The Bowdoin Globalist – Issue 8 October 2014

THE BOWDOIN GLOBALIST

Nationalism in Japan - Mexico Cracks Down - Negotiating with Iran - Schizophrenia Breakthrough - Development and the Private Sector - Islamic State’s Exploitation of Water Domestic Abuse and the NFL - UKIP on the Rise English Devolution - After Scotland’s Referendum - Industrial Activism in China - Ferguson and Police Militarization - The Future of Solar Power

Volume IV, Issue 1, October 2014

Fabiano Caruana and the Death of Chess

Fabiano Caruana and the Death of Chess

and The Death of Chess

Fabiano Caruana 1

2

CONTENTS 5 6 7 8

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Volume IV, Issue 1, October 2014 The Darkest Day

By Derek Kang

Reining in the Beast

By Hannah Sherman

The Khameni Complex

By Griff Brewer

Schizophrenia and the Genetic Question

By Sara Baronsky

Sustainable Development Goals & The Private Sector

By Skylen C. Monaco

10 14

The Death of Chess

16

Domestic Abuse in the NFL

18

UKIP and Friends

22 23

The West Lothian Question

24

Grassroots Democratization on the Factory Floor

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Ferguson, Dissent, and Containment

26

Solar Power’s Great Future

By Drew van Kuiken

Waves of Terror

By Camille Wasinger

By Chase Savage

By Dylan Devenyi

By Liam Gunn

They Voted No, Now What?

By Maeve Morse

By Michaelle Yeo

By Serena Taj

By Haleigh Collins 3

Letter from the Editors The Bowdoin Globalist Editors In Chief Kate Herman Mark Pizzi Nick Tonckens Associate Editors Camille Wasinger Dylan Devenyi Layout Kate Berkley Mark Pizzi Photography Editor Hannah Rafkin Staff Writers Sara Baronsky Griff Brewer Katherine Churchill Haleigh Collins Liam Gunn Adam Hunt Derek Kang Skylen C. Monaco Maeve Morse Chase Savage Hannah Sherman Serena Taj Drew van Kuiken Michaelle Yeo

Dear Reader, Following the success of last year’s complete reorientation of this publication, we began this issue with the conviction that further expansion was necessary to keep the Globalist apace with our broader goals for its development. Through the expansion of our staff, and the further expansion of subject matter to include science and technology, health research, and culture, we have sought to make a greater contribution to campus discussion about the world beyond Bowdoin.

As reporting on the impending global epidemic and the threat of an Islamic Caliphate became increasingly sensationalist, if not alarmist, we have reaffirmed our commitment to the analysis of underlying causation. We disavow headline chasing, with all the panic and sensationalism that entails. Instead, we aim to delve into underreported political, social and cultural phenomena that are changing the parameters of our world. In addressing contemporary events with a eye to the big picture and a long-term perspective, we hope to get to the bottom of today’s truth and tomorrow’s possibilities.

Morever, we have continued our commitment to this magazine’s central purpose: seeking out those stories that have remained quiet in the increasingly cluttered marketplace of information. In discerning both subject matter and perspective, we hope that the Globalist will stand as a representative forum for the voices of Bowdoin students. As we begin another year of publication, we are eager not only to maintain but to surpass the standards we have already set for ourselves.

Sincerely, Mark, Nick, and Kate

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The Darkest Day:

The Domestic Politics of Defense and Nationalism in Japan

By Derek Kang On July 1st, 2014, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet approved a highly controversial reinterpretation of the Japanese Constitution, specifically of Article 9, which prohibits the formation of a military and restricts the use of force solely to self-defense. Under the recent revision, Japan has now extended this right to include using force to defend any of its allies under attack, garnering widespread domestic and international criticism. This constitutional reinterpretation not only represents a major shift from the pacifist stance the country has held for over 65 years, but also threatens to upset the fragile balance of power in East Asia. According to the Asahi Shimbun, “July 1 will be remembered as the darkest day in the history of Japan’s constitutionalism.”

Dating back to the late 19th century, this history of constitutionalism has been tumultuous to say the least. From 1890 to 1945, Japan ratified its first constitution, began adopting democratic ideals, devolved into a brutal militaristic empire, and engaged in 5 major wars. Following its defeat in the Second World War, Japan found itself decimated economically, militarily, and politically and was subsequently occupied by Allied forces.

The occupation force was led and manned largely by the United States, which sought to rebuild the war-torn country as a democratic bulwark against communism. Thus, the old constitution was revoked and a new one modeled after Western counterparts was cobbled together by American military officers and Japanese policymakers.

Although their input was fairly limited, Japanese representatives managed to add the highly controversial Article 9, which “forever renounc[ed] war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. To accomplish [this] aim… land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” With the Cold War looming on the horizon, leading Japanese policymakers were determined to avoid being caught in a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union and instead focus on economic growth.

Sixty-seven years later, Japan now ranks as the world’s third largest economy and the specter of the Cold War no longer dominates the international political arena. However, the continued rise of China has prompted major changes in Japanese defense policy over the last three years.

Despite the constitutional restrictions on “war potential,” the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) now have the fifth largest defense budget in the world, amounting to more than $53 billion USD. As part of his foreign policy initiative entitled “Proactive Pacifism”, Prime Minister Abe is planning to increase budgets by a further $11.7 billion USD in order to procure a veritable shopping list of attack submarines, anti-missile destroyers, surveillance drones, and fighter planes. This form of aggressive spending represents a sharp contrast to the decade prior to 2013 in which defense expenditures steadily decreased by 3.56% whereas the 2014 defense budget promises to be the largest in the nation’s history.

The acquisition of arms and material is only half the challenge of reintroducing the military as a state institution in Japan. The second and more daunting challenge is to sway public opinion in favor of this revisionist agenda. Currently, more than 63% of the public opposes the recent changes to Article 9, more than double the 29% who do support it. Although Abe and his Cabinet successfully passed the motion, disregarding public sentiments has taken a significant toll on his approval ratings, which

fell by 9 percentage points from mid-June to mid-July. This visceral reaction by the general public has forced Abe to slow down the dangerously ambitious timetable he proposed in his 2014 New Year’s Address to amend Article 9 before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. After all, Abe’s first term as Prime Minister ended with his resignation in 2007 when the public turned against him due to his hawkish policies and a series of political scandals.

As a stopgap measure to simultaneously reverse the downward spiral of approval ratings while marshaling greater support for amending the constitution, Prime Minister Abe reshuffled his Cabinet on September 3rd, 2014. In a gesture to female voters, Abe more than doubled the number of women in his Cabinet to five, placing them at key ministries and boosting his approval ratings to a more respectable 50%. Regardless of these demographic changes, it is clear that the agenda has remained the same, if not become more extremist.

Calling this Cabinet “the most conservative of the postwar era,” The Diplomat found that all 19 members “defined a ‘normal’ Japan as one not simply maintaining an active military, but one that rejects individual liberties, the separation of religion and the state, and Imperial Japan’s wartime culpability.” The nationalist sentiments of these high-level ministers have alarmed many regional powers such as South Korea and China and have stoked tensions in an increasingly volatile region.

So, why is Prime Minister Abe willing to risk so much to amend Article 9 and ultimately, re-establish the Japanese military? To answer this question, it is necessary to first understand the mentality of the ultraconservative faction and their perception of Japan in the international community. At its most fundamental level, this faction believes that Japan has been forced by the West to endure the humiliating status of “semi-sovereignty.” They believe that the country has been punished far too long for actions taken more than 60 years ago and that their ancestors were not war criminals, but martyrs. This has seeped throughout the political establishment with politicians continually revising textbooks to exclude Japanese war crimes and culpability in the Second World War. In spite of these revisionist efforts, the lack of a military acts as a constant reminder of their past actions and re-establishing the institution is to erase the crimes of the past, allowing them to move to a supposedly more “normal” Japan.

Since its inclusion in the constitution nearly seven decades ago, the issue of Article 9 has been constantly bandied about by a conservative minority and a pacifist majority. However, the external threat of an evermore aggressive China has catalyzed the debate in favor of the war hawks. In less than three years, Shinzo Abe’s ultraconservative administration has justified the increase of defense expenditures, the adoption of an aggressive new foreign policy of “Proactive Pacifism” and the reinterpretation of the country’s founding document. With dogma and ideology currently prevailing over pragmatism, the Japanese militant effort to gear up for war will have profound and unpredictable consequences in the region and the world. Simply put by Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe, “Japan’s spirit is approaching the most dangerous stage over the past 100 years.” n

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Reining in the Beast:

Mexico Cracks Down on Illegal Immigration

By Hannah Sherman

The freight train barrels north, the cars rattling on the track. At first glance, it appears the same as any of the other thousands of trains that pass through Mexico daily. But on closer inspection, one can see the masses of people clinging perilously to its roof as they hurtle towards the next obstacle on their harrowing journey: the border between the United States and Mexico. There is nothing but speed, wind, and a desperate prayer to remain precariously balanced on the roof of the cars. For those who fall, the best outcome is a broken limb and abandonment; the worst, death.

This is why the train has been called el tren de la muerte, the train of death.

Equally ominous is its more common name: La Bestia or The Beast.

The train has carried tens of thousands of people, many of whom are minors, on the treacherous path north from Central America through Mexico and into the United States. While the total number of illegal immigrants entering the US has slowly but steadily increased in recent years, the number of unaccompanied minors has skyrocketed. In the past, an average of seven to eight thousand minors were caught crossing the border annually.

