was about a month ago. I</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> finally made the leap and ventured on my first bushwalking trip using only public transit and my feet. It only took the nearly three years I've been living in Brisbane. Now, while I love sharing a good wander with a few moderately adventurous, low-key individuals, this little experiment was <em>toute</em>-<em>seule</em>. That meant I had a fair bit of time for thinking - after the work-related list-making and self-reflexive soul-searching, my mind started wandering to an apt topic: the act of walking.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Walking is such a simple, pedestrian activity for many of us, that day-to-day we don't tend to consider what incredible experiences we have at the tips of our toes. By all means, walking can take on considerable, even spiritual, significance. Consider El Camino de Santiago in Spain (and southern France), which sees upwards of 200,000 walkers (now not quite the religious bunch of yesteryears). While ultimately the goal is to reach holy sites, the journey itself is a central part of the experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unlike many forms of transport, walking requires patience and persistence (where you've pushed past the point of exhaustion) to get from A to B. There isn't the immediate reward, and sometimes it can be hard to stay motivated when there is no end in sight. However, once you've arrived, oh, that is an achievement to revel in. </span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iNG7Rsz5VNY/XGAGqwGLqkI/AAAAAAAADDY/hGED5nCCze4GICxE3w3Zgm1adn2jE1KPQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/DSC_3755.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iNG7Rsz5VNY/XGAGqwGLqkI/AAAAAAAADDY/hGED5nCCze4GICxE3w3Zgm1adn2jE1KPQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/DSC_3755.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">It's more than that, though. If you think about it, walking is quite empowering.* Place one foot and then the other, propelling yourself forward with determination. And feet can take you to places you can get to no other way, or along routes that are <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">themselves </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">sites to see. Scrambling up creek beds or inching along narrow cliff-side tracks. But also down narrow alleys in old cities, or winding through bustling marketplaces. Walking to reach some place can make you realise that it is, in fact, possible to trust your feet. And I can't count the number of times those very same feet have surprised me with the feat of covering large distances.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Finally, I wanted to give a nod to urban walking. Not every place is designed to make walking enjoyable, easy, or safe. But yesterday, navigating my way around Jakarta <em>jalan-jalan kaki,</em> I got to thinking about how walking cultivates a very different perspective of the city. Rather than a taxi, a bus, or in some places underground rail, going by foot puts you right in the thick of life. You pass through the calm, tree-lined streets (yes, they exist) and the chaotic commercial thoroughfares. </span><a href="http://bit.ly/2AjhpwA" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Not saying I care much for Jakarta</span></a><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">, but I appreciate the experience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I'm going to end on a quote from John Muir, which I think captures the greater nuances of the words we use to describe movement (here in the context of the word "hike") - </span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">“I don't like either the word [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not 'hike!' Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It's a beautiful word. Away back in the middle ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going they would reply, 'A la sainte terre', 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them.”</span></div>
</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Thanks for listening to my rambles ... perhaps it's time for another ramble! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">BONUS: One of my favourite (related) posts - </span><a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2015/10/ode-to-my-chacos.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">An Ode to Chacos</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">* I realise that walking is not always possible, so please don't take this as a judgement in any way. It is one thing that I take great joy in, but understand that others do/must find satisfaction with other forms of transport and movement.</span></div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-3751474969354142862019-01-02T17:52:00.002-05:002019-07-31T00:56:52.483-04:00Another Year in the Books<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/81309666@N05/43475685912/in/dateposted-public/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" title="DSC_3244" true=""><img alt="DSC_3244" class="alignright" height="400" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/861/43475685912_91b79d6a30_c.jpg" width="267" /></a></div>
That's a wrap. So long 2018. One of my favourite traditions on New Years is to read over the past year's blog posts. Now, in the last few years, there has been a lot less to read than during My Munchable's early years (say, 2009-2013). But despite the confusing speed with which 2018 flew by, there was a lot of substance to cover.
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It wasn't the most uplifting of years, between all the political, social, and natural disasters. An early post from last year discussed the <a href="http://bit.ly/2Bh3msW">significance of rain under climate change</a>. Then mid-way through 2018, the best scientific minds gave the world a demoralising climate change update (so I wrote down some <a href="http://bit.ly/2zi3hU1" target="_blank">food for thought</a>). Even followed adhoc, the climate-related news from the last year was pretty overwhelming. Cobbling together these developments in <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/1079543788081541125" target="_blank">tweet form</a>, we see hurricanes and fires (again), political inaction and youth protesters, and some pretty dire projections. Unfortunately, all that bearing of bad news hasn't resulted in the kick-in-the-pants we seem to need.</div>
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If climate change hasn't gotten you down enough, some of the <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/1080584860496846848" target="_blank">violence and social injustices</a> might. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/12/top-25-news-photos-of-2018/577216/" target="_blank">Border walls and mass shootings</a> made headlines with regularity. My first post of 2018 discussed <a href="http://bit.ly/2GiA5Ok" target="_blank">indigenous rights and conservation in Australia</a>, and I published the <a href="http://bit.ly/howjust">first chapter of my PhD</a> looking at social justice in conservation. This was the seventh year I've <a href="http://bit.ly/2ww2sYM" target="_blank">Lived Below the Line</a>, and so did some reflecting as usual, including on <a href="http://bit.ly/2Ipo0e2" target="_blank">how we define what is poor</a>. There is obviously a long way still to go for a socially equitable world...</div>
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... but, at least there is <a href="http://bit.ly/2HAsnm6" target="_blank">baking</a> to set things right in the meantime..</div>
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/81309666@N05/46510423462/in/dateposted-public/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="DSC_3691"><img align="left" alt="DSC_3691" height="196" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7804/46510423462_d7a66986fb_c.jpg" width="400" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
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For my part, there was lots of (too much ... 4.5 months away) travel. Two trips to Indonesia for my PhD project sparked some <a href="http://bit.ly/2AjhpwA"> musings on the benefits of travel</a><a href="http://bit.ly/2Cby5bV">, trials and tribulations of interviews in research </a>, and unsurprisingly <a href="http://bit.ly/2GcNF6k">chocolate</a>! More recently, the annual visit home involved "slow travel" with a <a href="http://bit.ly/2QvgbYr" target="_blank">Grand Tour of the USA by rail.</a><br />
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Now, 2018 was by no stretch of the imagination one of the more notable years. Like any year, there were ups and downs (though there seemed to be more downs). I'm hoping that 2019 will sit a little higher up on the roller coaster!
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<i style="text-align: justify;"><b>Read Years Passed</b></i>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/2DsB5lb" target="_blank">The Sun Sets on 2017 </a></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/2ivbE7v" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">The Best of Times, The Worst of Times - 2016</a></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1MIx3NA" style="text-align: justify;">Another Decade, Another Degree - 2015</a></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1CSQ2pf" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">One Hodge-Podge of a Year - 2014</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2013/12/whats-cooking-new-years-resolution.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">New Year's Resolution - 2013</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/fifty-second-friday-year-in-food.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">A Year in Food - 2012</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/01/whats-cooking-new-year-empty-fridge.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">New Year, Empty Fridge - 2011</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2011/01/new-years-resolution.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">A New Year's Resolution - 2010</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2010/01/its-new-yearac.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">It's a New Year! - 2009<span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></a></div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-73754505744714790932018-11-30T17:30:00.000-05:002018-11-30T18:00:05.824-05:00Slow Travel: The Grand Tour<div style="text-align: justify;">
Maps of the US seem to be all over the media recently, a little patchwork quilt of reds and blues - a repeated reminder of the divisions between urban and rural, between coastal and central, between ethnic groups or income levels. But it’s one thing to see the maps of the country’s political inclinations, and quite another to get one’s head around the sheer vastness of these here United States.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qyFFQZLFpz4/XAG17URwi0I/AAAAAAAADCI/7WVyA4z8eGEfARLjZoAqxHXr7Et_x7a2QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1557.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="1600" height="196" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qyFFQZLFpz4/XAG17URwi0I/AAAAAAAADCI/7WVyA4z8eGEfARLjZoAqxHXr7Et_x7a2QCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_1557.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Union Station in Washington, DC</td></tr>
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I’ve written this from a train. This visit home, I decided to cut out the air travel and catch a few locomotives. Now, this <a href="http://bit.ly/1MkGO5b" target="_blank">isn’t an earth-shattering decision on my part</a>. My move back home after college was by train. And I had crossed the country twice before, traveling from Washington, DC to Seattle. However, this was my first trip linking together so many rail rides – committing to a full loop (sorry southeastern US…), a “Grand Tour”, shall we say. It meant factoring in a solid 8.5 days in-transit. Inevitably, that makes you stop and think about how big the country is, how different each place is, and how many people call each home. </div>
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Just a quick history lesson – while the US wasn’t the first to pioneer railroads, it replicated and expanded upon the technology to an unparalleled extent. During the mid- to late-19th century, trains were the ultimate movers of people and products – capable of covering great distances quickly and relatively efficiently – but they were much more than that. As the name of the route from Seattle to Chicago – The Empire Builder – suggests, trains were also means of asserting national sovereignty and uniting geographically disparate regions. Railways served this purpose in countries like Italy and India, connecting a collection of autonomous city-states. In the US, railways helped assert the notion of manifest destiny and supported rebuilding in the post-Civil War reconstruction period. Between 1855-1871, the US government operated a land grant program for new rail companies to expand west (eventually totaling 730,000 sq km), encouraging settlement and development. Notably, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_the_United_States" target="_blank">the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869</a> by the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad companies (note the l<a href="https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/stanford.htm" target="_blank">ink to my alma-mater</a>…), running from San Francisco to New York City. Fortunes were made and lost in the rail business, and economies rose and fell. </div>
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With the expansion of motor vehicle and airplane use in the mid-20th century, trains became the less preferred method of moving people. Today, they still significantly contribute to US freight transport, most noticeably for <a href="https://www.bts.gov/bts-publications/freight-facts-and-figures/freight-facts-figures-2017-chapter-2-freight-moved" target="_blank">heavier cargo traveling long distances</a>. For instance, <a href="https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/2017-north-american-freight-numbers" target="_blank">rail makes up 15% of US-North America transboundary freight transport</a> (by value, second after trucks). But passenger rail has lagged behind other developed nations. While not surprising given how the country’s transportation network developed, the missed opportunity for the US to lead in rail innovation still saddens me.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F0N03QslqaQ/XAG17Ek0VuI/AAAAAAAADCE/qm7biirJqRoJtLY3xPcSyq6Rwe23SLVvQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1362.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F0N03QslqaQ/XAG17Ek0VuI/AAAAAAAADCE/qm7biirJqRoJtLY3xPcSyq6Rwe23SLVvQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1362.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heading north in Central Oregon</td></tr>
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Tears aside, there is much to be said from my Grand Tour. It took me across over 7,500 miles of the United States, including a southwestern route I had never been on before. Although I had vowed to use the time for an uninterrupted writing retreat, much of the daylight hours found me distracted by the landscape flying past. Here’s a brief overview:</div>
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<b>Leg #1: Los Angeles to Oakland (12 hours)</b></div>
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My first time on this stretch of the Coast Starlight, I was surprised by how popular this route was, not to mention the number of vocal first-time train travelers. Filled with beautiful coastal views complemented by the rolling Central Valley scenery, the routes from LA are notorious for delays, not least because freight is king. </div>
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<b>Leg #2: Oakland to Seattle (21 hours; 1,377 miles from LA)</b></div>
