Niagara's Lie

Ginger Strand's "Faux Falls" (pages 131-142) looks at the "collateral damage" caused by hydro-electric power.

The article notes that 7% of electricity in the United States comes from hydro, whereas 70% comes from burning fossil fuels. On the surface, hydro doesn't seem to have any nasty byproducts.

Strand's article makes it clear, however, that where there's a cheap source of electricity, pollution will follow -- i.e. through the build up of factories along the river banks.

And something that I hadn't realized before: This is where Love Canal happened.

Can Niagara be blamed for Love Canal? That's a bit of stretch to me; Strand's point, though, is that actions have consequences. Niagara Falls is now a "man-made" tourist trap, and we have the power to literally turn off the falls. Ironically, tourists might be the only thing that "saved" the Falls.

The Knowledge Paradox

I love the idea of turning the class entirely over to the students (page 35); well, not entirely, of course, but the idea of shutting up and letting students figure things out for themselves... that's powerful.

Students do have the idea that the instructor is the expert. And the instructor should know more than students about the particular discipline, it's our duty to help convince students that the inquiry process is the best way to learn. Knowledge cannot just be given from instructor to students.

Teaching Through The Brothers Karamazov?

Have you read The Brothers Karamazov? If not, go pick it up. It's about 750 pages, and I'm sure you can read it in your spare moments.But seriously, this is a great book (yes, I've read it).

How many of our students would connect to it? Many none, we think. But maybe a lot more than we think, if we "provide structure and activities to help ... students attend carefully to the book" (17). That seems to be a key point.

Do we just assign a book, and expect our students to read it? If that's all we do, then are we really doing our jobs? Don't we need to provide "the way in" to the book for our students? Give them a roadmap and points to ponder as they read?

I Don't Know the Answer

Does it scare you to admit that you don't know it all?

Would you feel afraid to go into a room full of students, admitting to them that you don't know the answers to the questions you're asking them?

I thought Finkel made an interesting point when he suggested that an instructor might actually benefit from not always knowing the answers (page 15) -- i.e. it lets students open up more and speculate more; it also puts the focus on the looking at the problem, rather than always being focused on the solution.

Chapter 2

One thing that I like a lot about the book so far is the fact that Finkel is so practical. The part about the parables and students liking to figure things out really made me think. We just finished poetry, and I hope students felt a sense of achievement by figuring it out, but I always think I end up talking too much. This gives me an idea of how to approach it next time. Hmm...

Books That Speak to You vs. Books That Bore You to Sleep

Chapter 2 of Teaching with Your Mouth Shut contains some good nuggets, and I'd love to hear your reaction.

My initial thoughts: Yes, you need to work for knowledge. How do we train our students to want to work for knowledge, though? If they read something that isn't hitting them in the face with its clarity and obviousness, they either get confused and stop reading, or even worse, they claim to be "bored" and stop reading.

I don't think it's that they're really "bored" as much as they're not willing to work for the knowledge. What's the payoff? How do we make them want to care?

Teaching as Shaping (and Listening)

Finkel's point (page 8) that good teachers "shape" the environment is an interesting one; how many teachers have you had that did nothing to really shape the environment of the classroom?

If you know me, you probably have guessed that I have a bias. I believe that good communication is more about listening than speaking. And Finkel does, too (page 9).

How many of us actively listen to our students? How do we demonstrate that we're listening? I had a professor that always came to class with a legal pad. It was a seminar class, and although he sat at the front of the room (actually, the head of the table), he let the class do most of the talking. And when we spoke, he acted like he was learning from us. He took more notes than anyone in the class, and it modeled his belief that what we said mattered.

I will never forget Dr. Guzlowski for that. He's retired now, but you might be interested in hearing one of his poems -- read by Garrison Keiller himself:

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2007/12/28

Morality and Economics

Is coal really the "the liver of Mother Earth"?

I may be too white to understand that line of thinking, but I'm not too white to agree that we must start infusing some morality into our capitalist system.

Judith Nies' "The Black Mesa Syndrome" (pages 117-128) provides a sickening historical account. Basically, $100 billion dollars in coal is hiding under the ground -- ground controlled by Indians. Nevertheless, what the white man gives, he also takes away (as soon as he finds out its worth something).

