Solutions Volume 6, Issue 5

September-October 2015, Volume 6, Issue 5

For a sustainable and desirable future

Solutions Saudi Women Take to the Political Arena

by Ilina Talwar The Role of Religion in Shaping Humanity’s Response to Climate Change

by Andrew Hoffman Climate-Smart Agriculture: The Solution to Land Degradation?

by Ademola Braimoh Towards Cultures of Aliveness: An Anthropocene Manifesto

by Andreas Weber and Hildegard Kurt

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These Three Colleges Stopped Investing in Fossil Fuels— One Year Later, Their Endowments Are Doing Just Fine

by A.C. Shilton

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Costanza, R. (2015). Sustainable Development Versus Un-Economic Growth. Solutions 6(5): 1. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/sustainable-development-versus-un-economic-growth

Editorial by Robert Costanza

Sustainable Development versus Un-Economic Growth

S

omething significant happened in New York City on September 25, 2015. The UN formally adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These global targets, agreed to by all UN member states, embody an essential recognition that we live in a finite and interconnected world where we must integrate prosperity, equity, and sustainability.

Under the new guidelines, economic ‘growth’ must be inclusive and sustainable and is only one of 17 goals. In addition, there is explicit recognition that: “We are committed to developing broader measures of progress to complement gross domestic product (GDP).”

The SDGs thus echo the growing recognition that single-minded emphasis on GDP growth that has dominated national policy since World War II is no longer appropriate. GDP is merely an aggregate measure of marketed economic activity. Some of that activity is not what we want more of (i.e. the costs of crime, pollution, and inequality) nor is it sustainable and inclusive. It is like a company trying to maximize gross revenues with no accounting of costs.

By some estimates, when these costs are accounted for, there has been no real net growth in the global economy for decades. Even though GDP has been expanding consistently since 1945, with only the occasional downturn, since the 1980s, this growth has been “uneconomic” because it hasn’t taken into account the costs of inequality, environmental damage, and other factors that affect welfare. The real economy—all the things that support human wellbeing—is much larger than the market economy as estimated by GDP. The GDP was never designed as a measure

of overall societal well-being—the real economy—and its continued misuse for that purpose needs to stop. By broadening the range of national policy goals to include all the elements of the real economy, the SDGs will contribute substantially to real progress.

The real economy includes our natural capital assets—all of the gifts from nature that we do not have to produce—and the immensely valuable but nonmarketed ecosystem services those assets provide. These services, including climate control, water supply, storm protection, pollination, recreation, and many more, have been estimated to contribute significantly more to human well-being than all the world’s GDP combined. But our cavalier overlooking of these contributions has led to massive depletion of these assets. Since 1997, we have lost globally at least US$20 trillion per year in nonmarketed ecosystem services, larger than the GDP of the USA. We have also overlooked the contributions of social capital—all of our formal and informal networks, institutions, and cultures—to supporting human well-being. Many countries have become much more unequal since 1980. This rising inequality has resulted in worsening social problems, worsening ability to build and maintain social capital, and lower overall quality of life.

Most of the gains in GDP over the last several decades have gone to the top one percent of income earners, while the 99 percent have seen stagnant real incomes in the context of deteriorating social and natural assets.

Perhaps the most compelling dissonance is how we talk about and deal with climate disruption. The climate is one of our key natural assets, and

SDG goal 13 states: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” Yet investing in maintaining a stable climate is too often misperceived as a hindrance to economic growth, rather than the protection of an asset that underlies the operation of the entire human enterprise. Climate disruption needs to be included as a cost against GDP growth that is at least as important as the loss or gain of factories, roads, and houses.

Likewise, the depletion of social capital caused by rising inequality needs to be counted against any gains in GDP. One indicator that accounts for changes in social and natural capital is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI).

The GPI adjusts personal consumption by income distribution, adds nonmarketed services like volunteer and household work, and subtracts the costs of natural capital depletion like air and water pollution. Globally, GPI per capita has not improved since 1978, even though GDP per capita has more than doubled. We have been experiencing ‘un-economic growth’ globally for almost 40 years.

