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R e f l e c t i o n s & O b s e r v a t i o n s
22 The future of philosophy MAY 2012 25 Rupert Murdoch: Investigation $7.00 per copy or 12 months of political power subscription (6 issues) $42.00 including 27 Pilgrims’ Journey postage & packaging www.themirrorinspires.com www.themirrorinspires.com
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editorial
Who are you (really) communicating with?
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The cover of May issue says quite a lot in a few words. It highlights some of the key contact sites – like Facebook – for communicating around the world both socially and for business.
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These days we seem to treat every connection we make through these sites as ‘a friend’.
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And these days we seem to treat every connection we make through these sites as ‘a friend’. We have a whole directory of people we contact, but don’t know personally. There are thousands of people on our ‘friends’ list but to have that many friends is just not possible. Friends we have are usually those we meet for a meal or go bushwalking with. So who are all these other friends on line? People who want to connect with you to build up their contact bases – as simple as that. This way of connecting, however, can be powerful and assists people to develop their businesses and social networks. The method provides a base.
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contents
Does animal ethics permit cannibalism?
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How the work of politicians grinds people down.
12 ‘Humaniversity’ provides world class education to marginalised students.
The point is that to seriously get to know someone it is important to have a face to face relationship. To sit behind a computer and add people to your list is not usually taking you anywhere. There are exceptions, I have to admit. Protests in the Middle East –the Arab Spring - have benefited by exposure on sites like Twitter and FaceBook and YouTube. The world has been able to see the atrocities and protests very quickly and this is a powerful way of illustrating such issues of concern and putting pressure on governments to change.
14 How the cardboard vacuum cleaner could clean up big sales.
I expect that environmental issues like fracking will be highlighted this way and pressure brought to bear on companies like TAG and Shell to back off and heed the concerns of people around the world. Reflections and Observations
the Mirror’s Faces MANAGING EDITOR Doug Green RESEARCH WORDS PRODUCTION & DESIGN Karl Grant ADMINISTRATION & SUBSCRIPTIONS Media Hawkes Bay Ltd
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Inside the creative world of Robert Welch
For more than 50 years, within a few modest rooms in an 18th-century silk mill, a small team of people has created 3,418 new products, leading to sales of more than 46 million items around the world. It is said that appearances can be deceptive and nowhere is this truer than at Chipping Campden, a small market town within the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, western England. Its understated charm is perhaps its greatest attribute, for within its boundaries are the headquarters of Robert Welch Designs, a family-run business with a global reach. The existence of the company at the old mill is the legacy of the man whose name the business carries and it all began in 1955 when, fresh from the Royal College of Art, Robert Welch was looking to set up a studio somewhere between his parents’ home in Malvern and London, where he might find work. He rented a small room in the Old Silk Mill in Chipping Campden and installed his drawing board and a truckle bed. It was an inauspicious start for a man whose strong design principles would later lead to him being appointed a Royal Designer for Industry, and MBE - a Member of the Order of the British Empire, bestowed by the Queen in recognition of his work. Welch trained as a silversmith at Birmingham College of Art before moving to the Royal College of Art in 1952 where he specialised exclusively in stainless steel production design. In 1965 he was honoured as a Royal Designer for Industry by the British Royal Society of Arts. Being an enthusiastic cricketer, he believed in the close working efficiency of small teams, and therefore called on the complementary skills of designers, prototype makers and manufacturers to help realise his designs. Unlike other design companies, none of the products are bought in or created by outside designers. Every item, large or small, is designed in-house in the same studio where Welch created his wellknown everyday items all those years ago - from the original Kitchen Devil range of knives that sold more than 800,000 units in the first two years of production, to Prestige kitchen utensils.
Each new Robert Welch product is evolved from rigorous questioning about its function, manufacture, durability and ease of use. One of the simplest ways to understand what people want from a new product is to meet them. For this reason, since 1969 he has had a shop in Chipping Campden, only a hundred yards or so from the Old Silk Mill where the products are created. The company worked with professional chefs to develop its multi-award-winning Signature knife and utensil ranges; each Signature knife has been individually constructed for its specific task in food preparation, with each blade honed and tempered to razor sharpness, producing a precision blade edge. Performance-tested by Sheffield’s leading test establishment, they are in the world’s top one per cent of all knives tested for initial sharpness and edge retention.
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The existence of the company at the old mill is the legacy of the man whose name the business carries and it all began in 1955.
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The full product range includes cutlery, other tableware, lighting, glassware, bathroom accessories, a selection of unusual candlesticks and kitchenware. All designs are unique to Robert Welch Designs and can be ordered online, with many also available from leading retailers such as John Lewis and Heal’s in the UK, and Crate & Barrel in the United States. Welch’s son Rupert and daughter Alice
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The Robert Welch mission has always been to combine a search for innovation with a sincere respect for the traditions of the past.
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have been responsible for the company’s direction since 1993 and, although the business has expanded considerable since, they continue the legacy that Robert left. They have never lost sight of the passion for design excellence that was his hallmark - ageless designs that do not follow fashion but aim for a timeless beauty. The Robert Welch mission has always been to combine a search for innovation with a sincere respect for the traditions of the past so that quality, ease of use and fine design are in harmony. The company’s designs have won a host of coveted awards in recent years, including a Good Design 2011 honour from the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture & Design for the Signature salt/peppermills - and in 2010, a Red Dot award for its Bud cutlery. Managing director Rupert Welch commented: “As a small family-owned
MEET DISCUSS EVALUATE DECIDE
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British company, we are very happy to have won these two awards as they recognise product design and originality throughout the world at the highest level. “For the 2011 awards, the Athenaeum received submissions from several thousand of the world’s most innovative manufacturers and designers, so to have won is a fantastic achievement for the company. We are also delighted because this is the second award that the new Signature mills have won in just over two months,” he added. The company’s clients and customers include Baliol College, Oxford; the Burj Al Arab hotel, Dubai; the British Embassy, Riyadh; Sir Winston Churchill; HRH Duke of Edinburgh; MoMA, New York; the Foreign & Commonwealth Office; the Smithsonian Institution, US; Virgin Atlantic; Westin Hotels; the Victoria & Albert Museum; Canterbury Cathedral; and 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s residence. ❙
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Does animal ethics permit cannibalism?
To borrow the words of the American ethics scholar, Martha Nussbaum, the issue of the relationship between humans and animals is now quite literally on the “Frontiers of Justice.”
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The interchangeability of human meat The logic of people who argue for respecting animals’ rights is more consistent than one might imagine.
This is the “frontier” where we are now asking ourselves whether or not we should expand what we have come to recognise as and call our “rights,” what has been “pioneered” as such for humans since the modern age, as common to all humans, regardless of nationality, race, sex, sexuality or religion, to the “un-pioneered realm” of animals.
Nevertheless, what can be said in opposition to them? It is necessary to overturn the question in quite an acrobatic manner.
This issue lies behind a wide range of debates including whaling, dolphin hunting, bullfighting, laboratory experiments on animals, destroying animals pets, intensive factory farming, circuses, and zoos, etc. The focus of the debate in contemporary animal ethics studies is not “species.” It is the concept of “sentience.” The “sentience” introduced by the representative animal ethicist Peter Singer, with the 19th Century philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism in mind, to put it simply, consists of the ability to be happy and to feel pain. If a living being is sentient, then regardless of its species, it warrants equal consideration of its interests; for example, its interest in its own life such as wanting to stay alive.
The British ethicist, Stephen R. L. Clark in his 1977 work, “The Moral Status of Animals,” conducts a strange thought experiment in which human meat is seen as interchangeable with animal meat. In other words, it is an issue of whether or not, if one uses the premise that planned and large-scale production, slaughter and consumption of animals is an evil that contravenes the rights of animals, then as an alternative proposal, it is morally acceptable to replace this with another form of protein of a different origin to animals, for example, that of human meat.
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This issue lies behind a wide range of debates including whaling, dolphin hunting, bullfighting, laboratory experiments on animals, destroying animals pets, etc.
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In doing so, there is no need for it to rationally or logically communicate its pain using words or any other clear means (even among humans, there are those who are unable to communicate in this way). The traditional demarcation line of rationality and language which has in the past divided humans and animals can be lifted. We can no longer simply say that no matter how highly intelligent a monkey may be, it is “just a monkey.” That would be a form of “speciesism” similar to “racism” or “sexism,” and thus injustice. (According to this logic, the status of animals would be raised and the status of humans would be lowered).
