BRANCHES Volume IV Fall 2014

BRANCHES

McGill Undergraduate Environment Journal Volume 4 - fall 2014

BRANCHES

McGill Undergraduate Environment Journal

VOLUME 4 fall 2014

McGill University Montreal, Canada BRANCHES acknowledges that McGill is situated on traditional Haudenosaunee Territory

Acknowledgements Copyright © Branches: The McGill Undergraduate Environment Journal McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 2014. Editorial selection, compilation and material © by the Editorial Board of Branches and its contributors. Branches is an academic journal of McGill University with submissions by undergraduate students. Printed and bound in Canada by Solutions Rubiks Inc. All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted and cited from external authors, no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any way or form without the permission in writing from the publisher. Special thanks to McGill Environment Students’ Society, Arts Undergraduate Society and Rubiks for enabling the publication of this journal. Cover photo by Marie-Lou Despoux.

BRANCHES

McGill Undergraduate Environment Journal EDITOR IN CHIEF Nessa Ghassemi-Bakhtiari UNDERGRADUATE EDITORS Lucy Cui Elliot Tan Elena Kennedy Catherine Pigeon-Dubeau Valeriya Sokolenko GRADUATE EDITORS Aaron Vansintjan Alejandra Zaga Mendez Margot Charette Vijay Kolinjivadi DESIGN EDITOR Justine Provost

For more Branches, visit our website: mcgillbranches.tumblr.com

Letter from the editor-in-chief It is with great pleasure that I present this forth volume of Branches, which marks my second time as editor-in-chief, as well as the second printed publication of the McGill Undergraduate Environment Journal! This year, we opened up our submissions in the fall, hoping to expand our publication to twice a year in order to offer the opportunity to more undergraduate students to expose the diversity of their hard work and creativity within, and around, the School of Environment. It was an honour to work with an expanded group of editors this time around, which was nicely balanced between undergraduate and graduate students. As with the previous issue, our team of editors strived to promote the multidisciplinary components of the field of Environment, with student collaborators hailing from across faculties at McGill. The subject of sustainability is a common thread in this issue, with academic pieces questioning the integrity of the concept across institutions, as well as critically integrating global perspectives. Between papers, we find bits of creative writing and beautiful photographic renditions of studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experience with different kinds of environments, from here and abroad. Two spreads in particular dive into issues of sustainable development in Australia and India, exposing the effects of climate change and adaptation measures in local communities across the globe. Once again, the realization of this journal would not have been possible without the rigorous dedication and collaboration of my wonderful team of editors. I would also like to express my gratitude to the diligent authors who met the challenge of our in-depth peer-review process in the middle of midterms â&#x20AC;&#x201C; we hope that you appreciate the final product! In the hopes that this is only the beginning of more Branches and connections in the coming years, and on behalf of the editorial board, Bonne lecture!

Nessa Ghassemi-Bakhtiari Editor-in-chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS Beyond the Sutainability Band-Aid: Environmental Justice And Ecological Space as Holistic Solutions to Overconsumption Isha Berry

Determinants of HIV/AIDS in Fishing Communities Bordering the Kenyan Shores of Lake Victoria Gabriella Fanous

Near the Water’s Edge Nadia Dalili

Passivhaus: A Case Study of Governance for Sustainability Cecilia Bremner

A Tale of a McGillian in Barbados Vijayeta Patel

The Role of Social Institutions in Fuelling Overconsumption Vanessa Caron

The Role of Groundwater Outflow in the Western Input Stream of Lac Hertel David Blair

Flooding Livelihoods with “Progress” Nadia Kanji

The Light Salman Hussain

African Circus Jade Gagnon

About the contributors

Beyond the Sustainability Band-Aid: Environmental Justice and Ecological Space as Holistic Solutions to Overconsumption by Isha Berry Abstract: The human population’s consumption patterns are a major cause of rapid global ecological degradation. Current campaigns to combat this problem have originated from within the Global North’s mainstream environmental movement. However, this movement has provided largely stopgap solutions that only skim the surface of the consumption problem. Critiques of mainstream environmentalism have made way for the integration of a new-wave campaign known as environmental justice. In order to address our overconsumption problem, environmental justice takes into account global inequity, ecological space and just sustainability. This alternative movement has also facilitated the creation of an integrative framework known as the planner’s triangle. Moving forward, the hallmarks of environmental justice and equity within the three pillars of the planner’s triangle - environment, economy and society - need to be actively integrated into mainstream approaches. The study of environmental justice is a relatively new field, and the questions suggested by the integrated framework can be used to frame future policy agendas for sustainable development. Introduction The global threat of environmental degradation is primarily driven by the human populations’ (over) consumption patterns. Although it is recognized that this destruction is anthropogenic, ecological degradation is continuing to escalate globally. As David Owen accurately contends in The Conundrum, this paradox arises due to the fact that “consumption itself is the issue. How do we truly begin to think about less – less fossil fuels, less carbon, less water, less habitat destruction, less population stress – when our sense

of economic, cultural, and personal wellbeing is based on more?” (Owen 2012). Mainstream environmental movements in the Global North have attempted to answer these questions. However, they have proposed largely stopgap solutions that do not address the evergrowing and long-term problems of consumption (Ageyman 2008). This paper aims to evaluate the North’s mainstream environmentalism and explore how environmental justice, a newer environmental discourse, can be integrated into its practices to address consumption and degra-

dation. Examining these problems from a new-wave environmental perspective can help disentangle the complex web in which contributing factors relate to one another, thereby providing plausible policy frameworks for future sustainable development. Context The origins of each campaign help to contextualize the viewpoints and practices that various environmental movements advocate with regards to consumption. Mainstream environmentalism originated in the 19th to 20th centuries in response to the rapid urbanization associated with global development. This philosophy clearly separates the ‘human’ and ‘natural’ spheres, such that these two dichotomous entities only interact when humans are preserving or protecting the natural world (Di Chiro 1995). Mainstream environmentalism is spearheaded by those in the Global North who advocate for green agendas that concentrate on environmental conservation, biodiversity and sustainability (Ageyman 2008). Additionally, this movement has been characterized by a largely white, middle-class, educated and predominantly male constituency (Di Chiro 1995). Thus, mainstream environmentalism is derived from a position of power in the global societal context, which explains its hegemony in current environmental practices. In contrast to mainstream environmentalism, environmental justice is a byproduct of the frustrations from lowincome communities of color that are primarily clustered around urban cores (Ageyman 2008; Di Chiro 1995). The environmental justice movement, recognized in the mid-1980’s, is a branch of social justice that demands that no commu-

nity or population be saddled with more environmental burdens and less benefits than any other (Carter 2006). This school of thought emerged through bottom-up and grass roots political organizations, and aims to equalize power dynamics on multiple geographic scales. It focuses on community development and creating an intersectional framework that integrates race, class, gender and social justice into conceptions of the environment (Ageyman 2008). The opposing histories of mainstream and environmental justice campaigns contribute to each of their successes and failures in solving the overconsumption problem. Flaws Within Mainstream Environmentalism The Sustainability Catchphrase A legacy of the mainstream environmental movement is the assimilation of the term ‘sustainability’ into our vocabulary. This word is used, if not overused, in a majority of current ecological discourses to the point that it has become a buzzword for environmental consciousness (Owen 2012). Phrases such as ‘sustainable consumer,’ ‘sustainable design’ and ‘sustainable business’ litter these discourses, but have not actually proven to be viable solutions to our consumption problem. Scott Campbell (1996) contends that the term ‘sustainability’ embodies “[a] n old eastern proverb [which] identifies the western confusion of believing that to name something is to know it”. Although we can define sustainability – as meeting the environmental, economic and social necessities of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs – we may never be able to appropriately measure it, or even know

how to achieve it (Campbell 1996). Furthermore, these discussions of conventional sustainability focus on ‘inter-generational equity;’ however this fixation on future generations’ needs neglects ‘intra-generational equity,’ which calls for environmental justice on a global scale now (Ageyman 2008). Incorporating the concept of ecological space into the current definition of sustainability would address this equity deficit. Ecological space, as defined by Tim Hayward (2007), is “the fundamental right of each individual to an equitable share of the planet’s aggregate natural resources and environmental services that are available on a sustainable basis for human use”. This concept provides a measure of consumption that encompasses all the goods, natural resource and services that humans use, as well as the global distribution of their ecological impacts. As such, ecological space should be used as a measure of global environmental justice (Hayward 2007). The nexus between sustainability and ecological space cannot occur by observing these terms in mutual exclusivity. By integrating justice as a link between the two, Julian Ageyman (2008) redefines sustainability to mean “the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems”. In light of this new definition, sustainable and equitable ecological space practices could be more holistic solutions to the world’s overconsumption problem. The Efficiency Misconception Another hallmark of the mainstream environment campaign is efficiency. Although efficiency facilitates proximal gains, it does not allow for these

improvements to foster into distal solutions; as such, it is a Band-Aid response to the consumption problem. Environmental degradation continues to escalate because the production and use of so-called efficient products still requires natural resource inputs. Additionally, efficiency does not address the fundamental issue at hand, namely consumption itself. This can be demonstrated by the colloquial American sustainability example: buying a more fuel-efficient car. Owen argues that, “drivers who buy more efficient cars can expect to save thousands of dollars in fuel costs; but, unless those drivers shred the money and add it to a compost heap, the environment is unlikely to come out ahead” (Owen 2012). Efficiency’s provisional payback scheme actually bolsters over all public consumption, which illustrates one of the major flaws of conventional environmentalism: the Jevons paradox. In more contemporary terms, Jevons paradox is known as the ‘rebound effect,’ in which increased consumption over time cancels out any initial decreases caused by switching to energy efficient products (Owen 2012). The ideas proposed by mainstream environmentalism encourage more waste consumption, and degradation, thereby enhancing the very issues that they aimed to resolve. Applications of mainstream efficiency provide short-term post hoc solutions that reframe “luxury consumption preferences as gifts to humanity” (Owen 2012). This viewpoint neglects that such luxury consumption is still contributes to environmental degradation and further environmental injustice. As such, another one of conventional environmentalism’s flaws is the misconception that the effects of consumption are borne equally among the global population. In reality, economic

disparity is linked to inequitable and inefficient consumption of ecological space. Hayward (2007) contends that the “use or occupation [of ecological space] is sufficiently homologous with the distribution of income and wealth globally […] because the possession of economic assets is, in very large portion, the command of ecological space”. Therefore, affluence and use of ecological space are essential to gauging environmental justice. Injustice allows wealthy populations to consume more goods and use disproportionately higher amounts of ecological space than poorer populations. Not only does mainstream environmentalism overlook the importance of economic inequality, it fails to acknowledge that these global economic disparities contribute to international spatial heterogeneity. This spatial differentiation stems from the unequal access to the five major rank hierarchies that make-up society: wealth, knowledge, status, territory and power (Pickett et al. 1997). These rank hierarchies measure affluence through social, as opposed to economic, terms, and their global distribution overlaps with ecological space occupation, which warrants their use as a metric for consumption and justice (Hayward 2007). Globally, populations that have higher aggregate levels of the five ranks are more affluent and are the largest consumers of ecological space. Giuseppe Munda (2006) argues that, “economic policy instruments put the whole emphasis on efficiency issues, thus forgetting environmental, distributional and cultural dimensions” of a problem that is multifaceted and extremely complex. The inequitable distributions of wealth, knowledge, status, territory, power and in turn consumption are not addressed in mainstream environmental-

ism’s reductionist thinking. In order to address affluent populations’ unequal consumption and occupation of ecological space, policies must be implemented to equitably distribute economic and social capital. Decreasing these disparities will in turn have significant down-stream environmental effects (Owen 2012). Increased economic equality may facilitate environmental justice, as well as a more equitable and efficient redistribution of ecological space. Unlike fuel-efficient cars, efficient use of ecological space will not perpetuate a rebound effect because, the very concept of ecological space embodies the idea of an upper limit. Ecological space refers to the aggregate resources available; and the amount available is limited. Thus, whatever precise system of accounting for available ecological space is adopted […] is consistent with the fundamental human right to an adequate environment (Hayward 2007). The efficient use of ecological space calls for a redistribution of these finite resources, which will promote the virtuous use of what is sustainably available (Ageyman 2008). Acknowledging ecological space when implementing efficiency policies promotes environmental justice and encourages wealthy populations to appropriately alter their consumption practices. Redefining mainstream efficiency to incorporate the concepts of environmental justice and ecological space promotes a pre-emptive and long-term solution to the problem of overconsumption. Mainstream environmentalism’s low-impact sustainable policies, are pre-

ferred as quick fixes because they are of little political and economic risk. Current ‘sustainable’ and ‘efficient’ environmental policies involve tweaking existing frameworks to meet desired capitalist agendas (Ageyman 2008). They do not address the contentious issue of consumption and energy inequality among communities, or call for necessary total consumer sacrifices, which might yield better results (Owen, 012). Until recently, policy regarding workplace health, community development, economic stability and toxic waste placement were considered problems outside of the scope of mainstream environmentalism (Di Chiro 1995). This conventional separation of humans from the environment forces low-income communities to accept the burdens of others’ overconsumption – in the form of landfills, toxic waste sites and noxious recycling facilities (Campbell 2007). Ageyman (2008) argues that the notion of settling for short-term resolutions and overlooking these predominant issues, “[is fostered by] a common belief among those in the environmental sustainability movement that as they are saving the world, they are saving it for everyone equally, which somehow absolves them from wider discussions of equity and justice” . By sidelining regional, national and global consumption inequality in sustainability discussions, conventional environmentalism perpetuates the domination and power dynamics of its origins, allowing certain populations to enjoy excess benefits at the cost of burdening others. Integration of Environmental Justice Environmental justice agendas contend that human well-being is an integral part of the environment; therefore, environmental burdens and benefits

