Author: Seth Inman

God in Goa

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Goa, India’s smallest state, is a former Portuguese colony bordering the Arabian Sea. Once a key trading enclave for spices, Goa is now a significant tourist attraction due to its beaches and festivals. It is also known for its considerable Catholic history and architecture; St Francis Xavier arrived in 1542 with Jesuit missionaries (he was a pupil of St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit Order) and there are many impressive churches throughout Goa’s capital, Panaji, and its former capital, Old Goa.

Perhaps one of the most awe-inspiring of these is the Church of St Augustine. Augustinian friars completed its construction in 1602, and it has been in different states of disrepair since 1835, when the Portuguese government began evicting many religious orders from Goa. The 46 meter tower (half of which collapsed in 1931), in varying stages of illumination, is perhaps the most easily appreciated element of grandeur remaining. But close examination of the vault floor reveals dozens of tombstones in relief, mostly for men who seem to have been knights, or at least who had knightly coat of arms. Some of these sigils are surprising, such as the skull and crossbones motifs. This is the church that I spent the most time at; most of what is left is eroded, overgrown, cracked, or otherwise dilapidated, without detracting from the ruins’ beauty or impressiveness, however. Continue reading →

To The Past

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In 2004, my family visited a completed Morgan’s Rock after having camped on the undeveloped property several years earlier. The camping trip had helped establish the best potential locations for bungalows–the bungalows that you can now only reach by the pictured bridge.

Last summer, Continue reading →

Fence Art?

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Cornell University and the City of Ithaca began fencing the bridges that run over several of Ithaca’s famous gorges some time in 2010, for safety purposes. Many have opposed these barriers, partly because the fences inhibit a full view of the famous natural beauty of Ithaca’s gorges, a huge part of Ithaca’s identity and college appeal. In fact, “Ithaca is GORGES” t-shirts or bumper stickers are a very common sight on campus, and parodies (Ithaca is SQUIRRELS) are becoming popular.

A common sight that is not quite a parody, however, is “Ithaca is FENCES” stickers. They can be seen on every bridge on campus, and on t-shirts. You can read about the messy details of the fence controversy here; the main reason I give this example of protest is its unconventional form: stickers placed on telephone poles or fence posts that play off a famous (at least locally) play on words. Continue reading →

Deep Ecology, American Roots: Part 4

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Here are some final thoughts following my discussion of the relationship between deep ecology and certain American figures:

Just as deep ecologists at heart may need to stay closeted to keep their public shallow ecology jobs, shallow ecology groups such as The Group of Ten must retain their traditional views in order to maintain government support and continue to receive public donations from massive bases.  In the early 1980s alone, Sierra Club membership grew by 90%; as the mainstream groups grow, it makes sense that more radical splinters will form.  Unlike traditional environmental groups, however, the fringe splinters are fairly flexible to fundamental changes in ideology.  David Foreman eventually left Earth First!, thinking it had become too concerned with social justice issues when the group opened alliances with labor unions; he believed wilderness preservation had lost priority as the group’s mission.  But was this shift in Earth First!’s goals one from deep to shallow ecology?  This query presents issues inherent in social justice, which are far too vast to discuss here; the simplest answer, it seems, would depend greatly on whom the group was serving, and to what ends. Continue reading →

Deep Ecology, American Roots: Part 3

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I left off my Part 2 post with the claim that environmental groups adopted a shallower ecology as they became more mainstream. I will continue to discuss this below, and focus on a more radical fringe environmental group.

With wider supporter bases, the largest and most influential organizations—The Group of Ten—tended toward demureness while working with the US government, which in many cases meant acceding to the demands of corporations; none of the Ten showed up to protest the controversial dumping of toxic PCBs in Afton, North Carolina.  When The Group of Ten began to cooperate with (or behave more pragmatically towards) extractive industries, generally the more lucrative variety, many activists found themselves looking for more adversarial policies, and abandoned their positions for more “active” ones.  Many of these people may have considered themselves liberal members of the environmental groups before, but given the dynamics of mainstream discourse, the splinter groups became much more radical.  Here are some examples of frustrated people leaving mainstream groups: David Brower was fired from the Sierra Club and ended up forming Friends of the Earth and two other grassroots organizations; David Foreman quit his job at the Wilderness Society and co-founded Earth First!; Rick Sutherland declared the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund independent of the Sierra Club to litigate more freely in the name of the environment.