Two states in the US—Maryland and Vermont—have adopted the GPI to help guide policy and several other states are considering the same. It is time for the rest of the world to wake up to the reality of our uneconomic growth policies and practices and move to build a real economy that provides sustainable , equitable prosperity for all.

The SDG process is an important and long overdue move in this direction.

Going forward, world leaders armed with the SDGs can discuss how to improve real economic performance and genuine sustainable development rather than merely increases in environmentally disruptive, inequitably distributed marketed goods and services. The future of our planet depends on it.

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Contents

September/October 2015

Features

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Laudato si’ and the Role of Religion in Shaping Humanity’s Response to Climate Change

by Andrew Hoffman

The Pope’s recent encyclical letter Laudato si’ has emphasized the importance of religious morality as a motivator to take action on climate change. The encyclical elevates climate change to not just an environmental issue, but a moral responsibility.

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The Role of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Addressing Land Degradation

by Ademola Braimoh

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies offer promising solutions to issues surrounding land degradation, food scarcity, and climate change.

Scaling up CSA will offer alternative approaches to managing land sustainably and increasing agricultural productivity under the new realities of a changing climate.

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Towards Cultures of Aliveness: Politics and Poetics in a Postdualistic Age— an Anthropocene Manifesto

by Andreas Weber and Hildegard Kurt

It is now the age of the “Anthropocene.” The real opportunity of this new era is to understand that man and nature pertain to a reality creating embodied processes of transformative relationships, expressive meaning, and true inwardness in biological subjects.

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On the Web

Perspectives

www.thesolutionsjournal.org Explore the Solutions website for more content and interactivity. What are your solutions? Share your vision for a sustainable and desirable future and learn more about the Solutions community.

Envisioning

Saudi Women Take to the Political Arena— Even if It Means Sitting in the Back Seat by Ilina Talwar

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These Three Colleges Stopped Investing in Fossil Fuels— One Year Later, Their Endowments Are Doing Just Fine by A.C. Shilton

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Oral History Project Takes on Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan

by Audrey Pence

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Assimilative Capacity Trading: An Integrated Solution to Problems Related to Freshwater Use by Jairus Josol

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The Place of Muslim Women in Islamic Space by Zafirah Zein

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On the Ground Cycling 14,000 Kilometers for Women

by Özge Sebzeci Four young Dutch women have spent the last year cycling over 14,000 kilometers, spanning 22 countries over 400 days, all in the name of women’s rights.

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The Teacher Education Program at Northern California University, Oyster Bay by Bruce Cooperstein

and Arthur Pearl In 2025, the Education for the Future Project is taking a radical approach to education, reforming the ways in which we prepare teachers, standard curriculums, classroom practices, and how we view students in the greater educational system.

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Solutions in History

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Drought in California: Entering a New Water Future by Philip Garone A new climate regime in

California is challenging the state’s century-old approach to managing water. Solutions will necessitate a critical evaluation of historical water allocation in the state, and substantive changes to the state’s economy looking to the future.

Idea Lab Noteworthy

06 Interview

Promoting Literacy in Unconventional Ways

Leading Nonviolent Movements: An Interview with Srd¯a Popović Interview by

Audrey Pence Since helping to found the Serbian resistance group Otpor! that helped to remove dictator Slobodan Milošević, Srða Popović has become a global leader in nonviolent activism.

Popović speaks about his principals of success, how to use humor as a strategy, and the role of the internet in modern movements.

Turkey’s New Wildlife Corridor Aims to Bring Balance Back to Biodiversity Hotspots Science and Islam: Rebuilding a Modern Iraq ©Nature: Ecological Artist Uses Copyright Law to Prevent a New Pipeline

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In Review Making Climate Resonate by Robert V. Bartlett

Editorial

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Sustainable Development versus Un-Economic Growth

by Robert Costanza

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Solutions Editors-in-Chief: Robert Costanza, Ida Kubiszewski

Contributors 2

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Associate Editors: David Orr, Jacqueline McGlade Managing Editor: Colleen Maney Senior Editors: Christina Asquith, Jack Fairweather History Section Editor: Frank Zelko Book & Envisioning Editor: Bruce Cooperstein Editors: Naomi Stewart, Dana Rawls, Cherie Stapleton Graphic Designer: Kelley Dodd