should be equitably distributed among the population (Di Chiro 1995). Justice practices recognize that mainstream environmentalism’s low political risks further impose disproportionate burdens on people who are often underrepresented economically, politically and socially. Giovanna di Chiro (1995) refers to numerous studies that illustrate this inequitable consumption, which is evidenced by the increased presence of industrial and toxic waste disposal sites in primarily low-income communities of color. Thus, current environmental policies allow those that are already consuming more than an equitable amount of ecological space to dump their waste in areas that are physically and mentally distant from them, encouraging a wider radius of negative impact. Incorporating environmental justice into these policies to address the root cause of overconsumption – inequality – will provide lasting positive outcomes. The unification of these two policies, forming what is known as just sustainability, will require a large-scale paradigm shift that overhauls our current lifestyle and takes on a redistributive function (Ageyman 2008). These solutions re-evaluate current consumer practices to integrate the costs of ecological space consumption. A Just Sustainability Just sustainability discourse evaluates the economic, social and political components of mainstream environmentalism as separate entities. In reality, these three spheres of environmental action are closely interconnected. The separate evaluation of these integral components promotes the ineffective reductionist approach that mainstream environmentalism already holds. In essence, reductionism fosters “just one measurable indicator,

one dimension, one scale of analysis, one objective and one time horizon[s]” to address complex problems (Munda 2004). Conventional environmentalism perpetuates the reductionist thinking of multifaceted clusters of issues, such as overconsumption and inequitable ecological space distribution. However, environmental justice practices integrate humans into the environment, understanding human consumption to be inextricably linked to economic, social and political elements and inequalities at local as well as global scales (Di Chiro 1996). Unfortunately, the historical power dynamic between these two movements has sidelined environmental justice in large-scale discourses. Majora Carter, a justice activist in her native Bronx, New York, argues that environmental justice activists should not be approached in top-down methods that perpetuate mainstream environmental hegemony. Instead, she insists that “we must democratize sustainability by bringing everyone [including policy makers, businesses, and community members] to the table and insisting that comprehensive planning can be addressed everywhere” (Carter 2006). The Practice of Sustainable Development In application, this paradigm shift can be promoted through the concept of sustainable development. Although “it is impossible to find scientifically sound conversion factors that can transform all ecological, economic, and social dimensions on land as well as in energy, money and alike,” sustainable development addresses these points in what is known as the planner’s triangle (Campbell 2007; Munda 2004). The three corners of the triangle, economy, environment and equity, require a complicated balancing act.

Mainstream environmentalism’s canonical linear thinking focuses primarily on the relationship between the environment and the economy, whereas sustainable development’s incorporation of equity provides a more encompassing diagram and structure (Campbell 1996). The sustainable development approach acknowledges that by examining the links within this triangle we can promote dialogue between all three pillars. This trans-disciplinary dialogue advocated by the environmental justice movement is neglected by the mainstream environmental campaign. The lines connecting each of these points in the triangle illustrates a struggle in the facilitation of equity in both economic growth and environmental preservation (Campbell 1996). However, given the interdependence of the economy, environment and equity within environmental justice practices, addressing one pillar can create improvements in all three. For instance, decreasing economic disparities facilitates environmental justice, which in turn reallocates the distribution of ecological space and forces populations to alter their consumption patterns. Thus ecological space could be used as a metric within sustainable development; Hayward (2007) contends that the redistribution of ecological space would be rational and just as a means to support a new type of development across the globe. This ‘new development’ could be the largescale application of the planners’ triangle. Integrating environmental justice into mainstream solutions is easier said than done, but is necessary in order to mitigate both environmental degradation and social inequity.

Conclusion Mainstream environmentalism acknowledges that overconsumption bolsters environmental degradation on a global scale. However, this movement provides a short-term solution and assumes that overconsumption is a worldwide problem, thereby ignoring that the unequal distribution of wealth is the true perpetrator. A new environmental philosophy – environmental justice – calls for a holistic view of consumption by introducing the term ecological space. This paper incorporates ecological space into mainstream environmental definitions to illustrate that economic and social inequalities are the root causes of overconsumption. Inequality allows populations in positions of power to consume excess ecological space and reap the benefits while exporting the burdens. A new long-term and integrative framework is proposed that infuses conventional environmental policies with the concepts of equality and equitability to create a just sustainability. In practice, planners have adapted just sustainability to develop the three-fold platform of sustainable development, which aims to address environmental, economic and social justice needs. While these frameworks exist, they have not been implemented in our economic, social or environmental policies. With the ever-growing problem of overconsumption and injustice, these discussions must be integrated into real actions. References:

Agyeman, J. (2008). Toward a ‘just’sustainability?. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 22(6), 751-756. Campbell, S. (1996). Green cities, growing cities, just cities?: Urban planning and the contradictions of sustainable development. Journal of the American

Planning Association, 62(3), 296-312. Carter, M. (2006). Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/ talks/majora_carter_s_tale_of_urban_renewal. Di Chiro, G. (1995). Nature as community: The Convergence of Environment and Social Justice. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. 298-320. Hayward, T. (2007). Human Rights Versus Emissions Rights: Climate Justice and the Equitable Distribution of Ecological Space. Ethics & International Affairs, 21(4), 431-450. Munda, G. (2006). Social multi-criteria evaluation for urban sustainability policies. Land Use Policy, 23(1), 86-94. Owen, D. (2012). The Conundrum. New York: Penguin. Pickett, S. T., Burch Jr, W. R., Dalton, S. E., Foresman, T. W., Grove, J. M., & Rowntree, R. (1997). A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Human Ecosystems in Urban Areas. Urban Ecosystems, 1(4), 185-199.

Photo by Megan Howes

A dandelion holding onto its final seed. Taken at Thoreauâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Walden Pond June 2014.

Determinants of HIV/AIDS in Fishing Communities Bordering the Kenyan Shores of Lake Victoria by Gabriella Fanous Abstract : In fishing communities bordering Lake Victoria in Nyanza Province, Kenya, the prevalence of HIV is especially pronounced, more than double the national level. This has partially been attributed to a phenomenon alternatively termed “fish-for-sex” and “sex-for-fish”, which is locally called jaboya. This paper aims to identify the determinants of HIV risk for the fishing communities bordering Lake Victoria in Nyanza province, Kenya. Specifically, this study will: (1) identify the structural determinants of HIV/AIDS risk in lakeshore fishing communities, (2) assess the implications of the socio-environmental conditions for fishermen and female fish traders, and (3) discuss approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention. The ecological dynamics of the lake has implications for the gendered economy, which in turn shapes the sexual economy that has emerged in fishing communities as well as the migratory behaviour of fisherfolk. Interventions must address these eco-structural factors that enable the perpetuation of this phenomenon if they are to effectively increase HIV prevention. Introduction Small-scale inland fisheries and related activities such as fish processing and trading have long been recognized to provide a safety net for “the poorest of the poor” for communities in developing countries (Bene & Merten 2008; Neiland & Bene 2004). In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the fishing economy is associated with a sexual economy, which has been alternatively termed “Fish-forSex” (Bene & Merten 2008) and “Sexfor Fish” (Mojola 2011). The terms refer to a particular transaction between female fish traders and fishermen in which the fish traders engage in sexual relationships

with the male fishers to secure their supply of fish (Bene & Merten 2008). This practice is associated with a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS within fishing communities (AFARD 2004; BDS 2005; Bene & Merten 2008; Camlin et al. 2014; Kwena et al. 2013). Migration, which has also been identified as an important livelihood strategy for fisherfolk, has been similarly been linked to an increased exposure to potential health risks resulting from unsafe sexual practices (Nunan 2010). With a national HIV prevalence of 7.4%, Kenya is increasingly focusing on regions and sub-populations that seem to be sustaining the epidemic (Camlin et al.

2013). In Nyanza province, the Luo fishing communities that border Lake Victoria experience a high prevalence and incidence of HIV/AIDS, where an estimated 26.2% of new infections are observed (Camlin et al. 2013; Kwena et al. 2012). The aim of this paper is to identify the determinants of HIV risk in fishing communities bordering Lake Victoria in Nyanza Province, Kenya. The subsequent section provides details on the setting. It is followed by an analysis of the distal determinants of HIV risk for lakeshore fishing communities, and an evaluation of their implications for fishermen and female fish traders. Next, structural approaches to HIV prevention are discussed. The final section concludes. Section 1. Lake Victoria Lake Victoria is the largest freshwater lake in Africa and is shared by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It represents a major fishing resource for the area, with three commercial fish dominating the sector: the Nile perch, the Nile tilapia, and the dagaa (Njiru et al. 2008). The Nile perch largely serves international trades, the Nile tilapia goes to local and regional markets while the smaller dagaa serves local and neighboring African markets (Nunan 2010). The commercialization of Lake Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fisheries took off in the 1980s following the introduction of the piscivorous Nile Perch in the 1960s. It coincided with the decline of the formal sector economy, associated with factory closures and mass layoffs, with implications for society and the economy (Mojola 2011). As the number of boats on the lake increased dramatically fishers became more mobile in search of more productive fishing grounds, and farming for profit became

less common (Geheb & Binns 1997). The total catch from Lake Victoria has increased significantly and rapidly, with annual catch of 100,000 tonnes in 1979 compared to over 1 million tonnes in 2007 (LVFO 2008). Approximately 2 million people rely on the fisheries for their household income (LVFO 2008). With a dramatic increase in the number of fishers, catch and income has had to be shared among an increasing numbers of fishers. This has led to more intensive fishing efforts through the use modern equipment, resulting in the decline of fish populations (Geheb & Binn 1997). Since the late 1990s, the Fisheries Departments of the three countries bordering the lake have introduced a comanagement approach to the fisheries, which involves sharing power with the users of the resource (Sen and Raakjaer Nielson 1996). This process has involved the formation of community-based organizations to enable fisherfolk to get involved with the management of the fisheries, locally known as Beach Management Units (BMUs). Everyone working in the fisheries sector must be registered with a BMU. Only one quarter of BMU members are women, highlighting the dominance of men at the landing sites (Nunan 2010). Section 2. Distal Determinants Section 2.1. Ecology Lake ecology While the introduction of the Nile perch devastated the biodiversity of the lake, the pollution of lake waters had significant nefarious consequences for the populations of commercial fish. Over the past few decades the water quality of Lake Victoria has deteriorated dramatically, associated largely to its eutrophication â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the enrichment of the lake water with

nutrients (Njiru et al. 2008). The lake’s phytoplankton community has become increasingly unpalatable: toxic cyanobacteria such as Microcystis are potentially toxic to both fish and humans, affecting fish stocks and human health (Njiru et al. 2008; Mugidde et al. 2005; Mhlanga et al. 2006). Additionally, eutrophication has decreased the transparency of the water and fuelled the infestation of the water hyacinth, which now covers thousands of hectares of the lake in all three countries (Njiru et al. 2008). Sediment-laden rivers that flow into the lake sustain the high nutrient levels. They result from deforestation driven soil-erosion. Deforestation around the lake served both a fast growing population who needed charcoal, as well as a fishing industry that required wood to build boats and fish racks (Mojola 2011; Njiru et al. 2008). Additional sources of nutrients in the lake include untreated sewage from nearby towns, and run-off from surrounding farms that use phosphorus to enhance soil fertility (Okoko 2000; Njiru et al. 2008). Moreover, the rapid rate of population growth around the lake led to the appropriation of wetlands adjacent to the lake for farming and settlements (Odada et al. 2009; Mojola 2011). Population ecology of fish The deterioration of the water quality of the lake had consequences for both the native and introduced fish populations. Toxic waters near beaches and inlets have compromised fish habitats (Mojola 2011). The encroachment on wetlands for human settlements, coupled with the water hyacinth infestation, has led to the destruction of fish hatcheries, nurseries and feeding grounds of the Nile tilapia and Nile perch (Njiru et al. 2008). Moreover, the water hyacinths have significantly re-

duced the ability to catch fish by creating a physical obstruction to the movement of fishing boats (Kateregga & Sterner 2009). The increased fishing pressure on the lake has resulted in the overexploitation of immature fish. Bottom trawl catches of Nile perch, for example, showed a preponderance of juvenile fish (Njiru et al. 2008). Additionally, a decline of 20% in the total catch of Nile perch was documented between 2005 and 2007 (Njiru et al. 2007). This was made evident by the closures of fish processing plants around the lake (Njiru et al. 2007). A greater number of fishermen are chasing fewer and smaller available fish, placing a significant pressure on fish stocks. Appropriate management strategies must be adopted to avert the collapse of the commercial fisheries in Lake Victoria (Balirwa et al. 2003). Section 2.2 The Fish economy The division of labor within beach villages is highly gendered: fishing exclusively involves men, while women are engaged in post-harvest activities such as drying, scaling, frying and marketing (Bene & Merten 2008). The latter usually yields a lower profit margin than that made by the fish catchers (Camlin et al. 2014). In Nyanza, fishermen give preferential access of fish to women with whom they are having sexual relationships (Mojola 2011). Women’s access to fish is thus significantly dependent upon their participation in the “Sex-for-Fish” economy, locally known as jaboya. However, as Camlin et al. (2014) note, the term “Sexfor-Fish” fails to capture the complexity and reciprocity characteristic of the relationships between fishermen and fishmongers. These arrangements are primarily initiated by women who compete with

one another to establish preferential relations with fishermen (Bene and Merten 2008; Camlin et al. 2014). In so doing, fish traders significantly reduce the transaction cost and uncertainty of obtaining fish when the fish supply is unpredictable (Bene and Merten 2008). With an increasingly limited supply of fish, fisherwomen face raised stakes; not having sex with fishermen might mean not getting access to any fish (Mojola 2011). The jaboya system is highly stigmatized due to fears about HIV spread in Nyanza (Mojola 2011; Camlin et al. 2013). While the economic dependence of female fish traders on fishermen is apparent, women are social actors taking an active and integral part in reciprocal transactions (Bene & Merten 2008). Camlin et al. (2013) describe how fisherman rely on their jakambi –female fish traders– to stake them with cash or food when fish are scarce, and rely on them for the payments of fishing supplies (such as boats, net repairs, hooks and lines). Interestingly, jakambi of high status such as those who maintain transactional sexual relationships with boat owners, are seen as authorities for other women in the sexfor fish trade, and grant fishermen access to new fishmongers at the beach (Camlin et al. 2013). In the fish trade, higher status is afforded to women who are married to fishermen or who participate in the jaboya economy, while those lacking secure access to fish via those relationships are perceived as socially subordinate (Camlin et al. 2013). Transactional sex between female fish traders and fishermen is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, where both parties are active, albeit unequal, agents.

