The Indri Lemur is a species of Lemur native to the “forests of Madagascar.” “Active during the day and thoroughly arboreal, the indri clings to trees and climbs in an upright position as it feeds on leaves, fruit, flowers, and other vegetation.” They are one of the largest living lemurs at around “60–70 cm (24–28 inches) long, with a rudimentary tail and large hands and feet,”(Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013). These diurnal primates are an endangered species, with their greatest threat being human beings.
According to BBC, “almost every species of lemur, wide-eyed primates unique to Madagascar, is under threat of extinction.” They state that the greatest threat to the lemur’s existence is “primarily the destruction of their tropical forest habitat, from so-called slash-and-burn agriculture, illegal logging, charcoal production and mining.” The Indri lemur is only one of the many species affected by human-caused habitat loss. Another threat they face is hunting, conducted by the local people. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) “implemented what it calls a "lemur action plan" to save the animals, with plans including protecting habitats where the most threatened species live and tackling poverty through ecotourism schemes, in order to help local people to avoid the need to hunt the animals,” (Gill, 2018). The lemur action plan is a three year plan, developed by the IUCN, which aims for the “stabilizing the immediate crisis in priority areas, laying [of] the groundwork for longer-term actions in all habitats that are crucial for preventing lemur extinctions, the promotion and expansion of ecotourism, [and the] sustaining and expanding [of] the long-term research presence in critical lemur sites; field stations that support a permanent presence of local and international field workers can serve as training grounds for Malagasy scientists while deterring illegal hunting and logging,” (Emergency…, 2016). Overall, there are about 111 various species of Lemur on Madagascar and out of those, around 105 of them are “under threat,” (Gill, 2018). What makes the Indri so intriguing and interesting is its likeness to man, as well as its song that it emits in the early morning. According to the Daily Mail, this animal is known as the “Babakoto” to the natives of Madagascar. The call of the Indri has been described as a “deafening call like a crying child.” It is also known as the “dog-headed man”because it has always [been] depicted as standing upright, with a shaggy coat and enormous, human-like hands and feet.” Additionally, these animals have been very elusive to researchers; “the one attempt to study it in captivity 20 years before had failed dismally. A group of indris sent to a Paris zoo all died within a month, the keepers having been unable to replicate their highly specialised diet of leaves,” (Sir David Attenborough, 2018). The importance of awareness of conservation efforts, such as those taken to rehabilitate lemur populations is undeniable. As a part of the native ecosystem of Madagascar, the lemurs play an important role in both culture and environmental health. Though many conservation efforts are still examples of minor successes in the scope of human impact, their impact is not without value. These small species focused conservation efforts contribute to the greater good of maintaining and protecting ecosystems which contain amazing and intriguing animals. Bibliography: Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Indri." Encyclopædia Britannica. September 25, 2013. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/animal/indri-lemur-species. "Emergency Three-year Action Plan for Lemurs." IUCN. May 19, 2016. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://www.iucn.org/content/emergency-three-year-action-plan-lemurs. Gill, Victoria. "Lemur Extinction: Vast Majority of Species under Threat." BBC News. August 02, 2018. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45035560. Sir David Attenborough For The Daily Mail. "SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH on His Search through Madagascar for the Indri." Daily Mail Online. September 02, 2018. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6125003/SIR-DAVID-ATTENBOROUGH-search-Madagascar-indri.html.
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Last month, two large fires broke out in Southern California. The death and destruction it caused is unlike any other fire in California’s recorded history.