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Copy Editors: Anna Sottile, Nadine L. Business Manager: Ian Chambers Interns: Ilina Talwar, Zafirah Zein Editorial Board: Gar Alperovitz, Vinya Ariyaratne, Robert Ayres, Peter Barnes, William Becker, Lester Brown, Alexander Chikunov, Cutler Cleveland, Raymond Cole, Rita Colwell, Robert Corell, Herman Daly, Thomas Dietz, Josh Farley, Jerry Franklin, Susan Joy Hassol, Paul Hawken, Richard Heinberg, Jeffrey Hollender, Buzz Holling, Terry Irwin, Jon Isham, Wes Jackson, Tim Kasser, Tom Kompas,

1. Andrew Hoffman—Andrew J.

Simon, Gus Speth, Larry Susskind, David Suzuki, John

Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, a position that holds joint appointments at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School of Natural Resources & Environment. Andy also serves as Education Director of the Graham Sustainability Institute. His webpage is www.andrewhoffman.net.

Todd, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Alvaro Umaña, Sim van der Ryn,

2. Andreas Weber—Dr. Andreas

Frances Moore Lappé, Rik Leemans, Wenhua Li, Thomas Lovejoy, Hunter Lovins, Manfred Max-Neef, Peter May, Bill McKibben, William J. Mitsch, Mohan Munasinghe, Norman Myers, Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Bill Rees, Wolfgang Sachs, Peter Senge, Vandana Shiva, Anthony

Peter Victor, Mathis Wackernagel, John Xia, Mike Young

Subscriptions: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/subscribe Email: solutions@thesolutionsjournal.com

Sponsoring Inquiries: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/sponsor Email: ida.kub@thesolutionsjournal.com

On the Cover Anar Gula, mother of 11, casts her ballot for President Hamid Karzai in the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan on August 20, 2009. In December of this year, Afghanistan’s neighbor in the region, Saudi Arabia, will hold the first elections in which women are allowed to vote. Cultural and social barriers will still prevent many female voters from reaching the polls, however. Photo by Holly Pickett.

Solutions is subject to the Creative Commons license except where otherwise stated.

Weber is a Berlin based book and magazine writer, translator, and independent scholar. He has degrees in Marine Biology and Cultural Studies. Andreas’ work focuses on a re-evaluation of our understanding of the living. He proposes to understand organsims as subjects and hence the biosphere as a meaning-creating and poetic reality. He has put forth his ideas in several books and has contributed to major German newspapapers and magazines. He teaches at Leuphana University Lüneburg and at Berlin University of the Fine Arts. His latest book, The Biology of Wonder. Aliveness, Feeling, and the Metamorphosis of Science (New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C) appears in early 2016. His webpage is www.autor-andreas-weber.de and www.cultures-of-enlivenment.org/en.

3. Hildegard Kurt—Hildegard Kurt,

PhD, is a German cultural researcher, author, and social sculpture practitioner.

Her work focuses on art and sustainability, culture and sustainability, aesthetic education, and intercultural dialogue. She teaches and lectures internationally, lastly as Senior Lecturer in Social Sculpture at the School of Arts at Oxford Brookes University, and has initiated several cultural projects. Her most recent book is The

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Red Flower. Aesthetic Practice in Times of Change (2013, in German), co-authored with artist Shelley Sacks. In 2004 she co-founded the und.Institut fuer Kunst, Kultur und Zukunftsfaehigkeit (Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability), based in Berlin. Together with Andreas Weber she has initiated the institute´s new program Cultures of Enlivenment.

4. Ademola Braimoh—Dr.

Ademola Braimoh has expertise in human-environment relationships and vulnerability of ecosystems to global change.

Dr. Braimoh studied at the Center for Development Research, Bonn in Germany, and at Cambridge University in England.

He formerly worked on the Global Water System Project, was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Ecosystems and People Program at United Nations University, a Professor of Land Change Science at the Center for Sustainability Science, and as Executive Director of the Global Land Project in Japan. At the World Bank, Dr. Braimoh works at the Science–Policy interface of Climate-Smart Agriculture, helping clients to realize increased productivity, enhanced resilience, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes.