Cicero thought that if humans transgressed against natural law, then they would plunge down to the level of animals.
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If that meat was the meat from a dead body after a traffic accident, cutting away that meat would not cause any additional pain. On the other hand, if we were to kill an animal, pain would be caused. If one places the standard entirely on “sentience” rather than “species,” then even the B-class horror-movie style proposal of eating human meat can be reasoned for.
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But the premise of modern society, where organ transplants are now quite commonplace occurrences, is that the body is no longer sacred and inviolable.
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Furthermore, the human body has already been de-sanctified in the world today. While in recent years famous as an economist, much earlier in his career, the thinker Jacques Attali wrote Cannibalism and Civilization: Life and Death in the History of Medicine (1979) in which he thought about a modern version of “clinical cannibalism,” by which one would accept an organ transplant from someone else’s body for the purpose of healing. But the premise of modern society, where organ transplants are now quite commonplace occurrences, is that the body is no longer sacred and inviolable. Since the de-sanctification of the body has now been fully completed, there is no longer a logical obstacle anymore to the idea of cutting up a human body into little pieces, or ultimately even to eating the parts of the human body that have been cut up into little pieces as “meat.” However, while this may be obvious, Clark’s proposal of the alternative of human meat has not been widely accepted. The primary reason for this is our fetishism for “animal” meat, and secondly our emotional aversion to human meat. For better or worse, the meat we want to eat is not human meat and has to be “animal” meat. And so, we cause pain to animals, while if we only ate the dead bodies of those who had died in traffic accidents, this pain would not have to be caused. According to Clark, the only ethical attitude possible to transform this situation is to become vegetarian.
If we decide that we will not eat animal meat and that we cannot eat human meat, then the only remaining protein available to us is vegetable protein. (The idea that continuing to eat meat, even though we are at a cultural phase where www.themirrorinspires.com
it would be perfectly possible for us not to eat meat, is barbaric is one that can be traced back as far as the works of Plutarch or Rousseau).
The aporia surrounding the aversion to eating meat If, the critical issue is the “pain” itself that is caused when we slaughter animals, as Singer and others believe, then to eat the meat of a cow which died by chance in the road after being struck by lightning, or a pig which has died by drowning in a river– and even to eat the meat of humans who are already dead – is in moral terms, an adiaphoron, or in other words, a matter outside moral law that morality neither mandates nor forbids. This is because in these cases there is no active moment of afflicting “pain” in order to obtain this meat. If one then continues to argue that, even so, we should not eat the meat of these cows or horses – and of course these dead human beings – then one is forced to bring out some other argument apart from the issue of causing “pain.” However, this also means that one ends up cutting into one’s own ideological premises. According to the view of the philosopher Cora Diamond about the aporia surrounding this aversion to eating meat, if the reason that we do not eat meat of human being is concluded simply because being human is not about what to eat, we are no longer able to consider the right of animals not to be killed or be mistreated as the core of the argument on vegetarianism. Should the time come when all types of proteins come to be considered equal, if one was then to say that we cannot eat human meat just because it is human meat, then it could be argued that this was some sort of lingering “speciesist” thinking. In other words, it would mean that the classic categorization between humans and animal would still be functioning as a barrier.
Cannibalism and natural law When one asks why humans should not eat human meat, ultimately one runs into the issue of “Natural Law.” If one tries to explain the prohibition on eating human meat without resorting to using the magic term of “physiological aversion,”
one is forced to introduce something that transcends man-made law, which legislates by humans alone. “Natural law” is the “law” that we, because of being humans, must respect to, and transcends our judicial laws. Typical examples of natural law are the commands that we must not kill other people and that we must not commit suicide. Augustine of Hippo believed that of all God’s creations, only humans are able to recognize natural law. It is quite natural for us to believe that included among the list of natural law items that as humans we need to abide by is a prohibition against cannibalism. In his “De Republica,” Cicero thought that if humans transgressed against natural law, then they would plunge down to the level of animals. If so, then compliance with the natural law of “Thou shalt not eat human meat,” would become nothing less than a definitive condition for humans to remain humans. At the beginning of the modern era, in the age when the “discovery” of the “New World” was taking place – and, at the same time, non liquet tales of the cannibalism of indigenous peoples were being brought to Europe – as the old values swayed, it is not by chance that, in his “Essais (Attempts),” the philosopher Montaigne published a piece of work that juxtaposed cannibalist theory and animal theory. Similar to the situation for us today, as the boundaries between humans and animals are swaying, for Montaigne, the absolute position of humans was wobbling. If ethnographic studies and ships logs were to be believed, cannibalism was no longer part of the realm of legend, it was a reality. And if so, then the universalism of natural law would definitively be shaken (this is the major theme of the legal philosopher of the pre-modern age, Pufendorf).
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It was a time of continuous religious wars in which both sides reviled the other as “flesh-eating” and sort to destroy each other, while on the other hand, it was also a time of confusion with large numbers of tales of cannibalism being brought in, so that the distinction between animals and humans was much less clear than it had ever appeared before. It was only a short 50 years before when Descartes, in his “the Discourse on Method,” clearly distinguished between humans and animals and declared that animals were “automata.” ❙
It is quite natural for us to believe that included among the list of natural law items that as humans we need to abide by is a prohibition against cannibalism.
Eating is an ➼ agri-cultural act….
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your health, economic and cultural wealth start with seeds sown in the field, the ‘ager’
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In the longest chapter of his “Essais,” which came to be known as the “An Apologie for Raymond Sebond,” he sweepingly brings down humans, and on the other hand raises up animals to previously unheard of heights. In his mind, humans and animals had already become abnormally close. www.themirrorinspires.com
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How the work of politicians grinds people down Politics used to be a risky business, but politicians these days seem to regard politics as an arena that is tranquil and uneventful, where they can make a fortune if they declare that their efforts are for the sake of the nation and the people or that they think from the standpoint of the people.
Thus, it was natural for public dissatisfaction Shozo Tanaka, a famous politician of to be directed the Meiji period, devoted himself to the interests of farmers suffering from metal towards and over the course of his politicians and poisoning, life, showed himself to be a truly selfless the capitalists person. who were When it comes to some of the biggest names in the Taisho period, Takashi considered Hara, who became prime minister, their sponsors. worked out a scheme for greater power for his political party, Seiyukai, and was Everything, eventually struck down by an assassin. including His reward was not a personal fortune, but rather public praise and censure. colonial administration, The way of life for politicians is to achieve other such purposes–not simply anti-Japanese doing a job to make a living. nationalism in Citizens struggled as much as China, and the politicians did. They were hard pressed and suffered from unreasonably high race against taxes and rice prices, which led to the West, successive incidents of bloodshed. They sacrificed their lives for the sake of involved the people like the farmers, to strengthen people. Where their party, or to Depression and the could they see impoverishment of farm villages directly hit the people, even in the Showa any light? period. Thus, it was natural for public
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dissatisfaction to be directed towards politicians and the capitalists who were considered their sponsors. Everything, including colonial administration, antiJapanese nationalism in China, and the race against the West, involved the people. Where could they see any light?
Sentiment toward the February 26th Incident Where is Japan headed? What will become of our lives? If we cannot expect politicians to address our anxieties, we must rise to take action. This was the thinking of a number of young military officers at that time. The February 26th Incident of 1936 was the result. This incident was triggered by the www.themirrorinspires.com
eruption of their sentiment regarding the plight of farmers, not because of spreading internal factional disputes. Although they considered themselves to be an advance guard for the people, they were never organizers of the people. The incident resulted in accelerating the advancement of military officers into politics. I will not touch here upon the whole story of the February 26th Incident that arose through the presence of an exmilitary officer, Mitsugi Nishida, and the orientation of revolutionary social changes from the nationalist perspective since they are discussed in detail in my 800-pluspage book, Mitsugi Nishida and Japanese Fascism Movements [Nishida Mitsugi to Nihon Fashizumu Undo] (2007, 1st edition, 2008, 3rd edition, Iwanami Shoten). The poverty of politics is, however, an important theme to be seriously considered as we move forward.