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During the winter, you lose all the northern California landscape to the night, but wake up to Oregon’s high desert with the dawn light. This remains my favourite route, perhaps because it invokes those comforting feelings of coming home. It’s also a pretty vibrant leg, with many passengers getting on and off for the shorter trips between San Francisco and Portland (or somewhere in between) and Portland to Seattle. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MbjFXRiJoAc/XAGzPhBiN4I/AAAAAAAADB0/qud2oCIv4eUDe9tu2yHARtGP0HYCPPQyQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1501.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MbjFXRiJoAc/XAGzPhBiN4I/AAAAAAAADB0/qud2oCIv4eUDe9tu2yHARtGP0HYCPPQyQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1501.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skirting Glacier National Park as day breaks</td></tr>
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<b>Leg #3: Seattle to Chicago (45 hours; 2,206 miles)</b></div>
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This ride would be amazing in the summer, with some of the most impressive alpine window-watching! The tracks start along the Seattle waterfront, with views of the Pacific for the first hour or so. East-bound you miss the journey across the Cascade Mountains this time of year, but you catch the majestic peaks of Glacier National Park as the sun comes up. Looking at a map, it is also particularly interesting to see how the tracks skirt several Native American reservations, including: Colville, Blackfeet, Flathead, and Fort Belknap. It is a subtle reminder of the region’s tearful history. </div>
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While Montana takes an entire day to cross, the majority of which is comprised of sparsely populated prairie (there are less than 7 people per square mile in the state). North Dakota flew by under the cover of night. As the second day broke on Minnesota, we had a reminder of heightened border security, when a patrolman came onboard to ask passengers’ nationalities. Not to sound like a broken record, but people really do use the train! This seemed to be mostly short-hauls, and I expect the train is more convenient for some more rural areas, where major airports are hours drives away. The demographics leaned slightly older, some of whom I overheard discussing their dislike of flying and prefer to avoid the hassle of airports if they have time. Ehem, #32goingon70</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hzk4o5UYCiQ/XAGzPX9CH1I/AAAAAAAADBw/7Bg4wTpHRsoQ3DsdPt9Q71Poujxwj6m-ACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1523.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1080" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hzk4o5UYCiQ/XAGzPX9CH1I/AAAAAAAADBw/7Bg4wTpHRsoQ3DsdPt9Q71Poujxwj6m-ACEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1523.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Along the Mississippi is apparently the best place to spot eagles…</td></tr>
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<b>Leg #4: Chicago to New York City (20 hours; 959 miles)</b></div>
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Chicago is the hub that nearly all cross-country routes go through, and this time proved trains to be oddly reliable: with some snowstorms hitting the northeast and flight/bus cancellations, the trip was packed with people who had opted for the train. </div>
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<b>Leg #5: New York City to Washington, DC (3 ½ hours; 226 miles)</b></div>
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Much better than the bus. Period. </div>
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<b>Leg #6: Washington, DC to Chicago (18 hours; 764 miles)</b></div>
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Passing through Chicago again, with a few hours to catch up with a friend (or family).</div>
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<b>Leg #7: Chicago to Los Angeles (43 hours; 2,256 miles)</b></div>
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As my first time on the Southwest Chief, this leg of the journey was fascinating and quite a contrast from the northern routes. Deserts, canyons, and glimpses of the Rockies – after that first night, it soon became clear we were not in Kansas anymore (which we crossed while sleeping). There were also little reminder of the strong industrial ties to railways – passing offshoots to mines and cars full of coal, destined for ports or other parts of the country. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DTWP6wNegCE/XAGzQlQACBI/AAAAAAAADB4/56f31hamuEoo8gZCOyhYEWKnZhmn__poQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1591.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DTWP6wNegCE/XAGzQlQACBI/AAAAAAAADB4/56f31hamuEoo8gZCOyhYEWKnZhmn__poQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1591.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coal cars in Colorado</td></tr>
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After spending over 160 hours on trains in the span of five weeks, I made it back to beginning, to leave you with a few final thoughts on taking the slow travel option. 1) This was definitely a lesson in Geography, a refresher in neighboring States and overland distances, while tracking that little blue dot inch along my phone’s map. 2) I’m continually surprised at how quickly the time flies. While three days seems like a long time to get from point A to point B, in the scheme of things it isn’t. And when you travel this way, everything tends to feel just a little bit less urgent. 3) Opting for the train has to be more than low-carbon travel. In Europe, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/08/30/planes-trains-or-automobiles-what-will-the-most-carbon-efficient-way-to-travel_partner/" target="_blank">there is really no comparison</a>: the default electric high-speed rail produces <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/trains-vs-planes-whats-the-real-cost-of-travel/a-45209552" target="_blank">about a tenth (or less) of the greenhouse gas emission</a>s of flying. However, this is ‘murica! Amtrak trains emit about ~0.45lb CO2/passenger mile (the NE corridor is at 0.37lb CO2 because it runs on electricity rather than diesel), which is comparable or slightly higher than a non-stop long-distance flight (though taking a coach is by far the greenest, though perhaps less enjoyable, option). While <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/greentravel_report.pdf" target="_blank">sometimes it is the more carbon-friendly option,</a> there are also plenty of other reasons to go via rail (did you see that mountain?). </div>
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On that note, anyone interested in a combined rails and trails trip? Until then…</div>
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Shameless plug - more photos from the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/grandtourbyrail/" target="_blank">Grand Tour on Instagram.</a><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pointswithacrew.com/maximizing-your-route-on-the-amtrak-zone-map/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="https://www.pointswithacrew.com/maximizing-your-route-on-the-amtrak-zone-map/" border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="800" height="233" src="https://www.pointswithacrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/amtrak-zone-map.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pointswithacrew.com/maximizing-your-route-on-the-amtrak-zone-map/" target="_blank">Credit: Points with a Crew Blog</a></td></tr>
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Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-44124520560933690232018-11-16T17:50:00.000-05:002018-11-16T17:50:04.494-05:00Food for Thought on Climate Change<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fN9mJAR5-dk/W-9JcvJ5_2I/AAAAAAAADBU/BXziQlhx0QsZK_q4nuZDfebcwxCcebT6QCLcBGAs/s1600/24698901582_ea3f5199cb_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fN9mJAR5-dk/W-9JcvJ5_2I/AAAAAAAADBU/BXziQlhx0QsZK_q4nuZDfebcwxCcebT6QCLcBGAs/s320/24698901582_ea3f5199cb_k.jpg" width="320" /></a>It feels as though every time I read the news these days, it seems like the world is falling apart. Whether that's because of the political climate or the actual climate, well, it's hard to tease apart sometimes. It's hard to stomach the actions and inflammatory language of intolerance and prejudice, openly condoned by supposed 'leaders'<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">. But it's also increasingly terrifying to imagine the future world we seemed to have built for ourselves. Only about a month ago, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html" target="_blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)</a> released one of its semi-regular reports on the state of our understanding of climate change - the anticipated impacts based on potential scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions. While the past few reports have stressed the importance of a low-carbon pathway forward, the conclusions of this report reached a new level of concern and urgency. To avoid catastrophic warming - 1.5 degrees Celsius - we have about a decade to get our act together as a planet (though a <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2017/04/interactive-chart-explains-worlds-top-10-emitters-and-how-theyve-changed" target="_blank">few countries really need to pull their weight</a>).</span></div>
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Now, it's not like we're completely devoid of ideas how to do this. Most of the world has made the important step of recognising climate change is an important issue and pledging to do something (albeit, too little) to halt it. Alternative energy technologies have made amazing progress in terms of efficiency and affordability. Private companies and local government alike have taken steps to curb their emissions and adopt environmentally-friendly practices. While these disparate actions are important contributions and make a statement, we need something bigger and more concerted. And we will have to sacrifice now so as not to suffer too greatly in the future. </div>
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So a couple of weeks ago now, I went to a seminar on climate change beliefs and behaviours. The speaker <a href="https://neillewisjr.com/" target="_blank">Neil Lewis Jr</a> of Cornell University raised a key point of debate - should those interested in climate-related behaviours focus on individuals or policy? The scale of the problem - and the fact our atmospheric pollution is a massive tragedy of the commons - necessitates broad sweeping changes likely instigated by policy. But without public pressure to elect officials that will push for those policies, and some willingness to make the sacrifices (I like to think of them more as opportunities...) those policies would require, we're not going to get anywhere (...<a href="https://grist.org/beacon/democrats-will-hold-two-whole-days-of-hearings-on-climate-change/" target="_blank">smile for the new congress</a>!). </div>
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Now Dr. Lewis noted that people often agree that something needs to be done, but not that it must be done by them. So in theory policy change is acceptable, but when it might raise costs (e.g. the <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/voters-rejecting-carbon-fee-in-first-day-returns/" target="_blank">carbon fee on Washington State's ballot</a>), then it's a no-go. But people can and do change their behaviour, and perhaps the thinking around meat consumption is a good current example. According to a recent report by by the UN,<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" target="_blank">dropping meat and dairy</a> from our diets would contribute substantially to curbing greenhouse gas emissions<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">. This isn't really news - I mean it made the news - even right </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">after arriving in Australia,<a href="http://bit.ly/22RAURx" target="_blank"> I reflected on some recent studies</a> on the topic of meat consumption and environmental problems.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> While I definitely don't expect everyone to jump ship and turn vegan overnight, people are g<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/08/03/you-might-think-there-are-more-vegetarians-than-ever-youd-be-wrong/?utm_term=.02b41cfc6e35" target="_blank">enerally eating less meat </a>and younger generations are more likely to go vegetarian. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">And over the years, we've learned a thing or two about what influences people to change ingrained behaviours. Psychologists have demonstrated there are a number of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128131305000060" target="_blank">structural and psychological barriers</a> to changing behaviours - not the least of which is that <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-someone-when-facts-fail/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sa-editorial-social&utm_content&utm_term&fbclid=IwAR1RXyHCc9nvdQGJEqs7p0iiLdSO2kl940pSEAp9wUGORRWq6Teivv1VyK8" target="_blank">facts don't seem to matter</a> much when they fly in the face of strongly held views (#fakenews). A crucial point here is that motivations vary between people and backgrounds - so for food choices climate, the environment, or even animal rights (which is sometimes but not always related to the environment) aren't always forefront. But <a href="https://www.futurity.org/meat-eating-survey-1863682/" target="_blank">health and costs </a>also may be deciding factors. To me, this suggests we need to do a better job of framing, and in the case of climate change actions doing so in terms of so-call 'co-beneits'!</span></div>
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As a final point, I just want to highlight that climate change mitigation presents challenges from behavioural psychology that don't apply as much to shifting diets, namely timing and proximity. Regarding the first, even William Nordhaus, who pioneered early work on discount rates for climate change action and one of this year's Nobel prizes in economics, has <a href="http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/01/04/global-2c-warming-limit-not-feasible-warns-top-economist/" target="_blank">warned that it's too late to wait</a>. However, discounting is very much in-line with how people approach planning and problem-solving. The future is distant, and very much future-self's problem. The immediate costs seem far greater than the avoided ones months, years, decades down the line - let's just say we prefer instant gratification and hate the feeling of loss. For the second, researchers have noted that there is a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20281" target="_blank">disparity between countries that emit the most greenhouse gases and those that will suffer</a> most from the impacts of climate change. The U.S., for instance, has started to experience some of the effects with increased <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/climate-change-california-wildfire/" target="_blank">wildfire risks</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/14/climate-change-hurricanes-study-global-warming" target="_blank">greater intensity storms</a>; but for the most part, the impacts are still this geographically distant phenomenon that don't directly affect many people's lives. Again, psychological studies have shown that people are much more likely to believe in and act on things related to personal experiences. </div>
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Ok, so at the end of the day, where does that leave us? Lots of super smart people are grappling with this question. But as with many problems related to common-pool resources (the atmosphere is everywhere!), it often requires some sort of rules in place to govern how people use it. Although it seems like there are so many causes we can be vocal and active about these days, climate change is not one that can wait, as it threatens the very existence of life on this planet.</div>
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<br /><b>Related Posts:</b><br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/22RAURx" target="_blank">Eating for the Planet - April 2016</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_945803676"><span id="goog_945803677"></span>Visions of Sheep - April 2015</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/best-of-mmm-veggie-considers-meat.html" target="_blank">Veggie Considers Meat - December 2012</a><br />