Last year, that number grew to 24,000, and this year’s projection is set at 60,000. Many blame President Obama, arguing that his policy of temporarily deferring deportations, which was instituted at the beginning of the summer, sent a message that spread like wildfire through Central America, convincing children and their parents that if they made it to the US, they would be permitted to stay.

In the past, La Bestia offered one of the most reliable routes for migrants trying to make it to the states, as the Mexican police force turned a blind eye. However, after years of maintaining that illegal immigration is a “US problem,” Mexico has recently launched its largest crackdown on illegal immigration in decades.

Whereas Mexico in the past commonly gave visas to Central Americans who had been deported from the U.S. and who could not, or did not, want to return home, it is now beginning to deport its own immigrants in large numbers. Over 38,000 Central Americans have already been deported from Mexico this year. In addition, Mexican police have increased the number of roadway checkpoints and have begun raiding hotels and flophouses where immigrants gather on their journey. Unsurprisingly, they have also started raiding La Bestia, cutting off one of the last major forms of transport north. Mexico’s recent decision to aggressively intervene will certainly create enormous political and social change regarding illegal immigration. While no one can be sure what form this change will take, it is sure to affect the lives of current and future immigrants, and will almost definitely alter the relationship between the US and the rest of Latin America.

Mexico’s recent change in policy is directly related to increased pressure from the Obama administration, which is tired of single-handedly

managing the immigration problem. It also stems from the embarrassing and widely publicized photographs of La Bestia, overloaded with stowaways, many of them children, attempting the dangerous trip north. Some believe that Mexico is taking action to prevent further US intervention via border patrol police who have crossed into Mexico on numerous occasions.

However, in its attempts to keep the US content and out of its territory, Mexico must tread carefully to avoid angering its neighbors to the south. The governments of Central America have already criticized recent Mexican actions, comparing Mexican police to the US Border Patrol, a comparison Mexico wishes to avoid. As the middle man, Mexico is caught in a nasty tug of war, one in which it is being pulled to side with the US. Other Latin American nations are dismayed by what they see as an affront to independent action due to US bullying in the region.

Thanks to word of mouth about the recent developments in Mexico, many Central Americans are choosing not to make the dangerous journey north. While this may be good news for Mexican and US officials, it does not begin to solve the problems facing would-be immigrants. The overwhelming majority of immigrants come from the impoverished nations of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, where the weakening power of government has given free rein to gangs and drug cartels in a bloody power struggle. Honduras is one of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the hemisphere, currently sporting the highest murder rate in the world with an average of 19 murders per day. El Salvador’s murder rate of 41.2 per 100,000 people is approximately ten times that of the US. And each year there are more murders in Guatemala than in the entire European Union.

Despite recent actions taken by the Mexican government, the Obama administration is wary to declare the problem solved, and rightly so. For one thing, it remains to be seen how long Mexico will continue to maintain its strict new policy. Additionally, as Mexico is ratcheting up pressure, President Obama is being accused of backing off on his commitment to dealing with the immigration crisis until after the November elections, when his actions no longer pose a political threat to Democrats running in key Senate races.

No matter how difficult the journey north, people will continue to attempt it as long as they feel it is a safer option than remaining at home.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that attempts to stop immigrants will not be effective unless the internal security and economic problems facing Central American nations are addressed. The US and Mexico must work together to help Central America stabilize and raise standards of living.

Until this happens, no real progress will be made, and the wheels of La Bestia will just keep turning. n

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protecting the state’s Islamic ideals, has long been semi-nationalizing key industries in Iran and enjoys a large stake in Iran’s economy. Western sanctions against Iran specifically targeted the IRGC, a group in which Khamenei takes great personal involvement and appoints his greatest allies. Economic malaise as a result of these sanctions weakened the group considerably, and as nuclear negotiations began in October of last year, it was well known that both the Corps and Khamenei had much to gain from the removal of sanctions.

When the first stage of a deal was inked in late November that year— conceding a halt in uranium enrichment in exchange for a reduction in sanctions— the tone was expectedly congratulatory. Khamenei and Rouhani exchanged letters commending each other for their efforts and the relationship between the two appeared to improve. It was even believed Khamenei was working to suppress some voices of discontent against Rouhani.

Political unity between the two— either imagined or substantial— would not last long. In February 2014, following a particularly heated debate over uranium enrichment, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, controlled by Khamenei, refused to air a live public address on the issue from Rouhani. Soon after, conservative voices jumped on Rouhani for calling hard-liners opposed to nuclear talks “semi-illiterate.” Challenges were also made to Rouhani’s authority in conducting foreign policy. According to Al-Jazeera, Khamenei indirectly called out Rouhani through a commentator, claiming, “there have been more threats against Iran [by the United States] in the last six months than in the last six years.”

The relationship between Rouhani and Khamenei was further strained, when, this spring, the Khamenei-controlled Foreign Policy Commission demanded that two conservatives from parliament be added to Iran’s nuclear negotiation panel. Soon after, Khamenei was quoted as calling a comprehensive nuclear deal close to “impossible.” Obstruction, not support, became the norm from Khamenei in the spring.

This shift is not without a rationale. Khamenei was glad to work with Rouhani to improve the economic situation in Iran during dire straits, but a shift in external and, subsequently, internal factors would dissolve this common bond.

The United States knew when talks began in November that sanction relief would dissipate political pressure within Iran to push through a nuclear deal. The economy of Iran, however, appeared to be in such dire straits that the U.S. position of strength in the negotiations would not be challenged. Yet equal hunger for a deal in the U.S. has led to granted extensions to Iran and continued unfreezing of Iranian capital held abroad.

According to the Atlantic, sanction relief has given Iran a respite: inflation has slowed and the Iranian rial has made a comeback in currency markets.

Khamenei, now emboldened by an improved economic situation without having made a deal with the West, no longer has a need for an alliance with the reformist Hassan Rouhani.

Nuclear talks, delayed by an extension granted on July 20, are set to resume this fall. One year into his presidency, Rouhani will have to challenge Khamenei’s obstructionism if he is to achieve his goal of normal relations with the West. This will not be easy. Sanction relief has made Rouhani’s job of garnering support for a comprehensive deal much more difficult, and the Supreme Leader himself has shown little motivation to help the cause.

There is little reason to believe that a deal will be reached this fall, but there is also little reason for the West to give up hope on Rouhani. If a deal fails to be reached within the next few months, the U.S. and its allies will inevitably reimpose sanctions that Iran cannot bear for many more years. Sooner or later, Khamenei will have to cooperate fully with Rouhani and open up Iran to the West diplomatically. If not, he risks making his own people pay a very high price for ideology. n

The Khameni Complex

By Griff Brewer

Ever since Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran in 2013, the West has looked towards Iran with a renewed sense of hope.

Rouhani, a centrist armed with a platform of reform, represents perhaps the best promise of resumed relations with Iran since that country’s Islamic revolution in 1979.

Prior to his election, tough sanctions imposed by the United States over Iran’s nuclear policy threw the nation’s economy into turmoil, and, as a result, put immense pressure on the Iranian government to reopen diplomatic relations with the West. The severity of the sanctions pushed Rouhani during his presidential run to say, “It’s very beautiful if a centrifuge revolves, but on the condition that the country is revolving as well.” It would seem, then, that the political climate under Rouhani provided the United States with the opportune moment to push for a negotiated reduction in Iran’s nuclear capability.

Yet political analysts after the 2013 election were wise to be skeptical of whether such an opportunity really existed. Efforts from within Iran to re-establish solid diplomacy with the West were, of course, bound to be rebuffed. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei still reigns as Iran’s true head-of-state, and leads formidable resistance among the political elite against liberal reforms and resumption of relations with the West.

This was to be expected. Khamenei was a leading figure in the revolution that expelled Western influence from Iran, and has harbored an intense distrust for the United States and its allies ever since. What was not expected, however, is the extent to which the Khamenei-Rouhani relationship has been visibly tense, to say the least.

Soon after Rouhani returned from an unprecedented visit to New York only a month after assuming office, Khamenei openly chastised Rouhani’s diplomatic efforts. According to Iran’s state news agency, after the Iranian president took a phone call from President Obama, Khamenei released a statement saying, “Some of the things that took place during the trip to New York were not quite desirable”. Onlookers feared a breakdown in upcoming nuclear negotiations, as Khamenei, not Rouhani, directs the country’s national security agenda.

Luckily enough for the United States, self-preservation eventually proved more important than ideology for Khamenei. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a powerful branch of the military tasked with 7

Schizophrenia and the Genetic Question

By Sara Baronsky On September 15th, the American Journal of Psychiatry published a study from a group of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, led by researcher C. Robert Cloninger, claiming that the mental disease schizophrenia is actually eight distinct disorders, as evidenced by eight different genetic origins. The study claims that though each disorder is expressed through identical symptoms - delusions, hallucinations, disordered thinking, and paranoia, to name a few - there are multiple genes, and combinations of genes working in concert, that could be responsible for causing them. This helps explain the confusing results from past studies examining the heritability of schizophrenia. The studies failed to distinguish between the eight disorders, lumping them all together under the broad title of schizophrenia.

The news stimulated interest beyond the scientific community, making international headlines and giving sufferers hopes of new, more targeted treatment. However, it is more likely that this study is yet another false promise in the mental health world’s quest for purely genetic explanations of illness. A group of geneticists have already posted criticism - albeit non-peer reviewed - of the Cloninger study on prominent genetics blog Genomes Unzipped, accusing it of being unrepeatable and unjustified by the evidence and analyses presented.