Politicians for the people When we think about examples where politicians stand on the side of the public, the case of Ikuo Oyama is exemplary: where the tripartite struggle for the acquisition of political freedom, the elimination of exploitation, and colonial liberation was carried by the proletarians led by Ikuo Oyama, including farmers, laborers, small businesspeople, and ordinary citizens.
Ikuo Oyama was a forever young master politician. He was originally an advocate of Taisho Democracy and became a leader of proletarian party activities. After World War II, he played the role of driving forward world peace movements. When news attracted public attention that Hideki Yukawa was the first Japanese person to win a Nobel Prize, a peerless critic, Soichi Oya said: “Since the Taisho period, there have been few besides Ikuo Oyama who became the subject of talk among people nationwide irrespective of position, class, and age…aside from his time in exile in the United States, he was a great actor who was always under the spotlight of social movements as well as the darling of journalism. He showed such qualities by his nature rather than by intentional grandstanding… there is none but him in the country
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“ Ikuo Oyama and Zhou En-lai
who perfectly suits his famous line, ‘We are headed for either a battlefield or a graveyard.’ If anyone else had said that, it would have sounded affected, even disgusting.”
Where can we find a second Ikuo Oyama today? Ikuo Oyama was originally a political scientist who devoted himself to the transformation of a politics that serves the nation to one that serves the people. He stressed that political science should have humanity, and that is why he looked for a way to unify ideologies and practices and even moved toward Marxism. Further details are included in my book Ikuo Oyama and the Genealogy of Japanese Democracy—From the Science of the State to the Political Science of Society [Oyama Ikuo to Nihon Demokurashî no Keifu-Kokkagaku kara Shakai no Seijigaku e] (2011, Iwanami Shoten). During a crucial time of proletarian party activity, he was made the chairman of the Labor-Farmer Party with the people’s support and was removed from his teaching position at his alma mater, Waseda University. With a pure heart, he took pleasure in working devotedly for the people, regarding the working masses, together with his students, as his important comrades. Oyama risked everything and made every effort for the sake of farmers and plant workers amid moves to suppress him as a far-left Diet member of the Proletarian Party, with just five members. One of his fellow members, Senji Yamamoto, died at the hands of an
assassin. Neither Oyama nor Yamamoto ever used such superficial language as for the nation and the people or thinking from the standpoint of the people. Those who they saw right in front of them were living beings—farmers who were starving, factory workers whose wages had been cut, and small businesspeople worried every day about sales. Where are the Oyamas and Yamamotos of today?
The people have no option to leave Having been developed by mankind and protected with every effort for our happiness, an ideology is a source of vitality to move forward. Political arguments are the discussions that turn such ideology into the modalities of politics, influence people, and encourage them to take action; politicians must have the talent to make such political arguments. When I think of a political orator, Kanji Maruyama comes to mind. Maruyama was a newspaper reporter (the political scientist Masao Maruyama being his second son) who has dedicated himself to writing for more than half a century with a spirit of criticism that does not simply go along with the current of the times.
Those who they saw right in front of them were living beings— farmers who were starving, factory workers whose wages had been cut, and small business people worried every day about sales. Where are the Oyamas and Yamamotos of today?
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Here is what he said: Whatever the decisions that soldiers and politicians make in their course of action, the people of the nation are never allowed to resign their positions. People living in this society have no option to leave. That’s how it is. We, and not politicians alone, will get nowhere without being responsible and independent ourselves. ❙ www.themirrorinspires.com
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Energy from biomass As much as one fifth of the world’s energy could be provided by biomass materials without reducing farming land space used for growing food, according to the latest comprehensive scientific report.
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Many believe biomass can address concerns relating to climate change, energy security, rural development and access to modern energy services n developing countries.
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Biomass is biological material obtained from living or recently living organisms that can be processed into electricity, fuel and heat. Biomass for energy can be obtained from a diverse range of sources, the most important of which are energy crops, agricultural and forestry residues, wastes and existing forestry. But debate continues to surround the role of biomass in the future energy system, with some believing it has the potential to fuel the planet, and others fearing it could ruin the environment. Many believe biomass can address concerns relating to climate change, energy security, rural development and access to modern energy services in developing countries. To establish the facts, scientists at Imperial College have reviewed the size of the global resource of energy from biomass, examining evidence from more than 90 international studies. The report addresses key controversies in the energy field and the main concerns relating to the production of biomass including the sustainability of increasing crop yields and the prospect that competition for land will impact on food production. According to the report, the main reason that scientists disagree on biomass is that they make different technical and ethical assumptions about population, diet, and land use. One major disagreement concerns the speed with which productivity improvements in food and energy crop production can be rolled out. “If we make the best use of agricultural residues, energy crops and waste materials, then getting one fifth of current global energy supply from biomass is a reasonable ambition,” said Dr Raphael Slade, the report’s leading author and a research fellow at Imperial College London. Achieving more than a fifth is technically possible but would result in having to make challenging assumptions
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about global food production and changes in diets. The report establishes that societal preferences concerning food, energy and environmental protection will be key factors in deciding the extent to which biomass is used to provide energy services in the future. “The more bio-energy you want, the harder it becomes to reconcile demand for food, energy and environmental protection,” added Dr Slade. “Replacing all fossil fuels with biomass would be equivalent to all of global agriculture and commercial forestry combined, and would only be possible if we can grow more food on less land.” Bio-energy production could most easily be increased by technical advances, but policy will need to encourage innovation and investment, according to the report. “A renewed focus on increasing food and energy crop yields could deliver a win-win opportunity as long as it is done without damaging soil fertility or depleting water resources,” he said. Learning from the development of sustainable biomass now should be encouraged by policymakers, rather than waiting to see what the future potential will actually be. “The main mistake is to think of this as all or nothing. There’s plenty of scope for experimentation to make sure we get it right,” added Dr Slade. The report highlights the need for scientists researching on food and agriculture to work more closely with bio-energy specialists to address challenges such as water availability and environmental protection. Dr Ausilio Bauen, who is head of bioenergy at Imperial College’s Centre for Energy Policy & Technology, said: “Bioenergy may need to play a part in a future low-carbon energy mix.” He concluded: “Ensuring bio-energy, food and forests do not compete for land would not be straightforward. But if we use land more productively, and make better use of available plant material, we should be perfectly capable of producing bio-energy, feeding a growing population and conserving the environment all at the same time.” ❙
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‘Humaniversity’ provides world class
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Although many institutions across the world claim to be ‘multicultural’ and have religious tolerance, AIU does much more than just pay lip service to these ‘politically correct’ stances.
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Albukhary International University is a wholly charitable university located in Alor Setar, Malaysia dedicated to providing students from disadvantaged or marginalised backgrounds a high quality education. ResearchSEA visited their campus to find out more. As the taxi rounded a corner, following a sign to Albukhary International University (AIU), I was temporarily dazed as the bright Malaysian sunshine hit a series of pristine temple-like whitewashed buildings. I assumed I was in the wrong place. After all, I was visiting a newly launched university whose vision was to provide high quality, completely free education and humanitarian values to underprivileged students from around the world. I had imagined a series of austere, low profile buildings. The campus that stood in front of me, however, looked like something straight out of Arabian Nights. Sceptically I walked across the gleaming forecourt. Was I really going to find disadvantaged students here? As a European, I associated such grandeur with the wealthy elite. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Upon stepping into the cool shadows of the buildings, the open layout tempts the visitor in, and the humility of the staff and students is immediately apparent. But what strikes the visitor most of all when talking to people at AIU is their passion, humanity and integrity. Although many institutions across the world claim to be ‘multi-cultural’ and have religious tolerance, AIU does much more than just pay lip service to these ‘politically correct’ stances. Its students from over 46 countries and a plethora of faiths become engaging, global citizens.