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Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-17022004517651121022018-09-02T00:59:00.001-04:002018-12-30T17:50:36.172-05:00Growing through Travel<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr style="margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Typical night-time shot of central Jakarta</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jakarta is not my favourite city. It's a sprawling mass of over 10 million people, with all the associated grime, air pollution, and traffic. But it's also a fascinating and vibrant city, suffering through the growing pains of rapid development, melding eastern and western cultures. You find a stark juxtaposition - luxury and wealth side-by-side poverty and struggle - that make hard questions of power and justice up-close and personal. I've only ever been a passer-through, spending no more than a week at any given time, confronting the frenetic energy of the city. Yet, I think over the years, travel has built up my capacity to stomach - even sometimes crave - these challenging situations. This is a bit tardy, but feeds one of my favourite annual traditions of reflection on how travel contributes to one's development as a global citizen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I started writing this post in mid-July, the day<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I turned 32. While it doesn't seem like much has changed in the last ten years or so, comparing my current worldview and approach to life to that<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> of</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 22-year-old me, we are </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">so very different. I would attribute much of this moulding of a human being to travel and the kinds of experiences that certain types of travel engender. </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);">Perhaps travel is so apparent this birthday, because it took place <i>en route</i>. Or perhaps it is because the past twelve months have been so transient. Between Colombia, the US, Indonesia and Singapore (and not just once...), New Zealand, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Malaysia, not much time was left for good Ol' Brissie. But maybe the topic seems so salient in part due to witnessing the attitudes and political perspectives so visible these days, which might relate to a lack of interaction with different people and cultures (among other factors).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Countryside of North Java, about 90 minutes from Jakarta</span></td></tr>
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Travel, I think, influences two elements of the human experience: insularity (and fear) and reality (including empathy). Insularity feels particularly close-to-home at the moment. There is a general sense of singularity - the particularly abrasive 'America First' mentality - evident in such failures in<a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/education/376707-monolingualism-diminishes-americas-stature-on-the-world-stage" target="_blank"> fostering multi-lingualism</a> or developing <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/survey-geography-foreign-relations-americans-students/" target="_blank">geographic knowledge of the world</a>. And while few Americans deign to leave the country for holidays, those that do remain within comfortable confines, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/travel/where-will-americans-travel-in-2015-.html" target="_blank">most frequently visiting Mexico, Canada, and the UK</a>. It's not just about how many people travel (a <a href="https://matadornetwork.com/life/64-americans-never-left-u-s/" target="_blank">bit over 1/3 have passports.</a>..), but also the expectations that follow. There was an <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/safe-travels-wealthy-western-180228084544142.html" target="_blank">interesting article at the beginning of this year</a> about the inequities in ability to travel internationally, just by virtue of one's nationality, and the expectation from westerners that they can and should be able to travel, safely and wherever. But further, while these expectations persist,countries close their borders to others.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The second thing I think travel brings to one's world-view and general perspective, is a dose of reality - and perhaps addresses some of the lack of empathy that feeds our insularity. A recently-published interview with the late <a href="https://popula.com/2018/07/15/bourdain-confidential/" target="_blank">Anthony Bourdain</a> really highlighted how travel cultivates this empathy, disabuses assumptions, and can humble. He argued, <span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"... <span style="font-family: inherit;">the more you travel the more you look inwards. Mark Twain said travel is fatal to prejudice. You try to put yourself in a place where you can see things, and let things happen. Where you’re not always in charge, you’re not in control, [you need a] willingness to go with the flow, and understand, you know, you’re in somebody else’s house, somebody else’s country. You’re not in charge ... when you see people, again and again, how much they can do with very little, how people struggle and persist, you know… Look, I believe in some basic virtues, you know? Mercy, humility, curiosity, empathy." </span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Bourdain hit the nail on the head - travel that forces you to confront the stark realities of the world also helps you see the humanity. Going back to Jakarta, I think that the cumulative travel experiences have been important for acknowledging both the positives and negatives in such a city. Particularly, neither diminishing the hard parts nor letting fear win out (which, 22-year-old me probably would have done).</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So I'll end my musing on that. Just to clarify, I recognize that not everyone has the means, freedom, nor inclination to travel. This post is not meant to disparage those who don't, but rather highlight the benefits I have found through such experiences. It's possible to stay open-minded and empathetic without globetrotting. Diversity and hardship are not necessarily a world-away, but often right on our doorsteps. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"To mistakes. To mistakes, because that’s the most important part of travel." - Anthony Bourdain</span></span></div>
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Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-83468632570890407722018-05-11T20:41:00.002-04:002018-05-11T20:41:26.392-04:00Lessons from an Empty Stomach<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://society6.com/product/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-ii_print" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="https://society6.com/product/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-ii_print" border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://pla.s6img.com/society6/img/bUHoyR3Hsabubfji45sxA3uvEpw/w_700/prints/~artwork/s6-original-art-uploads/society6/uploads/misc/619bf9fc5dc94a3c8a6433390b28967d/~~/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-ii-prints.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This morning I woke up with a nice a cup of tea and some avocado on kalamata olive toast. It seemed extravagant after five days of sliced banana on basic wholemeal. And while I can't say my calorie count was dangerously low over this past week of <a href="http://bit.ly/lblrf2018" target="_blank">Living Below the Line</a>, I still seemed to be perpetually hungry (and there was the whole lack of coffee...). Not only that, but thoughts of my next meal filled most waking hours. </div>
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This isn't surprising. If your basic needs - food, water, shelter - aren't met, it's difficult to think of other more frivolous things. Abraham Maslow got at this idea in his 1943 paper, "<a href="https://www.learning-theories.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html" target="_blank">A Theory of Human Motivation</a>". Also referred to as "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs", his theory outlines five levels of needs: physiological, safety, love & belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Deficiency in a lower level of needs causes anxiety, and means an individual will prioritise fulfilling those needs first and foremost. "Where will I get my next meal" would supercede "how well am I doing at work" or "should I hang out with friends tonight". Chronic deficiency of these basic needs can ultimately hinder people from reaching their potential, and society as a whole from being more enlightened and just (see the "growth" tier: self-actualisation). And, as one can imagine, things like poverty and <a href="http://www.academia.edu/6985348/Human_Needs_Theory_Conflict_and_Peace" target="_blank">conflict</a> can lead to perpetual loops in the bottom rungs of the hierarchy.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2004.09.002" target="_blank">Cinner & Polnac (2004)</a> on coral reef conservation </td></tr>
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This hierarchy also offers some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2008.12.020" target="_blank">insight if we care about the environment and conservation</a>. Particularly in the early years, "fortress conservation" dominated the agenda. This largely entailed putting tracks of land - say, tropical rainforest - under protection, kicking out any people that lived in the area, and barring entry and use. Besides this being morally questionable, it also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40339115?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">often fails to protect the area</a> of interest. This isn't to say that we should get rid of all protected areas - save Yosemite! - but rather that the needs of people living around and reliant on protected areas must be considered. Studies have shown that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569104000900" target="_blank">socio-economic factors influence people's perceptions</a> of conservation, and thus need to be accounted for to develop appropriate strategies. You can imagine that someone with an income too low to purchase food, but who lives near a forest with deer and other tasty critters, might prioritise his need to eat and feed a family over the value of an intact protected forest. Some of the strategies to address this tension have included buffer zones around protected areas, where local people can harvest non-timber products like honey or bamboo; and community-managed marine and forest areas, which allows people to use certain resources to meet their needs while fostering the motivation and capacity to sustainably manage them. These, too, don't always work out as planned, but they are steps toward more <a href="http://bit.ly/howjust" target="_blank">just and equitable conservation</a> that address humanity's hierarchy of needs. </div>
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Thanks to all the support from friends and family during the week, and for contributing to the <a href="http://bit.ly/lblrf2018" target="_blank">Oaktree Foundation's mission!</a> It made all the difference (and contributed to the 'esteem' level of my needs). </div>
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<i><b>Read More:</b></i></div>
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<a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabcde/" target="_blank">How just and just how? A systematic review of social equity in conservation research</a> - Me, Liz Law, Nathan Bennett, Chris Ives, Jess Thorn, and Kerrie Wilson, 2018 (open access)</div>
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2008.12.020" target="_blank">Bridging the gaps for global sustainable development: A quantitative analysis</a> - Victor Udo and Peter Jansson, 2009 (paywall)</div>
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<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339115" target="_blank">Nature above People: Rolston and "Fortress" Conservation in the South </a>- Hanna Siurua, 2006 (limited access)</div>
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<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2004.09.002" target="_blank">Poverty, perceptions and planning: why socioeconomics matter in the management of Mexican reefs</a> - Josh Cinner and Richard Polnac, 2004 (paywall)</div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-68886450526608878972018-05-06T20:01:00.000-04:002018-05-06T20:01:04.517-04:00Who Walks the Line?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We joke sometimes about being starving graduate students, or the poverty of a 'research higher degree'. While most of us discussing this topic have never experienced true, chronic hunger, and have never reached the point where financial woes eclipse every other aspect of life, it is true that 'what is poor' is not entirely straightforward. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">At the international level, major development organisations have worked to set poverty lines that delineate the point at which people across the world can't meet their basic needs. Countries individually define their poverty lines, and then the poorest countries dictate the international poverty line. This line <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2017/04/14/what-are-poverty-lines" target="_blank">set by the World Bank stood at $1.90 per person per day</a> as of 2015 (based on 2011 data). How the poverty line is calculated - based on incomes and costs of goods, not to mention incomplete data - has <a href="https://www2.monash.edu/impact/articles/has-the-world-bank-got-a-problem-with-its-poverty-figures/" target="_blank">faced its fair share of critiques</a> over the years and more recently. But the concept of a poverty line itself, and whether countries are considered "developing", have also been called into question.</span></div>
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<iframe align="left" allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="360" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fworldeconomicforum%2Fvideos%2F10155284759801479%2F&show_text=0&width=350" style="border: none; overflow: hidden; padding: 10px;" width="350"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I recently came across an interesting discussion on tiers of income, and how those may be more informative and reflective of reality than a simple cut-off for those who are considered poor. This approach <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/bill-gates-says-he-now-lumps-the-the-world-into-4-income-groups-here-s-how-it-breaks-down" target="_blank">characterised four different classes of income</a>, and how many people around the world fall into these categories. At level 1, about 1 billion people live on less than $2 per day, which translates into transport by foot, cooking over a fire, and fetching water with buckets. Around 3 billion people live on between $2-8 per day, and may get around on bicycle, use gas for home-cooking, and send their children to school. At $8-32 per day, we see around 2 billion people who have running water, might own a car or motorbike, and possibly have a refrigerator and electricity. Finally, the remaining 1 billion people live on more than $32 per day, and they typically own cars, have running hot water, and have been able to complete at least a high school education. This gives a sense of what people can afford, but what the knock-on consequences might be - such as having electricity makes it more feasible to study at home and progress in school. Taking this further step is in line with thinking of poverty as multi-dimensional. Someone's income is only part of the story. Access to services - like medical and education, supportive social environment, and relative sense of wellbeing can all contribute to an individuals' perceptions of themselves and poverty.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GY28NSJbCck/Wu2cRm8QhgI/AAAAAAAADAQ/WsmdJ0E03eQLE5mNBbTQ9-nuRTkREkbgACLcBGAs/s1600/LBL%2B2018.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GY28NSJbCck/Wu2cRm8QhgI/AAAAAAAADAQ/WsmdJ0E03eQLE5mNBbTQ9-nuRTkREkbgACLcBGAs/s400/LBL%2B2018.png" width="400" /></a>This week, I'm not giving up my comfortable living conditions (running water AND electricity), my postgraduate education and healthcare, or my perception of overall welfare. But I am eating on AU$2 per day<span style="font-size: small;">, while garnering </span><span style="font-size: small;">support for