Subjectivity plays a larger role in psychiatry than in any other medical field. A treatment’s success or failure is measured qualitatively. Meanwhile, the presence of many unknown factors in the brain’s physiology makes it difficult to prove any conclusive claims about medicine and treatment. But our knowledge of mental health is changing rapidly. Alluring new discoveries link the symptoms of diseases like schizophrenia and depression to physiological genetic differences in a sufferer’s brain. Neat and tidy explanations for complex disorders hold the implicit promise of similarly neat and tidy treatments. And the idea of perfect genetic explanations is not out of the realm of possibility; with the rate of studies being conducted, medical research is coming closer and closer to understanding the true environmental and genetic causes of illness. It has even demonstrated that certain major mental illnesses, such as ADHD, depression, autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are connected to the same inherited genetic variations.

Confirmation of genetic roots for mental illnesses has benefits beyond the development of more targeted treatment. It heralds a fundamental shift in how sufferers are viewed, particularly those with ADHD and

depression. Because these two disorders are diagnosed primarily according to displayed symptoms, which is important because everyone suffers to different degrees and goes to different lengths to ensure they receive the best treatment. Sufferers make these decisions according to the availability of medical resources, their level of medical education, and cultural tendencies.

The widespread backlash against “big pharma” accuses drug companies and those who prescribe medications of exaggerating the efficacy of antidepressants and ADHD medication to extremes, or of prescribing medication to individuals who may display some symptoms of disorder but are not truly unhealthy. Such claims about so-called “cosmetic pharmacology” drugs, which elevate a person’s social or intellectual state beyond what is normal, are only a part of the broader conversation that stigmatizes mental illness.

Having a genetic explanation for the cause of schizophrenia or depression would help remove stigma and guilt from the sufferer. In many non-Western cultures, a pervasive shame surrounds mental illness that often impedes patient decisions to seek recovery. Conversely, a Western view of mental health disorders as physical disease makes those with schizophrenia or depression seem more broken and distant from healthy people than if they are believed to have developed the disease environmentally.

The ability to definitively diagnose of mental illness could help reduce stigma. Such diagnostic tools could soon become reality; researchers in Chicago are currently developing of a blood test to quickly and objectively diagnose patients with depression. All signs point to physiological indications of mental illness becoming more obvious.

Despite the ongoing controversy, public views of mental illness have shifted in the last half-century towards an at least partly genetic model. Increasingly, people of all cultures use vocabulary like, “chemical imbalance” and “brain disease” when describing depression or schizophrenia. The treatment of mental illness as a disease like any other is a helpful framework, for it takes blame away from the individual, and gives him a better grip on his identity beyond the doctor’s diagnosis.

The jury is still out on the degree to which these mental illnesses are environmentally triggered or genetically predetermined. But what would be the ramifications of a shift towards treating mental illness like physical illness? As this possibility grows ever more likely, the ways we view the mentally ill will adapt to the latest science. n

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Sustainable Development Goals and the Private Sector

By Skylen C. Monaco

Saving the world is going to cost us a lot of money.

Many people working in development, realizing this cold hard truth, have noticed the private sector – protecting troves of resources and piles of moneybags. The solution becomes clear, and the problems associated with it even clearer: can the goals of the private sector align with the common good?

How do we match the goals of the wealthy corporate elite with the goals of the United Nations development agenda? The solution lies in fundamentally altering the method by which the private sector is incorporated in the development process and in addressing the ways in which money is used to influence the implementation of development goals. This is the challenge that the UN must overcome if it wants its new set of development goals, tentatively named the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to succeed.

The United Nation’s ambitious previous development initiative, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), were established in 2000 as the target towards which every UN member state would aspire over the course of the next fifteen years. These last fifteen years have seen a great deal of economic and social progress, but the MDGs have largely failed to deliver what they promised. A piece of this failure can be attributed to an undeniable lack of necessary funds.

In the past, the Group of Eight (G8) finance ministers agreed to provide these needed funds to the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund to cancel debt owed by the poorest countries so that they could use their own resources to meet the goals of the MDGs. However, with the dwindling capacity for public funding and the growing might and resources of the private sector, the UN has taken a keen eye to the private sector’s wealth.

In an effort to encourage businesses worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), offers private partners of development the policy framework for the expansion, implementation, and discourse of sustainability principles and practices fundamental to the UNGC’s four core areas: human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption.

Once a company has joined the UNGC, they are asked to make a regular annual contribution to support development goals. The goal of the UNGC is to enable the private sector to make choices that are beneficial to society insofar as they help build a more sustainable and inclusive global economy. These “benefits” seem to directly help the United Nations, but only seem to aid the private sector in furthering the aims of the UNGC. The direct benefit conferred to the private sector is an opportunity to advance sustainability solutions in partnership with a multitude of international stakeholders. However, the degree to which the private sector has the capacity to influence these solutions is murky, and is cause

for some concern given the history of partners seeking capitalistic ends in development.

The UNGC does not work to regulate the businesses it partners with, but instead serves as a forum for communication amongst governments, companies, and labor organizations. Once a company has declared its support for the principles, it does not necessarily mean that the UNGC recognizes that they have fulfilled the compact’s principles.

This is problematic. If companies have agreed to the UNGC’s principles, are now capable of influencing sustainability solutions, but have not demonstrated their adherence to said principles, then how will the UNGC ensure that their private sector partners will not subvert the principled public goals of development?

Coca-Cola, the delicious soft-beverage company with a fat wallet, has been a participant of the UNGC since 2006 and has been frequently alleged of drying up wells near its factories in India. The most recent allegation comes from farmers in Mehadigang village in Uttar Pradesh, who must dig deeper and deeper for water, a resource that Coca-Cola uses without regulation in the area to create their product.

While these allegations are based largely upon speculation from community inhabitants who view the corporation as responsible for local water scarcity, the fact remains that the resource is slowly disappearing. Coca-Cola, as a UNGC partner, agreed to uphold the principles of the compact, but its continued operation near water-poor Mehadigang demonstrates a level of irreverence for the principles of the UNGC. This type of corporate irresponsibility reflects poorly on the image of the United Nations, and raises serious concerns about the future of development with private sector involvement.

However, the private sector’s funds are critical to future development success and the idea of private funding for philanthropic work goes beyond the MDGs, SDGs, and UN. The SDGs will be met in 2030, yet the process of involving the ever-expanding private sector will continue to be necessary for global development. Reaching an agreeable outcome now will only make it easier for future development efforts and is essential for successful humanitarian initiatives. The United Nations and the private sphere must come to an agreement that ensures the spirit of philanthropic work is not tarnished by its need for economic support. n

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The Death of Chess: The Death of Chess: The Sinquefield Cup and Fabiano Caruana

By Drew Van Kuiken

The Sinquefield Cup and Fabiano Caruana

By Drew van Kuiken 10

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It’s relatively clear that Bobby Fischer, the famously infuriating, enigmatic and opinionated American chess demi-god, recognized the importance of his 1972 World Championship match series against Boris Spassky. Cold War hyper-drama, a life in pursuit of literally one thing— world number one—and a realignment of the entire chess world, it was all there. Yet Fischer, hours before the opening match and wanting more money, only decided to play after then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called him on the phone, telling him that “it really is the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians.” The drug of celebrity worked; after two months of playing (21 matches), Fischer emerged as the new world number one.

Fischer flew back to New York City and met a level of celebrity usually reserved for risqué teenage pop stars and heroic athletes with bizarrely forgiven characters flaws. Plastered onto the covers of Sports Illustrated, Time, and Life Magazine, Fischer suddenly became a John Wayne-esque national hero, a household name. People actually started playing chess.

Fischer’s legacy lives on in the hearts of thousands of over-eager elementary school chess club members today. But one couldn’t fault even the most inspired enthusiast for playing the game entirely unaware of the 2014 Sinquefield Cup and its existence. In August, the tournament drew six of the world’s best chess players to compete, but like most of today’s chess tournaments, hardly anyone noticed.

Yet the tournament played host to one of sports’ greatest achievements of the past fifteen years, and certainly one of chess’ all-time great accomplishments. Between the players involved, the spectacle of the tournament, and the implications of what happened, the 2014 Sinquefield Cup became the site of an epic story that few will probably ever hear of.

ry Kasparov (another once-in-a-generation talent from the late 90’s) and the current world number one. He carries with him the same indescribable air of understanding, deeper knowledge and natural comprehension that people associated with Fischer. He first became a grandmaster at age thirteen, and, in case that wasn’t impressive enough, he’s the competitor who moonlights as a model for G-Star Raw –despite looking suspiciously angry about the size of his own head when he does try to model. He’ll come in second at Sinquefield this year.

Despite the location, America only had one entrant into the Sinquefield Cup this year: Hikaru Nakamura. Nakamura, a three-time US Chess Champion and current world #5, has faced Carlsen 26 times; he has won zero times. Yet Nakamura still boldly took Carlsen to task on Twitter last year, tweeting: “starting to realize that I am the only person who is going to be able to stop Sauron in the context of chess history.”

At one point during the tournament, broadcasters will describe Nakamura’s play as “a terrible mess” and “simply bad,” before asking if “this is too weak to be something that he’d prepared in advance, right?” The American crusader, the mythological superhero sent to save chess humanity, will go down in flames at Sinquefield, finishing in dead last.