Funded by the Albukhary Foundation, a Malaysian organisation founded in 1996 by the corporate entrepreneur and philanthropist with the same name, AIU is unique in being a wholly charitable university. Coming from a poor, disadvantaged background himself Syed Albukhary was determined to give something back. In AIU’s charter it states that 80 per cent of its students will be international. www.themirrorinspires.com
Rather than targeting academic high-achievers it focuses on students with reasonable academic standing, but who come from poor, disadvantaged or marginalised backgrounds. Although the name Albukhary may lead some to assume this is a Muslim university, Syed emphasises that the goal of AIU is to admit students “irrespective of race, creed or religion”. Another aspect that really sets this university apart is the requirement that all students take part in planned welfare service activities. As one of the English lecturers explains, their objective is to instil in students a passion to serve and contribute to their community. AIU’s ‘student centered’ learning approach allows students to pick a valuable activity which is monitored by their lecturers. Recent projects ranged from helping to clean up the jungle to surveys of local plastic bag use to mentoring children at a local orphanage. It’s less about the grades the university can showcase and much more about bringing well-rounded people into the world. Fjolla Deva is from Kosovo and never imagined she would be living in Malaysia. She stumbled upon AIU after recommendation from a friend. There are so many things she wants to tell me about AIU, her enthusiasm is infectious. Similarly, Abdul Qahar Abdul Wahab from Afghanistan gives a very moving account of how AIU has given him the best possible chance of, caring for his family in the future. The self-imposed responsibility that weighs on this young man’s shoulders is great, but so is the support he is gets from his peers and staff at AIU. Aiuob Ali AbduLQader from Yemen and Mohamed Sacko from Mali are eager to tell me all about the many clubs and societies at AIU. There are debating, sport and arts societies that will cater to anyone’s interests. “Indeed”, says registrar Puan Norpisah, “We cater for so many nationalities that we face some unique challenges, take for example the cricket field. When it was being built, the work men had never built one before in Malaysia. It took us awhile to figure out that the lights all needed shields over them to prevent
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“ The AIU campus is bright and open.
them getting smashed all the time!” Some of the international students admit that they miss home and that they were nervous about coming all the way to Malaysia. Jamilyn Tausa Galacio comes from a small village in the Philippines. Before coming to AIU she had never left her own country before and the transition for her was initially daunting, but she adds “this was the best ever decision that I have made.” Having gone to a public school in a small town, she never had any plans to go to university. She didn’t think it was possible, the educational standard was generally low and without a full scholarship there was no way she would ever have gone to any university, let alone one abroad. The challenge AIU has taken on cannot be underestimated. An inevitable consequence of such a diverse student population is that the educational background of pupils is incredibly broad. It has set a high learning curve for the lecturers whose task is not confined to teaching alone, but includes a strong pastoral role. Many students are thousands of miles away from home and likely to be exposed to a bewildering array of beliefs and opinions, and it is up to the lecturers to ensure that classes run in an open, respectful manner.
So what is the most striking thing about AIU? For me it’s the enthusiasm and gratitude for the opportunities they have been given shown by its students. I have been to many a university where students pranced around with an air of ‘I deserve to be here, look at how great I am’. Not so at AIU. -The students’ overwhelming positivity was such that I jokingly asked whether they had been paid money by the AIU’s communications department. Rarely before and I witnessed such fervent enthusiasm, gratefulness and humanity in a group of people. Norfadzila Putra from Malaysia, tells me with a big smile: “I’m so happy…we learn about human diversity [and] they teach us a lot of things like humanitarian values, I’ve got friends from Kosovo, Mali, Afghanistan and more…!” There are still many shelves to fill in the new library, empty rooms on campus which require more furniture and time for the grass to grow greener on its grounds. Undeniably, however the spirit and dedication of the people working and learning here is infectious. This is a place worth watching. I have no doubt it will continue to do great things. ❙
An inevitable consequence of such a diverse student population is that the educational background of pupils is incredibly broad. It has set a high learning curve for the lecturers whose task is not confined to teaching alone, but includes a strong pastoral role.
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– ResearchSEA report www.themirrorinspires.com
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How the cardboard vacuum cl A brilliant young inventor has recycled ordinary packaging to create the world’s first vacuum cleaner - encased mainly in tough paper.
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Vax, the international cleaning company, was so impressed by the imaginative product called the ev - made by industrial design student Jake Tyler, that it plans to put the cardboard cleaner into production.
Vax, the international cleaning company, was so impressed by the imaginative product - called the ev - made by industrial design student Jake Tyler, that it plans to put the cardboard cleaner into production and test its appeal in the
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market. Tyler developed the Vax ev for his finalyear degree project and was supported by the new product design team at Vax’s centre, where he worked for a year under the company’s student placement scheme. Spokesman Paul Bagwell said: “With sustainability becoming an increasing concern for manufacturers, the Vax ev shows what can be achieved when
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leaner could clean up big sales young designers are encouraged to think creatively and push the boundaries of design.” Tyler, aged 22, studying at Loughborough University, central England said: “I got the idea when we were looking at the manufacture of vacuum cleaners and thinking how to cut out as much waste as possible. Every product was injected plastic moulded. I wanted to take the performance aspect of a vacuum cleaner and bring in a sustainability element, incorporating the environment as much as possible by using as much cardboard as possible, making it as recyclable as we possibly can,” he added. “The ev has the same performance value as other vacuums but is cheap to produce, cheap to run, incredibly lightweight and it is able to be customised – the consumer can have real fun doing that,” said Tyler. “I have really high hopes for the product, especially in Asian markets such as Hong Kong and China. It is very cheap to manufacture.” Its revolutionary design has already won him a prize from the university and a place at the New Designers exhibition of the UK’s best graduate work, held at the Business Design Centre in London. The Vax ev is made from corrugated cardboard panels that come as part of the packaging. They can be replaced if damaged and cost a tenth of the price of an equivalent plastic panel. “When people’s vacuum cleaners go wrong they just throw them away, but this can be repaired very easily. The cardboard panels have a flame-retardant coating and are also water repellent. And people can personalise their vacuums by drawing pictures on the cardboard,” said Tyler.
made of cardboard have been produced from recyclable, pure nylon plastic using rapid process manufacturing, rather than injection moulding. This means the Vax ev can be manufactured locally to order, without the need for costly tooling moulds and assembly lines, while avoiding long-distance distribution.” (http://www.vax.co.uk) Loughborough University’s Design School Degree Show celebrates the work of its 130 students taking degree courses in industrial design and technology (BA) and product design and technology (BSc). Among the many cutting-edge prototypes and designs on show are Humble, a practical, intuitive and engaging solution to rethinking a home printer; avo, a nano aquarium that requires no cleaning or water changes; and Hugg, a two-way communications device designed to keep military parents in touch with their families while on deployment. Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for high-level research, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines. It is consistently ranked in the top 20 of UK universities in national newspaper league tables. ❙
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I got the idea when we were looking at the manufacture of vacuum cleaners and thinking how to cut out as much waste as possible. Every product was injected plastic moulded. I wanted to take the performance aspect of a vacuum cleaner and bring in a sustainability element.
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Continuing the theme, a Vax spokesperson said: “They are multipurpose too, beginning their life as part of the retail box the vacuum cleaner is sold in. Once the cardboard parts are separated from the box, they ‘pop’ into place around the motor housing, without any need for glue. They are fully customisable - with just a few felt-tip pens you can turn your vacuum cleaner into a unique work of art. “Components that cannot practically be www.themirrorinspires.com
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Scholar urges caution The world has faced food crises twice since the latter half of the 20th century. The first one took place in 1973. The world end of term grain stock ratio, which had been on the decline for some years because of the worldwide grain failure, sank to a record-low of 15.4% in 1972.
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The 1973 crisis was caused by factors such as the bulk purchase of grain by the Soviet Union under the circumstances of poor harvest, and the U.S. placed an embargo on soybeans.
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In the same year, the Soviet Union became a net-importer of grain due to the increase of livestock products consumed by the Soviet people. The 1973 crisis was caused by factors such as the bulk purchase of grain by the Soviet Union under the circumstances of poor harvest, and the U.S. placed an embargo on soybeans, albeit for a short period of time. The impact was so enormous that they named it the Reappearance of the Ghost of Malthus, and grain was referred to as the third strategic material behind nuclear weapons and oil. After that, however, not a few countries including the European Community (EC) back then steered toward the enhancement of agricultural production, which considerably alleviated the condition of grain supply and demand. While protecting national borders by levying import surtaxes under the Common Agricultural Policy, the EC protected intraregional agriculture through generous support for farm product prices. As a result, they were plagued by excess produce in the 1980s. The EC implemented the raw milk quota system in 1984, and the U.S. also undertook the set-aside. The world grain market substantially shifted to the tone of
excesses. The EC, which had failed to eliminate such excess, exported excess agricultural products to developing countries with export subsidies, and the U.S. used the said subsidies in defiance, causing a dumping battle with financial burdens. The agricultural negotiations in the Uruguay Round of GATT started in 1986 under the theme of removing the market distortion through agricultural protection by such developed countries, and the parties reached an agreement in 1993 based on the basic rule of reducing productionstimulating agricultural policies including price support. It was the 2008 crisis, however, that made us realize a change to the long-lasting tone of alleviating the conditions of supply and demand.