Continue reading →

Deep Ecology, American Roots: Part 2

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My Part 1 post a couple days ago focused on George Perkins Marsh’s writings, and how they related to Arne Naess’ deep ecology. I closed with Marsh’s concluding comments in Man and Nature, which I’m including here:

In his final essay, “Nothing Small in Nature,” Marsh cautions that humans are never justified in assuming that their actions have no significant consequences just because they see no effects.  His advice—implicit in that the book ends after this point, with no structured summary or conclusion—is that people must look for, and then react properly (responsibly) to, the deleterious influence they can have on their environment.

But is this deep ecology?  Naess emphasizes the “equal right to live and blossom” of all organisms, allowing that in practice this principle of ecological egalitarianism cannot be fully carried out.  Marsh, when asked by his publisher whether or not man was a “part of nature,” replied that his beliefs could not be further from the idea that “man is a ‘part of nature’ or that his action is controlled by the laws of nature; in fact a leading spirit of the book is to enforce the opposite opinion, and to illustrate the fact that man… is a free moral agent working independently of nature.”   Continue reading →

Deep Ecology, American Roots: Part 1

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Part 1: George Perkins Marsh

In 1973, the Norwegian scholar and philosopher Arne Naess published the article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement. A Summary” in Inquiry, an interdisciplinary journal he established to promote discourse in the social sciences and humanities.  This brief article contained the base for what Naess termed the ‘deep ecology’ philosophy, which has since grown into a powerful—albeit fringe—branch of environmentalism with influence around the world.  The radical ideology that Naess sparked has an especially large following in the United States, where several environmental groups have been inspired by the proposed ‘ecosophy,’ or philosophy of ecological equilibrium surpassing shallow goals.

The relative popularity of deep ecology may have a foundation in United States environmental literature, where the writings of George Perkins Marsh and Aldo Leopold, among others, have distinct similarities to Naess’ claims and proposals.

What, exactly, was ‘deep ecology’ when Naess first wrote of it?  In his original seven-point survey, he described it as a belief in ecologically responsible practices that include such varied principles as complexity, diversity, and egalitarianism; a normative priority system—a life-style—that supports an ethical and humble view toward the environment.   Continue reading →

The Heavy Hand’s Awesome Grip

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What can be done to reduce hypoxia?

Although reducing fertilizer use is the most cost effective method of ameliorating hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, the reductions necessary are too difficult and expensive to implement; the massive agribusiness establishment of wheat, soy, and especially corn is not easily confronted. So conservation and restoration of wetlands, or creation of any other form of buffer zone, is one of the better alternatives.

Buffer zones can filter between 50 and 90 percent of nitrogen and phosphorous from runoff; riparian buffers, filter strips, grassed waterways, and contour grass strips are practices eligible for the Conservation Reserve Program that also prevent nutrient runoff. The Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, is Continue reading →

Swampbuster

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My last post introduced the problem of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, and I promised to start trying to answer that question. Today I’ll shed some light on some subsidies and federal policies that could be altered and bolstered in the right ways to stop nutrient-rich runoff from reaching the Mississippi River. I’m going to point out right away that although the most obvious way of preventing hypoxia is by reducing fertilizer use, this is also the most difficult and expensive tactic to implement. My goal is to start laying out elements of a more cost effective, pragmatic plan for ameliorating hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.

The agricultural subsidies that I discuss here are measures that can be implemented through various policy tools (e.g. direct payments, technical assistance, tax incentives) to reduce costs for producers and attempt to benefit the economy in doing so. One positive form of subsidy, known as a cross-compliance program, discourages creation of farmland from current wetlands or land that is highly erodible. Continue reading →

A Dead Zone

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This picture is of the hypoxic area in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest “dead zone” in the western Atlantic. Since the beginning of this site we have tried to accentuate the wonders of nature, creative and collaborative approaches to conservation, and other fun stuff.  Every now and then a dose of scientific explanation helps put this in perspective, even if it is a downer like hypoxia.