Oaktree, a youth-led organization that aims to educate and empower youth in the Asia Pacific as a way to alleviate poverty. Check
out my fundraising page and keep tabs on this year's <a href="https://www.livebelowtheline.com.au/fundraisers/rachelfriedman/5-day-challenge" target="_blank">Live Below the Line challenge</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>What happened during LBL in...</b></i></span></div>
2017 - <a href="http://bit.ly/2o1Vsxj" target="_blank">Below the Line in Trumplandia?</a><br />
2016 - <a href="http://bit.ly/26UJILh" target="_blank">Bad Accounting: Who Pays for Our Food?</a><br />
2015 - <a href="http://bit.ly/1Eb1nRk" target="_blank">Starting a Conversation on Hunger</a><br />
2014 - <a href="http://bit.ly/1n9UVQs" target="_blank">Frugal Foodie on a British Pound: The Challenge Ahead</a><br />
2013 - <a href="http://bit.ly/2mDLlyD" target="_blank">Loving the Lentils</a><br />
2012 - <a href="http://bit.ly/1MIYwBu" target="_blank">What the World Eats</a>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-13136759329494575682018-04-27T06:47:00.000-04:002018-04-27T06:47:23.496-04:00How Just, and Just How?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kToNw3Udfp8/WuL944qrbuI/AAAAAAAAC_w/IhfnhrvPzKMsK7v6_ZvYHttASR7Ai7ZTACLcBGAs/s1600/EquityWordCloud.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="365" height="319" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kToNw3Udfp8/WuL944qrbuI/AAAAAAAAC_w/IhfnhrvPzKMsK7v6_ZvYHttASR7Ai7ZTACLcBGAs/s320/EquityWordCloud.png" width="320" /></a>It’s a long-standing ambition, for society to reach some sort of just and equitable ideal. What that means in practice differs, depending on the time, place, and people involved. But it does seem that <a href="https://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/esd/equity.html" target="_blank">meeting basic human rights and needs</a> and the notion of ‘fairness’ are prevalent across discussions of social justice and equity. Things like poverty and hunger connect pretty clearly to equity. For conservation, however, it’s a bit fuzzier. In theory, conservation is driven by values around making the world a better place. Yet we also have to ask ourselves - who gets to decide how conservation happens, where, and who benefits or suffers. </div>
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A few other researchers and I recently thought we’d try to get a better sense of how research in conservation has so far approached equity - especially how it’s defined, measured, and evaluated in studies. We sifted through a mound of papers, synthesizing information from the 138 that considered how social equity and conservation fit together. Besides a general upward trends in the <i>amount</i> of research explicitly on this topic (and alphabet soup present as <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html" target="_blank">SDGs</a>, <a href="http://www.un-redd.org/" target="_blank">REDD</a>, and <a href="https://www.cbd.int/" target="_blank">CBD</a> have become prominent), there are also some trends in <i>what</i> and <i>how</i>.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iq5QYSYNaN4/WuL968FWE_I/AAAAAAAAC_4/QRNdMdfp88sRYraxbiDvuMmSaIoWm1ojQCLcBGAs/s1600/Equity%2BBlogpost.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="199" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iq5QYSYNaN4/WuL968FWE_I/AAAAAAAAC_4/QRNdMdfp88sRYraxbiDvuMmSaIoWm1ojQCLcBGAs/s1600/Equity%2BBlogpost.png" /></a>Equity is 3D. According to people who spend a whole lot of time thinking about equity, we should consider not only the <i>distribution</i> of costs and benefits, but also the <i>procedure</i> of making things happen (e.g. who gets to make decisions) and the <i>recognition</i> for rights, types of knowledge, cultural factors, and the like. The conservation literature has often defaulted to analysing distributional equity, adopting a stance of equity as egalitarian or fair allocation of costs and benefits and capitalizing on concrete and easy-to-measure things … like money. And what is considered ‘equitable’ may be a bit fuzzy or obscured, but making it very clear is essential for keep tabs and evaluating progress.</div>
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While the limited view of equity adopted by conservation and insufficient definition are important things to recognise, there are other lessons we can take away from the state of our current equity and conservation research. If we backup and consider why researchers study conservation and equity in the first place, we often see a utilitarian perspective, this romantic notion that social equity and conservation success go hand-in-hand. However, there may in fact be trade-offs between social equity and conservation (or even between those different dimensions of equity). In both research and practice we need to be more critical of our underlying motivations and examine more closely the knock-on effects of any given action.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hbbjVb6TsLM/WuL535H3MRI/AAAAAAAAC_Q/6NXHNnzMGa4ycbEVGkQUxdurUz5eGNBPQCLcBGAs/s1600/Figure%2B3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1600" height="159" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hbbjVb6TsLM/WuL535H3MRI/AAAAAAAAC_Q/6NXHNnzMGa4ycbEVGkQUxdurUz5eGNBPQCLcBGAs/s320/Figure%2B3.png" width="320" /></a>Like a lot of the research in conservation, there are also some discrepancies between who is carrying out the research and where conservation is taking place. For example, very little research is happening on conservation and equity in Europe or North America, but much of the research is coming from institutes in those regions. This makes it a bit hard to tell how much studies reflect the researchers’ own notions of equity or what is relevant to the local context. </div>
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I guess the burning question is still, is conservation equitable? Well, it’s complicated (and inconclusive). We found that studies reported negative or mixed outcomes - so conservation less frequently resulted in positive equity results. But all those elements above (and many more) will influence these endpoints. </div>
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If you found this all super-intriguing, you can get even more detail from our review paper in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabcde" target="_blank"><i>Environmental Research Letters</i></a>! AND, while we’re on the topic of social equity … During <a href="http://bit.ly/lblrf2018" target="_blank">Live Below the Line</a> this May, I’m raising funds again for this awesome foundation that works to end poverty and empower youth. Definitely fighting injustice!</div>
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Friedman, R.S., Law, E.A., Bennett, N.J., Ives, C.D., Thorn, J.P.R., & Wilson, K.A. 2018. <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabcde/" target="_blank">How just and just how? A systematic review of social equity in conservation research</a>. <i>Environmental Research Letters</i>, 13(5). Doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/aabcde </div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-20255328794878435762018-04-15T06:52:00.002-04:002018-04-19T02:52:47.944-04:00The Fungus Among Us: Fantastical Yeasts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bE0zUU-l9L0/WtGCNHjDsaI/AAAAAAAAC-0/HlUmOn5-_-wHNglChqGv5hRixC1c_xTNACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bE0zUU-l9L0/WtGCNHjDsaI/AAAAAAAAC-0/HlUmOn5-_-wHNglChqGv5hRixC1c_xTNACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0734.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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Bread. It's one of the most basic of foods - 15% of the world's calorie intake comes from wheat - and also one of the oldest processed foods. Even <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/processed-food-a-two-million-year-history/" target="_blank">before the advent of agriculture</a>, people realised they could turn ground grain into a leavened loaf (as well as alcoholic beverages...). However, they likely didn't know about the little microbes causing their bread to rise. For these fermentation processes to happen, we need our little fungal friends, namely <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </i>(and its various strains). And that, my friends, is what we will talk about today - yeast.</div>
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This past week, I skipped yoga to listen to a <a href="https://youtu.be/nwYHYHYZDzs" target="_blank">researcher from the University of Queensland</a> regale us with tales about catching and cultivating local yeast species and strains and brewing beer. These funghi are important in the brewing process, feeding on sugars in the grain, converting them to carbon dioxide (fizzy!) and ethanol (alcohol). Different species and strains metabolize sugars in different ways, affecting the flavour (like acidity) and texture (like carbonation). But all this talk of yeasts, got me thinking about bread, and the microbiota involved in my weekly bake.</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EDp5uoaTivM/WtGCLsY-oGI/AAAAAAAAC-s/eoNPMWckHng9iPEWFBifzhJcmCk39vzpgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0749.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EDp5uoaTivM/WtGCLsY-oGI/AAAAAAAAC-s/eoNPMWckHng9iPEWFBifzhJcmCk39vzpgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0749.jpg" width="320" /></a>Now when you buy those little packets of dried yeast, or any bread from the grocery store, you're getting a bountiful monoculture of <i>S. cervisiae</i>. Sourdough starters are more likely a slightly untamed backyard garden - a mix of yeast species (typically <i>Candida milleri,</i> <i>S. exiguous, S. cerevisiae, </i><i><i>and C. humilis</i>) </i>and lactobacillus bacteria. These little guys, naturally found in our surrounding environment, will colonize a flour and water mixture left out for a few days (after they've fought off the less deliciously fragrant microbes). When mixed with flour and water and used to make bread dough, a bit of biochemistry takes place. The lactobacilli convert sugars (maltose in this case) to lactic and acetic acids, giving the bread a slightly sour taste. And the yeast do the same thing they do in beer-brewing ... metabolise sugars (sucrose, and others) to make ethanol and carbon dioxide, giving the bread additional depth of flavour and some lift.</div>
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This may seem a bit high-brow, and sourdough bread has definitely developed a reputation as the new hip thing. But it is also commonplace and central to daily life. As a critical component of many diets around the world, the cost of bread, and the essential grain ingredients, is a useful indication of the state of a country and the welfare of its people. We've seen in the past how the rising <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/feed_the_world/2014/04/food_riots_and_revolution_grain_prices_predict_political_instability.html" target="_blank">price of bread can play a role in social unrest and protest</a>. While some of us may get pre-occupied dwelling on the fascinating microcosm within this tasty baked good, it is important not to forget that bread is at its core sustenance - wheat is the <a href="https://www.idrc.ca/en/article/facts-figures-food-and-biodiversity" target="_blank">primary food of 35% of world's population</a>. I'll be trying to subsist for five days, with mostly this fabulous fermented grain serving as the basis of my diet. Please join me for another year of <a href="https://www.livebelowtheline.com.au/fundraisers/rachelfriedman/5-day-challenge" target="_blank">Live Below the Line and contribute to the Oaktree Foundation</a>.</div>
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<i><b>Read more:</b></i></div>
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<a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2003/sep/featscienceof" target="_blank">The Biology of ... Sourdough</a> - Discover Magazine 2003</div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1NM5esw" target="_blank">Let Them Eat Bread</a> - My Munchable Musings 2015</div>
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<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/28/499363379/discovering-the-science-secrets-of-sourdough-you-can-help" target="_blank">Discovering the Science Secrets of Sourdoughs</a> - NPR The Salt 2016 </div>
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<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-beers-and-the-bees-pollinators-provide-a-different-kind-of-brewer-rsquo-s-yeast/" target="_blank">The Beers and the Bees: Pollinators Provide a Different Kind of Brewer’s Yeast</a> - PBS Newshour 2017</div>
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<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/sourdough-on-the-rise/548708/" target="_blank">Secrets of Sourdough</a> - The Atlantic 2017</div>
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Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-36739847986445192972018-03-10T10:06:00.001-05:002018-03-10T10:06:42.990-05:00Cinta Coklat: Indonesia and the Cacao Scene<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cacao in Central Region, Ghana</td></tr>
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When you think of agricultural products from Indonesia, palm oil is probably the first thing that pops into your head. While the bulk of global cacao still comes from West Africa - particularly Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana - Indonesia clocks in as a close third in terms of the world's largest producers. For the most part, all these beans are exported unprocessed to the US, Malaysia, Singapore (or from Africa, Europe) to be made into chocolate. Unlike West Africa, where there is a narrow band of suitable habitat and climatic conditions - the high forest zone running toward the south - basically, all of Indonesia could viably grow cacao. Right now, about the same area is under cultivation as in Ghana - just for scale, Indonesia has about 8 times the land area - and <a href="https://www.indonesia-investments.com/business/commodities/cocoa/item241?" target="_blank">Sulawesi makes up the bulk</a> of the production area (about 75%), followed by Java and Sumatera. </div>
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At this point you may be asking yourselves, "why is she rambling on about cacao again? <a href="http://bit.ly/2FyiSAA" target="_blank">I thought that was over</a> and community forestry was the <a href="http://bit.ly/2Cby5bV" target="_blank">new topic <i>du jour</i></a>." Well, the two are actually related! Very exciting. Cacao is one of these awesome crops that is traditionally grown in the understory of a forest. Young cacao needs shade to protect it during vulnerable stages, and older trees can benefit from the retained moisture and moderate temperatures. Yes, there are also production downsides, but agroforestry models of cacao production are tuned for the long-term,<a href="https://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/research/cacao/somarriba.cfm" target="_blank"> maintaining benefits</a> like soil fertility and structure better than monocropped trees.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rubber in West Kalimantan, Indonesia</td></tr>
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As such, along with coffee, bamboo, rattan, and rubber, cacao has been considered as a potential forest-based "alternative livelihood". Old habits die hard (especially when there is no desire for them to die at all...), so you can imagine my elation when cacao came up in conversations with community forest managers. (... up in northern Borneo, we quickly decided I would have to come back in 2-3 years to "help", once the trees had matured...). Though the prospect may be rather alluring, cacao is still a bit of a mystery to many Indonesian smallholder farmers and forest community.</div>