The 2008 Food Crisis Although the world end of term grain stock ratio, which rose to 35.7% in 1986, subsequently maintained a high level, it dropped rapidly at the beginning of this century, and in 2006 got quite close to the cautionary zone of the stock level (17.1%) stipulated by the FAO. In 2008, nine countries including Brazil and India enforced bans on food exports, and five countries including China, Vietnam, and Argentina imposed export taxes and set the export ceiling. Also, food protests and riots occurred in 20 countries including Tunisia and Egypt in the same year. After the latter half of 2008, grain prices fell sharply and seemed to calm down, however they skyrocketed again after July 2010, and as of September 2011, they have been elevated to levels 2.6 to 3.3 times, as compared with the fall of 2006. Corn set a historic high of $309.8/ton on June 10, 2011. The backdrop of the recent food crisis is the economic growth of emerging countries such as China and India. It brought resource price hikes including crude oil, as well as a rapid increase of livestock product consumption due to an income increase among the people in emerging economies. Sophistication of diet entails a surge in the demand for feed grains. Although Beijing makes it a basic policy to maintain self-sufficiency of three kinds of staples
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n to current food crisis (i.e., rice, wheat, and corn), it became a net-importer of corn due to a soaring feed demand in 2010. Being a super-populated country, China’s future import expansion will wield an impact on the world market. Meanwhile, export expansion of soybeans, which are not the three kinds of staples, is astounding. The import volume of 290 thousand tons in 1995, when China became a net-importer, was boosted in 2010 to 54.8 million tons (60% of the global soybean trade volume). However, as Lester Brown pointed out in his book, Who will Feed China? (Diamond), in 1995, there is a question as to whether the sophistication of the Chinese diet will lead to a U.S.-level livestock consumption. Experts argue that the income elasticity of demand for livestock in Chinese urban areas has been dropping sharply in recent years. Also, the fact that per-capita annual meat consumption in Japan as a highincome nation stays at 34% of that in the U.S. in feed grain equivalent suggests the change pattern of diet in China, another country in the same East Asia, may be different from those in Europe and the U.S. On the contrary, Chinese agricultural production has been stagnant. It should be noted that cultivation areas have been significantly decreasing at present because of farmland diversion, water shortage, soil erosion, and the conversion of cropland to forest policy. Since the beginning of this century, demand for bioethanol derived from corn (U.S.) and sugar cane (Brazil) has drastically increased against a backdrop of the crude oil price hike. The Energy Independence and Security Act enacted in December 2007, following the State of the Union address delivered by the former President Bush in the same year, states that the renewable fuel standard (RFS) shall be 36 billion gallons by 2022. In the U.S., a soaring demand for corn as a raw material of bioethanol resulted in boosted prices of wheat converted to animal consumption due to the price hike of feed corn, and the drastic increase of corn acreage in turn decreased soybean acreage, causing an increase in soybean prices. This is a chain of grain price hikes starting with the skyrocketing crude oil price.
As mentioned above, it seems that the world has entered upon a new phase of demand for agricultural products. It can be said that against this backdrop, the inflow of speculative money triggered the recent crisis. It has been pointed out that the year 2008 goes far above the negative correlation line between the ending stock ratio and prices.
Solving shortages in lowincome countries If the demand structure of agricultural products shifts to an increase, prices will rise, causing an adjustment to be made through increase in supply and drop in demand, and no shortage of agricultural products. Furthermore, promotion of technological advancement due to the price increase will change the supply structure, causing the prices which have remained high to decline. Therefore, simple pessimism is not appropriate. However, there are two points of contention here. The first is an effect of eliminating the shortage accompanied by decrease in demand on low-income countries. Unlike high-income countries, the price elasticity of demand in poor nations is not low. The rate of decline in demand of low-income countries is higher than that of high-income countries with low elasticity.
By Masayuki Kashiwagi
Professor, Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University
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Since the beginning of this century, demand for bioethanol derived from corn (U.S.) and sugar cane (Brazil) has drastically increased against a backdrop of the crude oil price hike.
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Despite great need for food, demand considerably declines. It is alarming that this makes more people in poor countries unable to secure the minimum nutrient level to preserve their health. We must keep in mind that the number of undernourished people in the world at this point amounts to 850 million, and 96% of such population lives in developing countries.
Is a rapid change in the supply structure possible? The second point to argue is whether the shift of the supply structure through rapid technological advancement is feasible. Unlike industry, cultivated land with soil suitable for farming is essential to agriculture, and the land expansion is limited.
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The problem of an increasing number of undernourished people in low-income countries could be headed to resolution, if the demand curve moved to the upper right with income increase due to economic growth, or the supply curve moved to the lower right due to technological advancement.
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The limits of land expansion are supplemented with increased crop yields per unit area (yields per unit). Man obtained chemical fertilizers through a fixation of atmospheric nitrogen at the beginning of the 20th century. This released man from the limits, i.e., agricultural production under the conventional constraint of material circulation within regions. For 40 years from 1960 to 2000, whereas the world harvested area has hardly increased, yields per unit have risen 2.2 times, and grain production has increased 2.3 times. However, the average annual rates of increase in yields per unit and production volume have consistently dropped rapidly since the 1960s. In addition, the world arable land area has been decreasing recently due to soil erosion, overgrazing, salt damage, and water shortage. Meanwhile, it can be pointed out that slowing in the increase of yields per unit and devastation of arable land were caused by weak prices of agricultural products, i.e., real depreciation during this period. For example, the gap of yields per unit, existing between the cultivated land in developed countries and that in developing countries, indicates the possibility that there is high potential for increase in yields per unit by capital intensification in areas with low yields per unit due to rises in prices. Also, with regard to the production slump in the former Soviet Union such as Ukraine which used to be known as a breadbasket, realization of irrigation facilities in places with prices increasing raises the possibility of moderating fluctuation due to increases in yields per unit and drought. Furthermore, as the vast cerrado region in central Brazil has acid soil, it was used for grazing but not for cultivation. However, the soil improvement projects in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency since 1979 have enabled soybeans and other crops to be cultivated. The vast unimproved area may be improved and turned into cultivated land with price increases. Sub-Saharan Africa may witness land improvement and cultivation in the future. Price increases help push out the marginal farmland where differential rent
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is zero beyond the boundary to broaden economically-viable arable land. Farmland whose cultivation was abandoned because of its low productivity could return to within the marginal farmland. Also, the price increase made the European Union (EU) lift set-aside.