Lawyer John Boyden plays the villian in this story, and I have no doubt that he thought he was doing the "right thing" by representing both the interests of the Hopi and Peabody. Of course, he got richly rewarded for doing the right thing, to the tune of at least 2.7 million dollars.

And after all, isn't this a question of "greater good"? Who cares what happens to a few thousand Indians if white capitalists get stinking rich, and if Phoenix and Las Vegas get the energy and water they need?

And one final question: Why are megacities allowed to exist in deserts? How stupid are we to have allowed this to happen?

For more on this story, the following links might be useful:

http://www.blackmesais.org/

www.sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/

The Global Warming Experience

One possible problem with Rush Limbaugh is: he talks about things of which he has no direct experience.

Charles Wohlforth's "On Thin Ice" (pages 107-116) goes to the source, the Inupiat. These are the Eskimos of the Barrow, Alaska region, and they are the ones with direct experience as it pertains to global warming.

There's a difference between first-year ice and multi-year ice: only the latter can support a whale carcass. And as the nature of ice continues to change, the fact is, a people's way of life will have to change as well.

People adapt, even Eskimos believe it or not, and it's interesting to read about what some consider to be "true whaling." What the Inupiat have that hopefully will never change is a deep respect for the environment of which they are apart.

Shut Your Mouth -- Opening Reflections

On page 6, Finkel asks us to stop and reflect. More than that, the author asks us to actually write out our response to the following prompt:

Thinking back over your whole life, what were the two or three most significant learning experiences you ever had? That is, list the moments (or events) in which you discovered something of lasting signifance to your life.

Okay, I've actually stopped reading the book at this point to do this writing exercise, and I hope you will too.

I thought about this over the lunch hour, and here's what I came up with.

1. Perhaps the earliest signifant learning experience that comes to mind is learning how to ride a bicycle. I was about 5 years old, and the road outside my house went down a hill. At the end of the hill were some bushes, and beyond the bushes was a pond. The thought of riding my bike straight into the pond always scared me, but even when I forgot to apply my brakes, the bushes always stopped me.

2. In high school, I took Calculus and ended up getting an F. Instead of blaming my teacher, I decided that when I took math in college the following year, I would take Calculus. Although my program only required me to take Algebra, take Calculus I did, and this time I studied hard and earned an A.

I guess the first lesson has to do with overcoming fear, and the second lesson deals with accepting the challenge to live up to my potential. In both cases, I learned to rely on myself -- not expecting others to be there to save me, and not allowing myself to be the victim.

What about you guys? How did you answer this prompt?

Bret

Radioactive Rochester?

Hope Burwell's "Jeremiad for Belarus" (pages 78-90) reminded me about how little I really know about the world.

Chernobyl is in Ukraine; that I knew. But I didn't know that Belarus is the country that has paid the biggest price for the 1986 accident.

I didn't know that the area in Belarus effected by fall-out is equal to 2/3's the size of Iowa.

Belarus is a poor country, and apparently no one in the international community cares about its people. Burwell documented that thousands, if not millions, of people are continuing to be slowly killed by Chernobyl as the world turns a blind eye. These are people that still live in the contaminated zones because they don't have anywhere else to go.

This is a country dying, and no one seems to care.

The only way the author can make us care, it seems, is to suggest that the same thing could happen here, in the United States. If the Duane Arnold facility in Iowa went Chernobyl, for example, the fallout would reach good old Rochester, Minnesota.

Sleep easy tonight. :)

Conservation Refugees

Mark Dowie's "Conservation Refugees" (65-77) shows what happens when conservationists put their own interests and agendas ahead of people.

Does protecting a place mean that the people should be removed? Or, if not removed, what happens to the people that live in the areas we would like to see protected? Do they become somehow "indentured"? Good questions raised in this article.

I was very surprised to learn that there might be as many as 14 million conservation refugees world-wide. Dowie is careful to explain the difference between the terms "conservation refugee" and "environmental refugee," too. The former is a human-made problem, while the latter is simply has natural causes -- floods, fire, etc.

