Papers on environmental issues

Here are links to some papers I did for an environmental issues course:

Biodiversity
Capitalism as an environmental issue
Human population and ecology

jd

Broken promises

"Yet as governments prepare for the 2005 UN summit, the overall report card on progress makes for depressing reading. Most countries are off track for most of the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals]. Human development is faltering in some key areas, and already deep inequalities are widening. Various diplomatic formulations and polite terminology can be found to describe the divergence between progress on human development and the ambition set out in the Millennium Declaration. None of them should be allowed to obscure a simple truth: the promise to the world’s poor is being broken."

From the overview to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2005

Things to do in Mazatlan

Three things to do in Mazatlan:

1. Mountain-biking with Fernando Kelly. Fernando sells and rents bikes from Kelly's Bicycle Shop, Av. Camaron Sabalo #214 Local 16. He has built some very nice trails in the hills to the east of Mazatlan, and does a guided tour for 275 pesos. Email kellybikeshop@hotmail.com.

2. Kayak to Isla de Pájaros. Ocean kayaks -- the unsinakable plastic ones -- rent for US$10/hour. There's a rental place on the beach outside of the Pueblo Bonito hotel, towards the north end of Camaron Sabalo. It's maybe a kilometer across the strait.

3. Hike to top of Isla de Venados. There's an operation just south El Cid Castilla Beach Hotel that will take you over to the island for about $10 and pick you up at a pre-arranged time later. Once on the island head south from the beach and find the trailhead towards the top. I'm not sure if you can get to the very top (I couldn't find a path), but you can get pretty close. Don't forget to take water with you on the hike. When I went they sent a jet ski to pick me up. Take a plastic bag with you to collect trash.

jd

Good science

Apropos to yesterday's post on the practice of science, the problems in Dr. Hwang Woo Suk's stem cell research came to light after questions were raised by young Korean scientists online. Per an article by Nicholas Wade in the Dec. 16, 2005 New York Times, "Although the new disclosures are being presented as a blow to Korean science, they can also be seen as a triumph for a cadre of well-trained young Koreans for whom it became almost a pastime to turn up one flaw after another in his work. All or almost all the criticisms that eventually brought him down were first posted on Web sites used by young Korean scientists."

The Korean news website OhMyNews selected the Korean scientists as "Netizens of the Year" to acknowledge "the role played by the online scientific community in South Korea to support honest and collaborative scientific research." The article points out that as a result of South Korea's investment in broadband technology "broad-ranging access to the Internet in South Korea has helped to make possible this scientific discussion and commentary, it is the netizens of the scientific community who have demonstrated a new form of scientific review appropriate for the 21st century."

jd

[See also Rhonda Hauben's post "Korean Cloning Hero Deconstructed Online" on the Telepolis website. I came across the above via her post to nettime-l.]

Good science, bad science

In his wonderful essay "The Experiment as Mediator between Subject and Object," Goethe described science as springing from "a desire to view Nature's objects in their own right and in relation to one another." Botanists, for example, "must find the measure for what they learn, the data for judgment, not in themselves, but in the sphere of what they observe."

He describes his method:

We may look at an object in its own context and the context of other objects, while refraining from any immediate response of desire or dislike. The calm exercise of our powers of attention will quickly lead us to a rather clear concept of the object, its parts, and its relationships, the more we pursue this study, discovering further relations among things, the more we will exercise our innate gift of observation.

Applying this method to understanding the "hidden relationships in nature" can be especially difficult, requiring an open mind and a devotion to the phenomena under observation. For Goethe, the experiment -- "intentionally reproducing empirical evidence" or "recreating phenomena" -- was the most effective means of systematically discovering the hidden relationships. The single experiment is of limited value; only a carefully studied sequence of experiments can reveal a true nature.