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Why? Well, I don't have a solid answer, so my musings will have to suffice. With regards to the other non-timber forest products: bamboo has always called Asia home and frankly grows like a weed; rattan is a natural forest crop in Southeast Asia that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqdf6" target="_blank">locals have used for centuries</a> in household items; and although rubber is native to Latin America, it received <a href="https://historyofrubber.weebly.com/rubber-production.html" target="_blank">years of attention during the colonial era</a> and has largely remained a smallholder crop. Coffee has its roots in East Africa and a history in the region similar to cacao, yet somehow the product of this understory shrub has fed the global market for centuries and recently <a href="https://knowyourgrinder.com/indonesian-coffee-history-types-production/" target="_blank">embedded itself in Indonesian culture</a> (<a href="http://bit.ly/2hGnGca" target="_blank">ngopi much?</a>). Mysteriously, even though cacao - also indigenous to the Americas - has actually been <a href="https://www.chocolatiers.co.uk/blogs/guides/16614204-indonesian-cacao" target="_blank">present in the region </a>since the 17th century, and cultivated in Indonesia since the late 18th century, it hasn't garnered the same interest. The crop didn't experience the same colonial heyday as in West Africa, and <a href="https://www.chocolatiers.co.uk/blogs/guides/16614204-indonesian-cacao" target="_blank">farmer disinterest combined with pest problems</a> early on meant production remained limited until the latter half of the 20th century. </div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BI5-VR7Yinc/WpjbpuyoudI/AAAAAAAAC9s/oz0AeJGC7zMBt6TRPk4-AAuhsc29CrHWwCLcBGAs/s1600/Hotspots-of-vulnerability-for-cocoa-production-occur-in-two-main-regions-West-Africa-and.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="850" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BI5-VR7Yinc/WpjbpuyoudI/AAAAAAAAC9s/oz0AeJGC7zMBt6TRPk4-AAuhsc29CrHWwCLcBGAs/s400/Hotspots-of-vulnerability-for-cocoa-production-occur-in-two-main-regions-West-Africa-and.png" width="400" /></a>But Indonesia's time may have come. It happens to be an ideal place to set up shop in terms of the <a href="http://www.eibn.org/en/page/news_new?641" target="_blank">regional consumer demand</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269616565_Cocoa_in_a_Changing_Climate_Projecting_Hot_Spots_of_Vulnerability" target="_blank">climate suitability</a>. It also offers an opportunity to support multi-use forestry and provide a high-value cash crop for locals in areas where forests may be on the chopping blocks. That said, despite my enthusiasm for cacao as a potential agroforestry crop in community forests, I definitely have a few qualms.</div>
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First off, this involves planting non-native species. Not that we haven't already introduced a crazy amount of agricultural products into novel places (hmm, like oil palm, rubber trees, and coffee, to name a few here in Indonesia), but in this case it means doing so within forests meant to be restored or conserved for limited non-timber uses. Would we be losing some of the ecological value in deference to economic by planting non-natives? Or would the benefits outweigh the costs if it means maintaining higher biodiversity and general forest cover than business-as-usual?</div>
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Second, it's a slippery slope, towards commercialisation and global markets. In Ghana, cacao started as an understory crop, as well. But over time it has moved to being grown predominantly in full-sun. With government policy supporting the use of chemicals and new sun-loving varieties for greater production, soils have become exhausted, and problems like erosion arise. Would Indonesia follow a similar trend?</div>
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And finally, is there the support available to ensure capacity for sustainable production? Fair trade, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ certification, etc. are all active across African and South American growing regions (and present in Indonesia, though more quietly...). There are major research centres in Costa Rica (CATIE) and Colombia (CIAT) that both have cacao programmes and are active in trials and training on both continents (though there is the Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute). Asia, well, is new to the scene and generally underrepresented. The industry will continue to be developed here regardless, especially since cacao in
other parts of the world is likely to bear the brunt of climate change, so making sure does so with sustainability at its core is essential. </div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6b1zkwRk7kM/WqPyOmIpBKI/AAAAAAAAC-Q/XPom5ZEhiYgDhwhi5oApZJlrThBwFcTnACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0703.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1162" data-original-width="1600" height="232" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6b1zkwRk7kM/WqPyOmIpBKI/AAAAAAAAC-Q/XPom5ZEhiYgDhwhi5oApZJlrThBwFcTnACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0703.jpg" width="320" /></a>All of this is to say, if anyone is looking for a cacao agroforestry enthusiast (with little agronomic training but plenty of passion), I'll be on the market for gainful employment in roughly 18 months :)</div>
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AND If you're on the lookout for existing awesome Indonesian chocolate, give these a try:</div>
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<a href="http://pipiltincocoa.com/" target="_blank">Pipiltin Cocoa</a> is a Jakarta-based bean-to-bar chocolate company that directly sources beans from Bali, Aceh, East Java, and Flores. [<a href="https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/alumni/tissa-aunilla-chocolate-entrepeneur" target="_blank">more from the founder</a>]</div>
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<a href="https://www.krakakoa.com/" target="_blank">Krakakao</a> is an organic chocolate company that sources directly from farmers in South Sumatra, providing training and support sustainable practices around the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. They also have a few bars from Bali, Sulawesi, and North Kalimantan, including my favourite bar, packaged with a slow loris on it ...</div>
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<a href="http://www.podbali.com/" target="_blank">Pod Bali</a> was founded on its namesake island and sources all the ingredients locally and supports communities producing cacao in high conservation value areas.</div>
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<i><b>Read More:</b></i></div>
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<a href="https://guide.michelin.sg/en/the-rise-of-southeast-asian-chocolatiers" target="_blank">The Rise of Southeast Asia Chocolatiers</a> - Michelin Guide Singapore, 2017<i><b> </b></i></div>
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<a href="http://www.csr-asia.com/report/Cocoa_paper.pdf" target="_blank">Inclusive Business in Asia: A Case Study of Cocoa</a> - CSR Asia and Oxfam, </div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-66595699674978828002018-02-26T23:26:00.001-05:002018-03-02T00:04:39.237-05:00Weathering Change: Women Farm Cocoa, Too<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HBN9y9xaD4I/WpKeI7mlO5I/AAAAAAAAC8U/bZBLxuf173cIQ1kFYaZ7MwEupKH-t8TyQCLcBGAs/s1600/10462151_10101268872526083_8068261847207211398_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HBN9y9xaD4I/WpKeI7mlO5I/AAAAAAAAC8U/bZBLxuf173cIQ1kFYaZ7MwEupKH-t8TyQCLcBGAs/s320/10462151_10101268872526083_8068261847207211398_o.jpg" width="240" /></a>You have probably read an article or two (or more) about how <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/09/no-beer-chocolate-coffee-how-climate-change-ruin-your-weekend" target="_blank">climate change is going to be the end of chocolate</a>. Compounded by potential losses of our other favourite indulgences - coffee and wine - this is nothing short of tragic. But what these articles don't really discuss is what happens to the farmers who grow these valuable export crops. Studies documenting how climate change affects rural people generally point out that they're likely to lose income, and that women are particularly at risk of experiencing negative effects. But not everything is about money, and not all women are in the same boat. The coarse resolution at which poverty and gender are often treated means we may get a skewed picture of who is actually vulnerable to climate change and for what reasons.</div>
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Back in 2014, I was working on surviving my MPhil degree, and reveling in the joys of fieldwork. From June to September, I was in the Central Region of Ghana, chatting with women in cocoa farming communities about their lives, their work, and the stresses they face. The idea was to get a sense from past experiences of "weather events" - the usual droughts and floods, mostly - in order to get an idea of how climate change could alter the lives of these farmers in the future. While the dissertation may have long since been done and dusted, one piece has lingered in the shadows. After 2.5 years since its first draft, some of the insights from this project finally made it through the peer-review process to see the light of day! </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tI9b1pMvnQ0/WpTk6hatG7I/AAAAAAAAC9c/X0MWRRUAS4YyAKRO---ten_-K9UNJ8sSQCLcBGAs/s1600/Gender%2BPaper%2BFigures.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="756" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tI9b1pMvnQ0/WpTk6hatG7I/AAAAAAAAC9c/X0MWRRUAS4YyAKRO---ten_-K9UNJ8sSQCLcBGAs/s320/Gender%2BPaper%2BFigures.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, Kakum looks like a seahorse. Credit: Alex Morel</td></tr>
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It's a bit off-point from the usual ecology fare (or maybe that's not so usual these days...). The idea of our little study was to get a better sense of who among cocoa farmers is vulnerable to climate change and how. While by
no means the definitive works, the paper describes how women involved in producing cacao are vulnerable in different ways. Because I've been told it's acceptable to celebrate your first first-authored paper, I'm unabashedly taking this time to share the highlights. </div>
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First off, why cacao? Besides the logical reason of its being the precursor to chocolate, cacao is an interesting case in a changing climate. A bit of a "Goldilocks" crop - it is best suit to a limited area around the globe - it needs certain amounts of rain, a tight temperature range, and both these things at the right times. So shifts in climate may have severe consequences for cacao crops. One finding from the study was that women who own cacao farms may become more exposed to adverse weather conditions - merely because the crop is particularly finicky - in comparison to those women who don't and grow a range of vegetables and starchy staples that have different optimal growing conditions.<br />
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But that's where the relative benefits of not owning cacao seem to end. Farmers are very much like investors - they diversify their portfolios of activities to reduce their sensitivities to any single unfortunate event. Cacao can be a highly profitable cash crop, and the women I spoke with who managed their own cacao had more disposable income and independence to take up a variety of income streams. They could spread their nest eggs across many baskets. Independence was not just about finances, though. The confidence and sense of empowerment that came along with owning cacao differed considerably from the pessimism and hopelessness expressed by many of the women who did not. Someone must have said that "success is a state of mind", and while tangible resources do help, having a proactive attitude can make all the difference in responding and adapting to challenges, not the least of which is climate change.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9dLunTg0gx4/WpKhHItg7uI/AAAAAAAAC9M/Hmyet-NKFdQjTj1sueYL5FI5uElVWpaBgCLcBGAs/s1600/MPhil%2BPresentation%2B-%2B16%2BJun.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="958" height="205" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9dLunTg0gx4/WpKhHItg7uI/AAAAAAAAC9M/Hmyet-NKFdQjTj1sueYL5FI5uElVWpaBgCLcBGAs/s320/MPhil%2BPresentation%2B-%2B16%2BJun.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Couldn't have managed without Auntie Fausti,<br />
who looked out for us while Homaho!</td></tr>
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Last of all, while not explicitly part of the analysis, I did notice a strong tendency for women with cacao to point out the importance of ecological stewardship. Perhaps because it is harder for women generally to obtain fertilisers and pesticides used in cacao production; perhaps because many also cultivate the veg that they then feed to their families (and who wouldn't want to feed their kids safe and nutritious food?); or perhaps it's because many have inherited land after farming all their lives and building up knowledge of ecology over time, rather than receiving agricultural extension training focused on technology and inputs (also largely unavailable for women). Perhaps that is a question for another research project!<br />
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Unfortunately, none of this solves our chocolate predicament. But hopefully it's a step toward more nuanced ideas for helping farmers face the current and pending climate changes.<br />
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Read the full paper, if you're feeling ambitious...<br />
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<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17565529.2018.1442806" target="_blank">Vulnerability of Ghanaian women cocoa farmers to climate change: A typology</a>. <i>Climate and Development</i>. doi: 10.1080/17565529.2018.1442806 </div>
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<b>Related Posts:</b></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1BjmzCg" target="_blank">Frugal Foodie on a Ghana Cedi: Candle-Lit Dinner</a> - August 2014 <br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/V0uTpt" target="_blank">Certifying Gender Equality</a> - August 2014</div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1nShJBD" target="_blank">My Munchable Soapbox: Unfair Trade </a>- July 2014<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1rx2CS7" target="_blank">A Balancing Act</a> - July 2014<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1qHS42e" target="_blank">A Birthday Musing</a> - July 2014<br />
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So much thanks to my co-authors- Mark and Emily, Rebecca for constructive comments on the paper and support in the field, and all of the ECOLIMITS team for letting me tag onto the project. This would not have been at all possible without the amazing interpretation skills of Anne, the local know-how and tech support of Mike and Prosper, and of course all the women who gave their time (and often food and hospitality) in opening up about their lives and contributing to this project. I'm forever grateful, and hope one day this can help in some small way. Medaase!</div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-60400053714944136302018-02-20T20:20:00.000-05:002018-02-25T05:05:49.136-05:00Four Stages of Interview Success<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sk2BRrtKrOI/WozFpvAlb3I/AAAAAAAAC74/9BYTQqkRAdINlyPcPy-4zyinhaT9X_CywCLcBGAs/s1600/Picture%2B108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sk2BRrtKrOI/WozFpvAlb3I/AAAAAAAAC74/9BYTQqkRAdINlyPcPy-4zyinhaT9X_CywCLcBGAs/s320/Picture%2B108.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Camp! Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar, 2007</td></tr>