Sustainability of modern agriculture The problem of an increasing number of undernourished people in lowincome countries could be headed to resolution, if the demand curve moved to the upper right with income increase due to economic growth, or the supply curve moved to the lower right due to technological advancement. As for biofuel issues, if biofuel is made unprofitable due to a rise in corn prices, technological advancement of the cellulosic secondgeneration biomass not in competition with food may be promoted. Can the market, then, dispel the pessimism by adjusting functions? Seen from the aspect of sustainability, different figures of modern agriculture come into sight. Three points are pointed out here. First, agricultural resource problems of soil erosion, soil deterioration such as salt accumulation, and lower groundwater levels, have been aggravated even in super agricultural powers including the U.S with high productivity and solid assistance from the government, and Australia with its top-level productivity. It is said that the production of one ton of wheat results in one ton of soil erosion in the U.S., despite the fact that it supposedly takes more than 100 years to allow the 30-centimeter topsoil on the surface of the ground to be formed by soil microorganisms. Loss of cultivated land by soil deterioration has swept away effects of new agricultural land development. Secondly, unlike conventional agriculture bound by the constraint of material circulation within regions, modern agriculture with high land and labor productivity depends on exhaustible energies and materials. Not only agriculture in advanced countries, but also the green revolution in South East Asia triggered by prolific breed development was realized by a large input of chemical fertilisers and chemical agents
in addition to the control of bountiful water resources by irrigation. At present, exhaustion of phosphate and potash ores has been growing into a serious problem. As for energies, according to the research by Dr. Taketoshi Udagawa of the National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences, whereas paddy rice yields per unit rose 1.53 times, the input of energy sharply increased 5.15 times for 25 years from 1950 to 1975 in Japan. Also, 1 kilocalorie of input energy produced 1.27 kilocalories of rice in 1950, but only 0.38 kilocalories in 1974. The energy balance shows a heavy deficit, and there is nothing left of agriculture as the only energy-producing industry. While the Japanese rice cultivation in 1950 is a conventional form of agriculture dependent on manual labor and animal force, 1975 is the time when the mid-size mechanised systems including rice planters were boosted, and both mechanisation and chemicalisation progressed far ahead. An ecologist, E. A. Odum, pointed out that “in order to double crop yields, it is necessary to increase the fertiliser, pesticides, and work energy by about 10 times.” Thirdly, it is the environmental destruction brought on by modern agriculture. Without mentioning Silent Spring (authored by Rachel Carson), pesticide problems are serious. Also, Europe faced a serious excess of agricultural products in the 1980s. This surfeit was brought on by excessive intensification such as too much input of chemical fertilizers and increased livestock breeding density, causing serious environmental problems including contamination of soil and groundwater.
t h e E M i r ro r E 1 9 Cornucopia or Pandora’s box Agricultural modernisation developed considerably in developed countries’ agriculture in the 20th century, particularly in the latter half, led to a dramatic increase of productivity and serious limits at the same time. In the future, even in countries other than developed countries, the shift is required from relatively-stabilised (or stagnating) conventional agriculture to modern agriculture utilizing a large amount of exhaustible resources and water resources. Prolific breed developed by biotechnologies can be momentum for this shift. Fumio Egaitsu (in 2008) views such a shift, a typical example of which is a green revolution, as the “destruction” of some stability and order, the characteristics of conventional agriculture. He cites the expression, “Cornucopia or Pandora’s Box,” saying that there is no consensus about this destruction being creative or merely resulting in confusion and conflict (Agricultural Economics, The 3rd edition [Nogyo Keizaigaku Dai San Pan] (Iwanami Shoten)).
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At present, exhaustion of phosphate and potash ores has been growing into a serious problem.
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With one globe-equivalent resources and environmental capacity, we need to observe with great interest whether adjusting the power of the market can promptly solve the problems, or whether there is a guarantee that the so-called overshoot in terms of the ecological footprint does not grow into catastrophe before these problems are solved. ❙
Under the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe, it was in the late 1980’s that the agricultural environmental policy to reduce such problems was introduced, which subsequently grew into the mainstream of the EU agricultural policy. It was the policy to internalise external diseconomies of agricultural environmental load, and what lies behind are mainly excess farm produce and promotion of understanding of the people toward agricultural protection. Again, it is not certain whether it can be effective enough to hamper environmental destruction by modern agriculture. www.themirrorinspires.com
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Solar-powered classrooms for schools in developing countries An innovative project led by an academic is using solar generators to provide IT resources and hands-on science for students in developing countries.
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A major difficulty in teaching science subjects in developing countries, especially in rural schools, is that students are rarely able to get real-time experience of experiments.
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In rural Africa, it is a good example of how solar power is increasingly beating grid-based infrastructure in the race to bring electricity to those who lack access. A major difficulty in teaching science subjects in developing countries, especially in rural schools, is that students are rarely able to get real-time experience of experiments. This could be partly due to a lack of equipment, chemicals and facilities but mainly because of a lack of electricity and running water. Professor Tony Rest, a visiting chemistry academic at England’s University of Southampton, and Keith Wilkinson, formerly a teacher at the International School at Lusaka in Zambia, have devised a solar-powered solution based on a digital projector and low-cost solar energy panels to allow students to gain access to IT and other modern teaching methods. Professor Rest said: “The lack of electricity is a particularly serious matter for rural schools and this situation is unlikely to get better in the near to medium future. “With drawbacks to petrol generators,
due to difficulties in getting supplies and safety hazards, solar energy generators have become available at cost-effective prices and provide a sustainable answer as rural schools have an abundance of the basic energy source required to power them - sunshine.” Most data/video projectors require 200-300 watt and cannot be economically sustained by solar power in rural villages. But the advent of mini-projectors, which require about 50W of power, has revolutionised the situation and made battery-powered projection feasible. The solar energy generators, which consist of solar panels, batteries and inverters, can be linked to the projector for students to get practical classes via multimedia resources to show laboratory experiments and stress practical techniques. Professor Rest continued: “These experiences can be extended to other science subjects from physics, biology and maths, to subjects involving practical elements, such as engineering, and to craft subjects, including plumbing, carpentry and catering, where students need to see how to acquire skills. “By extending the breadth of subjects benefiting from the use of IT, the overall cost of using a solar energy generator is reduced. Another spin-off is that students in rural schools gain access to valuable IT skills.” There are wider spin-offs for countries where governments have placed a new priority in using solar power, for example India and Pakistan. The researchers have designed and field-tested several solar energy generators that can be linked to lap-top computers and data/video projectors. By adding a cell phone that can be exploited as a Bluetooth modem, the solar energy generator system has direct Internet access, even in a classroom with no mains electricity, and students are able to use assets such as the Google search engine. ❙
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The Future of Philosophy
By Seiji Takeda Professor, School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University
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Christianity’s loss of authority in Europe was, as we know, due to the emergence of the idea of a modern society which aims for “freedom for everyone.”
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The big issue currently faced by contemporary society is how it can redevelop a modern “principle of freedom” in a more real way.
future of society, nihilism is the inevitable result. Nowadays, there is certainly a growing sense of stagnation among young people.
When asked by the editorial department to explain the current boom in philosophy, what came to my mind was the Nietzsche’s phrase “European nihilism” at the end of the 19th century.
At such a time, according to Nietzsche, people seek the crutch of another “meaning of life” by rushing towards spirituality or religion, seeking new ideas from overseas, or trying to summon up some kind of old intellectual authority.
Nihilism was inescapable in Europe at that time. The reason was, of course, “the death of God,” or Christianity’s decisive loss of authority, which meant that everyone now had to determine the meaning of life themselves. This was a truly unprecedented situation. Nietzsche went on to say, with a scathing glance at the German culture of the time, that people did not yet understand the seriousness of the situation. The loss of this pillar of inner morality meant the inevitable emergence of various cultural and ideological reactions such as atheism, skepticism, the introducing of old morals, and scientism. Collectively, Nietzsche called them “decadence” of the time. According to him, they were no more than stopgap” ideological reactions in response to the era’s great loss of value, and what was really needed was the creation of a new value for a new era. The Nietzsche’s prediction of European nihilism is, I believe, coming true here in the 21st century in the form of a “global nihilism” spreading across the world. In Japan, for example, most people during the half century or so after World War II had a vision of hope for the future of society. That is to say, they at least felt that society would get gradually richer. For the young people who sensed the contradictions of society, Marxism showed a future society for humankind, after which Postmodernism emerged as the latest form of intellectual critical thought.
And when that happens, there is a boom in philosophy, which may function as one of the “stopgaps” to fill the moral void in an era of nihilism. But, of course, I am hopeful about this interest in philosophy. Let’s think about why Marxism and Postmodernism, the central ideas that supported the social ethics of young people in the 20th century, have now become invalid. Christianity’s loss of authority in Europe was, as we know, due to the emergence of the idea of a modern society which aims for “freedom for everyone.” Although it was modern European philosophers who came up with this idea, it was inevitable that Christianity’s image of a world in which all humankind looks up to a unique sacred authority would become outdated in modern nations that had been developed on the basis of mutual recognition of freedom. A world religion can, essentially, only wield political and ethical authority in a society that has a traditional structure of dominance. However, the idea of a “modern society” which people had hoped for ended up creating a violent struggle for survival between modern nationalist states, resulting in the unparalleled misery of colonial wars and two world wars.