The fire in Southern California was quite close to my family home and the days when it raged were filled with anxiety and fear by myself and my friends. It felt like every twenty minutes, I was checking the news for new information and checking the fire maps (many of which were created using ArcGIS) for the extent of the damage. When I returned home for the holidays, I witnessed, firsthand, the burnt landscapes and infrastructure from the Woolsey fire. According to CBS News, 150,000 acres of land burned in the Northern Camp fire and 96,949 acres burned in the Southern Woolsey fire, (CBS News, 2018). According to National Geographic, there are several factors which cause the fire to be extremely difficult to contain. These include “intense winds, drought, and difficult terrain.” With winds that ranged from 50 to 70 mph and a severe drought in 18% of the state, the hilly and mountainous fire zones posed an immense risk to infrastructure, ecosystems, and individuals, (Gibbens, 2018). The fact that these fires have been so destructive directly displays the effects of climate change on natural disasters. This is something that was repeatedly undermined and ignored by President Trump throughout the chaos. In the midst of the fire, Trump tweeted, “Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” (Vera, 2018). Apart from being misleading, this claim is extremely insensitive to those who lost their houses or family members in the fire. According to The New York Times, “of the state’s 33 million acres of forest, federal agencies, including the Forest Service and the Interior Department, own and manage 57 percent. Forty percent are owned by families, Native American tribes or companies, including industrial timber companies; just 3 percent are owned and managed by state and local agencies,” (Pierre-Louis, 2018). Additionally, by failing to mention climate change, the president has yet again, undermined human impact on the globe. According to NPR, there are still “about 100 names on a list of missing persons” affected by the fire. Additionally, “The Camp Fire has killed at least 56 people and ravaged entire neighborhoods in Paradise and other Northern California towns,” (Gonzales, 2018). Now contained, these fires were the most devastating of all in California’s history. However, with rising temperatures, it is possible that natural disasters such as these will only get increasingly more destructive. Gibbens, Sarah. "Why California's Wildfires Are so Hard to Fight." National Geographic. November 13, 2018. Accessed December 10, 2018. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/why-woolsey-camp-california-wildfires-are-difficult-to-contain/. Gonzales, Richard, and Bill Chappell. "More Deaths Are Reported In California Fires." NPR. November 14, 2018. Accessed December 10, 2018. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/14/667806451/firefighters-corral-big-california-fires-but-challenges-remain. Pierre-louis, Kendra. "Trump's Misleading Claims About California's Fire 'Mismanagement'." The New York Times. November 12, 2018. Accessed December 10, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/us/politics/fact-check-trump-california-fire-tweet.html. Vera, Amir. "Trump's Tweet on California Wildfires Angers Firefighters, Celebrities." CNN. November 12, 2018. Accessed December 10, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/11/politics/california-wildfires-trump-tweets/index.html. Background
This lab began our series of labs we will be conducting around the framing question of “what motivates countries to utilize renewable energy?” We plan to approach this question by researching Iceland and Burundi, two countries with some of the highest rates of renewable energy consumption over nonrenewable energy consumption. The focus question we chose to situate our project is “What motivates the use of renewable energy in Burundi and Iceland?” We are interested in this due to the fact that Iceland is a high income country that utilizes less renewable energy than Burundi, a very low income country. To do our research, we had to collect sources and background on both countries to compare how and why they have such high amounts of renewable energy consumption. For our comparison, it is imperative to gather key sources for both countries so that we may analyze their physical, cultural, ideological, and governmental perspectives on renewable energy consumption. Procedure To begin our research, we created a shared Zotero group library for our sources by selecting “New Group,” and “New Library” with the public and closed membership option and added all of our lab members. We then began searching for sources to use in our bibliography. We chose to use Google Scholar and Jstor as our two main search engines when conducting our research. The criteria we used to determine whether or not to use the source was based on how cited it is as well as how relevant it was too our research. We used sources that were accessible and peer-reviewed or generated by national or international-sponsored organizations, such as the World Bank. We also tried to include sources that provide background information for each country as well as info on each country’s energy consumption and social/cultural ideologies. Results Here is the link to our annotated bibliography: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2255337/220_burundi In our references, we utilize several sources concerned with the nature of energy consumption and its relationship to other factors we are interested in for our research: Energy Consumption and Growth (Nondo and Kahsai, 2009), Renewable Energy Markets in Developing Countries (Martinot et al., 2002), The Role of Renewable Energy Consumption and Trade: Environmental Kuznets Curve Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa Countries (Jebli et al., 2001), What drives the development of renewable energy technologies? Toward a typology for the systemic drivers (Darmani et al., 2014), and “Understanding Energy and Energy Policy (Braun et al., 2014). These sources, among some others, focus primarily on energy, its relation to capital, and drivers for nations to utilize renewable energies. We also included sources more focused on socio-political aspects of the countries that we are studying: Modern Folklore, Identity, and