Section 3. Socio-economic implications Section 3.1. Implications for fishermen In response to mobile fish stocks, movement between landing sites is seen as an integral part of the livelihood strategies of fishermen. While migration between landing sites is an effective response to mobile fish population, increased fishing pressure and high levels of HIV prevalence create shocks that test the ability of many fisherfolk to adapt (Nunan 2010). The nexus between the deteriorating conditions of the lake and increased fishing pressure create the necessity for increased migration. In an eco-social epidemiological analysis, Mojola (2011) describes how the longer migration periods coupled with the lack of refrigeration lead fishermen to land on the closest beach – not necessarily their assigned BMU – to sell the fish before it rots. It also created the need for fishermen to acquire a woman other than their wife or primary sexual partner to sell their catch (Mojola, 2011). This expanded the fishermen’s sexual networks, increasing the possibility of encountering an HIV positive sexual partner (Kwena et al. 2013). In this way, fishermen assume the role of bridges for sexual disease transmission, linking fishing communities around the lake (Mojola 2011). Section 3.2. Implications for fish traders The implications of the compromised ecology of the lake exacerbated the gendered structure of the fishing economy (Mojola 2011). An ethnography by Camlin et al. (2013) describes how fishmongers travel to multiple beaches to obtain fish: they use cell phone text messages to stay informed of fish availabilities and prices in the various markets. Just as the fishermen

travel great distances in search of fish, female traders migrate to multiple landing sites to purchase fish. Generally, women frequent a set of landing sites where they maintain transactional relations with fishermen (Camlin et al. 2013). According to a cross-sectional survey conducted by Kwena et al. (2013), the mobility of women was significantly associated with HIV infection among married couples in fishing communities. Additionally, Camlin et al. (2014) find that independent female migrants may be especially likely to engage in transactional sex relationships because they are less likely to have marital or familial ties to fishermen that would grant them access to fish. Inevitably, the mobility of female fish traders strengthens and broadens the sexual network of the fishing community, facilitating the circulation of HIV. Dwindling commercial fish stocks resulting from environmental changes and unchecked overfishing parallels an ever-increasing demand for the fish of Lake Victoria (Kwena et al. 2012). The limited availability of fish sets the stage for increased competition among fisherwomen (Mojola, 2011). As Bene and Merten (2008) remark, fish for sex is a strategy whereby female fish traders establish privilege relationships with fishers to ensure secure access to fish supply, thus greatly reducing the risk and the transaction cost of the trade. But women who participate in transactional sex are often blamed for the high HIV prevalence, leading to stigmatization and marginalization (Camlin et al. 2014). In this context, women are portrayed dichotomously: on the one hand, as victims of the larger structural and cultural factors that shape behavior (Waithaka & Berman 2002); on

the other, as young women who rationally choose their behaviors and negotiate their sexual relationships (Silberschmidts & Rasch 2001). Most experts however, agree that most women engaging in transactional sex fall somewhere in between: they are not entirely victims of circumstance, yet not entirely in control of their sexual relationships (Bene & Merten 2008). Section 4. Interventions The ecological and social environment around Lake Victoria has shaped the HIV risk for lakeshore fishing communities. Within the broader eco-social context, interventions that focus strictly on addressing individual behaviours might achieve limited success. Mojola (2011) posits that educating fisherwomen to be faithful, and to negotiate safe sex and insist on condom use (as per the ABC campaign -Abstinence, Being faithful, Condom use) is futile in practice when they are already disadvantaged in terms of bargaining power, and have their livelihood at stake. Interventions need to be sensitive and locally appropriate to address socioecological factors that make individuals more likely to engage in sex-for-fish practices. They should provide solutions to address and reduce the risk of social marginalization, a phenomenon that is being increasingly observed due to the association between transactional sex and HIV/AIDS (Bene & Merten 2008). According to Coates et al. (2008), the efficacy of HIV prevention strategies that focus on individuals are significantly improved when interventions target the structural underpinnings of behaviour and risk. Structural approaches involve actions that aim to ameliorate the conditions in which people live to change their

behaviour and reduce their vulnerability, and can work in tandem with behavioural or medicinal strategies (Gupta et al. 2008). Mojola (2010) advocates for economic and environmental interventions that focus on diversifying livelihoods and improving the ecological conditions of the lake. Diversification of livelihoods would alleviate fishing pressures, contributing overtime to a more stable fish ecosystem. Improved fish catches would reduce the bargaining power of fishermen over fishmongers, while programs that work to empower women in the fishing community would contribute to the sustainability and effectiveness of these interventions. To date, little work has been done to address the structural determinants of transactional sex in fishing communities. Even so, in the case of the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria, the academic literature has explored the nuances of the structural factors contributing to high HIV rates, a necessary first-step if structural approaches are to be adopted. However, more work is needed to identify possible points of intervention. Conclusion The literature identifies transactional sex and migration as independent determinants of HIV/AIDS in fishing communities (Allison and Seeley 2004; Bene and Merten 2008; Camlin et al. 2013; Camlin et al. 2014; Kwena et al. 2013; Nunan 2010). The example of the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria illustrates that these factors are not separate, but interact synergistically. The growing demand for commercial fish lead to the overexploitation of the fisheries, increasing the need for fishermen to be more mobile. The migration of fishermen ensued the more frequent movement of fishmongers, and

the multiplication of transactional sex relationships (Kwena et al. 2012). The ecological conditions of Lake Victoria exacerbated the fish economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gendered structure, creating propitious conditions for competition among fish traders (Camlin et al. 2013; Mojola 2011). Rapid population growth, changes in livelihood and subsequent land use changes around the lake contributed to a disrupted ecosystem. In turn, the altered ecological environment shaped social structures of the lakeshore economy, with problematic health outcomes (Mojola 2011). Both men and women sustain a sexual network at the various landing sites around the lake, contributing to the rapid spread of HIV. Synergistic eco-social processes are significant determinants of the sex-for-fish trade, migration, and the increased HIV risk. The literature on HIV risk in Lake Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fishing communities is comprehensive and explores the social, economic, political, environmental and cultural context of vulnerability. A comprehensive synthesis of the epidemiological and ethnographic work is needed to better evaluate possible areas of intervention. Interventions that work in partnership with the BMUs would help focus and target efforts. Social and economic empowerment through the development of other economic opportunities and training would help encourage livelihood diversification for both men and women. Development initiatives should focus on job creation and job training in different economic sectors, as well as education for the younger generation of fishers. The benefits of such activities are two-fold: first, it would decrease the number of individual engaged the fishing industry, removing pressure from an overexploited resource;

second, it would reduce the competition among female traders, undermining the bargaining leverage of fishermen. Coupling socio-economic interventions with ecological strategies to increase the supply of fish in the lake would help strengthen social measures, by undermining the clout of fishermen in trading partnerships. Examples of ecological strategies include increases in the minimum allowable fish size, reductions in the number of boat permits, and bioremediation of eutrophication. Individual choices and decisions depend on opportunities that are themselves influenced by external economic, demographic, environmental, or political conditions (Ensminger 1992). Effective programs will therefore focus on changing the relative benefit of participating in transactional sex for both men and women, highlighting the adverse health risks associated with engaging in such a practice, and addressing the environmental and social architectures that enable the perpetuation of this phenomenon. References:

AFARD (2004). Lakeshore AIDS Initiative Project. Nebbi, Uganda: Agency For Accelerated Regional Development. Available from http://www.socsci.ru.nl/ afard/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_ download&gid =10&Itemid=50. Balirwa, J. S., Chapman, C. A., Chapman, L. J., Cowx, I. G., Geheb, K., Kaufman, L., & Witte, F. (2003). Biodiversity and fishery sustainability in the Lake Victoria basin: an unexpected marriage?. BioScience, 53(8), 703-715. Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2004). Sexual economics: Sex as female resource for social exchange in heterosexual interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 339-363. Béné, C., & Merten, S. (2008). Women and fish-forsex: transactional sex, HIV/AIDS and gender in African fisheries. World Development, 36(5), 875-899.

Camlin, C. S., Kwena, Z. A., & Dworkin, S. L. (2013). Jaboya vs. jakambi: Status, negotiation, and HIV risks among female migrants in the” sex for fish” economy in Nyanza Province, Kenya. AIDS education and prevention: official publication of the International Society for AIDS Education, 25(3), 216-231. Camlin, C. S., Kwena, Z. A., Dworkin, S. L., Cohen, C. R., & Bukusi, E. A. (2014). “She mixes her business”: HIV transmission and acquisition risks among female migrants in western Kenya. Social Science & Medicine, 102, 146-156. Coates, T. J., Richter, L., & Caceres, C. (2008). Behavioural strategies to reduce HIV transmission: how to make them work better. The Lancet, 372(9639), 669684. Ensminger, J. (1996). Making a market: The institutional transformation of an African society. Cambridge University Press. Geheb, K., & Binns, T. (1997). ‘Fishing farmers’ or ‘Farming fishermen? The quest for household income and nutritional security on the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria. African Affairs, 96(382), 73-93 Gupta, G. R., Parkhurst, J. O., Ogden, J. A., Aggleton, P., & Mahal, A. (2008). Structural approaches to HIV prevention. The Lancet, 372(9640), 764-775. Kwena, Z. A., Bukusi, E., Omondi, E., Ng’ayo, M., & Holmes, K. K. (2012). Transactional sex in the fishing communities along Lake Victoria, Kenya: a catalyst for the spread of HIV. African Journal of AIDS Research, 11(1), 9-15. Kwena, Z. A., Camlin, C. S., Shisanya, C. A., Mwanzo, I., & Bukusi, E. A. (2013). Short-term mobility and the risk of HIV infection among married couples in the fishing communities along Lake Victoria, Kenya. PloS one, 8(1), e54523. Mhlanga, L., Day, J., Chimbari, M., Siziba, N., & Cronberg, G. (2006). Observations on limnological conditions associated with a fish kill of Oreochromis niloticus in Lake Chivero following collapse of an algal bloom. African Journal of Ecology, 44(2), 199208. Mojola, S. A. (2011). Fishing in dangerous waters: Ecology, gender and economy in HIV risk. Social science & medicine, 72(2), 149-156.

Mugidde R., Gichuki J., Rutagemwa D., Ndawula L. & Matovu X. (2005) Status of water quality an its implication on the fishery production. In: The State of the Fisheries Resources of Lake Victoria and Their Management. Proceedings of the Regional Stakeholders’ Conference, pp. 106 –12. Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization Secretariat, Jinja, Uganda. Neiland, A. E., & Béné, C. (2004). Poverty and smallscale fisheries in West Africa. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Njiru, M., Kazungu, J., Ngugi, C. C., Gichuki, J., & Muhoozi, L. (2008). An overview of the current status of Lake Victoria fishery: Opportunities, challenges and management strategies. Lakes & Reservoirs: Research & Management, 13(1), 1-12. Nunan, F. (2010). Mobility and fisherfolk livelihoods on Lake Victoria: Implications for vulnerability and risk. Geoforum, 41(5), 776-785. Odada, E. O., Ochola, W. O., & Olago, D. O. (2009). Drivers of ecosystem change and their impacts on human well-‐ being in Lake Victoria basin. African journal of ecology, 47(s1), 46-54. Sen, S., & Raakjaer Nielsen, J. (1996). Fisheries comanagement: a comparative analysis. Marine Policy, 20(5), 405-418. Silberschmidt, M., & Rasch, V. (2001). Adolescent girls, illegal abortions and “sugar-daddies” in Dar es Salaam: vulnerable victims and active social agents. Social science & medicine, 52(12), 18151826.

NEAR THE WATER’S EDGE by Nadia Dalili

Going to the beach is the famous Australian past time. With the majority of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population living along the coast, the impacts of climate change are of great concern to many coastal communities. The following pictures were taken during a field course in my coastal processes and management class on an exchange semester in Australia.

Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Palm Beach; the distance of residential homes to the ocean is not very far.

Narrowneck Beach; the Gold Coast a.k.a. Surferâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Paradise is famous for its waves and tall skyscrapers.

Palm Beach; homeowners make sandbag seawalls to try and protect their homes from flooding.

Sand Pumping System; a coastal management solution to try and restore the natural flow of sand along the beach that has been altered by human development along the coast.

Photo by Marie-Lou Despoux

Taken in Gaspésie, Québec. August 2014.

Passivhaus: A Case Study of Governance for Sustainability by Cecilia Bremner Abstract: Building standards that incorporate efficient energy practices and use the environment to their advantage are important in the shift towards sustainable living. Passivhaus is a leader in this movement. This paper critically evaluates the environmental governance institution, Passivhaus, referring to the good governance measures of effectiveness, social inclusion, and collaboration. For the measures of effectiveness and collaboration, Passivhaus is found to be successful at a micro-level but lagging at the macro-level. Regarding social inclusion, implementation of the standard is discussed in terms of consumer choice and how such decisions are representative of society’s understanding of the importance of restricting energy consumption and improving energy performance. Introduction The term governance arose in the 1980s-90s alongside significant public sector and global interaction process reforms (Bevir 2009). Governance is generally defined ‘as a pattern of rule or as the activity of ruling’ (Bevir 2009) incorporating three main sectors of actors¬ − states, markets, and civil society − ‘into a broader process of steering…to achieve common goals’ (Evans 2012). Overall, governance can be narrowed into subcategories that relate to the three main actor sectors. One controversial subcategory is environmental governance, which ‘refers to all…processes by which political, economic, and social actors regulate interactions between humans and nature’ (Bevir 2009). Institutions, broadly defined ‘as systems of established and prevalent social rules that structure social interactions’ (Hodgson 2006) are key in the implementation and sustainability of environmental governance. The Passivhaus standard is an interesting en-

vironmental governance institution that aims to reduce the ecological footprint of buildings. Specifically, Passivhaus is the world-leading, voluntary, specific energyefficiency performance, construction and design building standard. This paper critically evaluates Passivhaus as an environmental governance institution on three good governance measures – effectiveness, collaboration, and social inclusion. Definitions Governance, an analytical framework regarding collective action, is important in considering the institutions’ three main actors and their rules and parameters for interaction. States, governments at all scales, make and monitor laws and regulations. Markets, a diverse group including businesses and organizations such as non-governmental organizations, primarily operate upon preferences and incentives (often financial). Civil society influences the values and norms of soci-

etal stakeholders through these players’ operational methods. Governance styles operating within and between actors establish a variety of governance processes and outcomes that influence institutional practices and targets. This framework applies to the particularly challenging governance subcategory: environmental governance. Environmental problems have complex causation pathways, prompting policy-makers to avoid responding, and are subjective, never allowing solutions to be ‘right, but merely more or less acceptable to different groups’ (Evans 2012). Furthermore, the trans-boundary nature and complexity of environmental concerns requires international cooperation, rather than the contemporary competitive nature amongst actors, across activities (Evans 2012). The collective action governance framework and specific environmental challenges apply directly to the environmental governance institution of Passivhaus.