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Fieldwork is often the bread-and-butter of many researchers' work. This ritual of going 'out' to collect 'data' forms the core of how both natural and social scientists build their understandings of the world. I fell into field ecology my second year at university, doing fun things like counting the number and size of trees in a certain area, or seeing how many different types of bugs we could catch in pitfall traps set at regular intervals. The methods were pretty much the same if we went to the rainforest in southern Mexico, a deciduous forest in northern New York, or across the globe to the temperate humid forests in eastern Australia. Expeditions could require a fair amount of logistical magic - between wrangling gear (like massive measuring tapes for transects or containers for sample collection) and obtaining appropriate permits (particularly if in a foreign country or accessing protected areas). Something will inevitably go wrong - inclement weather, malfunctioning equipment, lost luggage - and it can get lonely. But it can also be peaceful, contemplative, and rejuvenating (...anyone need a field assistant?).</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I don't think we made it to the village... Central Ghana, 2014</td></tr>
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But this 'fieldwork' has changed a fair bit for me since the last excursion in ecology just over a decade ago, as more of the natural gets replaced by social. Yet, particularly in a school of biological sciences, I get the feeling that social science methods are underestimated in terms of their complexity and questioned for their legitimacy and robustness. In becoming more familiar with the social sciences over the last few years, though, I'm coming to terms with their own methodological challenges not too dissimilar from carrying out an ecology fieldtrip. Yesterday, while trying to sort out a few remaining interviews for a study here in Indonesia, we were discussing all the behind-the-scenes activity involved in the final 45-90 minute interview. For your benefit, I've detailed the four stages of "interview success" below:</div>
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<b>First Success!</b> Obtain contact information for the target interviewee, either directly, or through circuitous process of snowballing. For example, you know someone, who knows someone, who used to work at the organisation the right person might still be affiliated with.</div>
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<b>Second Success!</b> Make contact with target interviewee, and proceed with a long series of WhatsApp messages, often missing vowels or half the word. Then, you realize that your explanation in bahasa Indonesia implied you are implementing a “project” and not “studying” something on the topic of interest, and you spend the next exchange of messages explaining that you’re doing something else entirely, and you really just want to talk to them and hope it eventually makes a difference in the world.</div>
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<b>Third Success! </b>Set a time, date, and location for the interview. Change said time, date, and location because of heavy rains and flooding. Then realize the location is actually perfectly situated for acoustic augmentation of motorbikes revving, which is all a dictaphone or mobile actually picks up. </div>
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<b>Fourth Success!</b> Actually meet target interviewee, conduct congenial interview, shake hands (maybe taken token photo), and part ways. This does eventually happen. </div>
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<b>Bonus Success!</b> Interpret your notes scribbled during the interview and somehow manage to fit them into a framework you thought was applicable to the "study system". Proceed with analysis and writing up, ultimately trying to make some sense of the messy world we live in.</div>
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<a href="https://methodsblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/interviews-conservation-research/" target="_blank">A recent paper reviewing the use of interviews in conservation research</a> provides some useful insights into good practices when choosing interviews as a methodology.</div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-51578125389937086472018-02-07T03:30:00.002-05:002018-02-25T05:04:20.381-05:00Embrace the Cloudy Skies<div style="text-align: justify;">
We all have those days. You wake up to the light pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof. Peering tentatively out the window, and all you see is a blanket of gray. You pull the covers back over your head and hope no one notices you straggling in several hours late for work. </div>
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<a class="alignleft" data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/81309666@N05/35415118092/in/dateposted-public/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="DSC_0406"><img alt="DSC_0406" class="alignleft" height="266" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4284/35415118092_dc6a432638_z.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>Last week, many of my Brisbane compatriots may have tried to pull off something along these lines, bemoaning the gray and rainy weather. Though I love the usually brilliant blue skies and sunny days of Brisneyland, I have to admit that my Seattle upbringing makes me crave dreariness and gloom (weather-wise) every now-and-again. But the lack of rain piques my interest (and concern) for another reason. It's indicative of a worrisome trend across the globe - one that is not just about how much water falls to the ground in a specific place, but at what time of year and how intensely. So, let's talk a bit about rain! </div>
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Queensland is home to the Great Barrier Reef and a belt of tropical rainforest. But it also seems to have a recurrent precipitation problem. During December, arguably the start of the wet season, <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/drought.shtml#tabs2=Rainfall-deficiencies" target="_blank">rainfall and soil moisture were below average</a> for most of the state. Here in Brisbane, like the rest of Southeast Queensland, we <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/dam-fine-rain-brings-more-than-three-months-of-water-supply-20171019-p4ywjr.html" target="_blank">rely on capturing rainwater in reservoirs</a> throughout the year to feed demands for drinking water, etc. While this is efficient during the frequent summer deluges, it leaves us at a bit of a risk when the skies are clear for too long.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a1NP5yoC1kw/Wnq0bUIMiiI/AAAAAAAAC7M/qVQXflw1pbM9kB9u-A-dXdWnYycFlzFIwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a1NP5yoC1kw/Wnq0bUIMiiI/AAAAAAAAC7M/qVQXflw1pbM9kB9u-A-dXdWnYycFlzFIwCLcBGAs/s400/DSC_1242.JPG" width="400" /></a>Moving to a more arid region, <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities/" target="_blank">Cape Town has made headlines</a> repeatedly in the last week or two. This is because the South African city with a population of 4 million people is likely to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/day-zero-cape-town-drought-no-water-run-out-reservoir-supply-12-per-cent-16-april-south-africa-a8195011.html" target="_blank">run out of this year's water </a>by around May. Growing water demand (i.e. more people) and record-level drought (potentially augmented by climate change) are being implicated in the urban water shortage. Ultimately, the city is drawing on its underground aquifers and rivers faster than rain can replenish. Indonesia's capitol city, Jakarta, also made headlines for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/jakarta-sinking-climate.html" target="_blank">unsustainable use of groundwater</a> (caused by illegal well-digging), though the big concern here is the risk of land sinking and falling below sea level.</div>
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Our last case study of rain troubles is Seattle, WA. This is another story altogether. Here it rains. In fact, in 2017, Seattle got a <a href="http://komonews.com/weather/scotts-weather-blog/seattle-gets-a-years-worth-of-rain-in-just-55-months-again" target="_blank">year's worth of rain in just 5.5 months</a>. Cool, so water shouldn't be an issue, right? Climate change predictions show Pacific Northwest of North America as getting wetter and warmer. Unlike arid Cape Town or sub-tropical Brisbane, much of Seattle's drinking water comes from <a href="https://grist.org/science/climate-forecast-for-seattle-warmer-and-wetter-with-a-chance-of-deluge/" target="_blank">spring snowmelt</a>. And this, my friends, is reliant on the <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/util/MyServices/Water/WaterSupply/index.htm" target="_blank">temperatures dropping low enough</a> for winter snows to fall and remain in the upper parts of the watersheds. Or, if precipitation becomes more concentrated at certain times of year, when it is less likely to fall as snow, we are also likely to see water shortages.</div>
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So Brisbane is back to sunny skies, but rain should never be far from our minds. We had three different water supply stories, but a common thread of precarious precipitation ran throughout. It matters where, when, and how much, but perhaps we could still embrace those cloudy days just a bit more! </div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-8108475553028606882018-01-25T20:51:00.001-05:002018-01-25T23:04:33.465-05:00Acknowledging the Traditional Owners<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MCx_C9e2LMc/WmqJHFsDjwI/AAAAAAAAC60/nOKR1tWxPOkTOYoAZQfSyDrWLj3iyFKWgCLcBGAs/s1600/Aboriginal%2BRock%2BArt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MCx_C9e2LMc/WmqJHFsDjwI/AAAAAAAAC60/nOKR1tWxPOkTOYoAZQfSyDrWLj3iyFKWgCLcBGAs/s320/Aboriginal%2BRock%2BArt.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rock art in the Daintree, Northeast QLD</td></tr>
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Happy 2018! As we leap into the new year, it seems - perhaps more than years past - that issues of racial justice have not only become prominent fixtures, but are actively discussed and demanded in very public spaces. Similar to the United States, colonial Australia has an embroiled
history with the indigenous peoples of the country - one of massacre,
displacement, and oppression, with disparities in things like <a href="http://theconversation.com/indigenous-reconciliation-in-australia-still-a-bridge-too-far-54336" target="_blank">health and </a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_blank">education</a> continuing to this day. This year Australia Day, celebrated annually on the 26th of January, marks the 230th anniversary of the arrival of Europeans on the island continent. <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/tony-abbott-australia-day-invasion-good-thing-aboriginal-people-786974" target="_blank">Proposals to move the holiday</a>, often referred to as "Invasion Day", have been on the table for years as a way to celebrate the country rather than extol the conquering of an inhabited land. But as of yet, Aussies continue to take a long weekend each January, perhaps without even recognising the implications of the observance.</div>
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The thing is, aboriginal Australians represent the <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2011/09/dna-confirms-aboriginal-culture-one-of-earths-oldest/" target="_blank">oldest continuous indigenous cultures</a> (~150 language groups still exist) in the world, having inhabited the land for at least 50,000 years. That's a fair amount of time for deep connections and understanding of the land to establish. One of the things that has struck me during meetings and conferences in Australia is the <a href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Welcome-to-and-Acknowledgement-of-Country.pdf" target="_blank">"Welcome to Country" and Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners</a>. This cultural practice by Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders has been incorporated into many formal gatherings as a <a href="http://theconversation.com/indigenous-reconciliation-in-australia-still-a-bridge-too-far-54336" target="_blank">small means of reconciliation</a>. It is also seen as a recognition of traditional owners' roles as custodians and stewards of the land (though often it seems more lip-service than tangible and genuine).</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://assets.maorilawreview.co.nz/Altman-2014-figure-12-1024x978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://assets.maorilawreview.co.nz/Altman-2014-figure-12-1024x978.jpg" data-original-height="764" data-original-width="800" height="305" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Land protection in Australia. Credit: <a href="http://maorilawreview.co.nz/2014/03/the-political-ecology-and-political-economy-of-the-indigenous-land-revolution-in-australia/" target="_blank">Altman, 2014</a></td></tr>
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While Australia as a whole is doing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-among-the-worlds-worst-on-biodiversity-conservation-86685" target="_blank">pretty rubbish job of conserving the country's unique fauna and flora</a>, traditional owners are responsible for maintaining a large proportion of what land is protected. Indigenous protected areas comprise nearly <a href="http://www.nrm.gov.au/national/continuing-investment/indigenous-protected-areas" target="_blank">one-quarter of Australia's National Reserve System</a>, which covers almost 20% of Australia's land mass (don't get too excited...). Aboriginal lands are <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/natural-resources/landcare/submissions/ilm-report.pdf" target="_blank">not limited to these protected areas</a>, though, ranging from exclusive native title to co-managed protected areas, to land use agreements. And these areas can have important implications for biodiversity conservation. A <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0173876" target="_blank">recent study</a> modeled the ranges of 272 threatened animal species, finding that close to 3/4 of species overlapped with aboriginal lands. This study showed the relevance of areas outside the national reserve for protecting populations of threatened species, while also arguing for a more cross-cultural approach to conservation.</div>
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In this sense, "caring for country" by Aboriginal Australians may not conform entirely to a western protectionist view of conservation. For example, fires managed by people has had a long history of shaping ecosystems on the continent, influencing the assemblages of plants and animals. This socio-ecological practice can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-fire-management-part-of-the-solution-to-destructive-bushfires-55032" target="_blank">important for supporting wildlife</a>, but may not be seen as a typical inclusion in a conservationist portfolio. While the flavour of land management might differ in <a href="http://www.wettropics.gov.au/our-cultural-landscape" target="_blank">Northern Queensland and the wet tropics</a> in some respects, it still draws on <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/natural-resources/landcare/submissions/ilm-report.pdf" target="_blank">indigenous ecological knowledge</a>, often built over thousands of years of interacting with an environment. </div>
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So can I bring this back to Australia Day? Well, today we have a public holiday that has seen considerable controversy stemming from the embedded social justice issues. Rather than focus on the barbecue time the day provides, it can also bring attention to the still very real struggle for reconciliation ... and perhaps the role that conservation might play in achieving it, through more than just acknowledging traditional owners, but <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-social-justice/publications/social-justice-and-nati-0" target="_blank">actively supporting that strong connection to land</a>. </div>
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<b>Just for fun: </b> </div>
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<a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/aiatsis-map-indigenous-australia" target="_blank">Atlas of Indigenous Australia</a> - AIATSIS, 2017.</div>