A Preview From first glance, very little about Italian chess prodigy Fabiano Caruana sticks out. Looking more like a nerdy college student than chess grandmaster, Caruana appears especially average among the field of competitors gathered at the 2014 Sinquefield Cup. His compatriots range from a 23 year-old Norwegian grandmaster and model for fashion brand G-Star Raw, to a 39 year-old Bulgarian grandmaster that somehow looks like the spawn of Buster Bluth and a ferret. But, unlike his fellow chess superstars, Caruana will go on to finish the Sinquefield Cup having orchestrated one of the greatest individual performances in chess history and rocked the chess world, small as it is.

Caruana’s stage, the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, is relatively new.

The first tournament took place only last year, and this year grew from four to six participants. March Madness it is not. Still, the tournament managed to grab one of the most impressive fields of players ever recorded, with the world’s first, second, third, fifth, and eighth seeds all gathering to compete last August.

Sinquefield’s world extended far beyond the reaches of a simple tournament. Its roots date back to 2008, when stock broker Rex Sinquefield decided St. Louis should be the new home of American chess. He then relocated and massively expanded the World Chess Hall of Fame, built a 6,000 square foot Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, and created a community somehow entirely devoted to a board game.

Today, the community has grown from miniscule to still very, very tiny. Yet it has earned its reputation as the center of American chess, becoming America’s premier chess tournament. America’s leading chess website, which sold tickets for the Sinquefield Cup, even dedicated a small portion of the Sinquefield webpage to providing suggested lodging for the tournament’s out-of-town visitors, few as they may have been.

The favorite going into the tournament was, far and away, Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen is the clearest intellectual heir to Bobby Fischer since Gar-

The Tournament The Sinquefield Cup began like almost any other tournament played in the last few years: focused on Magnus Carlsen. A small Norwegian news team, led by a beautiful blond Norwegian woman who interviews Carlsen after every match, blended in among the various chess journalists in attendance, all ready to witness the next great miracle from the Scandinavian maestro. The thought weighing on everyone’s mind had to do little with Sinquefield though: by the end of the tournament, Carlsen had to decide whether he would give in to FIDE’s wishes and play a match (allegedly) financed by dirty Russian money against a challenger (world number five Viswanathan Anand) he already beat in last year’s championship to keep a title - world champion – he has already owned for several years. Rather soon, journalists will move on (and Carlsen will decide to play the match).

Before diving into the tournament results though, one thing should be understood: winning in chess is hard. Really, really hard. As Slate’s Seth Stevenson puts it, a particularly determined grandmaster playing with the

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After three games, Caruana had three points. And after his fourth, he had four. The fifth game, facing America’s Hikaru Nakamura, brought yet another, at which point it became clear that the man couldn’t be stopped. Nakamura, usually an adept player, didn’t stand a chance; he was simply out of his league. Despite Nakamura’s tournament-long struggles, however, Caruana’s win carried significant weight.

Caruana had systematically devoured everyone at the tournament.

The world’s third-ranked grandmaster, playing a game where the world’s best start with an advantage and hope to engineer a draw, showed no signs of stopping.

People already struggled to find comparisons for Caruana’s run.

Commentators immediately thought of Karpov’s Linares decimation, when he ended up winning six straight games before Garry Kasparov took him to a draw. A few other tournaments came up too, but the magnitude of Caruana’s run had left a deep impact. His field was stronger than Karpov’s and, not to be discounted, he was still going. For Caruana, the sky was the limit.

Caruana’s scenery The tickets to go see Caruana’s eighth game—a momentous rematch between the now almost-Sauron-esque chess titan Caruana, fresh off his seventh straight win, and ego-bruised superstar Carlsen—sold for $15 each. If we’re being generous, 300 people ended up attending. In case interested viewers didn’t want to front the ticket price though, the tournament held commentary for every match at Lester’s, a nearby sports bar. A more subdued atmosphere could be found across the street at the World Chess Hall of Fame as well, where the interested chess patron could find an intellectually stimulating real-time analysis of each game (A count for the patrons at each establishment has not been provided).

Before Caruana even moved his first piece against Carlsen, the gravity of his previous seven wins had been felt. After losing to Caruana in his sixth match, MVL said Caruana’s streak was “the most amazing thing [he’d] seen by quite some margin.” Another commentator, Maurice Ashley, noted that “We’re gonna need to start calling him Fabiano Fischer.” A grandmaster named Ben Finegold claimed that Caruana’s 7-0 was “like the impossible happening right before our eyes.”

When Caruana eventually drew to Carlsen, the chess world collectively dropped back down to Earth. He ended up going on to draw his last three games, putting his overall record for the tournament at 7-0-3. His performance left him with eight and a half points out of a possible ten, a comfortable, to say the least, margin of victory. Even with the psychological blow of losing his absurd streak, Caruana went on to draw the last three games of the tournament, giving him the highest individual tournament performance rating ever recorded. Sinquefield’s players would have put the power of The Avengers to shame, but the world’s best legitimately couldn’t muster a single win over Caruana.

Carlsen and his supposed distraction showed what an uncommonly poor performance from one of the world’s greatest gives: second place. The gap in records between the two tells a better story though. While Caruana ended up with seven wins, Carlsen managed a meager two, drawing seven others and losing one.

It’s unclear whether Federica Mogherini, Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, plans on reaching out to Fabiano Caruana. The chances of a Time Magazine or Sports Illustrated cover seem low. Most will never hear about Caruana’s accomplishment and people won’t care the slightest if he eventually makes anti-Semitic and anti-Italian comments. For many, he’ll be a complete nobody. But for those who recognized what occurred during the end of August in a quiet corner of St. Louis at America’s second-ever Sinquefield Cup, Caruana’s achievement couldn’t be more impressive. n

white pieces, which have an advantage because they go first, can, “choose a cautious approach and reasonably expect to engineer a draw,” against another grandmaster. To put the difficulty in perspective, in a tournament like Sinquefield, a two and a half point lead with five games left can be an insurmountable advantage.

Caruana began the tournament on the defensive, playing with the black pieces against former world number one Veselin Topalov. Topalov, the aforementioned Buster Bluth-ferret man-spawn, first came into contact with chess greatness exactly twenty years ago, at the ripe age of nineteen. Just growing into his looks, the young grandmaster stood powerless as then-world number one Anatoly Karpov demolished an entire field of superstars in Linares. At the time, people considered Karpov’s accomplishment as among the best of all time. Topalov later came and went as the world number one, but Karpov’s achievement booked a permanent place in chess lore.

Now an aging, 39 year old has-been, Topalov would have loved to make Sinquefield a noteworthy return to glory with a dominant performance against one of chess’ few young guns. It didn’t happen. Caruana, “got big with the black pieces,” against Topalov, as one commentator described the performance, and finished the first round in impressive fashion. Still, nothing out of the ordinary had occurred - yet. Even in the second round, commentators could chalk Caruana’s victory against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (or MVL, as the chess world knows him) up to a bizarre decision from the Frenchman. To the uninitiated (me), MVL’s “mistake” looked like little more than messing around in the beginning of the game, when the moves don’t even really matter anyways. But to the experts, MVL’s decision to move his pawn one square forward to c6, as opposed to two squares forward to c5, made a world of difference. Caruana immediately capitalized on his encyclopedic knowledge of chess strategy; one square made all the difference.

Caruana’s next win—against the almighty Carlsen—came with caveats too. A few apologists claimed that Carlsen was distracted by his looming decision over the title fight he never wanted, and thus couldn’t be at the top of his game. Nevertheless, Caruana took hold of the black pieces and still eviscerated a player touched by some higher power in chess. People noticed. It wasn’t huge—Caruana’s run still felt like a remote possibility—but it mattered.

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The ground is dry and cracked. Tan desert stretches for miles in either direction and the air is saturated with brown dust. The fine sand from nearby dunes stirred up in the hot breeze. This is the Iraqi desert. It is nearly uninhabited, heat and drought having made it hostile to human life. Less than 50 miles from here, in the oasis between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, water was first used as a lethal weapon. 4,500 years ago, the Mesopotamian city-state of Lagesh diverted canals to deprive Umma, its bitter rival, of its life source, foreshadowing the long history of resource violence these twin rivers would come to witness.

The use of water to pressure enemies and coerce populations is therefore nothing new. Since the days of Umma and Lagesh, water, or the control of it, has been utilized as a weapon in nearly every major dispute, including the American Civil War, World War II, and the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Most recently however, this liquid gold has emerged as a particularly important resource for the Sunni terrorist organization ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria). Like the Lageshi inhabitants of the same lands 4,500 years ago, ISIS has seen the immense power that comes with

Waves of Terror:

The Islamic State and Water as a Weapon of War

By Camille Wasinger 14

straddling the river’s banks, as its point of entry. Ironically, it was a lack of water supplied by commanders that forced Iraqi government soldiers in Qaim to flee their posts, allowing the ISIS forces to gain control of the city.

Meanwhile in Northeastern Iraq, ISIS fighters began to conquer Euphrates’ twin: The Tigris. On June 10th, ISIS took control of Mosul, and advanced rapidly down the Tigris in the next week towards Baghdad. Though presently stalled in the suburb of Abu Ghraib ISIS has its sights set on the Iraqi capital 20 miles downstream.

Looking at this bleak picture, it certainly appears that ISIS is utilizing the Euphrates and Tigris rivers deliberately in its effort to gain control of the region. However, given the scarcity of water in Iraq and Syria, the majority of villages, cities, and sites of strategic or religious importance are built along the two rivers. It could thus be argued that ISIS’s path of advance, which so perfectly reflects the meander of the region’s two great rivers, stems more from a tracing of settlement patterns than a conscious, architected plan to utilize control of water resources to control local populations.