Passivhaus is based upon American physicist, Amory Lovins’s principle of ‘reducing investment through energy efficient design’ (Feist 2006). A Passivhaus is a building, for which thermal comfort can be achieved solely by post-heating or post-cooling of the fresh air mass, which is required to achieve sufficient indoor air quality conditions - without the need for additional recirculation of air (Building Research Establishment Ltd. 2011) Simply, Passivhaus manages building air and heat inflow and outflow making traditional heating and cooling systems redundant. German doctor Wolfgang Feist and Swedish professor Bo Adamson developed the concept in May 1988. Fig. 1 illustrates the five key principles of their concept aimed to produce ecological, high quality, comfortable, and affordable buildings. Applying Passivhaus to new buildings ‘can save 90% of the average

Fig. 1: The five key principles of the Passivhaus standard. (Passive House Institute 2012)

heating energy demand of 150-200kWh/ m2‘ annually and retrofitting older buildings can result in annual energy savings of 75% to 90% (Jochem 2009). Four criteria are required for a building to be Passivhaus: 1) specific heating and cooling demand must not exceed 15 kWh/m2a; 2) specific heating load must not exceed 10 W/m2; 3) specific primary energy demand must not exceed 120 kWh/m2a; and 4) air changes per hour must not exceed 0.6 at n50 (Building Research Establishment Ltd. 2011). These criteria aim to make Passivhaus buildings as well insulated and as comfortable as possible. In a broad sense, “institutions are entities that effectively mediate the work of the three governance sectors or actors of governance” (McCauley and Stojanovic 2013). This means that institutions provide a common ground for states, markets and civil society to interact and coordinate actions. They ‘give rise to social practices, assign roles to…participants…and govern…interactions amongst occupants of various roles’ (Young, King and Schroder forthcoming). As Evans reiterates, institutions structure society’s decisions and actions, function through rules determining actor behaviour and institution tradition, and generate legitimate and stable processes. They do so because they are temporally stable and incorporate many actors in their consistent process. When considered as a norm or a standard, Passivhaus embodies these institutional characteristics and is thus a form of institution. Passivhaus can be analyzed through the theory of new institutionalism, which explores institution origins and processes and suggests institutions influence their actors’ behaviour by shaping the operational context (the actors’ method of utility maximizing) of the institution

and actors’ perceptions of their wants and needs. Historical institutionalism is a key component of this theory, connecting past qualities with institutional paths. According to Vijge, historical institutionalism takes two approaches: 1) the calculus approach whereby actors behave strategically to maximize utility and 2) the cultural approach whereby actors’ interests and goals are not always strategic but do influence their decisions. This institutionalism suggests a change to an institution’s trajectory requiring a major event that alters peoples’ perceived needs. Previous changes to the trajectory of the Passivhaus standard have largely been from critical junctures due to consumer choice and preference evolution rather than punctuations from complete value shifts such as changes in global societal views on the environment. Passivhaus and Good Governance Measures Passivhaus operates globally through well-established principles of the three governance sectors, impacting society’s perception and choice of construction practices. By creating laws regulating energy use and incentivizing energy waste reduction, the State is involved in Passivhaus. For example, all Danish buildings are required to meet Passivhaus standard following an indefinite five-year energy usage reduction cycle of 25% by 2020 (Feist 2006). Markets – participants including construction suppliers, builders, architects, and engineers – enable Passivhaus implementation. Civil society is directly and indirectly involved in Passivhaus in the following ways. Owners and occupiers of Passivhaus buildings directly benefit from comfort, air quality, and appliance and building material quality improvements alongside potential medium- to

long-term financial savings comparative to traditional buildings. Indirect benefits extend to local, national, and international communities and include reduced waste, energy efficiency, better health outcomes, and reduced climate impacts. Scientists are also key Passivhaus market and civilsociety actors: market-based because they are incentivized to present their research for scientific integrity, interest, and advancement and civil-society-based because they are a legitimate voice helping guide societal decisions (McCauley and Stojanovic 2013). Good governance focuses on State and societal interaction and measures how well governance systems work. According to Evans, good governance is ‘a set of principles’ that ensure governing practices occur democratically and fairly. This definition of good governance is subject to debate and varies contextually yet its purpose is commonly agreed upon as promoting development (Bevir 2009). Three good governance measures that provide an insightful overview and evaluation of the Passivhaus standard as an institution are: 1) effectiveness at reaching targets; 2) collaboration of ideas, theories, and learning between the interdependent actors; and 3) societal inclusion in decision-making and implementation processes. Concerning effectiveness, one key Passivhaus objective is to minimize building energy use and waste within its set environment. This is achieved through design for the sun and continuous improvement to the standard including building technique development and innovation in insulating materials. Passivhaus also aims for global adoption with a focus on comfort and cost comparisons to traditional buildings. Passivhaus buildings strive to be the ‘most comfortable…in any region

and within all climates’ (Feist 2006). Passivhaus building comfort is demonstrated through uniformity of surface temperatures and indoor climate (Passive House Institute 2010). Regarding cost, ‘additional costs of three to eight percent may be incurred’ however, these are often offset by financial assistance and ‘reduced energy costs’ (Passive House Institute 2010). As buildings have a multi-decadal lifetime, accounting for climate change externalities likely increases cost effectiveness of Passivhaus over non-Passivhaus buildings. International success of Passivhaus is also shown from it being ‘the fastest growing energy performance standard in the world’: from only a couple Passivhaus buildings in Denmark in 1990 to 30,000 buildings worldwide today (Building Research Establishment Ltd. 2011). Additionally, the Passivhaus standard is adaptable, meaning it is capable of adjusting to future technological and economic improvements that may shift the optimal pareto efficient resource allocation point. Passivhaus has also influenced similar standards like the Swiss Minerve Standard and the United Kingdom Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) Gold Standard further demonstrating effectiveness (Feist 2006). With respect to collaboration, although applicable to all climates, Passivhaus is most widely adopted in Europe. Every European country has designed and constructed a Passivhaus building, indicating greater collaboration between actors in this region. Passivhaus buildings also exist in New Zealand, Australia, China, Canada, the United States of America, South America, and Antarctica. Collaborative efforts in Europe can be seen through improved communication and marketing of the Passivhaus concept and its climate

and region specific solutions. Examples include, information packages regarding design and building guidelines, ‘national workshops and…[an]…annual international Passive House Conference’, and a Passivhaus certification program (Feist 2006). All Passivhaus actors are involved in these collaborative efforts. Despite these factors, Passivhaus taken as its institutional form of a norm or a standard is still developing collaboration rules and communication strategies for its actors to follow in implementation. The exhaustive possibilities for meeting the standard cause uncertainty in process scope and decisions, likely increasing transaction costs (Jochem 2009). Thus, Passivhaus requires development of its rules and processes for implementation alongside improved actor coordination and accessibility to knowledge about the system for further success in the good governance measure of collaboration (Jochem 2009). Note the relationship between Passivhaus actors and the standard’s targets mean Passivhaus is an adaptive mode of governance; stemming from the more traditional governance mode, network governance. ‘Adaptive governance focuses on increasing the resilience of social-ecological systems by enhancing their capacity to adapt’ (Evans 2012). Adaptive governance member choices are interdependent and relationships are complementary involving sharing knowledge and learning. Associating adaptive governance with collaboration shows Passivhaus is embracing this good governance measure to accomplish goals. A key aspect of societal inclusion in Passivhaus is the citizens’ discretion to build to Passivhaus standard. Be-

yond meeting the four criteria, society is free to choose how buildings meet the standard. Therefore, civil society has the ultimate authority over implementation. (Note, however, civil society does not have authority to certify a building meets Passivhaus. This lies with organizations like the Passivhaus Institute (Jochem 2009)). Crucial influences on decision-making include investment costs being higher for Passivhaus than conventional buildings, consumer preferences for buildings with heating systems and fireplaces, and consumer misconceptions such as being unable to open windows of a Passivhaus housing unit (Jochem 2009). Considering cost, Passivhaus ‘buildings built in 2006 are about 5% to 15% more expensive than conventional buildings…[however]… the higher cost…is matched by its superior performance’ (Jochem 2009). Despite ‘amortization times…predicted to be within 25 years’ (Jochem 2009) the higher price must be borne initially. Therefore, limiting customer-base to those with the ability and willingness to pay. Further, as Passivhaus buildings are not visibly distinguishable from traditional buildings, Passivhaus ‘seeks buyers in…narrow niches of the housing market where ecological consciousness and…sufficiently high disposable income coincide’ (Jochem 2009) (Hodgson 2006). Social inclusion in decision-making and implementation processes is consequently extremely important because a strong customer-base and wide implementation requires the standard aligns with society’s wants and needs. Passivhaus’ constant evolution and influence on other institutions can be analyzed through the key element of new institutionalism, historical institutionalism. Historical institutionalism relates

strongly to the three discussed good governance measures of Passivhaus. Passivhaus actors behave such that they maximize their utility. For example, the standard is designed so resources – natural, human, and capital – are used as efficiently as possible leading to the Passivhaus standard aiming to produce zero-carbon buildings. Passivhaus actors also act according to their desires. This is most easily seen in the measure of societal inclusion through freedom of choice over implementation. Collaboration is linked through the increasing awareness and understanding of the Passivhaus standard, which must be continued. This concept shows institutions like Passivhaus are governed by their history not their actors. Conclusion Examining environmental governance through a good governance lens allows for a thorough analysis of environmental governance institutions. Relating to measures of effectiveness and collaboration, Passivhaus is successful at a micro-level however it is not yet widely enough implemented for major global achievement. Macro-level results may require punctuations to shift societal beliefs towards recognising individuals’ roles in using resources efficiently and mitigating climate change. Specifically on effectiveness, Passivhaus reducing a building’s energy consumption by 90% similarly reduces its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions depending on the carbon intensity of the grid’s energy sources. The importance of collaboration tends towards rule and strategy development for Passivhaus standard implementation. Societal inclusion focuses greatly on the significant authority consumers have over implementation of the standard. This analysis shows the

institution of Passivhaus has the potential to materially improve the world’s environmental performance by reducing energy consumption and related GHG emissions and to influence other environmental governance institutions. It shows that Passivhaus, as an institution in environmental governance, is achieving results. However, the limited expanse of these results implies the need for future development in the Passivhaus process alongside stronger education and marketing of the standard and its aims. References:

Bevir, M. (2009). Key Concepts in Governance. Retrieved September 16, 2013 from http://credoreference.com/book/sageukgov British Standards Institute. (2005). Ergonomics of the thermal environment: Analytical determination and interpretaiton of thermal comfort using calculation of the PMV and PPD indicies and local thermal comfort criteria. London, UK: British Standards Institute. Building Research Establishment Ltd. (2011). Passivhaus. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from http:// www.passivhaus.org.uk Evans, J. (2012). Environmental Governance. Oxon, Routledge. Feist, W. (2006). The Passivhaus. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from http://gse.cat.org.uk/downloads/passive_house.pdf Hodgson, G. (2006). What are Institutions? Journal of Economic Issues , XL (1), 2. Jochem, E. (Ed.). (2009). Improving the Efficiency of R&D and the Market Diffusion of Energy Technologies. Passive Houses and Buildings , 105-140. McCauley, D. (forthcoming). Sustainability, Governance and Time: Exploring ‘Critical Junctures’ in the Governance of GMOs in France. University of St Andrews, St Andrews. McCauley, D., & Stojanovic, T. (2013, November). Introduction to SD3222 from SD3222 Governance for

Sustainability. St Andrews, UK. Passive House Institute. (2010). Active for more comfort: The Passic House - Information for property developers, contractors and client. In P. H. Institute (Ed.). Darmstadt: International Passive House Association. Passive House Institute. (2012). Passive House Requirements. Retrieved October 13, 2013 from http:// passiv.de/en/02_informations/02_passive-houserequirements/02_passive-house-requirements.htm Vijge, M. (2012). The promise of new institutionalism: explaining the absence of a World or United Nations Environment Organisation. From Springerlink. com. Young, O., King, L., & Schroder, H. (Eds.). (forthcoming). Institutions and Environmental Change: Principle FIndings, Applications, and Research Frontiers. Summary of Policymakers . MIT press.

A northern sea star at low tide. Taken at the Wells Reserve in Maine. August 2014.

Photo Photoby by Megan Howes

A Tale of a McGillian in Barbados by Vijayeta Patel As I sat on the beach, watching my final sunset in Barbados and reflecting on my three months here, one phrase came to mind that I had heard a few months earlier: “Pura Vida”. Literally translated, this Costa Rican phrase means “pure life” – though no equivalent truly exists in the English language, it recalls popular expressions such as ‘no worries’ and ‘all is good’.