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David Suzuki on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/audio-david-suzuki-on-why-indigenous-knowledge-is-critical-for-human-survival/" target="_blank">"Why Indigenous Knowledge is Critical for Human Survival"</a> - Mongabay, 2018</div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-61647749063721992402017-12-30T21:11:00.001-05:002018-01-25T23:05:55.012-05:00Sun Sets on 2017<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="text-align: justify;">It’s a bit of a tradition by now to reflect on the past year of blogging. But this seems to have been the year of benign blog neglect. Between prepping for a PhD milestone, traveling a cumulative 3.5 months for work and leisure (actually on a wander in NZ at the moment...), and wasting considerable time reading and stressing over the news, blog posting has taken a backseat. So I snagged a few snippets from unfinished posts and from a year of tweets.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">The year itself was filled to the brim. Besides an endless barrage of media attention around the demise of whatever integrity had remained in US democracy, earth, wind, and fire seemed to take out their collective rage on human beings. An unusually intense hurricane season, an untimely Indian monsoon, and drought-fueled forest forest made </span><a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/945840236185100288" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">extreme weather a trending topic.</a></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">An erratic Indian Monsoon, the </span><a href="http://bit.ly/25H9kcV" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">life force of much of South Asia</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, began this anomalous year of weather. Unprecedented flooding resulted in over </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/30/floods-hit-mumbai-worst-monsoon-years-kills-1200-across-south/" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">1,200 deaths across South Asia</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. Yet this extreme </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/02/reuters-america-erratic-monsoon-rains-threaten-key-indian-grain-food-crops.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">rainfall was uneven</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, swinging in both directions with some parts of the region receiving as little as 1/3 less rain than usual. An agricultural system highly dependent on rainfall means that crop losses this year have had substantial consequences for people's lives - hunger and health. But it was the Northern hemisphere hurricanes that made headlines in 2017, as a series of hurricanes </span><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41323272" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">smashed into Caribbean islands</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and the southern US. </span><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/09/hurricane-irma-harvey-season-climate-change-weather/" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">While not completely unheard of</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, warmer sea surface temperatures did make for really favourable conditions that spawned some powerful storms. The Caribbean felt the brunt of four consecutive categories 4 and 5 hurricanes, and much of Puerto Rico is still without electricity or running water.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">The thing about “natural disasters” is they usually require some sort of human failing. The monsoon was tragic partly because poverty reduced people’s ability to weather losses (and many were probably living in areas more prone to flood damage). The fires that have ravaged California in the latter part of the year were exacerbated by sprawling development patterns and insufficient fire prevention management activities (like brush clearing and controlled burnings). Puerto Rico is still like a war-torn country, because of insufficient federal emergency assistance (and a history of exploitative policies by a colonial government). And all of these events were in some way influenced by man-made climate change.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Speaking of climate change, I unfortunately contributed my fair share of greenhouse gas emissions via air travel. </span><a href="http://bit.ly/2hGnGca" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Two trips to Indonesia </a><span style="text-align: justify;">included a slightly longer stay in Borneo to interview people about community management of forests. A conservation </span><a href="http://bit.ly/2wdvqey" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">conference took me to Colombia</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, where only this past year a peace agreement between the government and guerrilla groups was signed. Finally, a cheeky holiday in Japan highlighted the </span><a href="http://bit.ly/2t2EY6A" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">melding a nature and culture</a>.</div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">And just as an aside, a fellow PhD student and I started recording a semi-regular podcast this year, called </span><a href="https://t.co/qiJ7wVG0Kn" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Conservation Crossroads.</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> Check it out! </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Happy New Year! Here’s to a happier and healthier one! </span></div>
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<i style="text-align: justify;"><b>Read Years Passed</b></i></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/2ivbE7v" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">The Best of Times, The Worst of Times - 2016</a></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1MIx3NA" style="text-align: justify;">Another Decade, Another Degree - 2015</a></div>
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1CSQ2pf" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">One Hodge-Podge of a Year - 2014</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2013/12/whats-cooking-new-years-resolution.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">New Year's Resolution - 2013</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/12/fifty-second-friday-year-in-food.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">A Year in Food - 2012</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2012/01/whats-cooking-new-year-empty-fridge.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">New Year, Empty Fridge - 2011</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2011/01/new-years-resolution.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">A New Year's Resolution - 2010</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mymunchablemusings.com/2010/01/its-new-yearac.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">It's a New Year! - 2009</a></div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-65486029285327943742017-11-20T18:18:00.000-05:002017-11-20T18:45:30.236-05:00Lima Hal Dari Indonesia<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've started a couple of posts since arriving in Indonesia, but they both seemed too serious, too academic. It's the third time I've been in the country and, entering my fifth week now, the longest. So instead of going on about academic versus practical conferences, or the trials and rewards of social science data collection, I'm instead sharing five things that have struck me while here.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9m_Bd28pk6o/WhNhewXhfLI/AAAAAAAAC6A/aKHemztoY_kC5PorwILDGag0XVfitcECQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9m_Bd28pk6o/WhNhewXhfLI/AAAAAAAAC6A/aKHemztoY_kC5PorwILDGag0XVfitcECQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC_1612.JPG" width="320" /></a><b>1. Jam Karet - </b>The elasticity of time. Or literally, rubber hour. This is something I think many foreigners must come to terms with very quickly in Indonesia. In a city like Jakarta, traffic and a limited bus network mean that getting from point A to point B may take the better part of the day. I was thrilled on the days I accomplished multiple things (e.g. visit immigration and attend the second half of a conference; meet friends for brunch and visit the national monument). But, this is to some extent an infrastructure and practicality issue in a big city. The fluidity of time also seems to be more culturally embedded. <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">My propensity for planning is next to useless here. Meetings will be set and then reset multiple times, perhaps the same day or a mere hour beforehand. Indonesians like to chitchat and socialise, and it's rude to abruptly end a meeting. Ultimately, going with the flow is both the path of least resistance and most likely to result in everyone happier. </span></div>
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<b>2.</b><b> WhassssApp... </b>Scheduling brings me to my next point: WhatsApp. Communication is important, and WhatsApp is apparently the best way to get in touch with just about anyone in Indonesia. I started using this app to communicate with friends and family on different continents and in different time zones. But over here, it goes beyond the personal. I'm sending and receiving documents, organising meetings with government staff, and generally doing all scheduling (and rescheduling) through that channel. It's brilliant! It's free. You can send whatever, to whomever, at odd hours. And it gives me a chance to craft (likely overly formal, and grammatically incorrect) messages in Bahasa Indonesia.<br />
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<b>3. Jalan-jalan...kaki? </b>I love to walk. It's liberating and empowering to know that one's own two feet can take you places. But that is far from the case where I've been in Indonesia. Besides the insufficient pedestrian infrastructure, people generally seem more inclined to hop on a motorbike for the smallest of distances. When I proposed to walk the thirty minutes across town, I received confused facial expressions and incredulity. It contrasts starkly with my experience in Ghana, where walking <i>was</i> the most accessible means of transporting goods and people short distances - roads were bad and automobiles expensive. Walking from house to house there was glorious. That said, the motorbike here is definitely the most efficient means of getting around. And some of the things people manage to fit on their bikes is astonishing - anything from timber and pallets to baskets of chickens. I'm not going to lie; this trip has made me intent on learning to drive a motorbike, you know, for next time!</div>
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<b>4. Goreng, goreng, gorengan </b>- One thing that seems to unite humankind is our enjoyment of fried foods. As with most places with a strong street food culture, the <i>warung </i>(or food stalls) typically have an assortment of fried food stuffs. While <i>nasi goreng </i>and <i>mie goreng</i> - fried rice and fried noodles - are most commonly known, you can easily find fried tofu, tempeh, bananas, vegetable fritters, chicken, etc. The decided lack of vegetables in prepared foods for sale - and my inability to cook in my current living situation - is something I feel so acutely that I'm relishing every piece of water spinach or pepper that turns up in a dish.<br />
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<b>5. Ngopi! </b>Finally, one of the most pleasant surprises has been the vibrant and growing coffee culture. The <i>kopi</i> is what one might call 'sandy' ... Ground coffee is placed straight into the mug and hot water poured over. Give it a stir and then let things settle. It is commonly offered when making a visit, and is served strong and <i>manis-manis</i> (very sweet). Coffee shops are open late, and one of the popular evening activities even in a smaller city like Ketapang. While I'm not about to adopt the heavy smoking habit during socialising, meetings, and the like, I'll happily fuel a coffee habit!</div>
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So that's it for now. No mention of forests and conservation. No dwelling on research activities or academic pressure. Despite the stress of organising logistics and conducting interviews, doing "fieldwork" feels much more relaxed and real than sitting in the department, glued to a computer screen day in and day out. And eventually I'll elaborate on what really brings me to Indonesia.<br />
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BbMDGPwlV7W/" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">Giving the #coffee from one of the villages with a community forest a try! #morningmotivation #Borneo #phdlife</a></div>
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A post shared by Rachel (@cioccolata16) on <time datetime="2017-11-07T09:01:50+00:00" style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">Nov 7, 2017 at 1:01am PST</time></div>
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Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-4338153750937528422017-08-19T14:40:00.001-04:002017-08-19T14:40:57.063-04:00For the Love of Chocolate<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qJVWDMoTfvg/WYxVEnlxBXI/AAAAAAAAC5o/UspGJek7aj4aTwZ93400tuYfn-5qt0TEgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qJVWDMoTfvg/WYxVEnlxBXI/AAAAAAAAC5o/UspGJek7aj4aTwZ93400tuYfn-5qt0TEgCLcBGAs/s320/DSC_1105.JPG" width="320" /></a>Hola devoted readers! I’m writing to you after a little
adventure in Colombia recently came to a close. While I voyaged across the great ocean
in order to present at the <a href="http://conbio.org/mini-sites/iccb-2017" target="_blank">International Congress on Conservation Biology</a> (yes,
I did do some work…), I stayed for the biodiversity
and agroforestry.<br />
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Colombia is a <a href="https://www.cbd.int/countries/?country=co" target="_blank">biodiversity hot spot</a>, with endemic species of
fauna and flora, as well as a range of alluring ecosystems to explore – from
montane rainforests to savannas, beaches, and deserts. Even staying along the
Caribbean coast, I found the elevation gradient provided a wealth of
possibilities - sandy beaches bordering bathtub-warm water; sticky tropical rainforests, and the cooler montane forests that seem perpetually on the cusp of being shrouded in clouds. While the country is a birder’s paradise (over 1900 speceies), the attraction for me
was in the coffee and cacao farms scattered around.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b0MaeAe84kk/WYxVJ-4veII/AAAAAAAAC5w/i5rUlBolLAEAUThPMxCRIl-3ALQUfzmhQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1102.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b0MaeAe84kk/WYxVJ-4veII/AAAAAAAAC5w/i5rUlBolLAEAUThPMxCRIl-3ALQUfzmhQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC_1102.JPG" width="320" /></a>I was won over by Minca, a town about 45 minutes drive
outside of Santa Marta, which climbs into the mountains a couple thousand meters
above sea level. We stayed for a night on a coffee farm, turned
bed-and-breakfast/retreat, tucked into the hills. Then I trekked up the next
day to <a href="https://www.elparaisodetukibnb.com/about_us" target="_blank">La Candelaria</a> coffee and cacao farm for a bit of a tour from bean to
belly. The owner, Eugenio, inherited this 85-year-old farm from his father (and
grandfather before that), which spans 10 hectares of coffee, cacao (2 ha), and
fruit tree, plus pasture for mules (so about 10 sports fields...). At the moment, he is in the process of
converting to <a href="http://www.ecocert.com/en/organic-farming" target="_blank">organic certification</a>, which follows three main principles:</div>
<ul>
<li>To foster bird habitat on the farm, there are
dozens of different types of fruit, including mangos, oranges, and ten types of
bananas!</li>
<li>No chemical inputs are used, so compost replaces
fertilizer, salt water stands in for the fungicide against black pod disease, and
frequent harvesting saves cacao pods from pesky birds and squirrels.</li>