5. Robert Costanza—Robert Costanza

is a Chair of Public Policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University. Costanza is cofounder and former president of the International Society for Ecological Economics. He has authored or coauthored over 350 scientific papers and reports on his work have appeared in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Economist, The New York Times, Science, Nature, National Geographic, and National Public Radio.

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6. Srd̄a Popović—Srd̄a Popović was

8. Zafirah Mohamed Zein—Zafirah

one of the founders of the Serbian nonviolent resistance group Otpor! Otpor!’s campaign against Serbian president Slobodan Milošević was successful in October 2000 when thousands of protestors took over the Serbian Parliament.

After the revolution, Popović served a term as a member of the Serbian National Assembly. In 2003, Popović and others started the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS).

CANVAS has worked with activists from 46 different countries, including Zimbabwe, Burma, Iran, and Venezuela, spreading knowledge of the nonviolent strategies and tactics used by Otpor! In November 2011, Foreign Policy Magazine listed Srd̄a Popović as one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” of 2011 for inspiring the Arab Spring protesters. In 2012 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2014 he was listed as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in Davos. His recent book, Blueprint for Revolution, offers a fun and humorous look at nonviolent activism worldwide.

Zein is a fourth-year student at Northeastern University in Boston, where she is studying Journalism and International Affairs with a concentration in Middle East Studies. Her dream is to become a Middle East foreign correspondent, and she is excited to be reporting for the Fuller Project for International Reporting in Istanbul, Turkey. She has previously worked for Inter Press Service in New York and interned in humanitarian development in India.

Runner’s World Magazine and Men’s Journal. Her work has also appeared in Slate, Pacific Standard, Yes! Magazine, The Center for Humans & Nature, and many other publications. She has been a managing editor and associate editor for various publications. Previously, her career was in the bicycling industry in marketing, traveling the country with her dog selling bicycles and organizing demo events for Specialized Bicycle Components. A.C. is a mid-pack marathoner and two-time Ironman finisher.

9. Ilina Talwar—Ilina Talwar is a third

12. Özge Sebzeci—Özge Sebzeci is

year student at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts where she is pursuing a dual major in International Affairs and Economics. Although born and raised in India, her studies center on the Middle East. In 2011, Talwar went to Jordan for the regional Round Square Conference.

She is currently working with the Fuller Project for International Reporting in Istanbul, Turkey as a journalism intern and regularly writes for Solutions. Previously, Talwar has worked with The British High Commission as well as Carlsberg India.

She hopes to pursue a career in foreign policy and global development.

working as an assistant bureau-chief and photographer with The Fuller Project for International Reporting. She graduated from the International Relations Department at Galatasaray University, and is currently pursuing master's degree through the Photography Department of Marmara University. She is from Istanbul, Turkey.

7. Audrey Pence—Audrey Pence is

currently in her third year at Northeastern University, where she is studying International Affairs and Arabic. She spent one month in Amman, Jordan studying Arabic in the summer of 2014 and spent the first half of 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey working for Solutions and the Fuller Project. She also recently completed an internship for the Center for Solutions in International Studies in Washington, D.C. and spent a month studying international conflict and negotiation in the Balkans. She hopes to pursue a career that will keep her engaged in foreign affairs through a form of journalism.

10. Jairus Josol—Jairus Josol is

Master of Climate Change student at the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australia National University. She has previously worked as an environmental researcher at Clean Air Asia.

11. A.C. Shilton—A.C. Shilton is

an award-winning freelance journalist and editor, whose work has appeared in national and regional magazines, newspapers, and websites. She is the columnist for Outside Online’s “Eat & Drink,” and a regular contributor to

13. Robert V. Bartlett—Robert V.

Bartlett is the Gund Professor of the Liberal Arts and Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Vermont. He previously served on the faculties of Purdue University and Texas Tech University. He has twice been a Senior Fulbright Scholar (Lincoln University and University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and Trinity College Dublin). In 2007 he was Distinguished Fulbright Chair of Environmental Policies at the Turin Polytechnic Institute and University in Italy. He has published many research articles and ten books, most recently (with Walter F. Baber) Consensus and Global Environmental Governance: Deliberative Democracy in Nature’s Regime, The MIT Press, 2015.