As the skyline changed from light blue to pink, morphing into shades of autumn leaves, and in a glimpse was engulfed by an ineffable hue of purple, I truly felt pura vida. My three-month trip to this wonderful island country was part of McGillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Barbados Interdisciplinary Tropical Studies (BITS) field study, which takes place from June to August at the Bellairs Research Institute. The program consists of coursework and an internship. The three courses centered on the agricultural, food and energy systems of Barbados, and the socio-economic problems these sectors face in the tropics. I interned with the Greenland Livestock Research Station in the Saint-Andrews parish, where we studied the Blackbelly sheep. I discovered this program while I was walking through the hallway of Frank Dawson, the one where the posters on the walls go unnoticed on your way from the library to McConnell. One day I happened to glance at the BITS poster behind the glass. The program description sparked my interest and the internship sounded like an excellent opportunity to further my skills. I applied at the end of February and was accepted within 2 weeks. I was beyond thrilled! After 3 months of planning and anxiously preparing, I finally arrived in beautiful Barbados. Our lovely campus, the Bellairs Research Institute, is located in Holetown, in the parish of Saint-James. When we arrived on campus we walked through the big wrought iron gate, which opened up to a grand courtyard, with gigantic, majestic trees that would give our McGill trees a run for their roots. The courses took place Wednesday to Friday, while our Mondays

Where I did my internship: Greenland Livestock Research Station

Blackbelly sheep

and Tuesdays were dedicated to our internships. On class days we spent out mornings in the classroom and our afternoons on field trips. This schedule was refreshingly different from the mundane and relentless 3 hours of class each week to which we have been accustomed. We were able to apply the knowledge learned in class to the experiences we had during the field trips. My internship, the research project portion of the program, was one of the main reasons I wanted to participate in this field study. Finding an internship in Montreal is challenging, so this was a good opportunity to gain experience. My internship involved repeating an experiment from last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s BITS group. This experiment was conducted to test the growth of Blackbelly sheep by substituting their concentrate feed with a by-product feed using local ingredients. Right now, my group and I are submitting our

research for publication. If we succeed, this accomplishment will demonstrate the great opportunities that field studies offer, even after you return. These field study experiences are not solely for academic purposes; they foster personal growth as well. They teach you about yourself and all that you can achieve when you put yourself out there. Taking risks gives you a taste of the real world and makes you realize that you have more potential than you give yourself credit for.

The beach next to Bellairs

This program completed my well-rounded undergraduate experience. I experienced McGill in a new setting, surrounded by palm trees and the big old blue. I looked forward to class every day; the courses were fascinating and were all interconnected. They revolved around a central theme, and each course provided a different lens through which each topic can be understood. The content of these courses differed from the usual McGill classes and the beauty of these

new perspectives is that they shape you into a more knowledgeable person. This experience also helped me discover what I truly wanted to pursue in life. Distance from the stressful university climate in Montreal allowed me to take a mental break and reflect. The fast-paced urban lifestyle jumbles your thoughts with worries about career, money and status, when you should be trying to find the interests that you love regardless of money and status. The best part of the island life is opening your mind up to different possibilities. Based on my wonderful and life changing experience, I would recommend the BITS program, or any field study, to all students. McGill offers several options: you can go to Africa, Panama and many other places. These field studies are academically beneficial by adding to your internship experience and university credits, and more importantly they profoundly transform your perspective on learning. Learning by doing is the best way to learn. Witnessing firsthand the lives of those affected by the problems you are studying helps you to not overlook those lives that tend to get lost in the words of a text. You feel an alarming need to become more knowledgeable so that you can use your expertise to help. Being immersed in the Bajan culture taught me to be more open to different perspectives and opinions. I encourage anyone who is even remotely interested in participating in a field study to apply. I promise that the experience will benefit you academically and above all will also enrich your life experiences. Eleanor Roosevelt articulated my experience best when she said: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.â&#x20AC;?

The Role of Social Institutions in Fuelling Overconsumption by Vanessa Caron Abstract: This paper addresses the growing phenomenon of overconsumption in the Western world. Extravagant consumption levels are driving the depletion of global resource bases at an unsustainable rate and lie at the core of contemporary social identity. In this paper, it is argued that overconsumption is a behaviour enabled by institutional systems that foster individualistic values and favour the individualist (‘I’) rationality over the group (‘We’) rationality in choice formations. Central to this thesis is the recognition that people do not act solely as autonomous rational economic beings, as maintained by neoclassical economic theory. Rather, individual decision-making is undeniably influenced by social institutions, which play a key role in shaping how people perceive and use environmental resources. Although economic growth is primarily a political process, it was and remains held up as the best way to achieve utility maximization and thus human well-being. This led to the rise of ‘I’ institutions in Western societies, which support the maximization of personal utility. Three mechanisms by which the ‘I’ rationality is reinforced will be discussed: private property, the fundamental value of liberty, and advertising. The domination of the ‘I’ rationality causes us to be profoundly disconnected from the natural world and blinded to our dependence on it. Our perceived personal and economic disembeddedness from the biosphere prevents it from being extended moral status and thus remains objectified as human property without limits to its exploitation. Introduction Overconsumption is increasingly targeted as one of the main drivers of environmental devastation (Commoner 1990). According to market theory, the economy is stimulated by a high demand of goods and services, which in turn activates the plundering of natural resources to produce consumer goods, depleting the earth’s natural capital, generating waste, and degrading Earth’s life-support systems in the process (Princen 1999). It is thus imperative to understand the drivers behind this

insatiable appetite for goods and services, which go hand-in-hand with high standards of living in the rich countries of North America and Western Europe. The phenomenon of overconsumption emerged when the economy began to shift away from heavy production toward a new economic driver, consumption. Adam Smith (1937) claimed that, “Consumption is the sole and end purpose of all production”. Here, consumption is defined as the process by which goods and services are put to final use by people. In

mainstream neoclassical economic theory, the level of consumption per person is regarded as a central measure of an economy’s productive success. Although consumption has been the basis of economic reproduction for more than one hundred and fifty years, it only became a matter of concern when the scale of consumption increased exponentially, alongside the economy, after the industrial revolution. Indeed, the society of our North American predecessors, i.e. modern society in its industrial phase, was a ‘producer society’; producers and soldiers were the two main societal roles played. Today, the situation is reversed: in our post-modern society, the primary role of citizens is that of the consumer (Bauman 1999). The fundamental issue is that consumption lies as the core of the contemporary social identity. Consumption has reached such extreme levels that it has been deemed a social malady in the popular press. Recently, the term Affluenza has been used in video documentaries and academic articles to bemoan the unhealthy situation in which people have come to overly value the acquisition of material goods, potentially leaving them shallow, unhappy, burdened with debt and living in a frightfully degraded world (Harmon 2006; Diener 2002). The world’s present consumption levels are rapidly depleting the earth’s finite natural resource base. With the spread of consumerism to low-income and transition countries, it appears that the rate of consumption is nowhere close to slowing down, and as more and more people set their foot on the affluence ladder, so does the rate of natural resource extraction and waste production increase. Will it ever be enough? Overconsumption, however, is not the illness but a mere symptom of a

much deeper issue at the very foundation of Western civilization. Indeed, overconsumption is a problem of the long-rich consumer of developed countries, as there exists on average a stark dichotomy in consumption between the so-called developed countries and developing ones. In fact, resource allocation is extraordinarily inequitable: fifteen percent of the world’s population consumes an estimated seventy one percent of the world’s total production output (World Bank 1992). The focus of this paper is on OECD countries and not on developing and transitioning countries, because individual affluence, or purchasing power more specifically, is a necessary precondition for overconsumption. In order to enjoy a consumerist lifestyle, people must possess the financial power to do so. Therefore, it is useful to look at affluence as a proxy for (over)consumption since just the fact of living in an affluent country presupposes per capita consumption levels above necessity. Even so, it is important to understand that analyzing affluence, as measured using GDP per capita, oversimplifies the issue, as enormous socioeconomic inequalities exist in both developed and developing nations. Nevertheless, affluence, in general, is considered to have a direct impact on the environment, as conceptualized in the famous impact equation I=PAT (Impact=Population x Affluence x Technology). According to this formula and the economic concept of marginal propensity to consume, increasing affluence leads to higher per capita resource utilization and therefore increased environmental impact. This, however, is not the whole story; affluence does not cause overconsumption on its own. The key question is the following: why are we seeing extreme consump-

tion patterns in affluent countries? Before diving into individual rationales for consumption, the situation must be considered at the population level. It may be asked whether or not a high consumption level is an evolutionary trait of the human species. In other words, humans might not be adapted to live in the natural environment, making the ability to extract raw material and transform our environment desirable. Since the rise of industrial economies, the world’s wealth and man-made capital has been continuously increasing (Harmon 2006), and the world’s population is the highest it has ever been in human history. In the context of societies with a monetized economy, we would thus have to refer to the survival of the ‘richest.’ This is seemingly not the case, as the highest rates of population growth are occurring in the poorest nations. Moreover, monetized economies, which allow the accumulation of capital and thereby overconsumption to occur, are not universal. Societies in Southeast Asia, the South Pacific region, and tropical Africa with substantially non-monetized (subsistence and barter) economies have shown proof of sustainability and resilience. With the exception of basic consumption for survival purposes, there is no correlation between consumption levels and human well-being (Diener 2002). It is safe enough to say that high-level consumerism is not the basis for human survival. I believe that a more fundamental cause explaining overconsumption is the institutional structure of consumerist societies. Social institutions provide rules, norms, and conventions that offer order to human interrelations. As vehicles of worldviews, beliefs, and values in a given society, they are not only external constraints on individual actions but also

powerful motivational mechanisms (Vatn 2005). In this paper, it will be argued that overconsumption is a behaviour enabled by institutional systems that promote individualistic values and the individualist rationality in choice formations. First, this paper will explain how social institutions influence people’s behaviour in general terms and follow up with an analysis of the rise of ‘I’ institutions in Western society, highlighting the underlying economic and ethical assumptions that supported their upsurge. Next, three important mechanisms that reinforce the ‘I’ rationality will be presented and discussed in their role of facilitating overconsumption. Finally, this piece will examine a few exceptions to this trend, namely consumer societies in which ‘We’ institutions prevail, proposing a reason as to why that might be and what this means for our way forward. Ultimately, the conclusion will explore how overconsumption is curable, provided that more collective values are adopted and that we start viewing ourselves, individually and collectively, as part of the greater ecosystem, rather than as a separate entity from it. The goal here is not to provide solutions to overconsumption but rather to reflect on pathways that facilitate its occurrence thereby shedding some light on the underpinnings of our modern society. Part I: The Role of Social Institutions in Behaviour In spite of widely held beliefs about individual economic behaviour and consumption theory, overconsumption cannot accurately be explained by these theories. Contemporary consumption theory is based on utilitarian ethics, according to which people behave in a way to maximize their utility or benefit. It assumes that people are rational. More-

over, the neoclassical economic model of behaviour assumes that choices are made independently from the social context, and that social institutions are mere constraints on consumption possibilities (Vatn 2007). These theories have been criticized, as evidence shows that human behaviour is inconsistent with these assumptions in some situations. Hence, people’s behaviour cannot be predicted solely from neoclassical assumptions of utility maximization: people have other motivations and ways to articulate value which may constrain their consumption choices (Etzioni 1988). These values are socially defined by both formal and informal institutions (Miller 2011), such as the law and traditional customs respectively, by “provid[ing] expectations, stability and meaning essential to human existence and coordination” (Vatn 2006). The purpose of social institutions is to bring order to a complex external world as well as act as normative systems. More importantly, social institutions foster the development of specific social values (Brown & Cameron2000) and play a critical role in influencing behaviour (Vatn 2007). Indeed, Stern et al. (1995) suggest that social institutions are highly stable structures whose influence on beliefs and worldviews, attitudes and intentions ultimately determine consumption behaviour (Brown & Cameron 2000). It follows that institutions define what is acceptable and what is not in specific contexts. According to Vatn (2005), an important role of the institutional context is to “signal which type of rationality is appropriate for a specific situation or issue.” In other words, social institutions could invoke the selfish or ‘I’ rationality in individuals, which would allow them to act in a self-regarding way, or

they could invoke the group or cooperative ‘We’ rationality, in which the interests of others are prioritized and perhaps even individual benefits are foregone for group benefits (Vatn 2005). If the institutional context of any society overemphasizes an individual rationality, or ‘I’ rationality, then individual gain is morally acceptable and preferred. It follows that in the absence of collective institutions, acts that go against individual gain cannot be justified (Etzioni 1988), and the collective rationality, or ‘We’ rationality, is annihilated. One of the reasons why society members choose not to reduce their consumption level is that institutional influence is only supporting individual interests; if they do not see a direct personal benefit from reducing their consumption, then there is no reason to do it. In this way, ‘I’ institutions can cause people to derive ‘I’ values for social assets. The next sections will point out the key elements responsible for the development of ‘I’ institutions in the Western world, and thereafter three institutional mechanism which promote the ‘I’ rationality shall be explored. Part II: The rise of the ‘I’ Institutions in Western Societies Neoclassical macroeconomics’ notion of progress can be summarized in one word: growth. Not surprisingly, the scale of the economy has grown incessantly since the industrial revolution. Clive Hamilton observed the following: Nothing more preoccupies the modern political process than economic growth. As never before, it is the touchstone of policy success… Political parties may differ on social policy, but there is an unchallengeable consensus that the overriding objective of government must be

growth of the economy… The answer to almost every problem is more economic growth (Grinlinton & Taylor 2011). Although economic growth is at its root mainly a political process, as pointed out by Hamilton above, and although it is not necessarily a fundamental assumption of microeconomic theory, the point is that growth was and continues to be upheld as a direct path to welfare. If we combine this view of progress with the view of the individual as a “rational economic person” who strives to amass as much material wealth and experience as much pleasure as possible (Green 2008), then it is not surprising that the world’s natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate. The way in which we perceive nature is important. In the consumer-driven economy of the Western world, nature is primarily raw material to be transformed for human benefit, and anything that cannot be counted or measured in monetary terms has limited or marginal “utility”. Despite microeconomists’ concession of the scarcity of natural resources, current growth-oriented economic systems effectively operate on the assumption that resources are infinite and inexhaustible, an assumption that relies on the deceitful belief in complete substitutability of the three requirements of production: capital, labour, and land. Ultimately, land is finite. Yet, there is great faith that human ingenuity will find suitable substitutes for any shortages and technological “fixes” for serious degradation of our natural environment. In this sense, the current economy is profoundly disembedded from the earth’s natural systems. Why is economic growth so important? To answer this we must talk about utilitarianism. The theory of utilitarian-