Political Change in Burundi (Kadenske-Kaiser and Kaiser, 1997), Ethnicity and Power in Burundi and Rwanda: Different Paths to Mass Violence (Uvin, 1999), Drivers of Ecological Restoration: Lessons from a Century of Restoration in Iceland (Aradóttir et al., 2013), and This Changing World: Preserving wilderness versus enabling economic change: Iceland and the Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project (Newson, 2010). These sources focus more on the values of each country and in some cases, how it relates to their perspective on environmentalism or ecological restoration. Other sources we included focus on specific case studies of renewable energy research and implementation in Iceland as well as the importance of renewable energies and why renewable energy is utilized. Discussion In doing our research, I realized how many intricacies there are within approaching perspectives and drivers of renewable energy consumption in how economic status, national values, and history can be involved in why countries choose to utilize renewables. Through doing this stretch of research, it appears that Iceland is more focused on environmental remediation and sustainability and it is possible that Burundi utilizes renewable energy because it is the most abundant and perhaps only what they have access to. To further our research, I believe that we should maybe look back to our previous lab where my lab group and I looked at the relationships between economic statuses of countries and their renewable energy consumption to re-examine our results in relation to our project. In terms of research, we should look deeper into when Burundi’s renewable energy systems were developed and perhaps what came before their industrialization to see what events led to their use of renewable energy. Additionally, we should collect more information on Icelandic perspectives on environmentalism and possibly Burundi’s if that information is available. We also need to look more into the geography of Burundi and Iceland to see how abundant the resources for their renewable energy systems are as well as the technology that is available to those nations. In the past year, many organizations and individuals have taken a stand against the commercial use of plastic straws. This trend arose following nine-year-old Milo Cress’s 2011 environmental campaign, “Be Straw Free.” In his campaign, he stated that 500 million straws were used by Americans daily, which is a statistic he had created by combining estimates from manufacturers, ( Following this, companies such as Starbucks and McDonald’s have pledged to seek alternatives to plastic straws in support of this conservation effort. Lewis & Clark’s cafes, The Dovecote and Maggie’s, have similarly discontinued their use of plastic straws; they have adopted paper straws as their “sustainable” option. However, subscribing to this replacement might only serve to make them feel better about their consumption practices rather than contributing to a larger pattern of change. The actual effects, or lack thereof, generated by individual action in conservation efforts are sobering. The choices of the consumer are limited. According to Yale professor Michael Maniates, “control over these choices is constrained, shaped, and framed by institutions and political forces that can be remade only through collective citizen action, as opposed to individual consumer behavior,” (Maniates, 2001). Simply refusing to use a straw does not contribute to the overall collective conservation campaign as there is always surely someone else who will gladly use that same straw. Paper straws seem to be the most viable option for companies supporting the anti-straw plastic straw campaign. However, this proves problematic. Compostable straws can only be composted in the appropriate facilities which are not always accessible across the country. The very focus on straws as a major source of environmental degradation draws attention away from all of the other plastic used in everyday life. The antagonization of specific uses of plastics has been an evolving protest of the greater issue of plastic consumption. Whether the focus is on plastic bags or plastic straws, the collective rejection of specific products does little to confront the institutional and widespread issues of environmentalism. However, there is a gleam of light at the end of the compostable straw. Though telling your waiters “no thanks” when they offer you a straw for your iced tea may not save the life of some poor sea turtle, it does contribute to a collective and symbolic protest against plastics. Though this campaign is based on the pseudoscience of a nine-year-old boy, it has led to institutional change for both Starbucks and McDonald’s. The effect is indisputable. However, Cress’s actions were still greater than that of an individual. Despite his young age, he stood up for what he believed to be an avoidable problem of consumption and that is admirable. Maniates, Michael F. “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” Global Environmental Politics 1, no. 3 (2001): 31–52. Connor, Alex. "That Anti-straw Movement? It's All Based on One 9-year-old's Suspect Statistic." USA Today. July 18, 2018. Accessed November 12, 2018. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-movement-based-unverified-statistic-500-million-day/750563002/. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-movement-based-unverified-statistic-500-million-day/750563002/
In my last three labs, I have been discussing the implications of the Capitalocene and its effect on the environment. These came following labs we conducted on the Anthropocene. Daniel Hartley warns of the use of the very word Anthropocene and its political sentiments which create an “implicit philosophy of history” by employing terms such as “the human enterprise,” (Hartley, 2015). He believes that the term Anthropocene unnaturally unites individuals into a compelling force when in reality, “To speak of the ‘human enterprise’ is to make of humanity an abstract corporation.” (Hartley, 2015). He emphasizes that the supporters of the Anthropocene project a “technological bias” by “dating the Anthropocene to the Industrial Revolution” and its presupposition of a kind of “technological determinism,” (Hartley, 2015).