However, in a recent VICE News video, an ISIS fighter voiced the critical importance of control of the Tigris and Euphrates to the group’s control of the region. Not only does following the water give ISIS access to nearly every settlement in Syria and Iraq and to the resource of life itself, but it is also their best form of leverage against Iraqi and Syrian citizenry. The threat of turning off the taps and restricting access makes water a potent weapon of coercion, and ISIS has already proved itself unafraid to use it.

ISIS has made conquest of monumental hydro-infrastructure projects a key goal, deliberately manipulating their control of the Tigris and Euphrates and the local population’s reliance on their waters to brutalize communities. Early on in their advance, ISIS took Syria’s colossal Tabqa dam, which provides electricity to Aleppo, and utilized it to cut off electricity to parts of the city not under their control. In April 2014, after taking the Iraqi town of Fallujah and the associated dam on the Euphrates, ISIS closed the dam’s massive gates, causing water to overflow above, thereby flooding 200 square miles of farmland and villages, destroying homes, and ruining crops. This aggressive manipulation of water both forced the retreat of Iraqi forces gaining ground on ISIS in Fallujah and left thousands of Shiites downstream without water.

Continuing the trend, ISIS took Iraq’s largest hydroelectric construction, the structurally unstable Mosul Dam on the Tigris, in early August. Mosul Dam requires regular servicing from hydro-engineers to prevent erosion of the riverbed underneath. Its capture by ISIS thus created the catastrophic potential, whether via premeditation or negligence, for a flood so large as to submerge the city of Mosul and reach the outskirts of Baghdad 280 miles away. While Iraqi forces recaptured the Mosul Dam just two weeks later, similar concerns hang over the Haditha Dam, which ISIS has threatened since early June. If Iraqi forces lose Haditha and Mosul, ISIS would fully control the water sources for 32 million Iraqi citizens.

Whether or not ISIS would choose to capitalize on this kind of power, their bid for control of the region’s scarce water resources must be halted.

In 2012, the United States issued a National Intelligence assessment warning that, within the next 10 years, terrorist organizations would increasingly use water as a lethal weapon. Perhaps sooner than the State Department and CIA expected, their prophecy has come true. In coordinating its response to ISIS, it is imperative that the international community recognizes and acts upon ISIS’s conscious and deliberate effort to use the region’s scarce water resources as a weapon of control and brutality. While Iraqi forces’ retaking of the Mosul Dam was a lucky and strategic win, protection of hydro-infrastructure along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers must be an international priority. After all, in the last 4,500 years, water has had a nasty habit of turning deadly in this part of the world. n

control of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in this parched region of the world. In its brutal bid to build an Islamic caliphate over the area of modern Iraq and Syria, water has functioned as one of the principle weapons in ISIS’s arsenal. Control over the twin rivers and their associated infrastructure has been critical to ISIS’s territorial gains thus far and is an integral piece of the group’s future plans.

As illustrated in a recent graphic published in The New York Times, ISIS’s movement through Iraq and Syria has largely followed the paths of the Tigris and Euphrates. The group’s bloody march across Syria and Iraq’s desert landscapes began in Aleppo, Syria, 30 miles from the waters of the Euphrates, in early 2013. After rival rebel groups forced ISIS out of Aleppo, the group took Jarablous to the Northwest, a town just inside Syria’s border with Turkey and on the banks of the Euphrates. From there, ISIS has moved southeast along the Euphrates and her tributaries, terrorizing local populations and taking control of critical hydro-infrastructure. After gaining control of the full length of the Euphrates in Syria, ISIS successfully crossed into Iraq in late May 2014, utilizing Qaim, a border city

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Domestic Abuse in the NFL

By Chase Savage

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The NFL has been rocked by the recent public outcry against what appears to be a rampant rise in domestic violence cases. The issue came to the forefront public consciousness when Baltimore Ravens running back, Ray Rice, was indicted on charges of aggravated assault against his then-fiancé and now wife, Janay Palmer. Suspended for two games in July, the public outcry against the NFL was at an all-time high. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, in an effort to soothe the public, admitted his mistake to the NFL owners and changed the policy for domestic violence cases, making the penalty more stringent.

But on September 8, 2014, video evidence of Mr. Rice knocking Ms. Palmer unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator was released by TMZ, in addition to the video of Mr. Rice dragging Ms. Palmer from the elevator, which had been released in February. Mr. Rice was released by the Ravens and suspended indefinitely by the NFL, but the damage was already done.

Many in the public decried the NFL and the Ravens’ excuses, arguing that both parties must have had access to the video. ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” went a step further, reporting that according to multiple sources, the Ravens had seen the full video and successfully lobbied Mr. Goodell to issue a reduced sentence. Furthermore, reports by both Sports Illustrated and ESPN, among others, stated that NFL Security Director Jeffrey Miller was sent the entire video by law enforcement, further damaging the NFL’s credibility in the public eye. Many have called on Mr. Goodell and top Ravens leadership to resign, due to the apparent corruption in this case.

But this case is not a one-off issue for the NFL. Domestic violence cases have long been a thorny issue for the NFL, and one that the public is only now focusing on.

Ray Rice is not the only player facing the music. There have been multiple other high profile cases, such as Carolina Panthers Pro Bowl defensive lineman, Greg Hardy, San Francisco 49ers defensive end Ray McDonald, and Minnesota Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson, among others. These cases spurred national debate. Some players, such as in the case of Mr. Hardy this past July, were convicted of domestic violence charges. Mr. Hardy’s case was the grimmest, with testimony from his ex-girlfriend highlighting the severity of his offenses. In the trial, the accused claimed that Hardy grabbed her around the neck and said he was going to kill her: she claims that she feared so much for her life that she told him, “Just do it. Kill me.” Mr. McDonald’s incident also gained headlines; he was arrested for domestic abuse on August 31, 2014 when police showed up at his house in the early morning, finding his pregnant fiancé with bruises covering her neck and arms. Mr. McDonald proclaims his innocence and hasn’t had a trial yet. Lastly, Mr. Peterson was arrested and indicted for reckless and negligent injury to a child. Peterson beat his 4 year old son with what he called a “switch,” severely bruising and cutting the child all over his body.

It was not simply the acts of domestic violence that caused such outrage, but also the lack of response from the NFL. Mr. Hardy, even after his conviction, was not immediately suspended. He was only suspended

indefinitely after Mr. Rice’s video leaked to the world, meaning that Mr. Hardy was able to train with the team in the preseason and play in its first game. Furthermore, the Panthers, not the NFL itself, suspended Mr. Hardy. Mr. Peterson was suspended immediately by the Vikings in Week 2. However, the Vikings reinstated him for week 3, and only placed him on the Commissioner’s exempt list after public outrage surged and public sponsors began to pull away from their sponsorship of the Vikings. As for Mr. McDonald, he remains an active member of the San Francisco 49ers, participating in all of its games (as of publication). Finally, Mr. Hardy and Mr. Peterson were placed by their teams onto the Commissioner’s Exempt List, meaning that they will still be paid their salary in full, despite remaining indefinitely suspended.

This is not the first time that the NFL has failed in its handling of domestic violence. Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight Blog reported on the NFL’s handling of domestic violence since 2002. Of the fifteen cases found by FiveThirtyEight that were punished under the NFL’s now defunct domestic violence guidelines, the average suspension lasted only one and a half games.

The question now is whether the recent actions of a few affect how fans view the NFL. TV ratings have shown that they have not. Bloomberg reported on September 22 that through the first few weeks of the season viewership had not been affected by the NFL’s handling of the recent domestic abuse cases. Sports Illustrated reported that nearly twenty one million viewers tuned in for the Thursday night game on September 11th between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers, only days after the Rice videos leaked to the public. On September 14nd, 22.2 million viewers tuned into the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers, making the game the highest rated broadcast of the week, as reported by CNN. While the American public’s outcry against domestic abuse is genuine, it has simply not stopped tuning into the game.

Fan enthusiasm for the game remains at extremely high levels. According to Grantland’s article, “Together We Make Football,” sixty percent of Americans describe themselves as fans of the NFL. They do not seem to mind that the players they love on the field are not the strongest of role models off of it. In a recent Sports Illustrated poll, forty-six percent of NFL fans actually found players to be poor role models. In addition, over fifty percent of fans found that the recent events of domestic violence had worsened their opinion of the NFL. Yet, for all of the outcry and disapproval with the recent handling of these scandals, nothing has changed. Viewership is still at an all-time high.

And in the past few weeks, the discussion about domestic violence has subsided. Fans have a short attention span, and protests can only last for so long. The calls for Mr. Goodell’s head have disappeared, and soon the NFL will return to its bubble, one in which the NFL shield comes before all else. The NFL has a real opportunity to lead social change. It has has the ability to address the situation now, before another crisis emerges. It must not fail. n

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UKIP and Friends Free Expression and the New Right in the United Kingdom

By Dylan Devenyi

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In August of 2014, a profoundly disturbing story broke in the United Kingdom. In the small city of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, approximately 1400 children had been the victims of sexual abuse since 1997 as local authorities failed to respond. A report released by Alexis Jay, former Chief Inspector of Social Work in the town, contains damning indictments of the relevant local councilors, whom she and others believe ignored the problem. The Chief Inspector specifically targets the Deputy Director of the Council, Jahangir Akhtar, saying that, “He was one of the elected members who said they thought the criminal convictions in 2010 were ‘a one-off, isolated case’, and not an example of a more deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls.