ism was developed in the 18th century by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. The principle of utility provided a guideline to evaluate actions: “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 1863). The critical issue with utilitarianism is that it puts a utility value on commodities. Therefore, the consumption of goods and services is assumed to lead to greater utility. This leads to the common belief that “consumption is good and more is always better” (Princen 1999).Interestingly, the theory of utilitarianism has been internalized to the point that Mill proposed “an arbitrary definition of man, as a being who inevitably does that by which he may obtain the greatest amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries, with the smallest quantity of labour and physical self-denial with which they can be obtained” (Rittenberg 2012). This definition of man was later referred to as Homo Economicus, or the Economic Man. The advancement of the human economy thus became the predominant narrative of the Western world, because it was seen as the best way to achieve human well-being. Adam Smith argued for a freemarket economy, because he conceived human nature as inherently selfish, and considered selfishness as the best organizing principle for society: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest” (Smith 1986). When the economy is the main narrative, the market manufactures the person. In a Keynesian framework, there is a duty to consume. It is this mistaken belief, that “...the possession and use of an increasing number and variety of goods and services is the principal cultural

aspiration and the surest perceived route to personal happiness, social status, and national success” (Elkins 1991), which has permeated Western culture, that underlies overconsumption. In simple terms, we consume limitlessly, because of a deeply engrained belief that it will make us happier. What is strikingly absent from utilitarian ethics is an explicit warning that utility cannot be increased forever, that it is in fact limited due to impending planetary limits on economic growth The economic narrative expresses the goal of limitless growth, implying unlimited increase in production and consumption, and therefore limitless utility. It assumes infinite resources and perfect substitutability. The message is clear: everyone should aim at maximizing his or her own personal utility. Consequently, the confidence that economic growth would allow for such increases in happiness and welfare spurred increased production and the exploitation of natural resources. Individual utility maximization is a behaviour that is common and even encouraged in the wealthy North American and Western European nations. The defining feature of such individualistic cultures is the priority of personal independence, putting an emphasis on personal responsibility, freedom of choice, and achieving self-fulfillment often resulting in a strong sense of competition. In effect, individualistic cultures stress values that benefit the individual person over the group (Neuliep 2011). Under these conditions, there is minimal attention paid to the consequences of one’s own actions, because consequences are externalized and the group’s well-being is of secondary importance. A 2012 Greendex survey of consumer attitudes showed that

people in rich countries (people with environmentally unsustainable consumption patterns) are less likely to feel guilty about the implications of their choices for the environment (Greendex, 2012). The results from the survey exemplify the absence of collective institutions to define group goals and values and the consequent lack of this dimension in individual decision-making. By contrast, in collectivistic cultures, group goals take precedence over individual goals (Neuliep 2011). In the Western world, the ‘We’ rationality is practically inexistent, and as a result, individuals are rarely willing to forego personal wants and desires for group desires or needs. Combined with the assumption that material wealth leads to happiness, we now have the two ingredients that activate overconsumption: an ‘I’ rationality and a fetishism for consumer goods. In the following sections the reinforcement of the ‘I’ rationality will be discussed, as well as how this reinforcement can result in sustained overconsumption at the mass scale. Part III: Mechanisms that Reinforce the ‘I’ Rationality and their Effects on Consumption So far, the diagnosis of overconsumption goes like this: ‘I’ institutions function in the context of affluence to reinforce a materialistic concept of wellbeing, thus championing consumption as the best way to pursue happiness. As people strive to maximize their utility by consuming according to their means, economic growth is stimulated, and gross domestic product (GDP) rises. Affluence is boosted, which reinforces individualism by progressively eliminating the need for cooperative behaviour and allowing for more consumption, and thus production and economic growth, to take place. The

result is a positive feedback loop in which affluence and ‘I’ values get reinforced, furthering our perceived dependence on material goods. To complete the diagnosis, the following parts will discuss three important mechanisms by which ‘I’ narratives are reinforced: the private property system, the fundamental value of liberty, and advertisement. It will be shown how each of those elements ultimately contribute to a feeling of disembeddedness from our environment and foster a culture of individualism, and ultimately lead to overconsumption. 3.1 Private Property The meaning of private property was articulated in John Locke’s labour theory of property, which states that when an individual adds their own labour, their own property, to a foreign object or good, that object becomes their own. His account of appropriation of goods does not demand the consent of humankind in general; each person has license to appropriate things in this way by individual initiative (Locke 1689). The link between the nature of self-interest and private property was established by Aristotle in his Politics: Again, how immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own; for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature and not given in vain, although selfishness is rightly censured; this, however, is not the mere love of self, but the love of self in excess, like the miser’s love of money; for all, or almost all, men love money and other such objects in a measure. Western society is organized around private property, where markets are the primary place where legitimate property rights are established through transactions. This is embodied in ideolo-

gies and practices of free-market capitalism, or ‘neoliberalism.’Property rights are often defined and defended in order to maximize economic growth. In fact, Richard Posner wrote the following on property rights and market systems: If every valuable (meaning scarce as well as desired) resource were owned by someone (universality), ownership connoted the unqualified power to exclude everybody else from using the resource (exclusivity), as well as to use it oneself, and ownership rights were freely transferable, …value would be maximized (Alexander 2011). Therefore, private property enables the making of the Homo Economicus, because it allows for the maximization of utility. Private goods are both rivalrous and excludable, therefore private ownership acts as the boundary between individual or personal utility and collective utility. Unlike common property, private property creates disembeddedness as it carries the notion of sovereignty and it precludes the fact that resources must be shared as they are finite. When a transaction is made in the market, private ownership ensues, and there is nothing more to it. The act of acquiring a good is not accompanied by a feeling of taking from the pot; there is no effect on others. It is now clear that our system of property rights is an ‘I’ institution. As such, a property system aimed at maximizing growth does not allow for sustainable management of resources, and leads to selfish overconsumption. Locke warned against such excessive appropriation. He notes that all useful goods - food, clothing, and so on – generally have short life spans. However, if one collects too many apples, one can then trade them for nuts with someone who has too many of those, and thus barter develops. Money

fulfills the need for an imperishable valuation of worth rooted in the property of labour. Money – a good of common value to trade for all goods - becomes the basis for expansion beyond the subsistence level of property (Locke 1689). Property rights are thus human-centred laws, which are based on principles of sovereignty and aimed at satisfying the assumptions of utilitarian ethics, to allow maximization of utility. 3.2 Liberty The Western civilization was founded on a philosophy of liberty. Liberty was one of the three inalienable rights that appeared in the Declaration of Independence. It is not surprising that for most Westerners, freedom is the most cherished value, and they believe that the best systems of economics and politics have freedom embedded within them. The primacy of liberalism is what pushed the implantation of free-market economy and free trade. Hence, the very pillar of affluent nations such as the United States is individual liberty, allowing it be become embedded in social institutions. This is problematic, however, because liberty of the person presupposes the notion of individual sovereignty, which violates the principle of membership in life’s commonwealth. In reality, acts are relational, and one person’s actions can cause harm even if harm was not intended. The notion of personal liberty reflects a very Kantian view of actions, which are judged by their intentional aspects, not consequential aspect. Furthermore, in his essay On Liberty, John Stuart Mill distinguished between self-regarding and other-regarding acts and put forward the principle that society may only interfere with those actions of an individual that concern other people and not with actions that merely concern himself. How-

ever, the concept of self-regarding actions is inherently wrong, because all actions affect others in some way and are therefore are other-regarding (Ten 1968). Therefore, liberty of self-regarding actions cannot be the basis of any functional society. Any institution built on liberalism, then, is an ‘I’ institution, because by supporting the fallacy of self-regarding acts, it precludes collective thinking in decision-making and deepens the disconnection between the individual and his environment. The disembeddedness created by the notion of personal sovereignty is thus a key ingredient for excessive consumption, because neither harm to others nor collective welfare are taken into account during the decision-making process regarding what and how much to consume. Liberalism and private property rights together set the stage for the commercialization project that captured people’s minds and took overconsumption to a whole new level. 3.3 Advertising The advertising industry has been heavily criticized for its role in overconsumption (Princen 1999) by acting as powerful tools to influence consumer behaviour. Corporations’ desire to speak directly to the consumer in the media led to a tremendous expansion of the advertising industry during the 20th century (Leiss 2013). However, ads do much more than simply facilitate communication between firms and buyers. They induce people to want and in fact buy more consumer goods and services, thereby sustaining the need for mass production. Through advertising, “corporations have taken possession of human consciousness in order to evoke the deepest of psychic compulsions toward limitless consumption” (Ber-

ry 2009). Advertising is now everywhere, and has become part of everyday life. Advertising acts as a motivational structure in society and as such has revolutionized consumption habits. Ads’ most important role in overconsumption is their power to transform preferences; they tell people where and what to consume. Behind the products they sell comes a lifestyle and value system. Commercial ads are witty, as they create artificial needs and promise satisfaction. They create yearning for unattainable ideals, suggesting countless products to get you a tad closer to those ideals. In effect, advertising is propaganda for a material vision of wellbeing. In the context of utilitarianism and the imperative of utility maximization, the advertising industry contributes to the distortion of the concept of utility and renders it dependent on consumption. Commenter Twitchell equated advertising to a religious practice for its “honest celebration of consumer goods as the key to contemporary American life-ways” (Leiss 2013). Why are consumer goods so central in the Western culture? According to Leiss, they are means of communication. Consumer goods carry symbolic meaning, and in our individualistic cultures where “doing you own thing” is primed, consuming can become a way of expressing oneself. In fact, all society members are judged by their material assets in the public scene. Therefore, objects not only satisfy needs, but they serve as communicators of personal identity. Ads’ most dangerous effect is that they legitimize personal gain in the name of satisfaction and happiness. Therefore, they promote the ‘I’ rationality in decision-making. Ads are all about personal needs and desires; they target all individu-

als in society, no matter where they find themselves on the income scale, so that every society member can become the Homo Economicus. With all the choices they present, maximizing utility is nonnegotiable. But, there is a catch. The satisfaction achieved does not last, and on purpose. As Bauman (1999) eloquently puts it, Consumed goods should bring satisfaction immediately, requiring no learning of skills and no lengthy groundwork, but the satisfaction should end the moment the time needed for consumption is up, and that time ought to be reduced to bare minimum. To increase their capacity for consumption, consumers must never be left to rest. They need to be constantly exposed to new temptations to keep them in the state of perpetual suspicion and steady disaffection. The Western tradition of individualism is reflected in the ways in which the public is addressed in publicity ads: imperatives and the pronoun ‘I’ are frequently used. Indeed, advertising appeals are tailored to precise cultural norms to ensure a positive response. Therefore, advertising appeals are not only framed by the culture in which they are produced but also initiate a positive feedback loop wherein they re-enforce the dominant cultural narrative. In the case of Western individualistic society, advertising appeals to individual benefit and preferences, and personal success and independence (Mooij 2005). In effect, many global advertising campaigns reflect individualistic values. For example, the Schlitz beer commercial used to implore, “You only go around once in life, so go for all the gusto you can!” (Cicero 2008, October 19 [YouTube]). This philosophy encourages consumerism as a way of life, for it echoes a world of boundless

freedom without natural limits or moral restraints on human action. It is not surprising that the market place has become a pre-eminent institution in the consumer society, because it is the point of access to material culture (Leiss 2013). Such a setting makes overconsumption inevitable, as Bauman (1999) argues, “in every successive visit to the market-place, consumers have every reason to feel that it is they who are in command. They are the judges, the critics, and the choosers. They can, after all, refuse their allegiance to any one of the infinite choices on display - except the choice of choosing among them.” It is in advertising’s power to create yearning for extravagant living that drives the exponential growth of the consumer economy and thus overconsumption. Part IV: Affluent Nations with Collectivist Cultures Although most affluent nations have social institutions that promote the ‘I’ rationality over the ‘We’ rationality, it would be false to assume that all affluent nations have individualistic cultures. On the contrary, some of the largest economies in the world are found in countries with collectivist cultures, where the ‘We’ rationality is more common. Scandinavian countries’ remarkable wealth redistribution policies and strikingly low inequality constitute a good example. A similar case can be made for Japan. Although collective institutions prevail and people learn to live as a “We”, consumption remains a duty: “Consumer spending accounts for almost sixty percent of Japan’s gross domestic product. And because Japan is the world’s second-largest economy, any reluctance on the part of its consumers is felt worldwide” (Princen 1999).

With such a collective conscience, how is it possible that society members are engaged in massive consumption? The answer is that in those cultures, the ‘We’ is actually an ‘I’ at the societal level. In other words, the human society is conceived as an ‘I’, and people work to maximize the welfare of their society as a whole as opposed to maximizing their individual utility. This explains why consumption of resources is high at the society level. The premise is that society members benefit equally from such collective wealth. As such, the level of disembeddedness in these societies exists at the human society level and less so at the individual level. Consequently, the depletion of the commons is permitted and desired; indeed, social welfare remains dependent on economic growth as human society remains disembedded from the larger community, the biosphere as a whole. Conclusion The role of social institutions in consumer behaviour is undeniable. Western civilization is dominated by ‘I’ institutions, and consequently emphasizes the ‘I’ rationality leading to overconsumption. Westerners are brainwashed to live as an ‘I’, and this causes them to feel utterly disconnected from the universe. As Thomas Berry wrote, “The deepest cause of the present devastation is found in a mode of consciousness that has established a radical discontinuity between the human and other modes of being and the bestowal of all rights on the humans” (Berry 2009). Current social institutions are committed to this radical discontinuity between the biosphere and humankind; individuals therefore feel no guilt when they selfishly appropriate resources for their own wellbeing.

