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.
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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
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December 2018
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