This was at best naive, and at worst ignoring a politically inconvenient truth.” Jay argues that social workers and councilors remained silent on the issue for fear of being called racist when they pointed out that most of the perpetrators in this case were men of Pakistani heritage.

The massive scandal has provided political fodder for Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and a rising star in British politics. UKIP is a young party that has risen to prominence recently as a new conservative voice in British politics. Describing itself as “unashamedly patriotic,” the party supports a British exit from the EU, accompanied by strict border controls and other anti-immigrant policies, such as barring immigrants from receiving public health or welfare services for five years. Farage is strictly opposed to free speech limitations such as hate speech laws, and called the Rotherham scandal a “direct result of [Labour party’s] political correctness.” So the question arises, can political correctness get in the way of justice?

British hate speech laws may be fairly unfamiliar to an American audience, but prohibitions against offensive speech are generally much stronger across the pond then in the United States. Before the European elections, a member of a marginal far-right party was arrested in Dorset for quoting texts critical of the Muslim religion. Though many might find the text unpleasant, it comes from a man who is often quoted in the United Kingdom: Winston Churchill. This kind of arrest may be what the Labour councilors in Rotherham were afraid of. Although the sentiment, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” reaches back to dawn of Enlightenment liberalism, UKIP has just recently risen to prominence championing it. It is no surprise that UKIP jumped from one seat to ten (out of twenty) in the last council elections in Rotherham, as criticism of UK immigration policy and free speech law rises to the fore of discussion in light of scandals like Rotherham’s.

UKIP’s rise has been meteoric: their share of the vote increased from 16.6% in the 2009 EU elections to 27.5% in 2014, more than any other British party. Party membership has tripled since 2010. (Note that British political party membership is not like American party membership – most voters are not party members. UKIP’s currently has about 50,000 members, compared to Labour’s 190,000). UKIP is not unique in Europe

– many other new, Euroskeptical parties have grown considerably in recent years. France’s controversial National Front, for example, lept from a 6% share to a 25% share of France’s seats in the European Parliament (the European Union’s legislature) in the same time frame that UKIP made its own historic gains. The right-wing Swedish Democrats rose from 3% to 10% as well.

It bears mentioning that these parties are by no means uniform. The Telegraph, a prominent British newspaper, has divided these parties into three groups: the Populist right, comprising relatively moderate groups like UKIP; the Far right, consisting of parties that often have a history of explicit racism but who have cleaned up their image and decried anti-Semitism, like the National Front and the Swedish Democrats; and the Extreme Far right, comprising explicitly racist parties, such as the Hungarian Jobbik party and the Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. Nigel Farage has distanced himself from the National Front, saying he believed that anti-Semitism was “in their DNA,” a distinction made clear when UKIP refused to allow the National Front into their European Parliament coalition.

Jobbik and the Golden Dawn are too small to form their own group within the EU, and the National Front, in an attempt to distance themselves from a dangerously violent past, has also not agreed to work with them, leaving these fringe parties on the margin of European politics.

Of all these parties, however, UKIP is certainly the most powerful.

Recently, a member of parliament (MP) from Clacton, named Douglas Carswell, defected from the Conservative party to UKIP. In an attempt to show political honesty, Carswell chose to step down and run again to see if the people would re-elect him in his new party, and they did: he beat the Conservative party candidate 60% to 25%. Labour hearly lost a strong position in Rochester UKIP in another by-election, with the margin barely topping 600 votes. UKIP is expected to gain several seats in the next national elections, sending their first full delegation to Westminster.

Beyond human tragedies like Rotherham, economics have also played a large part in driving the rise of the Right in Europe. The Eurozone crisis has brought recession throughout the continent, leading to a Europe-wide youth unemployment rate of over 20%. Many European conservatives react with anger at the fact that many jobs are held by immigrants rather than natives, a sentiment with which American conservatives might agree. This belief is not inherently racist, although it doesn’t quite make sense based on the evidence. Norway, for example, has an immigrant population of 15% compared to the UK’s 8%, and has a considerably more stable economy with much higher wages.

Some who espouse nativist beliefs, however, do display bias in a way that raises doubts about the origins of their opinions. Nigel Farage, for example, once stated that he felt uncomfortable when heard people speaking languages other than English. Some other UKIP members have made similar remarks that, while not perhaps explicitly racist, do betray a degree of xenophobic sentiment. This has caused some non-white supporters, such

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Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

as Indian-born student and former UKIP youth leader Sanya-Jeet Thandi, to denounce and leave the party. UKIP seeks to limit immigration by leaving the EU, instituting tighter border controls, and restricting benefits to recent immigrants. Whether or not racism motivates this position likely depends on the UKIP member in question.

These two sentiments – one which opposes violent extremism inadvertently protected by hate speech laws, and one which rejects immigration (or immigrants) more generally – are generally conflated and associated, as parties like UKIP are currently the loudest voices expressing them.

These attitudes are often seen as motivated by racism, and indeed, Farage has been the target of such accusations. Some of his comments about Romanian immigrants, for example, as well as many similar statements from other members of the party, have drawn the criticism of politicians from every major British party.

However, concerns about certain hate speech laws come from all parts of the political spectrum. Intellectuals of many stripes have raised concerns about particular religious ideologies, even if they have no desire to restrict immigration or racially profile individuals. The ever-spirited British-American writer Christopher Hitchens once said on the subject that he was “beginning to resent the confusion that’s being imposed on us now… between religious belief, blasphemy, ethnicity… and what we might call multicultural etiquette.” His criticism of Islam includes the reflection that, while one might be arrested for saying what he was wont to say about Islam (which, as a regular critic of all religions, was rather scathing), those in Europe who protest with placards with text such as “behead those who insult Islam” are unlikely to be. And of course, he argues, passages from the Bible and the Qur’an that condemn homosexuals to death, for example, will not be censored for hate speech, as the censors may themselves be accused of prejudice towards the religious – a conundrum that the censorious must address. Hitchens summarizes his belief in the importance of free and open criticism with a quotation from the play “A Man for all Seasons,” written by Robert Bolton: William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

A distinction must be made, then, between those who would criticize a religious ideology such as Islam in the same way that our antecedents would have criticized an ideology like communism, and those who harbor genuine prejudices towards people of other races, genders, or sexualities. As American writer Sam Harris pointed out in his recent discussion with Ben Affleck, polling data from Europe, the UK and the Middle East regarding the beliefs of some in the Muslim community should trouble us: 40% of British Muslims support the introduction of Sharia law into some areas of the UK, as well as minority sympathy for the 7/7 bombers (though 99% of Muslims in the UK did condemn the attacks.) Harris argues further that conservative Islamists make up a sizable minority of Muslims – a small percent outnumbered considerably by the moderate majority, but concerning nonetheless.

Views like this are rarely voiced in Europe, and although racist attitudes are always contemptible, it should come as no surprise to censorious Europen politicians when their unwillingness to allow a free and open discussion of ideas encourages a popular backlash in the form of the insidious nationalism now rising throughout the continent. When incidents like Rotherham occur, some feel like their nation is threatened, and that they are restricted from discussing it by a government that seems unconcerned with their fears. To condemn immigrant populations in Europe in their entirety, or to expel them unilaterally, would indeed reflect the kind of racism we all wish to leave behind, but condemning all criticism of a religion as hate speech will only polarize the discussion. Those who do not hold biases and do not wish to be seen as such will leave the conversation, leaving ample room for the reactionary Right. n

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The West Lothian Question: What’s the difference between “English” & “British”?

By Liam Gunn

The recent referendum in Scotland raised some important questions about devolution, the process of Westminster gradually granting what former Prime Minister William Gladstone called “home rule” to Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. For instance, what does it mean to be British –a word too often used synonymously with “English”and what justification would be needed to leave the United Kingdom? As an American, I can understand why ideals should sometimes supersede economic issues when it comes to independence from England. But while the Scots were voting to allow Westminster’s continued supremacy over the Scottish Parliament, appeased by the promise of even more devolved power, a similar question was being raised down South: the “West Lothian Question”.

The West Lothian question, originally raised by the Scottish Member of Parliament (MP) Tam Dalyell from West Lothian in 1977, addresses a peculiar result of devolution in the UK that is infrequently debated.

During devolution, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland received national legislative power for their respective assemblies and parliaments, which were elected, of course, by only their own constituencies. Their powers vary from legislation that required Parliament’s approval, to power over almost everything not explicitly reserved for Westminster. However, during this time period, England received no such increase in national autonomy, or even a national assembly of its own. Although England has more seats in Parliament than any other country in the UK, the influence of Scottish MPs alone is considerable. Scotland’s long animosity towards Conservatives provides so much support to Labour that the removal of Scottish and Welsh MPs would guarantee Conservative governments for the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, the recent controversial decisions to establish foundation hospitals and to allow universities to charge up to £9,000 (US$15,000) applied only to England and English universities; however, Scottish MPs were decisive in both votes, which would have failed if voting had been restricted only to MPs whose constituents were actually affected by it. The controversy generated by these policies, combined with the recent media focus on whether Scotland has enough autonomy, prompted David Cameron to say what many in England were feeling, “We have heard the voice of Scotland and now the millions of voices of England must be heard,” and subsequently appoint Robert Smith to head a commission to develop proposals for constitutional reform.