As pattern-recognizing and pattern-organizing beings ("a tendency altogether understandable since it springs by necessity from the organization of our being") we especially run the risk of the false conclusion:

Thus we can never be too careful in our efforts to avoid drawing hasty conclusions from experiments or using them directly as proof to bear out some theory. For here at this pass, this transition from empirical evidence to judgment, cognition to application, all the inner enemies of humanity lie in wait: imagination, which sweeps us away on its wings before we know our feet have left the ground; impatience; haste' self-satisfaction; rigidity; formalistic thought; prejudice; ease; frivolity; fickleness -- this whole throng and its retinue. Here they lie in ambush and surprise not only the active observer but also the contemplative one who appears safe from all passion.

The interconnection of the universe, that "each phenomenon is connected with countless others", requires investigating each piece of empirical evidence. "We can never be careful enough in studying what lies next to it or derives directly from it. To follow every single experiment through its variations is the real task of scientific researchers." Goethe counterposed this kind of thoroughness, akin to constructing an unassailable mathematical proof, to the suspect method of attempting to prove an assertion by "using isolated experiments like arguments", which often "reaches its conclusions furtively or leaves them completely in doubt."

The elevating honesty of Goethe's approach to science contrasts starkly with recent stories of fabricated data (in the case of the Dr. Hwang Woo-suk's stem cell and cloning work). But even more distressing is questionable research paid for by corporations via consulting firms, to affect public policy around toxic chemicals they dump in the environment.

The Wall Street Journal has been running a series called "New Questions about Old Chemicals". In the 12/28/05 issue, Peter Waldman writes about a conference to evaluate current research on perchlorate, a chemical used in munitions production that can block the thyroid's ability to absorb iodine.

The host was the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The aim was "a critical and objective evaluation" of research on the chemical, a university official later said. But while the university lent its imprimatur and thus credibility to the event, the symposium was paid for by defense contractors and the Pentagon and orchestrated by industry consultants, who kept evidence of their own role to a minimum.

Afterward, the Pentagon dispatched six conference participants to present the event's conclusions to a National Research Council panel that was evaluating perchlorate for the U.S. government.

Intertox Inc., a consulting firm that advises defense contractors, billed them about $75,000 for organizing the September 2003 event, an invoice shows. University documents show that Intertox chose the format and agenda and selected the experts who would appear.

Another article ("Study Tied Pollutant to Cancer; Then Consultants Got Hold of It", 12/23/05) describes how a consulting firm hired by PG&E re-wrote a key Chinese study on the effects of chromium in ground water, suggesting that it may not have been the cause of higher cancer rates. The revised study then took on a life of its own and has been used to support maintaining high acceptable levels of the pollutant.

Science, as any social practice, exists within a matrix of social relations, and in that sense can be considered a class-partisan activity. As with ideology, a ruling class produces science that supports its class position. It does this through the levers of ideology, property and money. Ideology shapes world view, morals, assumptions, etc., much like what Goethe warned against above. Property sets boundaries and obstacles. Money directs research opportunities. "Working class science" or "new class science" would start from a different ideology, have different notions of property, and a different sense of priorities. One could argue that "working class science" can be as dishonest as "capitalist science", and hence impede the overall expansion of knowledge, but the dishonesty works along different vectors.

Goethe elsewhere categorized scientists into four types, based on the kinds of questions they ask. "Utilizers" seek practical results; "fact-finders" seek knowledge for its own sake; "contemplators" apply imagination to interpret the fact-finder knowledge. "Comprehenders" for Goethe can also be considered "creators"; they are "original in the highest sense of the term. By proceeding from ideas, they simultaneously express the unity of the whole."

In Goethe's writings, the practice of science can be seen as a kind of spiritual pursuit, also reflected in his essay on the experiment. Capitalism, though, keeps science constrained at the level of the "utilizer", with the practical results dictated by Capital. The elevation of humanity, the full-flowering of potential, cannot be realized under such constraints.

jd

[All Goethe quotes are from Jeremy Naydler's little anthology Goethe on Science, Floris Books; the essay can also be found in Goethe: Scientific Studies, Suhrkamp Publishers (1988) or Princeton University Press (1995), edited and translated by Douglas Miller.]