Hypoxia occurs when oxygen concentrations in the water are too low to sustain most life, and is created by a process known as eutrophication. This is the over-enrichment of water by nutrients, which cause dense growth of algae that consumes oxygen as it multiplies and decomposes. The resulting lack of oxygen can cause large die-offs of marine life, seriously threatening ecosystems in the Gulf.

Continue reading →

Lost Ladybugs

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Earlier this week, James posted about a crowd of ladybugs he spotted on a recycling bin at Emory. His account reminded me of a guest lecture in my entomology class earlier this year, when John Losey came to talk to us, in part, about the Lost Ladybug Project.

The Lost Ladybug Project, which is a citizen science similar to the ornithological projects I’ve written about previously, aims to educate participants on the values of biodiversity conservation and the importance of ladybugs as predators in ecosystems. Continue reading →

Using Small Mammal Remains for Environmental Archaeology

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Credit: Bresson Thomas

Archaeological remains of small mammals generally weighing under 1kg, or micromammals, are important as environmental indicators, partly because they tend to specialize in certain habitats and are sensitive to change. Many factors affect their ranges of distribution, including predators, food requirements, competition, fire, shifts in precipitation patterns, and shelter availability. Micromammals such as voles and mice also tend to live in dense populations and have evolved rapidly through high fecundity. Due to these diverse and interrelated factors, the interpretation of micromammal remains—bones and middens, mostly—requires a deep understanding of the rodents’ relationship with its environment. In other words, ecological information is imperative to accurate assessment of archaeological data on micromammals.

But sometimes micromammal remains have answered modern ecological questions. For example, packrat middens in arid North America offer relatively high temporal, spatial, and taxonomic resolution (i.e., small intervals with which to measure time, space, or species range), and contain what is possibly the “richest archive of dated, identified, and well-preserved plant and animal remains in the world” (Pearson & Betancourt 2002, p500). Continue reading →

What the Trees Read

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Without question, the section of Cayuga Lake’s Inlet that receives the most traffic is a small area of shoreline at the corner of the second tendril extending east from the Inlet into Ithaca. Community members and college students are attracted to this little spot on the Inlet, known as Steamboat Landing, because the Ithaca Farmer’s Market spends its weekends there, sheltered under a long wooden pavilion topped by a green metal roof. Dozens of stalls are laden with earthly, culinary, and artistic crafts; more than a couple hundred people a day visit each of them to browse and purchase these locally produced goods.

This quaint market is surrounded by a mixture of modern development and natural shoreline that I could not have noticed from the Inlet’s waters—only by walking around Steamboat Landing was I able to understand the spot’s significance to the Ithaca community, and connect elements of Henry David Thoreau’s and Aldo Leopold’s writings with the history of the place. Continue reading →

Prime Directive, Reconsidered

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Global climate change will soon be changing ecosystems around the world to such an extent that many species will no longer have proper habitats to survive and reproduce in. Over the past several years, the scientific community has been discussing the possibility of moving such species to new ranges in order to conserve biodiversity and reduce potential for extinction. This controversial process, known as assisted colonization or managed relocation, might be able to save some species from their current state of risk, but it may also prove dangerous for the natives of whatever area the “colonizers” are moved to. By diligently evaluating the perils and uncertainties of relocation and carefully considering the repercussions of leaving species to their shrinking habitats, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), given its mission and vision statements, should determine that in most cases, the costs of assisted colonization outweigh the benefits.

Patagonian mountains

By assisting the colonization of species with limited ability to adapt or relocate, the annual number of species gone extinct might be lowered in the coming decades. There are, however, disagreements as to whether or not humans should meddle with species movement. Continue reading →

Paying for Ecosystem Services

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Tim Chen has covered ecosystem services as they relate to ecotourism; below I’ve written some additional information on how the process might work on the market.