The current proposals for resolving the imbalance of Scottish representation in English lawmaking without reciprocity fall into three categories: English votes for English laws, devolving England, and reversing or adapting to devolution. The English-votes solutions include a system of “double-majority voting”, requiring a majority of all the MPs followed by a majority of only English MPs for all laws the affected only England. Also in this category was the proposal for an English Grand Committee, similar to Scotland’s and Wales’, that would discuss and vote on English-related laws on its own to prevent the creation of two tiers of MPs. Proposals of English devolution range from the moderate proposals of creation of a separate English parliament that would mirror the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Irish National Assemblies, while preserving Westminster as a federal parliament, or regional assemblies with greater power to local governments in England, to the more radical proposals of dissolving the United Kingdom altogether to produce four entirely independent nations.

Conversely, proposals to adapt devolution include reducing the number of Scottish MPs. Most outlandish are proposals to reverse devolution by abolishing the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Irish National Assemblies.

While we should keep in mind that some of the proposals are too extreme to be worth considering, analysis of the above proposals is as follows: reversing devolution is out of the question because the very idea would infuriate the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish, without actually granting more local powers to the English. English devolution is risky because by choosing further devolution as the solution for problems of earlier devolution, the UK providing too much momentum to a process that requires moderation if it is to not break up the union. It is possible that regional assemblies without legislative power and more autonomy for English cities, proposals that Labour has expressed interest in, would provide a feasible, if incomplete solution, because Labour’s precarious support within England makes it difficult for them to find agreement with the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition on structural reform. Perhaps the most realistic answer to the West Lothian Question is an English Grand Committee, one of the few compromises that the coalition is willing to concede. Although this “East Lothian Answer” would be unfavorable to Labour, it would hopefully also redefine “British” as what it should mean: English, Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish united as one. n

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They Voted No, Now What?

Scottish Devolution After the Vote

By Maeve Morse On September 18, 2014, Scotland held a referendum with only one question on the ballot: Should Scotland become an independent country? In the end, the vote came to 54.2% against an independent Scotland and 45.7% for an independent Scotland. However, this does not mean that the balance of power in the UK will remain the same. As the September 18th vote got closer and closer, it was looking increasingly likely that the Scottish people were going to vote for independence. As a result, the “Better Together” campaign, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, began promising greater autonomy for Scotland if the vote didn’t go through, despite having earlier insisted that Devo Max (an option that would keep Scotland a part of the UK but with greater constitutional power) be kept off the ballot.

The three major political parties in the UK backed this promise, each with their own ideas about how, in the event of a “no” vote, power would be devolved to Scotland. The Labour party laid out a plan that would increase Scotland’s power to vary its taxes, and increase Scotland’s power of its welfare and social benefits programs. The plan made it clear that Scotland would not gain power for implementing corporation tax or national insurance.

The Conservative party made the case that Scotland should have full control over income tax, making the Scottish parliament accountable for 40% of the money it spent. The Conservatives also have said there is a case to be made for Scotland having more control over the Value Added Tax (VAT) as well as responsibility over welfare programs being devolved to Scotland.

The Liberal Democrats have devised a plan that would bring Scotland one-step closer to “home rule.” They would like to see Scotland be able to raise and spend taxes on its own terms, as well as borrow on its own terms. Its monetary relationship with the UK would continue on a needs based structure, with powers involving oil, welfare and foreign affairs staying at the UK level.

But all of this was only speculation at the time that it was announced. The real question is, what will happen now that Scotland has voted to remain part of the UK? So far, the Better Together campaign, in conjunction with David Cameron, has laid out an extremely ambitious plan that has a Draft Scotland bill being published in January, and the bill being included in the Queen’s Speech in May. However, the inter-party arguments about how power will be devolved to Scotland may be enough to stop any devolution at all. David Cameron’s own party has described devolution as a “meaningless process.”

Already people in Scotland are getting nervous that they just lost their chance at independence, especially after Labour Party leader, Ed

Miliband, commented that, “Constitutional change matters. But we all know something else matters even more,” in reference to the Labour party’s election platform. Only three days previously he had been quoted as saying “The people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland must have a bigger say.” The rapid turn around in support for Scottish devolution by party leaders has led to indignation across Scotland, with many people claiming to have fallen into the “English trap” of false promises. Many people only voted “no” based upon the promises made by the Better Together campaign about a more autonomous Scotland, and so this halt in progress is creating tension. Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond (who has since stepped down from his post) has said, “I’m actually not surprised at the caviling and reneging on the commitments. I’m only surprised by the speed at which they’re doing it.”

The Scottish National Party has jumped from around 25,000 members to over 100,000, becoming the UK’s third biggest party by membership and the largest in Scotland by far, showing a clear consensus throughout Scotland that if the Better Together campaign doesn’t deliver on their promises of devolution, Scotland will take action.

So what does this mean for the UK as a whole? The other countries in the UK, most notably Wales, have always had strong nationalist movements of their own. Many people suspected that if Scotland had broken away, Wales and Northern Ireland would have been soon to follow. This represents the greatest fears of the “Better Together” campaign, and the main reason why it was so crucial to keep Scotland from voting “yes.”

Nevertheless, the “no” vote in Scotland does not guarantee the continuation of a united UK. The response of the other countries within the UK will depend greatly on how and when the UK devolves power to Scotland. For example, a lot of party leaders are in favor of keeping the Barnett Funding formula, a formula for adjusting funds to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales based on population, in place. But, proposed changes to Scottish power would mean that Scotland would now spend more per head than ever before, and it has been predicted that Wales would lose 300 million pounds per year in funding.

Britain needs to use this as an opportunity to take steps towards a more federalist structure. Scotland is not the only country within the UK that deserves to have more of a say in its own affairs. If Westminster takes this as a chance to equalize the power dynamic in the UK, they have the chance to stop nationalist movements that might develop in protest to Scotland’s (proposed) new power and autonomy. In order to do this, however, England’s leaders have to stop using this as an opportunity for a “political power play” and instead create clear, cohesive goals that can be achieved across a realistic timeline. n

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of the southeastern coast, coupled with the relaxation of migration restrictions, collapsed the hierarchical certainty of the Chinese labor system.

Privately owned businesses outcompeted state-run firms, which are now overrun by bankruptcy and unpaid pensions and wages. For the ACFTU, these changes represented a diversification in China’s labor force and the relinquishing of the state’s paternalistic role under the command economy These changes have put the ACFTU’s dual responsibilities – serving as a tool of communication and collective representation for the workers while simultaneously maintaining social order and maintaining party control over labor protests – in direct contrast with one another.

Ultimately, however, the ACFTU is a state institution. Officials are elected and appointed by management from above, and its inability to openly support workers’ interests has led to widespread perception of the ACFTU as merely a tool of the party-state, compromising its ability to lead or control workers. The lack of any outlet or forum for discussion within the ACFTU has made wildcat strikes increasingly common for migrant worker. Wildcat strikes are strike actions undertaken by workers without union leadership’s authorization, support, or approval and are a key pressure tactic in the Chinese labor reform movement – by taking protests to the streets, workers are able to immediately draw the attention of the state.

These strikes are notable in that they are sometimes successful, resulting in wage increases and legislation against abusive labor practices.

Certain victories and changes in legislation such as the Honda strikes or the more recent Yue Yuen strikes have led some observers to suggest a shift in structural balance and power between workers and employees.

However, the focus of these strikes and protests have not shifted from immediate issues of production and living standards to broader economic, social, or political issues. A closer examination of the role of workers in Chinese society, and how these wildcat strikes are often resolved, points to the apolitical nature of China’s labor movements.

Factories in contemporary China are filled almost entirely by migrant workers. Unlike under the command economy, the distinction between home life and working life has been severed. The position of these workers is no longer seen as enviable, but rather looked down on; they are seen as selling themselves as cheap labor.

The transience of migrant workers prevents any real unified movement. The majority of migrants come into the cities assuming that they will earn as much money as they can before returning back to their villages in the more rural areas of China. In the city, migrants do not enjoy access to any of the public services that other urban residents have, including health care, housing, and education. All of this results in an almost 100% turnover rate in some factories.

As a result, although these wildcat strike movements are powerful, they are often isolated to the factory that they occur in. Migrants protest only for their most immediate and pressing need – wages. Anything outside of this is irrelevant to them as they are separated from the local community and lack any rights as city residents.

Furthermore, the transience of these workers often makes them pessimistic and reluctant while protesting. The Yue Yuen strike is often perceived as a victory, as it is one of the largest wildcat protests to have occurred within a foreign investment company. A protestor at the Yue Yuen strike stated that the strike had failed, noting that some workers stopped the struggle after a minimal pay raise concession, or continued but only with a pessimistic outlook since they did not expect a better outcome. This suggests distrust among the workers, which prevents unity.

However dismal the situation may seem, Chinese workers have real power to draw the state’s attention and demand action from it. Should these migrant workers find a way to a build a more united, organized, and broadly focused coalition, broader structural change from below may become possible. n

Grassroots Democratization on the Factory Floor

By Michaelle Yeo This past April, workers at the Yue Yuen Dongguan shoe factory swarmed out into the streets in protest. Despite the hundreds of riot police swarming the streets, the workers’ numbers only swelled as they continued to protest the company’s ongoing failure to pay its employees and the thousands of fraudulent contracts they had been forced to sign, preventing them from enrolling their children in local schools and forcing them instead to pay for migrant workers’ children’s schools. However, official union presence was minimal; the protest was organized independently of China’s one legal trade union, the All China Federation Trade Union (ACFTU). These kinds of grievances and protests are common among the millions of migrant workers along the southeastern coast, as is the conspicuous absence of China’s one legal trade union, the ACFTU. Some have seen China’s labor movement as a “chink in the armor.”