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14. Bruce Cooperstein—Bruce

Cooperstein is Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Santa Cruz, where he has taught since 1975. He was a Pew National Scholar for Carnegie Fellows from 1999–2000 and was Provost of College Eight (one of the ten resident Colleges at UCSC) from 1984–1990. In addition to his mathematical specialties in group theory and incidence geometry, he is interested in the interaction of education, politics, economics, and ecology. He has written numerous op-ed pieces on these and other topics as well as articles on economic conversion and the economic foundations of peace.

15. Arthur Pearl—Art Pearl has been

working on education for sustainability, justice, and democracy for longer than he cares to remember. He is the author, among other books, of The Atrocity of Education and The Democratic Classroom.

16. Philip Garone—Philip Garone

earned a Ph.D. in History and an M.S. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis. He is currently Associate Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus, where he teaches California, Environmental, Western, and U.S. history. He has published on the environmental history of the Central Valley of California as well as challenges to the management of public lands in the face of climate change. He recently completed an environmental history of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for the California Delta Protection Commission, and is beginning a new book project on the terminal lakes of the Great Basin.

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https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/noteworthy

Idea Lab Noteworthy Promoting Literacy in Unconventional Ways

by Ilina Talwar Sitting still for even twenty minutes can be quite a challenge for restless, fidgety seven-year-olds as they get their hair cut. Courtney Holmes, a barber from Iowa, gives these kids a meaningful distraction, as he not only cuts their hair, but also takes on illiteracy.

The benefits of reading are well known, however, there has been a sharp decline in reading among children in the last couple of decades.

According to a survey conducted

by The National Literacy Trust, 40 percent of kids in the United States between the ages of eight and 16 used to read daily in 2005, while only 30 percent did so in 2011. With digital technologies such as the iPad, Play Station, and Wii taking over children’s lives, reading has become a less preferred form of entertainment.

A barber in Dubuque, Iowa tried to combat this problem by doing what he knows best: cutting hair. Courtney Holmes spent the day giving free haircuts to kids in his local community at the annual Back to School Bash under the condition that they would read to him. As a child, Holmes did not have

much access to books. Other than the books provided by school, the only thing he read was the Bible. “I was not a kid that got to read at an early age,” he says. Now 45 and a farther of two, he reads to his kids every night before tucking them into bed.

Not all parents place such a great emphasis on reading, as most kids in his community still struggle to read.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and sometimes that means that lessons in literacy come from unlikely places. The Spark Family Hair Salon, where Holmes works, aims to carry forward his efforts and make the reading event a monthly endeavor.

Melanie Holtsman

Courtney Holmes gave free haircuts to children in his local community at the annual Back to School Bash under the condition that they would read to him.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy Turkey’s New Wildlife Corridor Aims to Bring Balance Back to Biodiversity Hotspots

by Ilina Tatwar Holding the title of the “Biodiversity Superpower of Europe,” Turkey is one of the only countries that is home to three out of 34 biodiversity wildlife hotspots in the world: the Caucasus, Irano-Anatolian, and the Mediterranean. However, due to the lax approach taken by the government regarding environmental regulations, Turkey ranked 109th out of 132 countries in the 2012 World Environmental Performance Index. These low rankings are representative of the harsh decline in its carnivorous population. The Asiatic lion, Iranian cheetah, and Caspian tiger are already extinct, while others such as the gray wolf, brown bear, lynx, and caracal are on the brink of extinction.

KuzeyDoga, an NGO led by University of Utah professor and Turkish national Dr. Cagan Sekercioglu, who was responsible for pushing the government to take up this cause and spearheaded efforts to establish Turkey’s first Wildlife Corridor that was publicly announced in June 2012. Covering 23,500 hectares and 82 kilometers in length, the corridor extends from the Sarikamis Forest–Allahuekber Mountains to the Black Sea and Caucasus forests in Turkey and Georgia.