Today, utility is often equated with consumption, and in order to begin enacting a change in consumption levels, it is necessary to get back to a concept of utility that is independent of the purchasing of ‘things’. The roots of our present condition, namely the foundational ideas of liberty and private property onto which Western society was erected, were explored and it is evident how individuals have become stunned by the ploy of advertisement and misled into believing that high-level consumption is right and desirable. However, the fact is that human well-being ultimately depends on the well-being of the earth’s ecosystems; humankind depends on them for food and water, and materials to build its home. People are not separable from the Earth’s ecology; in fact, they are very much a part of it. Unless this truth becomes embedded in human consciousness, there will be no limit to the destruction of the planet. The good news is that the problem of overconsumption has not been totally ignored, and its devastating effects on the environment have been acknowledged. Yet, attempts at altering pathological consumption attitudes and behaviours have been largely unsuccessful (Brown & Cameron 2000). This is not because overconsumption is an inevitability but because efforts have not tackled the established value-articulating structures in society, namely, social institutions. A shift in traditions, norms, and social values is needed, and social institutions have an enormous role to play in changing the status quo. As a primary source of cognitive structure on which people base their decisions, social institutions can influence people to give up personal gain in the interest of the group – the group, in this case, being the biosphere. Perhaps Thomas Berry’s Great Work should include the

transformation of ‘I’ institutions to planetencompassing ‘We’ institutions. Indeed, human society is in great need of a stronger collective identity, one that rhymes with nonhumans too. Society should be built on fairness and equity rather than individual liberty at all costs. To conclude, the paradigm of separability of the human species must be replaced by a fully embedded economy and ethical system. Kauffman (1995) urged us to see that in this universe, separations are mere illusions. In terms of consumer behaviour, the ‘I’ rationality need not be annihilated, but more often give way to a fully embedded ‘We’, one that encompasses the ecosphere in its entirety, if we wish to curb overconsumption and begin living sustainably. References: Alexander, S. (2011). Property beyond Growth: Towards a Politics of Voluntary Simplicity. In D. Grinlinton and T. Prue (Eds.). Property Rights and Sustainability: The Evolution of Property Rights to Meet Ecological Challenges (pp. 117-148). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

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Green, D. (2008). Rational Choice Theory. In Oxford Reference, Oxford companion to politics of the world (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grinlinton, D., & Taylor, P. (2011). Property Rights and Sustainability: The Evolution of Property Rights to Meet Ecological Challenges. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Harmon, M. D. (2006). Affluenza: A World Values Test. International Communication Gazette 68(2), 119-130. doi: 101177/1748048506062228 Kauffman, S. (1995). At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-organization and Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leiss, W. (2013). Social communication in advertising: consumption in the mediated marketplace (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Locke, J. (1689). The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 5: Of Property. Retrieved from http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm

Smith, A. (1986). The Wealth of Nations. Books I-III On the Division of Labour. New York: Penguin Classics. Smith, A. (1937). The Wealth of Nations. Modern Library edition, p. 625. Ten, C. L. (1968). Philosophy. ,43(163),29-37. Vatn, A. (2005). Rationality, institutions and environmental policy. Ecological Economics, 55(2), 203–217. Vath, A. (2006). Institutions. In The Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics. Retrieved from http://isecoeco.org/pdf/Institutions_Arild_Vatn.pdf Vatn, A. (2007). Resource regimes and cooperation. Land Use Policy, 24(4), 624–632. World Bank (1992). World Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mill, J. S. (1863). Utilitarianism. Retrieved from http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm Miller, S. (2011). Social Institutions. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ fall2012/entries/social-institutions/ Mooij, M. D. (2005). Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes (2nd ed.). California, Thousand: OaksSage. National Geographic. (2012). Greendex 2012: Consumer Choice and the Environment – A Worldwide Tracking Survey. Highlights report. Retrieved from http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/mediacontent/file/GS_NGS_2012GreendexHighlights_10J uly-cb1341934186.pdf Neuliep, J. W. (2011). Intercultural Communication:

Photo by Marie-Lou Despoux Taken in Gaspésie, Québec. August 2014.

The Role of Groundwater Outflow in the Western Input Stream of Lac Hertel by David Blair

Written during the McGill University course Geography 495 - Field Studies: Physical Geography May 12-30, 2014

Abstract: Mont Saint Hilaire, an igneous intrusion reaching 414 meters above sea level in southern Québec’s Montérégie region, is home to unique hydrological conditions due to its volcanic nature. The impenetrable layer of hard igneous rocks below the surface organic soil layer of Mont Saint Hilaire causes groundwater flow to be a major source of discharge into Lac Hertel, at the center of the intrusion. This study determines the degree to which groundwater flow contributes to the overall discharge of the largest inflow stream, at the western end of the lake. Using an Owen Current Meter, discharge measurements were taken at five study sites along the western input stream. The discrepancy between the steep and flat sections, where groundwater flow emerges to the surface, is similar to discharge measurements found at a spring beside the western input stream. This suggests that this difference can be attributed to groundwater flow. Introduction Hydrology is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth. There are many subfields of hydrology including hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, hydrogeology, drainage basin hydrology and more (Gordon et al. 2004).. Hydrological research is extremely important not only to academic pursuits, but also environmental engineering, policy, and planning. Certain landscapes, such as the Gault Nature Reserve of Mont St. Hilaire, located outside Montréal, Québec, have extremely unique hydrological characteristics. Mont Saint Hilaire is one of many igneous intrusions in the Montérégie region of southern Québec, formed during the Cretaceous period. The hard

igneous rocks are considerably more resistant to weathering than the surrounding sedimentary rocks, which, over millions of years, have left the intrusions towering over the surrounding areas. In addition to resistance to weathering, the rocks form a nearly impenetrable layer in addition to the presence of fragipans—subsurface soil layers that restrict water flow and root penetration (James & Roulet 2006), causing significant groundwater flow down the mountain. The magnitude of groundwater flow varies considerably with season, and the duration, intensity, and time after a rainfall event. Therefore, when characterizing stream discharge throughout the mountain, it is important to realize the potentially large contribution of ground-

water flow to discharge. Objectives The aim of this study is to determine the hydrological regime of the western input stream of Lac Hertel, in Mont Saint Hilaire. This study focuses on the measurement of stream channel hydrology and the nature of stream flow in the channel. The study will also look into the potential constituents of the final discharge amount in the river, as groundwater flow is prevalent on Mont Saint Hilaire. Site Descriptions This study focuses on the western input stream of Lac Hertel. The stream is dendritic in nature, having multiple tributaries. The stream was subdivided into five distinct sections, with quantitative and qualitative observations taken at each. The characteristics of each site are described in depth below. Mudflat Site Description: The mudflat river section, flowing at 139°, was the lowest site in the study. The river bed (Figure 1) was the widest of all the sites, and lacked the large boulders, logs, and debris that the upper study sites contained. Therefore, the flow velocity was quite consistent throughout. The mudflat section was very flat, with a slope of only 0.25°, indicative of its close proximity to lake level. At one side of the channel, a gentle bank was present, composed of soft mud deposits. At the other side was a steep wall of mud and living organic matter created by thick mats of grass. Midland Site Description: The midland river section, flowing at 149°, is seen in (Figure 2). This site was interesting in that the river flow was split into two distinct channels by the for-

mation of a large sand bank. Both channels have many large boulders, logs, and ample debris. The channels converged at a pool, formed by a large log that had fallen across the river. This river section was the steepest, at an elevation of 3.2°. Both outside walls of the river bed had suffered extensive erosion, being steep with recent caving in of substrate evident. The inside banks of both channels were gentle as formed by the sand bank (Kharagpur 2008). Left Converging River Site Description: The left converging river section, flowing at 178°, is seen in (Figure 4). This site was on the right side of a large convergence between two streams, forming the river that flows into Lac Hertel. This section was fairly shallow with low velocities. There was a large amount of debris in this section, including snagged branchesand logs, as well as rocks. The substrate was a mix of medium sized pebbles and mud. Both sides of the river were gently sloped onto muddy banks full of ferns and mosses. This section was quite flat with a slope of only 1.32°. Right Converging River Site Description: The right converging river, flowing at 134°, is seen in (Figure 3). This site was on the left side of a large convergence between two streams, forming the river that flows into Lac Hertel. This section was located just downstream from an inactive weir, which channeled the flow into an especially thin river section, with many large rocks that had been intentionally placed by park staff. Both sides of stream banks were made of large boulders, with one side continuing to form a large hill, and the other forming the walking trail. This made the river bed deeper and caused flow ve-

locities to be higher than those that would naturally occur. Spring Site Description: The spring site was located at N45°32’39.6” W073°09’43.6” with an elevation of 214m and flowing at 128°. This location, as seen in (Figure 5), is formed as a result of the side of the mountain intersecting the flowing body of groundwater at the water table. This creates an outflow of water flowing directly from the mountainside. The outflow point had been significantly anthropogenically altered, with a trail leading up to the outflow point, cleared of original organic material, and rocks being placed to form a series of mini waterfalls. The banks of the site were composed of compacted mud and pebbles. Methods Discharge, Velocity, and Cross Sectional Area: In order to collect the hydrologi-

Figure 1

cal data, it was important to select appropriate sections of river bed. A relatively straight river section, clear of debris, and having stable banks was key. After five sections were selected, all of which having these characteristics, a general site description was taken. This included the flora, river bed substrate, coordinates, and elevation. Then, the precise hydrological data was collected. Each stream was split into two to twelve sections, perpendicular to the flow of water, depending on width which ranged from 20 to 40cm. Using an Owen current meter, the flow velocity of the water was taken at 60% depth in the middle of each section. Measurements were taken a total of three times at each interval and an average was taken to ensure accuracy. This time average was then converted to a measure of flow velocity using a calibration chart. The value for each subsection was then added to determine the value for the full stream section. The depth

Figure 2

Figure 3

at each section was noted using a meter stick, and was multiplied with the width of the respective cross section to obtain the cross sectional area. In the lab, it was then possible to compute the discharge for each section using the continuity formula: Q=AxV

[1]

Where Q = discharge, A = cross sectional area, V = velocity Once the discharge for each individual section was determined, the values

Figure 4

Figure 5

were added to obtain the overall discharge for each study area (Harrelson et al. 1994). Slope: To obtain the slope of each study section, the engineer’s level, tripod, 30m measuring tape, and stadia rod were utilized. A section of stream several meters long that well represented each study area was selected. Using the stadia rod and engineer’s level, the height of the river bank at the beginning and end of this selected stretch was taken. Once in the lab, the slope of the section was computed using the following formula: Slope = Rise/Run [2] To obtain the rise, using the heights found in the above step, determine the difference between the heights, then divide this value by the total distance between the two measurements. Cross Sectional Profile: In order to create a cross-sectional profile, the data in the discharge analysis was utilized. Using the depths at predetermined intervals, a written representation of the river bed can be created. On metric graph paper, a graph was created with the Y-axis being the depth of water below the surface, and the X-axis being the width of the river. After selecting appropriate scales, the depths of each section were drawn and the depth points were connected to complete the cross-sectional profile.

Results Table 1: Flow Characteristics of the Mudflat Site

Table 2: Flow Characteristics of the Winding Midland Site.

Table 3: Flow Characteristics of the Converging River (Right Side).

Table 4: Flow Characteristics of the Converging River (Left Side).

Table 5: Flow Characteristics of the Spring

Table 6: Stream slopes of the five sites of interest.

Discussion In an effort to elucidate the composition of discharge from the western inflow stream of Mont Saint Hilaire, a short hydrological study was developed with the assistance of the McGill Geography Department. Using precise and accurate measures, the study was able to find the velocity, discharge, and slope of five research sites along the stream. The study rendered the following discharges: at the mudflat site discharge was 0.0597m3/s, at the midland site discharge was 0.0519m3/s, at the right converging river discharge was 0.026m3/s, at the left converging river discharge was 0.0182m3/s, and at the spring discharge was 0.0042m3/s. These results show that between the midland and con-

verging rivers, there is a substantial difference of 0.015m3/s in discharge values. Over such a short distance, and using such precise methods, the difference is likely to be attributed to groundwater flow, or subsurface flow, which is known to be a substantial source of runoff on Mont Saint Hilaire (James & Roulet. 2006). Subsurface flow is the movement of water below the surface of the earth in the hydrological regime of systems. When a precipitation event occurs, water falls onto the landâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface and either flows on the surface forming streams, rivers, runoff, or through infiltration the water percolates down into the soil. Water flows both down and downhill due to gravity, eventually hitting a confining layer of im-

penetrable soil or rock. This causes horizontal subsurface flow in which a zone of saturation can occur at the bottom of the piste (Huggett 2003). The amount of water that infiltrates and becomes subsurface flow varies on several physical characteristics of the soil and surrounding areas. The magnitude of rainfall, pre-rainfall event soil moisture, permeability, groundwater storage, evaporation, or if the ground is frozen are all major factors in determining this value. The movement of the infiltrated water is controlled by the gradient of the slope, and any barriers that may inhibit subsurface flow (Huggett 2003). The flow of water will continue downwards until it either becomes trapped in a groundwater reservoir, or returns to the surface. In order for subsurface flow to emerge above the surface, the water table must meet the soil/air interface. This often happens on a slope when the water reaches a confining layer (see Figure 20), in which a zone of saturation is created, forming a perched water table. This water has nowhere to go and must flow back out to the surface, forming a spring or aquifer. This water often seems to appear out of nowhere, and can cause unexpected increases in river or stream discharge (Huggett 2003; He et al. 2008). Mont Saint Hilaire, an igneous intrusion, has many impenetrable layers causing perched water tables in which precipitation, especially snow-melt, collects and flows back out onto the surface (James & Roulet 2006). The relatively large amounts of snowfall accumulated in 2014 have caused these perched water tables to collect snow-melt during the study period (late spring 2014), with the snow only having fully melted days before the initial day of observations. As the summer progressed, the water table dropped due

to stresses of evapotranspiration and storage depletion. However, water levels can increase during rainfall events. Because of our timing, the discharge of springs and aquifers was relatively high due to the ample supply of water (James & Roulet 2006). At the largest exposed spring on the lower section of the Pain de Sucre slope, a discharge value of 0.0042m3/s was calculated. The springâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s discharge value, 0.0042m^3/s, suggests that the increase of discharge from the stream convergence point study sites to the mudflat study site, 0.015m^3/s, could be attributed to groundwater flow reaching the surface. The residence time of groundwater on Mont Saint Hilaire shows extreme variability in its spatial and temporal qualities (James & Roulet 2006). The varied topography of the mountain plays a large role in determining both aforementioned qualities. The gradient of slope aids in determining the rate of subsurface flow since steeper sections allow the rate of water flow to increase. This is shown by the majority of additional discharge being added between the convergence point and the midland point, which is the steepest section at 3.2Â°. Due to the ever changing slope while ascending any of the many peaks of Mont Saint Hilaire, perched water tables may be free to flow, or completely isolated from any downhill movement. The soils of Mont Saint Hilaire also play a major role in determining the rate of infiltration into the groundwater reservoirs. The rich undisturbed organic soil that is prevalent throughout the mountain allows water to quickly percolate through the substrate due to the large size abundance of macropores (Fueki et al. 2012). Additionally, the stream area, much of which is blocked from public access, escapes becoming either compacted or subject to excavation

Figure 20: Groundwater Flow Components

or infilling. Therefore, much of the area maintains a fast rate of infiltration and percolation (Fueki et al. 2012).

ditional research should be conducted in order to increase the accuracy of the results obtained.