Overall, I'd have to say that I'm enjoying the articles in the "Refugee" section of the book much more than the "Action" section.

How about you? What articles have you read that you like? That you plan to include in your classes this Fall?

Being Human (in a Good Sense)

The interview with Van Jones -- "A Licence to Be Human" (page 53-61) -- was my favorite article from the Action section by far.

Jones talks about stepping back from the "us vs. them" duality. Yes, people get passionate about issues, but people also get blinded by anger, which he describes as "a messay fuel" (54).

Solving the world's problems requires looking in as well as looking out. How many people attack George W. Bush for his administration's policies? Well, at least half the country. But how many people take the time to see that Bush is a scapegoat for problems that we all are partially responsible for?

I loved Jones's message that we need "a wiser kind of warrior" (56) and that we're not always David against Goliath -- and that sometimes, we need to figure out a way to secure Goliath's help rather than fight him.

This is a brillant interview, full of insight...

All or Nothing?

B.K. Loren's "Got Tape" (pages 43-52) is the personal story of one community standing together as one to stop a SuperTarget from destroying undeveloped land.

Question: why does it take a crisis for people to act? Loren notes that during the process, they learned that to keep the people working together, they had to "quit fighting against something, and begin fighting for something" (49). Fine, but why did it take the threat of SuperTarget for them to learn this lesson? Here's some undeveloped land: of course someone is going to want to do something with it. Why not act before that "evil" someone steps forward?

Question: why couldn't a shopping center be a part of a nature setting? Does it have to be one or the other? I've visited a lot of places that have strict zoning standards -- how big the signs are in front of stores, what the building are made out of, etc.

I hate sprawl as much as anyone, and I hate bulldozing down all the trees to put in parking lots, but perhaps there's a third way? After all, people have to shop. Maybe instead of "protecting" 100 acres of undeveloped land, we should "protect" all land and the way that it's developed. Just a thought.

Enemy of My Enemy

On the surface, unions and environmentalists don't have a lot in common; Laura Paskus's "The Union Makes Them Strong" (pages 32-42) does a nice job showing that blue-collar and green-collar folks actually do have a lot in common -- if only a common enemy.

Is the future of Green in the hands of unions? Perhaps so, because the underlying issue is jobs. Going green will take a lot of money, but with the money will come jobs. That's the key point. And these jobs could be union jobs, which would be a real shot in the arm to unions, which have seen memberships on the decline for decades.

Interesting to note, too, is just how far ahead of the game Europe is. Europe has set environmental goals and standards, and they are seeing real growth in green jobs. America, however, continues to subsidize oil companies in the billions while spending on renewable energy only receives support in the millions.

What will it take to change the direction of America's energy policy? Perhaps it will take Green and Blue working together.

The Death of Hope

Derrick Jensen's "Beyond Hope" (pages 27-31) argues that hope is an impediment to action. The only people willing to act are the people that have gone beyond hope, that have taken responsibility into their own hands, and who have shed the crippling influence of society.

If you look at the definitions of "hope" and "optimism," you find that their meanings are very similiar:

Hope (n)-- "A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment"

Optimism (n) -- "A tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation"

I strongly disagree with Jensen's basic premise. In reality, he's just a pessimist who sees the world as gasping its last breath, with his mission to bring it back to life.

For all of the Earth's problems, it's not gasping. An exaggeration of the problem helps no one, and neither does looking through a pessimistic lense.

Jensen denies the distinction between "false hope" and "hope," but there is a real difference. The idiom "hope against hope" means "To hope with little reason or justification," but that's not what hope means. And hope doesn't mean that you are giving up the right to act.

In fact, people act from hope, and I'd much rather act from hope than despair. Action and hope are not opposites, and hope does not equal powerlessness.

Even in this political cycle, politicians have mocked Barack Obama's audacity to promote the idea of hope.

Perhaps Jensen was right in one regard. Perhaps he and his supporters really are dead, and that's not the compliment he would have it to be.