They have asked whether continued labor reform might suggest a burgeoning democracy, pointing to the increasing number of independent organization in the form of wildcat strikes outside of the ACFTU’s jurisdiction. However, a large-scale workers’ movement that would institute real reform seems unlikely without significant changes in the way workers organize and protest.

The ACFTU is the arm of the Chinese government that has arguably faced the biggest challenges in adapting to China’s transition to a market economy, thanks to its dual responsibility to both the state and the workers. In the pre-reform period, China’s economy was dominated by state or collectively owned enterprises in urban areas in the north, where workers enjoyed an “iron rice bowl” under the danwei system - a series of benefits including welfare, housing, political and social status, and lifetime employment. Furthermore, the vertical hierarchy of the system, controlled by the centralized Chinese Communist Party and the state apparatus that it runs, prevented any horizontal coalescing of class interests. Workers in a socialist party-state are not allowed to establish horizontal linkages freely.

Under this system, managers and workers were assumed to have the same set of interests: whatever benefitted the party-state.

However, the expansion of the private sector and industrialization 24

Ferguson, Dissent, and Containment: Militarized and Racialized Policing in the United States

By Serena Taj

Following police officer Darren Wilson’s murder of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August of this year, national media attention has been directed toward racial profiling in a supposedly post-racial America, as well as the excessively forceful response of law enforcement to demonstrations following Michael Brown’s killing. The unrest in Ferguson has brought the reality of militarized and racialized domestic policing to the forefront of the American consciousness. However, although this is a newly acknowledged phenomenon for many, the effects of misguided law enforcement policies have long been understood and lived by thousands of Americans.

The United State’s self-proclaimed role as global policeman and its War on Terror have embodied a tradition of disregard for civilian life that has direct implications for the militarization of domestic law enforcement.

In Pakistan alone, drone attacks have resulted in the extrajudicial murders of anywhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people. The operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have killed an estimated 135,000 civilians (the September 11 attacks, in comparison, claimed 2,977 victims).

The casualties of these wars should, under any circumstances, be cause for introspection of US foreign policy. However, what is equally concerning is the extent to which these same tactics are becoming part of domestic policing. International “counterterrorism” trainings, which promote violent tactics of suppressing domestic dissent, are freely attended by domestic police agencies. St. Louis police chief Timothy Fitch, whose department is being fiercely criticized for its brutal response to the protests following Michael Brown’s shooting, attended one such training in Israel in 2011.

Perhaps even more disturbingly, paramilitary tactics and weaponry can be used domestically outside the guise of counterterrorism. In the early 1990s, Congress implemented a program allowing “leftover” military-grade weapons to be acquired by local police units. This means that the same weapons that are employed by the United States in its campaigns abroad are also being used at home against its own citizens. In his discussion of the scale of domestic militarization, Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times reports, “During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.” These are weapons of war that have no place in ensuring domestic peace and security, and yet they are offered, with very little oversight or restrictions, to local law enforcement agencies.

The War on Drugs, which began under President Nixon in 1971 and was reinvigorated by the Reagan administration, has also contributed to the rise of militarized policing in the United States. It has led to a growing

number of increasingly violent police raids, a larger proportion of which are being conducted with unnecessary support from SWAT teams, often resulting in extensive civilian casualties. The campaign also targets communities, composed primarily of ethnic minorities, which have historically faced hostile treatment from law enforcement. The War on Drugs is largely responsible for the United States sporting the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, consisting of a disproportionately high number of nonviolent offenders of color. When observed through the lens of the War on Drugs, police militarization takes on a distinctly racialized character—it is just as much a war on the disenfranchised as it is on illegal drugs.

Finally, border militarization and the racial profiling tactics that are being employed to that end have become an increasingly large presence in domestic policing. Weapons technologies corporations have taken advantage of border security concerns in order to expand their markets. They no longer only supply the tools of war for America’s campaigns abroad, but are now also benefactors for the wars that take place within its borders— wars on terrorism, drugs and immigration. Military-style checkpoints are becoming increasingly commonplace within border states, no longer reserved to the border itself. Similarly, the “stop and frisk” tactics that are used at these checkpoints continue to be challenged on the basis that they rely upon racial profiling.

The recent events in Ferguson are a culmination of the consequences of these historical trends of increasingly racialized and militarized policing. Chilling photos of the demonstrations in Ferguson feature mostly white police officers in riot gear, armed with tear gas and rubber bullets, facing off against civilian demonstrators of color chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Michael Brown was unarmed and shot at least six times, his body left in the street for hours; hundreds of protestors and journalists have been tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets or arrested by police at the scene. Meanwhile, Darren Wilson, the police officer responsible for Brown’s death, remains on paid leave. All of these events demonstrate the lack of oversight, consequences and public consent that are associated with police militarization.

Through Ferguson, America has begun to become self-aware of a dark reality: its law enforcement agencies treat minority communities as hostile parties rather than as US citizens whom it is their duty to protect.

It cannot be treated as an isolated tragedy—in fact, since Michael Brown’s murder, at least 13 black men have been killed by police under disputed circumstances. Ferguson needs to be understood in relation to the trends of racialized and militarized policing and with the realization that, too often, the bodies that are granted the right and responsibility to protect us act in violent opposition to those ideals. n

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Seeing the Light: Solar Power’s Bright Future

By Haleigh Collins

Consumers and industries around the world are using increasingly creative ways to capture solar power. The International Energy Agency predicted that solar energy could be the world’s largest source of electricity by mid-century. However, the US lags far behind other countries in the race for solar energy. Studies have suggested that solar power will account for only ten percent of the US’s energy needs by 2025. Germany, on the other hand, hopes to be using only renewable energy by 2050. In Germany and Italy, solar power already accounts for almost 10 percent of energy production, while the US is still barely generating enough solar energy to add up to 1 percent of our energy needs. While Americans are installing solar panels on poles, schools, and office spaces, Japan, India, and Germany are taking a collaborative, utility-scale approach to installation. They’re building larger, geographically amenable solar power plants that power electricity grids farther and farther away. If America is to keep up with the future of energy, it must look abroad for inspiration.

Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has taken the lead in investing in a future fueled by solar power. Public confidence in nuclear energy was destroyed at Fukushima. Because 30 percent of the country’s energy came from nuclear power before 2011, the nation has scrambled to find a stable replacement source. Nearly fifty nuclear power sites sit idle, while more and more roofs are covered with photovoltaic panels. Three ambitious Japanese energy companies, Kyocera Corporation, Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation, and Ciel Terre, are teaming up to create two huge floating solar power plants. These will join the Kagoshima solar plant, the biggest in the country, which floats in the sea near southern Japan. These first two solar plants would provide enough energy for anywhere between 483 and 967 American households. Also under way is a plan for thirty floating two megawatt (MW) power plants, capable of generating a combined 60 MW of power, which could power the equivalent of up to 400,000 American homes.

Few would have thought the mountainous country of Japan would be one of the first to deliberately switch to solar energy. Large amounts of flat land are necessary to create productive solar power plants because

the panels need to have optimal surface area contact with the sun. Japan, one of the most topographically challenging nations in the world, has used floating solar plants as a means to overcome solar energy’s space and flatness requirements. Additionally, because of water’s ability to retain coolness in warm weather, solar panels on water are more efficient than those on land as their temperature has a greater photovoltaic difference from the sun. The large, floating solar panels also cover the water and prevent evaporation in the extremely warm summer months.

Many other countries not flat enough for solar fields are also developing alternative ways of installing plants. India has started on a plan to install 10MW solar plants on top of several canals. They’re also organizing a floating power station on one of the large stretches of water in Kerala, a state in the southwest region of India. Swiss pioneers Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg have created the second solar powered aircraft, which will make its first round-the-world solar flight in 2015. According to test pilot Markus Scherberg, the aircraft has, “…the wingspan of a jumbo jet and the weight of a car.” The French overseas territory of New Caledonia has also built a solar energy plant that will power up to 750 homes, and is shaped like a heart. The “Heart of Caledonia” is visible from the sky.

With President Obama calling climate change an, “urgent and pressing matter,” Americans are becoming more interested in saving energy for economic and environmental reasons. The kilowatt-hour cost of solar power is going down, and the price of fossil fuels is going up. Individuals in warm, flat areas already have incentives to install solar panels, and much progress has been made on an individual scale. However, for the growth of the solar industry in the U.S. to continue, government support is absolutely critical. The kinds of innovative, large-scale solar projects seen in Germany, Japan, and India will not happen on the level of the individual American household. If solar power is to be a widespread and competitive energy source within the United States, large-scale collaboration among government, industry, and constituents must occur sooner rather than later. In doing so, America must look to countries like Germany, Japan, and India for the right technology, collaboration, and inspiration. n

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Photography Credits Front Cover: Photo by Lennart Ootes, Page 5: Photo by Moritz Hager, Page 6: Photo by Marilyn Alvarado Leyva, Page 7: Photo

by Mojtaba Salimi, Page 8: Photo by Erin de May, Page 9: Photo by Juan Manuel Herrera, Page 10 - 13: Photo by Lennart Ootes, Page 14: Photo from Google Maps, Page 16 & 17: Photo by Keith Allison, Page 18 & 19: Photo courtesy of European Parliament, Page 20: Photo by Jennifer Jane Mills, Page 21: Photo courtesy of European Parliament, Page 22: Photo by Arron Hoare, Page 23: Photo by Kay Roxby, Page 24: Photo by Lennon Ying-Dah Wong, Page 25: Photo by Sarah-Ji, Back Cover: Photo by flickr.com user Mojtaba Salimi 27

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