Wildlife corridors serve as “traveling avenues for wildlife species between two similar yet fragmented habitat areas.” As well as providing a safe passage for animals by connecting isolated populations of wildlife

Carl Clifford

A harsh decline in Turkey’s carnivorous populations has included the extinction of the Caspian tiger, pictured.

across the northeast through a process of reforestation, the wildlife corridor promotes trans-boundary conservation. As two thirds of the corridor is already covered with forests, the government has planned to plant an additional 4.5 million trees to fill the remaining area. Apart from reforestation, park rangers will be hired to ensure the full protection of the corridor, officially labeled a “Protected Forest.”

Over the last couple of years, Dr. Sekercioglu has raised concerns over excessive dam construction, the draining of wetlands, and overirrigation, as the government pours more and more money into development projects. Four thousand dams and hydro-electric power plants have been commissioned to be built by 2023. The building of the wildlife corridor is the first step towards restoring the balance and preserving Turkey’s natural habitat.

Science and Islam: Rebuilding a Modern Iraq

by Ilina Talwar Iraq has a long history of contributing to scientific discovery, however as religious leaders increasingly take control of the war-torn nation, that tradition is under threat.

Once a hub for scholars and intellectuals, Iraq and the Middle East were the epicenter of knowledge and learning. Home to Bayt al-Hikma, or the House of Wisdom, between the 10th and 13th centuries, medieval Iraq experienced what was known as the Golden Age of Islam, revolutionizing scientific thought.

However, in recent years there has been a sharp divide between Islam and science, exacerbated by war and unrest. The lack of scientific material available in Iraq is particularly damaging to the country’s development, having severe repercussions on

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Idea Lab Noteworthy

Christopher Rose

A monument to ancient Islamic astronomer Ulugh Beg in a mosque in Uzbekistan. Ulugh Beg was a figure in the Golden Age of Islam in the 14th century.

Modern Islam is facing a sharp divide between the religion and scientific thought.

education, public policy, and socioeconomic advancement.

However, in recent years, a group of young Iraqis have taken a stand against the Islamic government’s strict control over media, and are working to promote ‘radical’ ideas outside of religion.

Working side by side, The Iraqi Translation Project and Real Sciences translate works of science into Arabic, and make them available to the public. Founded in 2011 and 2013, respectively, both organizations have grown to gain over 13,000 followers on Facebook.

Often translating texts on Darwin, evolutionary theory, outer space, and

human physiology, they are passionate about science and believe that it will help reduce sectarian conflicts in their community.

In 2013, members of the two groups started an initiative, called “I am Iraqi, I Read,” in response to government crackdowns on the sale and publication of literary material. Hundreds of people gathered on the famous Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad for a book festival and peaceful demonstration in support of rebuilding the lost culture of reading.

A symbol of Islamic philosophy in Iraq, the market for books is dominated by religious works, often endorsing sectarianism, nationalism,

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pan-Arabism, and even communism.

Books based on science and reason are rare commodities, and difficult to find in the local market.

Government regulations prohibit scientific articles or works, which are thought to go against the teachings of Islam. In parts of Iraq controlled

by ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), where the government has little influence, ISIS fighters are systematically indoctrinating young children and building a new generation of Islamic extremists willing to fight for their cause. Teaching subjects such as math, science, and music are banned.

Last year, in the city of Mosul, ISIS fighters carried out a series of home

Idea Lab Noteworthy invasions, getting rid of any nonIslamic books.

Pioneers, rebels, and revolutionaries in their field, Real Sciences and The Iraqi Translation Project are paving the way for a new, liberal Iraq.

©Nature: Ecological Artist Uses Copyright Law to Prevent a New Pipeline

by Colleen Maney

The most effective solutions meet threats head-on with positive and highly innovative thinking. This is certainly the approach behind ecological artist Aviva Rahmani’s new activist art installation. Facing the threat of fossil fuel expansions and a new natural gas pipeline, residentactivists enlisted the help of Rahmani in the quiet hamlet of Peekskill, New York. Nestled in the Hudson Valley, Peekskill is one of many picturesque towns that could be drastically and negatively impacted by the Algonquin pipeline expansion proposed by Spectra Energy.

Rahmani’s unexpected response has the potential to transform environmental activism. With the goal of exploring whether copyright law can be leveraged to protect natural habitats, Rahmani has designed an interdisciplinary symphonic art project as a permanent installation on private property directly in the path of the proposed pipeline. The project, entitled Blued Trees, is integrated into the flora of the site. Waves printed on trees are conceived as notes for a musical composition. An international “Greek Chorus” was also initiated as part of the overture. On October 4, a full symphony of the piece was performed and video-documented at multiple locations.