Nowadays, however, both of these European orthodox ideas have lost some of their persuasiveness.
The idea of a modern society based on “freedom for everyone” stopped being a principle of people’s hopes. From that time on, instead of the modern ideas, Marxism and Postmodernism appeared as the fundamental ideas for rather criticizing the modern state or as new ideological authorities for doing so.
When people lose the pillar of their inner morality and see no hope for the
During the 20th century when people were acutely aware of the contradictions
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of the modern state, these two ideological authorities became significant emotional props for people because both of them were searching for a blueprint to be able to criticize and overthrow state power and the capitalist system.
freedom within one nation. The problem today is not that the modern democratic principle of mutual recognition is being abandoned, but whether this principle can be somehow extended into an international and a wider global principle.
But the 21st century has seen another large shift in global structure. This change is epitomized by the disappearance of the East-West confrontation, the construction of the American hegemonism, the development of a new capitalistic globalization, and the emergence of international terrorism. Just what has happened here?
Having taught philosophy for a long time, I am well aware of how the fundamental theories of Western modern philosophy have until now been greatly misunderstood.
Very broadly speaking, here is what I think. The problem now is no longer a matter of somehow overthrowing the modern state or capitalism. At present, various signs indicate that the activities of a global capitalism extending beyond the boundaries of the state are jeopardizing the world’s resource limits, yet in spite of this, contemporary society is unable to completely reject the economic system of capitalism. In other words, we are currently faced with the problem of having to control and oppose the runaway of global capitalism within the framework of the modern state (democracy). This situation is, I believe, the underlying reason why ideas such as the social progressive view of history, Marxism and Postmodernism, which had provided a prop for the people of the 20th century, became invalid. Many others have already commented on this new form of risk faced by the world. But no fundamental ideas for overcoming this crisis have actually emerged anywhere yet. Without any new hope, the nihilism of our times will inevitably spread. The key to new global thought in response to the crisis of our era is, I believe, in modern philosophy. I will try to explain the reason simply. First of all, it was modern philosophy (such as that of Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel) which, by creating a mutual recognition of freedom within a society, led to modern society’s fundamental principle of enabling freedom for all people. But this only meant the principle of
This is because people have long had the preconception that modern philosophy is the ideology of fraudulent modern nations. But they are sadly mistaken. The big issue currently faced by contemporary society is how it can redevelop a modern “principle of freedom” in a more real way.
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But the 21st century has seen another large shift in global structure.
It does not matter if people’s first approach to philosophy is a temporary one. Fundamental theories are, I believe, sure to capture the fundamental will of a new generation at any time. ❙
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Professor Takeda was born in Osaka in 1947 and is a second-generation Korean living in Japan. He graduated from Waseda University’s School of Political Science and Economics. He is currently a professor in the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University. He is a philosopher and literary critic. He started out with an essay on Korean authors in Japan. As well as literary criticism and the criticism of ideas, he remains active in philosophy focusing on human nature from existential perspective. Based on Husserl phenomenology, he has shaped the philosophy of the theory of desire, a principle theory of philosophical thought. In his post at university, he is in charge of subjects including philosophy, phenomenology, and contemporary thought. www.themirrorinspires.com
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By Robert J Shiller Princeton University Press
$Aus 37.95 $NZ 46.91
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Finance and the Good Society
The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
not less – and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals. Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society,
New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance--he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown.
Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society’s assets. He explains how people in financial careers-from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator-can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole.
But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognising that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general wellbeing. We need more financial innovation –
Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good. ❙
Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times
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Whether hailed as heroes or cast as threats to social order, entrepreneurs--and their innovations--have had an enormous influence on the growth and prosperity of nations.
By David S Landes, The Invention of Enterprise gathers Joel Mokyr and together, for the first time, leading William J Baumol economic historians to explore the Princeton University Press Footprint Books
AU$51.95 NZ$64.35
entrepreneur’s role in society from antiquity to the present. Addressing social and institutional influences from a historical context, each chapter examines entrepreneurship during a particular period and in an important geographic location.
The book chronicles the sweeping history of enterprise in Mesopotamia and Neo-Babylon; carries the reader through the Islamic Middle East; offers insights into the entrepreneurial history of China, Japan, and Colonial India; and describes the crucial role of the entrepreneur in innovative activity in Europe and the United States, from the www.themirrorinspires.com
medieval period to today. In considering the critical contributions of entrepreneurship, the authors discuss why entrepreneurial activities are not always productive and may even sabotage prosperity. They examine the institutions and restrictions that have enabled or impeded innovation, and the incentives for the adoption and dissemination of inventions. They also describe the wide variations in global entrepreneurial activity during different historical periods and the similarities in development, as well as entrepreneurship’s role in economic growth. The book is filled with past examples and events that provide lessons for promoting and successfully pursuing contemporary entrepreneurship as a means of contributing to the welfare of society. The Invention of Enterprise lays out a definitive picture for all who seek an understanding of innovation’s central place in our world. ❙
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The Rules of Inheritance
Claire Bidwell Smith, a fourteen-yearold only child, learns that both her parents have cancer. The fear of becoming a family of one compels her to make a series of fraught choices, set against the glittering backdrop of New York and Los Angeles— and the pall of regret. When the inevitable happens and Claire is alone in the world, she is inconsolable at the revelation that suddenly she is no one’s special person. It is only later, when
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Claire falls in love, marries and becomes a mother, that she emerges from the fog of grief. Using the five stages of grief as a window onto her personal experience, Claire Bidwell Smith has written a powerful memoir that is at once exquisite and profound. ❙
By Claire Bidwell Smith
Text Publishing
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Rupert Murdoch: Investigation of Political Power
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is the most powerful media organisation in the world. Murdoch’s commercial success is obvious, but less well understood is his successful pursuit of political goals, using News Corp as his vehicle. David McKnight uncovers Murdoch’s crusade for his unique brand of conservatism over three decades. Drawing on extensive original research, McKnight tracks NewsCorp’s pursuit of conservative ideas, from Reagan and Thatcher to the Tea Party and its war on Barack Obama. He shows how Murdoch’s political connections underpinned the scandal of phone hacking in Britain and thwarted investigation. He examines the secretive corporate culture of News Corporation: its private political seminars for editors, its sponsorship of think tanks and its recurring editorial campaigns around the world. Its success is reflected in the fact that the
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campaigns are familiar to us all: small government and market deregulation, skepticism on climate change, support for neo-conservative adventures such as Iraq and relentless criticism of all things liberal. For all its power and influence, News Corporation is now in a profound crisis. The mobile phone hacking scandal has irreparably tarnished its reputation. Its ability to use its news media to bully politicians may be fatally weakened. In the longer term its confident free market ideology is no longer the orthodoxy since the arrival of Obama and the global financial crisis.
By David McKnight
Allen and Unwin
His unwavering support for the invasion of Iraq has backfired and his flip-flopping on climate change has discredited him. News Corporation faces an uncertain future as digital technology eats into his newspaper empire which has been the basis of Murdoch’s political power. ❙
Sarah Thornhill
Sarah Thornhill is the youngest child of William Thornhill, convict-turnedlandowner on the Hawkesbury River. She grows up in the fine house her father is so proud of, a strong-willed young woman who’s certain where her future lies.
Kate Grenville takes us back to the early Australia of The Secret River and the Thornhill family. This is Sarah’s story. It’s a story of tangled secrets, a story of loss and unlooked-for happiness, and a story about the silent spaces of the past.
But the past is waiting in ambush with its dark legacy. There’s a secret in Sarah’s family, a piece of the past kept hidden from the world and from her. A secret Jack can’t live with. A secret that changes everything, for both of them.
This powerful novel will enthrall readers of Kate Grenville’s bestselling The Secret River, winner of the Commonwealth Writers‘ Prize. Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, 2012. ❙
By Kate Grenville Text Publishing
$Aus 29.95 $NZ37.00
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Biologist running ahead of bulldozers
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The rate of human population growth is having an effect on our planet that is equivalent to the impact of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
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An evolutionary biologist is working against the clock to help understand and classify plants before they become extinct.
life got to be the way it is, while someone’s throwing away the pieces as you work, so you can never get the complete picture.”
Professor Scott Armbruster said: “It is vital work, to classify them and understand their biology before we lose them.”