In a previous post, I defined and described the implications of the Anthropocene as well as various individual’s arguments for it. The approach of the Capitalocene is similar in its regard of a new Epoch caused in some way by humanity’s advancement and impact on the Earth, but differs in its approach through viewing the changes of the geologic time scale as rooted in capital instead of in the effects of the Anthropos. In opposition to the term, Jason Moore suggests we are instead in the age of the “Capitalocene, the historical era shaped by relations privileging the endless accumulation of capital,” (Moore, 2014). He argues that other approaches, such as the Anthropocene, often base their perspective on a “a historical method premised on dualism (“society plus nature”),” “despite a widespread philosophical agreement that humans are a part of nature,” (Moore, 2014). In his argument, he defines his own understanding of capitalism as “ a civilization that is co-produced by humans and the rest of nature,” (Moore, 2014). He believes that the “ history of capitalism cannot be explained” by simplified understandings “of nature-society interactions,” (Moore, 2014). Because the advancements of the 18th C. and industrial revolution were “co-produced by human and extra-human natures (in which the latter are also directly constitutive of so-called “society”)... this perspective views capitalism as, at once, producer and product of the web of life,” (Moore, 2014). Essentially, Moore argues for the inclusion of individual and societal interactions with nature as drivers of the Capitalocene. He also states that “the crucial question [of the Capitalocene,] turns on the historical connections between wage-work and its necessary conditions of expanded reproduction;” He then goes on to include “unpaid work” as necessary aspect of this approach that is often overlooked in other generalizations, (Moore, 2014). Through the labs we conduct in ENVS 220, we approach questions such as whether the Anthropocene or Capitalocene are valid approaches to Environmentalism. In our recent labs, we have been running statistical tests to determine whether income group affects various measures of environmental performance and perspective. However, we are unable to draw absolute significant conclusions from the results due to a need for further research. In total, Hartley argues that Moore’s notion of the Capitalocene is a “middle way between humanist and post-human thought,” in which the argument relies on the formation of capitalism, instead of on human consumption and advancement. Whether either of these terms captures the entirety of the current conditions of the environment and of society is still a highly debated subject, however, each perspective offers a thoughtful and interesting approach to viewing the relationship of nature and the compelling forces that have driven geologists to consider a new epoch of the geologic time-scale. Hartley, Daniel. "Against the Anthropocene." Salvage. 2015. Accessed October 21, 2018. https://files.zotero.net/1859191684/against-the-anthropocene.html. Moore, Jason W. “The Capitalocene,” 2014. http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/The_Capitalocene__Part_I__June_2014.pdf. Moore, Jason W. “The Capitalocene,” 2014. https://files.zotero.net/8304882371/The_Capitalocene___Part_II__June_2014.pdf
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released a report which states, “limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” (International Panel on Climate Change, 2018). The report featured “6,000 scientific references” and authors or editors from “40 different countries.” The name of the entire report is called “Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.” In the report, it is expected that if current rates of emissions and consumption remain, there is only a little over a decade before a possible humanitarian crisis, (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018)
This new information, coupled with President Donald Trump’s support for the coal industry, is unsettling, to say the least. According to an article by The New York Times, “the E.P.A.’s newest rollback could help a small number of those endangered coal plants stave off retirement for a bit longer,” (Plumer, 2018). This support for fossil fuels by a nation as influential and powerful as the United States is alarming, specifically with the United States retraction from the Paris Climate Agreement, which was formulated to cut carbon emissions and limit the effects of global warming, (Erickson, 2018). However, this light-hearted approach to climate change is not exclusive to the United States. In an article in the Washington Post, it is reported that only two signers of the agreement, Morocco and The Gamibia, are currently meeting the standards set in place, (Erickson, 2018). With a global rejection of meeting the standards that were set and place and possible standards that might be implemented following the IPCC report, the current threat of global warming appears as one with minimal chance of improving. However, the New York Times reported that “utilities had already been shifting away from coal anyway, finding cleaner gas, wind and solar to be more attractive investments,” (Plumer, 2018). If this movement continues and occurs more rapidly, the use of more sustainable sources of energy may lead to a brighter perspective on climate change. In fact, even if Trump’s current proposal for coal consumption is approved, it is expected that “America’s coal plants would decline about 23 percent below today’s levels by 2030 without any climate regulations at all, (Plumer, 2018). Ultimately, the reported trends display a reduced interest and usage of coal as an energy source. Unfortunately, the IPCC report calls for much more than reduced interest with the situation presented in such a grave manner. I find it difficult to believe that a complete shift in all aspects of human interactions could occur rapidly enough to reverse the expected effects detailed in the IPCC report. Though concern about the effects of climate change appear to be increasing, I find it is necessary for the governing leaders of the world to reevaluate the extent of human impact and make large cultural, societal, and economic reforms for the heavily researched expectations for the future to change. Erickson, Amanda. "Analysis | Few Countries Are Meeting the Paris Climate Goals. Here Are the Ones That Are." The Washington Post. October 11, 2018. Accessed October 16, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/11/few-countries-are-meeting-paris-climate-goals-here-are-ones-that-are/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.838110c9730e. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Ummary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C Approved by Governments." IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. October 8, 2018. Accessed October 16, 2018. http://ipcc.ch/news_and_events/pr_181008_P48_spm.shtml. Plumer, Brad. "Trump's New Pollution Rules Still Won't Save the Coal Industry." The New York Times. August 22, 2018. Accessed October 16, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/climate/trump-coal-industry.html. |
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