Blue Team followup

As a follow-up to yesterday's post on the Millennium Challenge 2002 war games: Gen. William F. Kernan and Maj. Gen. Dean W. Cash discuss Millennium Challenge's Lessons Learned - "A discussion on lessons learned from the joint integrating experiment Millennium Challenge 2002" held a several weeks after the games concluded (9/17/02). Some of Van Riper's criticisms had been made public at that point, and the war game organizers comment on them. The games were both "exercise" and "experiment", and held under unnatural constraints. In an experiment, rolling back the clock and re-running portions is legitimate.

jd

Red Team Blue Team

The 2002 "Millennium Challenge" war games highlight two very different approaches to the network form and its application to warfare. The 2002 games were the ones that were halted after Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper's "Red Team" (the "enemy") surprised and overwhelmed the high tech, information-intensive "Blue Team". Van Riper was assigned to head the armed forces of Red Team, in the game a rogue, anti-American Persian Gulf leader. The Defense Department intended to test how new technologies could lift the "fog of war" and overwhelm a lower-tech enemy.

Van Riper, however, understood the technology of Blue Team, and its weaknesses. Blue Team expected to eavesdrop on Red Team's communications, so Van Riper used motorcycle couriers. Blue Team expected to pick up Red Team air traffic communication, so Van Riper used World War II-era light signals to communicate. Van Riper knew that Blue Team had a preemptive-strike doctrine, so he launched a surprise swarming attack on Blue Team's fleet, sinking half of their ships. The Blue Team disaster prompted the Department of Defense game planners to re-start the games with new rules, and Blue Team subsequently won. (For an interview with Van Riper and more on the "force transformation" debate in the military, see the links in an earlier blog post.

The Millennium Challenge fiasco is one of many anecdotes in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005, Little Brown) that explores "intuitive" thinking. The brain carries out various decision-making processes that lie outside of conscious, analytical thought processes. Gladwell reviews how intuitive thinking takes place, its strengths and weaknesses, and how to cultivate it.

The Blue Team planned for total information awareness of the battlefield, which could be analyzed to determine the best course of action. Van Riper holds that battlefield chaos is an inevitable part of warfare, and on the ground, the fog of war cannot be lifted. For him, it was more important to have commanders who could function within the chaos of the battle, without being tethered to, and slowed down by, the decision-making cycle (information collection, analysis, decision) at headquarters.

Gladwell quotes Van Riper: "The first thing I told our staff is that we would be in command and out of control. By that I mean that the overall guidance and the intent were provided by me and the senior leadership, but the forces in the field wouldn't depend on intricate orders coming from the top. They were to use their own initiative and be innovative as they went forward." (118)

This of course is a classic description of the "network form", after Arquilla and Ronfeldt. The network is bound together by a common vision and doctrine, and the nodes are free to implement the vision as appropriate. But such a form cannot just happen. As Gladwell writes, "How good people's decisions are under the fast moving, high-stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training and rules and rehearsal." (114)

But Blue Team's approach is also described as network-centric warfare. The high-bandwidth communication network allows for more effective collection and dispersal of information, better coordination of units, and in theory, a shorter decision-making cycle. Through better information technology, the deployment of resources can be more effective. Can both network forms be right?

Van Riper says that both analytical thinking and the intuitive thinking (or "rapid-fire cognition") have their place. The analysis phase though takes place before the battle. Once the trouble starts, too much information becomes a burden, and slows down decision-making. "I can understand how all the concepts that Blue was using translate into planning for an engagement. But does it make a difference in the moment? I don't believe it does. When we talk about analytic versus intuitive decision making, neither is good or bad. What is bad is if you use either of them in an inappropriate circumstance." (141)

Van Riper's decentralized approach still requires the aggregation of information being collected by the nodes. But the aggregation process can be overwhelmed easily by too much information. "Once hostilities began, Van Riper was careful not to overload his team with irrelevant information. Meetings were brief. Communication between headquarters and the commanders on the field was limited. He wanted to create an environment where rapid cognition was possible. Blue Team, meanwhile, was gorging on information." (143)

An analytical approach to aggregation slows down as more information is available to be analyzed. As the tempo of the moment picks up, the intuitive approach -- guided by intent and sharpened by practice, practice, practice -- becomes the more effective approach.


jd