Corporate Personhood

Jeffrey Kaplan's "Consent of the Govern" (pages 14-26) provides a history of how corporations have developed the rights of "personhood" over the last 100+ years. I haven't studied that issue much and don't really have a position on it, other than to note that Kaplan seemingly would like to go back to a time when corporations dissolved every-so-often -- so that they wouldn't have time to amass money and power (15).

The article also promotes the idea that local governments are somehow more "pure" than state or federal governments (or international organizations). Why? Maybe because people tend to care more about their immediate living areas than they do about other states, regions, or countries.

I'm not intentionally trying to find fault with every essay, but here's what I have trouble with in this essay: the idea that a local government can thumb its nose at state or federal law. In other words, some local governments have said that corporations are not "persons" in their districts (20). Again, this sounds kind of dangerous to me. Who else might they claim are not persons? Or what other rights might local governments take away if they had such authority?

Kaplan's article expresses the idea that people should have a real say in governing themselves. Unfortunately, he seemingly fails to realize that state and federal officials are, at least in theory, elected by the people. And any international trade agreements go through a ratification process. In other words, the people do have a voice at all levels. Kaplan would argue that the Corporate "person" has too much power at higher levels of government. That makes me wonder, why are real people so powerful at the lower levels? What would stop Corporations from running local governments? And what stops real people from running state and federal governments?

Human-centered Environmentalism

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but should the main concern of Environmentalism really be about what's best for humans? Let me explain:

Peter Sauer's "Reinhabiting Environmentalism" (pages 5-13) seems to pine for the good old days of the 1960s, before the Vietnam War caused everything to derail. Now, Sauer says, "movements" fight against one another, when in reality, they should be working together. I'm sure that makes sense, but I'm still a bit concerned about how human-centered the agenda seems to be. Sure, it's a good thing to be concerned about humans, but what's wrong with setting aside land for conservation, for protecting species, etc.? Does such an approach really limit total "buy in"? Is such an approach really inappropriate or off the mark?

Maybe the most interesting portion of the essay is the doctrine of the "precautionary principle" (12). Boy, I don't know about that one, though. I'm trying not to get too political here, so forgive me in advance, but didn't President Bush utilize his own doctrine of the "precautionary principle"? Acting in advance sure sounds good, but the consequences of following such a principle could be dangerous, couldn't they??

First Impressions

Not much time to write, but I did have a chance to read through the Acknowledgements and Introduction.

Emerson Blake's Acknowledgments details how the articles in the book are organized into six specific sections: 1) Action, 2) Refugees, 3) Boundaries, 4) Reverence, 5) Monsters, and 6) Native. Nothing too controversial here. Blake cites the purpose of the book as providing articles that "point toward a fuller understanding of the world and the possibility of the future" (vii). Make sense to me.

Barry Lopez writes the Introduction, and the language becomes a bit more charged. On page ix, he quickly suggests that we receive a "daily message" that "we don't know" everything. That, I think, is an important acknowledgement to make. On the following pages, though, Lopez makes some pretty definite assertions: 1) business is bad, 2) government is bad, and 3) civic groups are good.

The problem is: he sounds as though he believes business and government have no role in developing solutions to environmental issues. This fails to acknowledge that people run businesses, and people are elected to government offices. These same people may be involved in "social movements" too. Can't businesses and government encourage or lead social movements?

An interesting line: "Civic society has no staff, no address, no nation, no religion, no stake in commerce or policy making" (xi). First, I'm not sure that statement is entirely true, and second, even if it is true, what does it mean? Sounds very organic, but it also echoes of the ultimate goals of Marx. Am I wrong on this?

As you read, feel free to post your own impressions. If you want contributor status to make your own posts to this forum, please let me know.

Bret

Next Year's Common Book -- The Future of Nature

Hi all,

RCTC has selected next year's Common Book, and that book is: The Future of Nature

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Nature-Writing-Ecology-Magazine/dp/1571313060/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208203510&sr=8-1

Please see me or Katherine Hanson if you need a review copy.

As I read the book, I'll post my thoughts and comments here. And, I hope some of you will want to do so as well. Please contact me if you'd like contributor status to this blog. That will allow you to post your own messages.

Bret