Conclusion This study showed that hydrological processes are complex and subject to influence from multiple factors including slope, infiltration rate, season, soil moisture, impermeable layers, and more. The results show that the mudflat site has the highest discharge value, with each higher site rendering a smaller value. The substantial difference in discharge values between the mudflat and convergence point in the stream shows that subsurface flow is a major constituent of discharge in the western inflow stream of Mont Saint Hilaire. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that Mont Saint Hilaire is a unique geological entity with many impermeable layers, forming perched water tables, and therefore springs. These conclusions should be elaborated to encompass a yearly set of values to better understand the changes in subsurface flow throughout the year. Furthermore, some of the results obtained can be generalized to describe processes and patterns occurring in inlet stream systems of the Montérégie Hills of Southern Québec as a result of their similar geologic origins and composition. Ad-

References:

Fueki, N., Lipiec, J., Kus, K., Kotowska, U. & Nosalewicz, A. (2012). Difference in infiltration and macropore between organic and conventional soil management. Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 58 (1), 65-69. Gordon, N.D., McMahon, T. A., Finlayson, B. L. Gippel, C. J. & Nathan, R. J. (2004). Stream Hydrology : An Introduction for Ecologists, 2nd edition. p.1-448. Harrelson, C. C., Rawlins, C. L. & Potyondy, J. P. (1994). Stream Channel Reference Sites: An Illustrated Guide to Field Technique. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RM – 245. p. 37-41. He, B., Takase, K. & Wang, Y. (2008). A semi-distributed groundwater recharge model for estimating water-table and water-balance variables. Hydrogeology Journal, 16 (6), 1215-1228. Huggett, R. J. (2003). Fundamentals of geomorphology. London: Routledge. IIT Kharagpur. (2008). The Science of Surface and Ground Water: The Geomorphology of Rivers. p. 280-303. James, A. L. & N. T., Roulet. (2006). Investigating the applicability of end-member mixing analysis (EMMA) across scale: A study of eight small, nested catchments in a temperate forested watershed. Water Resource Research, 42, W08434, doi:10.1029/2005WR004419.

F l o o d i n g Livelihoods with

“Progress” By Nadia Kanji

This piece was created on a trip I took to India in summer 2013. After sitting in an office working in the green business sector for weeks on end, I decided to branch out and explore another state in the western part of India, Gujurat. I drove for about 4 hours outside of the state’s capital Ahmedabad, and stayed with the Aga Khan Rural Support Program in a small village called Netrang, a passing point of the Narmada River. Little did I know that I was near one of India’s most controversial dams that led to a huge amount of environmental displacement.

“For over half a century, we’ve believed that big dams would deliver the people of India from hunger and poverty. The opposite has happened.” – Arundhati Roy The Narmada Valley Dam Project, touted as one of India’s greatest “development” projects, is in fact a story of dispossession and grave environmental costs.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The --- village got submerged [when they started building this dam]. It had around 200 households,â&#x20AC;? the translator told me. The Sardar Sarovar dam construction began in 1979. The fervent disciples of economics in government raved about its potential, extolling it as emblematic of Indian prosperity. However, the dam was contentious since its inception. Dams wreak havoc on the environment. They uproot people from their homes. And those that reaped the benefits of this dam were situated miles away.

Despite resistance movements, numerous villages were submerged, and the Indian government was complicit in the forced displacement of its own people. 58

In Netrang, the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) has set up numerous projects to empower communities. From women’s groups to using sustainable community based approaches for livelihoods enhancement (SCALE), they have helped local institutions become self-sustainable. Netrang is also home to the Kotwaliya Indigenous group. They make and sell bamboo handicrafts as part of their livelihood. AKRSP works in solidarity with them, offering supportive services such as the distribution of their products. They are now registered as a cooperative for bamboo artisans known as the “Gujarat Vans (Bamboo) Kala (Crafts) Udyog.”

172 biogas plants have been established in the Netrang area. According to AKRSP, “the poorest sections including the Kotwalias were given a higher subsidy than the rest.” Women’s groups also took the lead in the implementation of the biogas program. 59

The people in this photo are part of a womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s group that focuses on health and hygiene. AKRSP provides them with technical assistance and resources when prompted. Otherwise, the group seemed to be self-regulated. AKRSP has also helped in the construction of toilets in four different villages in the Netrang area.

While driving back to Ahmedabad in the monsoon rain, there was a flood. Shopkeepers jumped onto the roofs of their stores, others found a couple elevated sidewalks, and children played in the water as their parents chided them to run indoors. Though this flood was considered to be mild compared to others that they face, floods are a consequence of environmental devastation. Low lying areas feel the brunt of it, especially when these infamous dams cause rivers to overflow after heavy rains.

The High Cost of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Progressâ&#x20AC;? In economics, we often hear about the benefits of globalization: expanded markets, international trade, etc. However, what many fail to acknowledge is that with the increasing dominance of multinational corporations, inequalities have risen, traditions have been lost, and the environment has been scarred by industrial activity. The World Bank has been involved in financing several dam projects in the South, which has had high environmental and human costs. It is time to challenge the top-down structures in development, and instead encourage grassroots solutions, where people have more agency over their livelihoods. We cannot continue operating under an economic system that is so far removed from the majority of peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; realities. 62

Photo by Marie-Lou Despoux

Taken in Gaspésie, Québec. August 2014.

The Light by Salman Hussain Never does it dim, nor does it flicker The light in your eyes is a dream-like picture When you blink, the sun shrinks Back to its humble abode, to the rolling hills below He drones about another who shines bright Even upon the arrival of the night Your scintillating sight stays sage Even when we’re apart you’ll see through the haze To distant lands upon which we create Waxen works in which words Are strung together like beads, Flowing together, a rolling river snakes Between our thoughts, carrying with it Dreams so vivid, living life unscripted Though I’m awake, I’ll dream for days For even the darkness of your gaze Leaves a trail of illumination in its wake

AFRICAN CIRCUS by Jade Gagnon

Monkeys, lions and leopards. Foreign, exotic and rare. Or so was the romantic perception Before they were caged for our stares. But like all things used, the splendor has worn. Zoo cages and ringmasters won’t suffice anymore. Back to your roots, go back to what’s natural. That’s the new fad. As people race over to get a peek of the threatened, ‘The wild’ has become a modern day act. Go hunt that gazelle. Go play with your cub. Do this. Do that. Move out of that shrub. We’re all ringmasters now. Because it’s not enough to observe them at ease. Not when you’ve grown up with the Hollywood Dream. So up close and personal, revving the engine, We try to incite a worthy rendition.

Safely behind my camera lens, her face in clear focus, We’re ready for a show you don’t want to miss. Something familiar comes forth in her eyes. It brings me back to a time, inexperienced in life When fear of the boogeyman kept me up through the night. Moving along, a rare sight we cross Those eyes let us know exactly who’s boss. I can’t help but think of back home, growing up; As we stalk those majestic spots down the road, I remember annoyance when my brother won’t leave me alone. A look of shame paints our expressions. Shift into reverse. They grow small by the second. The roles reverse, it’s now I who feels watched. I steal one last glance before letting them be. Just in time to catch her share a look of relief.

About the Contributors Isha Berry is in her final year of a BSc. in Honors Environment, Ecological Determinants of Health. She particularly enjoys the interdisciplinary nature of the environment program at McGill, which reflects her diverse interests in ecology, health and social justice. This is Isha’s first submission to Branches and she hopes that it reflects these diverse interests. David Blair is a U3 Honours Geography, Minor Biology student at McGill University. His interests include hydrology, aquatic ecology and water resources. Upon graduation, David plans to pursue a Master’s Degree in the field of Environmental or Resource Management. Cecilia Bremner is a fourth year student majoring in Economics and the Earth’s Environment and minoring in Classics. In her junior year, she studied abroad at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, UK. During this time, she focused her research on governance in sustainability as well as how to preserve the presence of Gaea on our planet and in our lifestyles. Vanessa Caron is a fourth year student from Montreal about to complete her BA&Sc in Sustainability, Science, and Society, with a minor in Biology. Her exposure to different cultures and values than her own lead her to question the consumerist lifestyle status quo of the Western world she is from. Her goal is to raise awareness about environmental injustices and change attitudes. Margot Charette is a Master’s student in the department of Geography. She is now working with the research group IHACC (Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change). Her Master’s research focuses on health adaptation to climate change in the Peruvian Amazon.

Lucy Cui is a third-year undergraduate studying Environment and Development, with a minor in Geography. She is passionate about environmental challenges facing developing countries and is especially interested in issues relating to the rise of mega-cities and urban sprawl. In the future, she has dreams of publishing a book, learning to speak more languages, and travelling to all seven continents of the world. Nadia Dalili is a third year Environment student in the biodiversity and conservation domain, with a minor in Biology. Last semester she went on an exchange semester to the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia and studied marine science and environmental management. Her academic interests include conservation biology, marine science, social-economic issues due to climate change, and food security. Marie-Lou Despoux is a U2 Science undergrad student majoring in environment. A few months ago she got around to fixing that broken camera that had been laying around for some time, and brought it during her travels this past summer. The photos featured in this volume were all taken this august in Gaspésie (the little part that sticks out in northern Quebec and that throws itself into the Saint Laurent Bay). All the credits for the pictures go to the region’s beautiful sceneries! Gabriella Fanous is in her final semester of her BSc. She studies the Ecological Determinants of Health and has a minor in GIS and field studies. She is interested in the structural determinants of health, as well as the equity implications of health and social policy. Jade Gagnon recently graduated with a BSc in Environment. She is passionate about travelling, eating and environmental justice. “African Circus” was inspired by her safari experiences while on McGill’s Canadian Field Study Semester in Africa, CFSIA 2013. 68

Nessa Ghassemi-Bakhtiari is a fourth year Environment student, studying Ecological Determinants of Health in Society, and minoring in Anthropology. She is passionate about climate justice and indigenous rights, determined to travel the world, and looks forward to pursuing her interests during her field study semester in Panama. Megan Howes is a hobbyist photographer who likes to focus her camera lens on wildlife and biodiversity as it is found in nature. She is passionate about the environment, especially in the marine realm and intends to become a conservation biologist while developing her photography further to inspire appreciation of nature. Salman Hussain is a ‘14 graduate from the MSE and is conducting clinical research for Partners Healthcare, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Boston Medical Center. He loves to play basketball and is releasing his first hip-hop and R&B album later this year. Nadia Kanji is in her final semester at McGill University, and will be graduating with a degree in International Management. Disillusioned by neoliberal economics, she decided to get involved in alternative media by working at the Media Co-Op. From her past experiences organizing with Climate Justice Montreal to fighting against austerity in Quebec, Nadia strongly believes in the importance of creating a just, sustainable, and equitable future. Elena Kennedy is a recent MSE graduate and current Law student. She is primarily interested in the relation between environmental justice and cost internalization mechanisms, particularly environmental liability, as well as the translational challenges between environmental science and law. Vijay Kolinjivadi is a fourth year PhD student at McGill University studying Ecological Economics. He’s an avid traveller and enjoys photography, writing and wandering. He’s pretty interested in imagining a post-growth future and developing connections and networks to this end. 69

Catherine Pigeon-Dubeau is currently studying Biodiversity and Conservation at McGillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School of Environment. She is interested in biodiversity, ecosystem management, and marine biology and hopes to reconcile these interests with her passion for traveling and scuba diving. Vijayeta Patel is in her final semester as an Environment student, in Ecological Determinants of Health. She loves to travel and is passionate about issues pertaining to forest, marine and animal conservation. She hopes to pursue a career in environmental photojournalism in the near future. Justine Provost is a recent graduate of the McGill School of Environment. Since graduating, Justine has worked for City Farm School and the Sustainability Action Fund at Concordia University. She continues to work on a variety of design and social media projects for up-and-coming environment organizations in the Montreal area. Valeriya Sokolenko is a third year student studying Renewable Resource Management and Urban Systems with particular interests in photography and the role of culture in future definitions of sustainability. Elliot Tan is a third year environment student studying the Ecological Determinants of Health in Society, and minoring in Political Science. He is interested in the environmental and political drivers of health in developing areas. Aaron Vansintjan studies food justice and ecological economics. He likes watching the sunset and fighting the enclosure of the commons. Alejandra Zaga Mendez is a Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s candidate in Natural Resource Sciences, option in Environment, working in the Ecological Economics Research Group. Alejandra has a bachelor degree in Agro-Environmental sciences, and she is interested in the role of institutions in shaping socio-ecological interactions, especially in agro-ecosystems. 70

BRANCHES

VOLUME 4

fall 2014