Aviva Rahmani

Trees from the second movement of the Blued Trees symphony.

In a defiant and innovative action, Rahmani has filed a federal copyright to protect Blued Trees, citing the Visual Artists Rights Act, which asserts the “moral rights of art” against destruction. The next step in the legal process will be a cease-and-desist notification to Spectra Energy.

Blued Trees is an element of Rahmani’s Gulf to Gulf project, sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts in an effort to use art to

impact global climate policy. A brief film on the Blued Trees “overture” launch can be viewed at: https://vimeo. com/channels/943134.

Rahmani’s work is known for using art to effect environmental change in projects ranging from landscape restorations to museum venues. She is an affiliate at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a PhD candidate at the University of Plymouth, in the UK.

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Cooperstein, B. (2015). The Teacher Education Program at Northern California University, Oyster Bay. Solutions 6(5): 10–15. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/the-teacher-education-program-at-northern-california-university-oyster-bay

Envisioning

The Teacher Education Program at Northern California University, Oyster Bay

by Bruce Cooperstein and Arthur Pearl

This article is part of a regular section in Solutions in which the author is challenged to envision a future society in which all the right changes have been made.

T

he following is the first of an occasional series of pieces on educational transformation. This one examines the work of Dr. Drew Epstein, who is a Professor of Social Psychology and Utopian Thinking at North California University, Oyster Bay (NCUOB). He is also the founder and director of the Education for the Future Project, which is a partnership between NCUOB, Esperanza Community College, and the Oyster Bay Unified School District (OBUSD).

During the last week of May 2025, we visited with Dr. Epstein to observe his novel approach to the preparation of teachers, as well as the ways in which curriculum and classroom practices have been radically reformed in several demonstration schools of the district.

Before any of our observations, we had a long conversation with Dr. Epstein over a whole range of topics relating to education. He began with the assertion that in a democracy, consideration of fairness and justice requires that everyone have the opportunity to obtain a free education that would enable each student to continue as far as their potential will take them. He then declared that the most fundamental thing each student must learn as part of such an education is how to make the world a better place.

All of the curriculum and pedagogy of schools must be organized within this rubric. To make concrete the meaning of those words, he said, “When you look at a typical classroom, what you should see, whether it’s a first grade or a senior high school classroom, is kids working in groups on projects to make the world a better place.

The learning occurs when students act on the world to change it, and then reflect on what they have been doing, interrogating their thinking and actions, and thus adding to the knowledge of the world.” He then said that equally fundamental to such a curriculum, is that students learn to be effective as citizens in a democracy.

been supposed.” He then demonstrated an impressive knowledge of science and technology by enumerating many of the advances of the past decade, starting with discoveries in material science, gene expression, protein folding, and the mapping of the brain, whence the development of vaccines for malaria and HIV, as well as other diseases which have plagued the bottom two billion of the world’s population, new treatments for brain diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, as well as for many different cancers and heart disease.

Then, he went on to discuss the many significant improvements in the generation of solar and wind energy that mean the direst consequences of global climate change are likely to be prevented.

“To be sure,” he said, “we need to graduate a cadre of scientists who will further our understanding of the physical and biological worlds,

The learning occurs when students act on the world to change it, and then reflect on what they have been doing, interrogating their thinking and actions, and thus adding to the knowledge of the world.

I interrupted Dr. Epstein and skeptically challenged his last assertion with the declaration that the most important way to make the world a better place is to uncover new scientific truths and then translate these, through technological innovation, into new products and services.

Dr. Epstein responded this way: “Science and technology certainly have a role to play in a project of improving the world, but only a partial role, and much less than has

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which will then enable us to further reduce our footprint on the planet while at the same time improving the quality of life. But, as I hope to show you with our experimental schools, there is no inherent conflict between educating students to change the world through democratic action and new scientific discoveries. Rather, we will demonstrate that our approach results in far more student success in learning science. However, I do think the evidence is overwhelming that

Envisioning

US Department of Education

Teachers must earn the respect of their students in any classroom, must be willing to engage and reach out to all students, and must be negotiable to be truly successful.

with the resources and technologies we have today, we have the means to provide everyone on the planet with a gratifying and fulfilling life.