<li>And while he didn’t provide details, fair and safe labour practices are an element of certification. </li>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ivo7_84sR_0/WYxVHwf4G8I/AAAAAAAAC5s/e9lKtGiihaoa2p-1ysjpAj7SPFQquo66wCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_1114.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ivo7_84sR_0/WYxVHwf4G8I/AAAAAAAAC5s/e9lKtGiihaoa2p-1ysjpAj7SPFQquo66wCLcBGAs/s320/DSC_1114.JPG" width="320" /></a> As a small farm, they don’t have the capacity to make and sell fully processed chocolate bars, so I escaped with bags of pure cacao (think unsweetened chocolate bar). You're not going to find this stuff in your local chocolate shop.<br />
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But you might find the coffee ... well, you might find Colombian coffee with beans from many farms. Eugenio admitted that most of his sales are to domestic restaurants/cafes and tourists. That's because coffee gets a bit
political. The <a href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federaci%C3%B3n_Nacional_de_Cafeteros_de_Colombia" target="_blank">Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia</a> controls all coffee exported from the country, requiring permissions if farmers want to ship any of their product overseas. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, as it ensures a standard of quality for coffee and helps to avoid prices fluctuations, it also can make things difficult for a small farmer who has higher marginal costs for the amount of coffee he produces.<br />
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This has some implications for the "<a href="http://www.pbs.org/food/features/lexicon-of-sustainability-fair-trade-vs-direct-trade/" target="_blank">direct trade</a>" coffee <i>en vogue</i> at the moment. The idea behind this concept is to cut out the middleman between coffee farmers and roasters, so that more of the value is captured by those growing the beans. For coffee connosieurs, it also means roasters have more control over the beans they are getting and the subtle distinctions causes by soil, climate, and farming practices. While it's <a href="http://sprudge.com/is-direct-trade-fair-110410.html" target="_blank">not without problems</a>, for many it can mean longer-term, more trusting relationships between suppliers and buyers. For now, I'll just be satisfied with my directly traded coffee and cacao in small quantity...</div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-14127919571152657192017-07-09T16:49:00.004-04:002017-07-09T16:49:42.527-04:00Of Rice and Men<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">"Fast rather than slow, more rather than less -- this flashy 'development' is linked directly to society's impending collapse. It has only served to separate man from nature."</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-x4edJ6TxUds/WWH4h2dvgxI/AAAAAAAAC5A/eh9jM8VH07gjmBHm8yddiYpyaMnkS-n2QCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0107.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-x4edJ6TxUds/WWH4h2dvgxI/AAAAAAAAC5A/eh9jM8VH07gjmBHm8yddiYpyaMnkS-n2QCLcBGAs/s320/DSC_0107.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Japanese author and farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka, wrote these telling words in his 1979 treatise, <i><a href="http://www.onestrawrevolution.net/One_Straw_Revolution/One-Straw_Revolution.html" target="_blank">The One Straw Revolution.</a> </i>For many of us striving to reconcile humanity's rather large footprint on the planet, this manifesto provided a glimmer of hope for both society and ecology. Yet, rereading this prescient prose, I am struck not only by the relevance of this warning nearly forty years later, but by how pressing is the need to shift our current paradigm. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">While I could point my finger to numerous places on a map that have embraced this separation from nature, we need not venture beyond Fukuoka's homeland. On </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">a recent trip to Japan, I was struck by a tension - simultaneously, a deep rooted appreciation and ceremony around food and the environment, and a tendency toward fast, flashy, and facile. Japan is admittedly a leader in thinking around sustainable development pathways. They have hosted momentous climate change summits, yielding the <a href="http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/background/items/2879.php" target="_blank">Kyoto protocol in 1997</a>, and supported biodiversity conservation, facilitating the establishment of the <a href="https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/" target="_blank">Aichi Biodiversity Targets in 2010</a>. But I'll focus on two aspects of food that that seem to plague many highly developed countries (with a distinctly Japanese flavour): the distancing of people from agriculture and 'the land', and the shifting nature of diet.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4NNycsNeypc/WWH4h38pAwI/AAAAAAAAC5E/GGs4wRXz81w-ux30PP3g82UjjDgcZ3FWACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0343.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4NNycsNeypc/WWH4h38pAwI/AAAAAAAAC5E/GGs4wRXz81w-ux30PP3g82UjjDgcZ3FWACLcBGAs/s320/DSC_0343.jpg" width="320" /></a>As in much of the world these days, the farming population in Japan has fallen precipitously in the last half century (<a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/07/30/national/japans-farming-population-falls-below-2-million-for-first-time-survey/#.WWKJiYoRWHo" target="_blank">under 2 million in 2016</a>). <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Recently,
the fallout from the nuclear reactor at Fukishima has forced farmers to
confront the long lasting consequences from radioactive contamination
of crop land, and <a href="http://www.jnpoc.ne.jp/en/stories-from-tohoku/tohoku-interview-fukushima-farmers/five-years-after-3-11-the-struggles-of-fukushimas-farmers-continue/" target="_blank">give up farming as well</a>. </span>Yet, the Japanese government has put in place<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> policies to protect farmers and domestic production, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f4db3b26-6045-11e5-a28b-50226830d644" target="_blank">heavily subsidizing rice growers</a> and taxing imports. Interestingly, these policies have resulted in much rice-producing land lying fallow (<a href="https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/the-people-who-sustain-japans-historic-terraced-rice-fields" target="_blank">40% of rice paddy terraces, in fact</a>), in turn providing <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1046/j.1440-1703.2001.00417.x" target="_blank">marshy habitat for migratory birds</a>. These relics are a demonstration of the fine balance farmers had to strike between nature and needs of people, landscapes referred to as <a href="http://satoyama-initiative.org/" target="_blank"><i>Satoyama</i></a>. Even with these shifts, the relationship between people and land cuts to deeper shifts in lifestyles and livelihoods.</span></div>
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During a walk through the arches and woodlands of the Fushimi Inari temple outside of Kyoto, I got to talking with a gentleman* taking his late afternoon stroll. The pervasive (if subtle) influence of the indigenous Shintoism instill a particular life and spiritual meaning to natural elements, and stress living in harmony with nature. My impromptu walking companion spoke of the fox, the guardian at the temple, who traditionally protected the rice crop and helped ensure it could sustain the local population. <span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">As in most parts of Asia, the predominant land use and occupation until recently was agriculture, specifically rice paddy. Yet as this has shifted, the association with the health of the land and wellbeing has faded, with guardians rather now attended to for business success and prosperity. </span></div>
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Despite its majestic natural beauty and verdant hills, Japan is also known for its urbanisation - in 2015, nearly 94% of the population lived in cities. You can imagine why. Japan is not a big country...the island nation is a mere 378,000 square
kilometres with 127 million people (that's like adding all the people in
Poland to Germany). Further, the landscape itself seems to promote separation. Take Tokyo and Kobe, where <a href="http://www.umich.edu/~isn/fest/part-japan.html" target="_blank">45% of Japan's population squeeze into 17%</a> of the land area. Food has had to adapt to these conditions. While we are all familiar with sushi, miso soup, udon noodles, and the like, the ubiquity of <a href="https://www.eater.com/2017/2/21/14668440/tokyo-convenience-store-conbini-snacks" target="_blank">packaged and convenience foods</a> astounded me. Food is not cheap, and fresh produce costs dearly. This is not unique to Japanese cities, but perhaps the overwhelming number of people living in urban areas (and growing reliance on imports) probably is not helping to counteract the trend. </div>
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Going back to Fukuoka, his vision is worrisome in our modern world. We need to fight more against this tide of development...in my last post I wrote about plastics. While there are some common goods that will require lobbying for government action, there are meaningful impacts that can result from our own <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">decisions</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> in the way we 'consume', being more conscious and deliberate about those 'development paths' we overtly or implicitly support.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* I lost the man on the way back to the main temple, so I never managed to thank him for the company and the insights. Hopefully, he knows how much I appreciated it. </span></div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7908848125746073030.post-21658150599939119462017-06-05T16:34:00.003-04:002017-06-05T16:34:57.206-04:00Sweating the Small Stuff<div style="text-align: justify;">
This wasn't exactly a glowing week leading up to <a href="http://worldenvironmentday.global/" target="_blank">World Environment Day</a> yesterday. However, while mitigating climate changes we've put in motion requires more globally coordinated action and government intervention (... the atmosphere is the ultimate common pool resource, no?), there are heaps of other environmental travesties that emerge in large part due to our decisions as consumers. World Environment Day's theme this year is about reconnecting to "nature", which is a lovely message with very little depth. Although hitting up green spaces - parks, wilderness areas, etc. - often benefits both human health and encourages positive environmental values, this idea of needing to "reconnect" implies <a href="http://bit.ly/1wdtPkb" target="_blank">we live apart from nature</a>. The ambitions of this year's World Environment Day seem a bit modest for the scale of the problem, making the proffered actions far less meaningful if not connected to the consequences of our actions during daily existence.</div>
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<a href="http://d2fbmjy3x0sdua.cloudfront.net/cdn/farfuture/Gy1igYwDd9UJHTw1C0xWB_1l0Gp8_2c56HC7tOTWnD4/mtime:1486671847/sites/default/files/styles/hero_image/public/sfw_plastic_ocean_seabird.jpg?itok=x_XrsPVX" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://d2fbmjy3x0sdua.cloudfront.net/cdn/farfuture/Gy1igYwDd9UJHTw1C0xWB_1l0Gp8_2c56HC7tOTWnD4/mtime:1486671847/sites/default/files/styles/hero_image/public/sfw_plastic_ocean_seabird.jpg?itok=x_XrsPVX" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="800" height="193" width="400" /></a> But it's not a huge leap to connect our daily doings with the health of the planet. In Australia - <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nzl5q" target="_blank">and the UK before that</a> - a pretty nifty three part series about the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/ourfocus/waronwaste/" target="_blank">War on Waste</a> tried to expose the nature of our "Throw-Away Society" and the consequences for the environment. for Oz, the numbers are staggering, ranging from 20% of our groceries ending up in the bin to 6,000 kilograms of fast fashion in the rubbish every <b>ten minutes</b> to 113 take-away coffee cups discarded every <b>four seconds </b>(that's 2.4 million in a day)! But plastics seem to be making the headlines these days.<br />
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Australia uses nearly <a href="http://www.cleanup.org.au/au/Campaigns/plastic-bag-facts.html" target="_blank">4 billion plastic bags</a> per year, the majority of which end up in landfill (or inevitably waterways). Some researchers calculated that worldwide approximately <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/how-much-plastic-is-there-in-the-ocean/" target="_blank">8 million tonnes of plastic </a>waste ends up in the oceans each year. Once some of the most <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/pacific-island-the-most-plastic-polluted-place-on-earth" target="_blank">pristine beaches </a>in the world are now littered in plastic debris. While this is an eyesore, a visual reminder of our plastic addiction, there are more hidden and insidious impacts. <b><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/15092-plastic-seabirds-albatross-australia/" target="_blank">Almost every seabird</a></b> on the planet has eaten plastic - which may not always kill the bird, but can't be particularly good for it. But plastics also break down into smaller and smaller particles. These then <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49476/title/Plastic-Pollutants-Pervade-Water-and-Land/" target="_blank">accumulate along the food chain</a>, similar to other toxins in our environment like mercury in tuna. We don't yet know how harmful all of this is, but we can make sure it doesn't get worse. <br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5YE3fGloLgs/WSV2XSiI-ZI/AAAAAAAAC4w/cPfl0Yh_WG4VEjylK9OubYSqlQRdG5ayACLcB/s1600/image001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="578" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5YE3fGloLgs/WSV2XSiI-ZI/AAAAAAAAC4w/cPfl0Yh_WG4VEjylK9OubYSqlQRdG5ayACLcB/s320/image001.jpg" width="320" /></a>This last week, <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/sustainability/green-office-5-days-of-plastic" target="_blank">UQ sustainability</a> challenged staff and students to contain all single-use plastics in a small jar - mine was 350mL to be precise. The idea was to be more aware of our frequent and often thoughtless use of disposable plastics, and to consider steps to take to reduce. Sure, recycling is a good first step, but it's <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/what-actually-happens-to-a-recycled-plastic-bottle/418326/" target="_blank">not a guiltless affair.</a> Not every plastic is recyclable nor gets recycled, and even if it does, it takes energy to go from plastic bottle to new plastic something or other.<br />
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But the alternatives are hard, because they rely on people changing their daily actions and breaking habits ... and let's face it, even the well-meaning of us just can't be bothered if something seems like too much effort. Making your own shampoo may seem like an impossibility, but there are plenty of low-hanging fruit. Bring a cloth bag or a reusable mug, and don't succumb to the draws of straws or pre-bagged produce. It's just a matter of making simple behaviour changes part of your routine. Easy.<br />
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So on this World Environment Day, rather than just "reconnect with nature", try reconnecting with your personal impact on the planet and commit to doing something about it.</div>
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In case you're also interested in food waste, it's a favourite topic...<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/2i134gr" target="_blank">Jingle the Waste Away</a><br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/1uf85kF" target="_blank">Smashing Pumpkins</a><br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/VJLFHd" target="_blank">America the Wasteful</a></div>
Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09336176944126890487noreply@blogger.com1