Sulfur-rich waterfall in Costa Rica

As developing countries increasingly convert natural ecosystems to areas controlled by humans, ecosystem services (e.g., waste absorption, water purification, soil conservation) are being lost. In order to prevent these shifts, people who live in urban areas or have no close relationship with, for example, their sources of drinking water are often willing to pay people who do have direct impacts on the watersheds. Payment for ecosystem services (PES) has become a measure by which higher-resource groups can induce lower-resource communities or individuals to protect local wetlands, forests, or other areas in order to maintain the ecosystem services that support a particular standard of living. Before such payment schemes can be established, however, certain scientific analyses must be carried out to determine the most efficient allocation of resources and facilitate the selection of the right service providers. Continue reading →

Don’t Tread On Me

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Humans’ ecological footprint has been increasing while the Earth has remained the same size. Especially in the last three centuries, the impact of human populations on surrounding landscapes and resources has grown enormously. In the United States, the footprint’s swelling can be explained in large part by the change from subsistence to profit-minded production. The colonists who brought European ideas and techniques to America instigated this shift, which began in the late seventeenth century and has arguably continued till the present. The abundance of resources in early America, and the fact that they could be so easily exploited, facilitated this change towards a profiteering mindset. It is with this observation in mind that I can suggest that the fertile nature of early America contained the seeds of our profit-oriented attitude of today, leading to an ever-growing ecological footprint.

Arthur Rothstein “Soil erosion, Alabama, 1937”

Men such as Gifford Pinchot and John Muir realized the dangers of the attitude towards excess and, in order to avoid exploitation of American forests and mountains, attempted to Continue reading →

The High Line

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Notice where the railway used to enter the building

The High Line railway was originally designed to bring shipments straight from the Hudson to manufacturing warehouses in Manhattan. The train cars could run packages from wharves to upper-level floors of these industrial buildings without having to obstruct street traffic or be carried up several stories manually (freight elevators weren’t a common sight in the 1930s, whether for safety, efficiency, or invention reasons I don’t know).

In 1980 the High Line trains stopped running, and construction of the new park design started in 2006 (after seven years of planning). The first section opened to the public in 2009, and the second section in 2011.

I first heard of the High Line Park this summer, while doing some browsing about the city online. I was immediately struck by the ingenuity of converting what had once been industrial space Continue reading →

Hatched Hats

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For several decades after the 1880s, seeing birds on women’s hats in the United States was very common. It was fashionable to have everything from a couple flowing plumes to a whole pheasant on a hat; the ornithologist Frank Chapman found forty species in the millinery district of Manhattan.

Less than a decade earlier, wild passenger pigeons had gone extinct in North America, due to unfettered hunting and deforestation. It looked like the same was happening to several other species, but instead of being hunted for food like the pigeons, these other birds were killed solely for their bodies or feathers.

Snowy egrets and great white egrets were nearly decimated … The millinery trade in the 1880s and 1890s cleaned out tern, heron, gull and egret rookeries up and down the Atlantic coast, from Maine to the Florida Keys. Continue reading →

Resilience, or Failure?

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It is said that our early experiences create connections in our brains that last throughout our lives. In one particular case I know this to be true: visiting Tikal and Copan as a child filled me with a lifelong awe and interest in the Mayans. So in my current studies it is an easy leap from that simple interest to a more scholarly one.

For hundreds of years human civilizations have looked back on previous societies and wondered why they made certain decisions, how they coped with diverse problems, and what caused them to change. In his popular book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Pulitzer-winning author Jared Diamond examines societies that he claims had unsustainable relationships with their ecosystems, and describes how their actions largely led to their demise. He also refers to some current communities, such as those of modern-day Rwanda, but for my purposes I will only address the past societies (the most academically pertinent and personally interesting to me being the Mayans, because their disappearance from their grandiose cities–Tikal and Copán, for example–has historically been mysterious, and may be closely related to environmental stresses). Continue reading →