In addition to using an award to travel and study named and as-yet unnamed species of plants and their pollinators, Armbruster will also be able to devote some of the funding effort to DNA sequencing, in order to reconstruct the groups’ evolutionary histories.
Armbruster said: “I feel I am running to keep ahead of the bulldozers, literally. My work has a real sense of urgency. If I wait too long, key species may become extinct before I find them. Analysis of evolutionary processes helps us understand how we and other species got here, and if that doesn’t matter, what does?” Professor Armbruster said that in the 30 years he had been working on plant evolutionary processes, about 10 per cent of the tropical species he studied now appear to have become extinct. He was awarded a Wolfson Research Merit Award of 70,000 pounds for a project on the evolution of flower diversity. The award is funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Royal Society. Professor Armbruster added: “This grant will help fund field trips to Australia and South America to study the floral evolution of selected species. We are losing 10,000-30,000 species of plants and animals a year, every year, year after year. “As an evolutionary scientist it is like trying to find pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that might explain who we are and how
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He continued: “This grant will also help me raise awareness of the precarious position we are in on this planet. If scientists can engage the public so they understand and are fascinated by nature, then they might help do something about saving it.” Professor Armbruster believes the human population explosion is ultimately to blame for today’s disastrous rate of species extinction, adding: “The rate of human population growth is having an effect on our planet that is equivalent to the impact of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. “Until the Middle Ages, Earth’s population was largely stable and low. But since then it has grown steadily from about half a billion to nearly seven billion today. “The human population shows no signs of stabilising until it reaches 9-11 billion which is about five billion beyond what the planet can support sustainably without losing a large proportion of the amazing species with whom we share this remarkable planet.” ❙
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Pilgrims journey
Pilgrims’ Journey on the Great Mountain with Significance for Man – A Blessing Tour was held recently on Lushan Mountain. A warm welcome ceremony was held at the mountain resort’s Beishan Gate, then, a prayer ceremony was held at Lushan Five Religions Blessing Cultural Park, and leaders from several areas with religious significance gave welcome speeches. The next morning, another welcome event was held in Xiufeng Peak. Mt. Lushan is known as a place of harmony and gathering point for five of the world’s great religions. The Journey thoroughly embodies the spirit of the religious experience and rich expression of Chinese culture. The Lushan Tourism enthusiastically organised activities bringing together natural, religious, historical and cultural references. The tour included an intensive look at the history of the religions, tracing to the original sages and wise men and paying homage to holy sites while praying for good health and safety. More than 3,000 guests registered via a participating travel agency. They explored the great temples and the holy
sites that tell the development of the Chinese version of Buddhism, and the home of Pure Land Buddhism, China’s most popular form of the religion. They then visited Xiufeng Peak for the most exquisite natural scenery in the region known as a favorite gathering place of ancient and contemporary Chinese poets, artists and scholars. The pilgrims took a moment to appreciate the unique time in history when Chinese and western cultures collided and profited from the exchanges. Lastly they experienced beauty and harmony in Five Religions Park. Lushan Tourism hopes that every guest was able to have a real opportunity to express their thanks for the beauty of life as they bring their blessings bring back to their hometowns. Of special significance was the blessing tour and the Life Free Pond inauguration ceremony, held at the Five Religions Park with inspiring speeches, a ribbon cutting ceremony, a period of prayer, the symbolic blessing event where captive fish and birds are set free, receiving of prayer knots, and ringing the bell for blessings. ❙
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Mt. Lushan is known as a place of harmony and gathering point for five of the world’s great religions.
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Daylight saving time and biological clocks
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Circadian rhythms are rhythms on about a 24hour cycle, such as the rhythms of body temperature, blood pressure, and the sleep-wake rhythm.
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It is not just 24-hours so that humans can respond to variations in the length of the day (seasonal variations). The cycle 0.5 hours longer than the 24-hour rotation period of the earth means that the morning sun pushes our biological clock forward by 0.5 hours every day. Repeated stimuli synchronising circadian rhythms to generate daily rhythms are called entraining agents. Light-dark cycles, feeding cycles, and temperature cycles are known as some of the important entraining agents.
Electricity consumption increases in proportion to human social activities. One problem in particular is the large difference between the maximum and minimum electricity consumptions during a day. The daily rhythm of electricity consumption is formed by social activities conducted according to the biological clocks inside living bodies. Currently, there is a movement toward efforts for less electricity consumption through the introduction of daylight saving time in summer, where the clock is set forward by one hour.
Photic entrainment and biological clocks It has been found that morning light at wakeup time is important in the advancement of human biological clocks, and that they may be delayed by exposure to strong light at night in convenience stores or other places.
Circadian rhythm controls rhythm in around one day Circadian rhythms are rhythms on about a 24-hour cycle, such as the rhythms of body temperature, blood pressure, and the sleep-wake rhythm.
If you are exposed to strong light at night and sleep past the time in the morning when your biological clock is supposed to be advanced during a weekend from Friday through Saturday and Sunday, your biological clock is delayed day by day. If you awake at the normal time on
Because the behaviour of clock genes is well known related to this rhythm, the term of biological clocks practically means clocks that activate this rhythm. The cycle of biological clocks controlling the circadian rhythms of humans is about 24.5 hours.
Continues page 30
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Monday after the weekend, you may show symptoms called Blue Monday. In general, the effect of light synchronising biological clocks is proportional to the product of the length of light irradiation time and the strength of the light.
Biological clocks are distributed
The around your body dumping It can easily be anticipated that circadian rhythms of waste are generated by many clock genes expressed at the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), where the master clock water exists. Studies revealed, however, that the rhythms near water are also tapped out at the cerebral cortex and the supplies, hippocampus in the brain, the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the skin, and others. rare to In a hierarchical system compared to an orchestra, begin SCN is the conductor (the master clock), and the Trilogy Travellers pack with, is musical instruments are represented by clocks located valued at $39.90 in the peripheral organs including the cerebral cortex Whether you are off on a short weekend away or anow long-haulbeing flight and the hippocampus in the brain (brain clocks), the addressed overseas, Trilogy Travellers includes the perfect selection of five liver, and the heart (peripheral clocks). SCN instructs travel-friendly skincare essentials, to counteract the dehydrating and more the timing of play to make a harmonious orchestra. and unbalancing affects of travel and to ensure you arrive at your carefully Feeding entrainment and biological clocks destination feeling refreshed with a glowing complexion. Trilogy Travellers includes a Cream Cleanser, a Vital regulated Moisturising Recent studies have found that keeping a regular Cream, a Ultra Hydrating Body Cream, a Hydrating in Mist the Toner US. dietary pattern plays an important role in phase AND WIN EITHER A:
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resetting of biological clocks. It has also been revealed that rhythm in the liver is easily synchronized with a meal after a long period of fasting—i.e., breakfast— and easily digestible starchy materials are good for it. Because feeding entrainment occurs at peripheral clocks and clocks in the brain excluding ones at SCN, it is also a method useful for remedying rhythm irregularity such as jet lag.
Daylight saving time and staggered working hours
New Weleda Discovery Pack valued at $29.90 To celebrate their 90th anniversary, Weleda have produced a Limited Edition Discovery Pack containing six of their fabulous skincare minis. It’s a great starter kit for those new to Weleda or as a gorgeous gift for someone special. Included are the Sea Buckthorn Hand Cream, Pomegranate Firming Serum, Skin Food, Citrus Body Wash, Salt Toothpaste, Wild Rose Body Oil and an Iris Facial Lotion sachet. For futher information on subscribing go to page 28 Or email: words@xtra.co.nz www.themirrorinspires.com
Daylight saving time is a system employing a time zone where one hour is added to the current hours, or simply an additional hour, for the purpose of efficiently using hours when the sun is in the sky in summer to work while it is still light out and extend night leisure time. This scheme is widely used in European countries with high latitude and long sunlight hours in summer. By the way, there is a similar idea called staggered working hours for effectively using summer morning hours. Let me explain the difference between them. Suppose that a company starts work from nine o’clock. Moving this start time to eight o’clock constitutes staggered working hours. Whereas the start time remains nine o’clock under a daylight saving time scheme, on the other hand, the time by which employees need to arrive at the company corresponds to eight o’clock before introduction of daylight saving time. ❙
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