Therefore, the main problem is no longer scarcity—of material goods or good ideas—but how we put what we have to the best purposes. That is what future generations of citizens have to decide, and why it is so important that they do so effectively, justly, and fairly.”

I changed the subject from the purpose of schooling to the preparation of teachers and asked him what makes his program different from other teacher education programs.

“First of all, new teachers must be aware that they were not elected and therefore their authority must be won

and not rely on coercion. If they do not earn the respect of their students, those students will resist learning.

This is especially true for teachers assigned to schools where the majority consists of students of color or whose parents are relatively poor. The teachers in our program enter the classroom knowing that it is incumbent upon them to persuade their students that they need to change the world and, perhaps even more important, that it is possible to do so. In addition to being persuasive they need to be willing to reach out and engage all students; they must be intellectually accessible; they have to be transparent in the reasons why they make decisions in the classroom; and, lastly, they must be negotiable.”

At this point, Dr. Epstein suggested we continue our conversation later, but he now wanted to take me to observe a fifth grade classroom at the Tom Paine Elementary School. We got there late in the morning, a time when students are usually pretty antsy and looking at the clock in anticipation of lunch. However, this was not the case in this classroom. The kids were finishing up group work, which consisted of brainstorming how the Bill of Rights, and particularly the First Amendment, could be applied to problems in their neighborhood, and were preparing to report their ideas to the whole class.

One of the groups proposed a rally to protest reduced hours at the local library. They defended this action as applying the right to assemble and

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 11

Envisioning petition for a redress of grievances.

Another group came up with the idea of creating a website which would have information about the budget of the city parks department to show that their local parks were being underfunded, thus exercising their right to freedom of expression. The student continued like this for thirty minutes, even going into their lunch time, with lots of discussion about which of the first ten amendments was used in each idea and whether the action would be effective.

Over lunch, I continued my conversation with Dr. Epstein. He immediately brought to my attention that the class we had just observed had two teachers for 24 students.

He said that the older teacher was a mentor teacher and the younger one, who was, at most, 20 years old, was an assistant teacher enrolled at Esperanza Community College who will eventually transfer to the University to complete his teaching credentials.

He pointed out how this illustrates another way his program differs from the traditional pathway: prospective teachers are immediately introduced to the classroom as assistant teachers, the first level on a career ladder with four steps. Assistant teachers learn the skills of teaching by observing the model behavior of a mentor and practicing them under their supervisor’s guidance. Also, as contrasted with a traditional program, the apprentice teacher is paid, albeit at a modest rate, for his/her time in the classroom.

I asked Dr. Epstein what kind of courses prospective teachers take at the community college and university, in particular, if there were methods courses, for example, on how to teach phonics to first graders (after asking if, indeed, first graders at Tom Paine learn to sound out words). “Yes,” he told me, “students do learn phonics, but there are no practicum and methods courses.

NASA/Goddard

The Education for the Future Project holds that the most fundamental thing each student must learn is how to make the world a better place.

It would take years to apply the theories obtained in methods courses to the actual classroom. Moreover, they do not deal in reality. Students are different than the way they are portrayed in methods courses.”

He went on to say, “Teacher education is organized both for obtaining knowledge and as an apprenticeship.

To learn the skills of teaching at any grade, the candidate has to go into the classroom and, under the supervision of a mentor, begin teaching. This is why a career ladder is so important to democratic education. At the beginning, they can do low level activities, and, as they develop more knowledge and skill, they take on more complex responsibilities and go up that career ladder. In most cases, it will take five to eight years to climb the first three rungs of the teaching career ladder, and become a full classroom teacher.

Only a fraction of teachers reach the top rung, that of a mentor teacher.”

I asked Dr. Epstein if he is certain this works. He cited a number of New

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Careers Teacher Preparation Programs from the 1960s and 1970s that, at least anecdotally, were considered successful, but were not rigorously evaluated; a deficiency that he thinks will be remedied with the current project.

I returned to the question of courses the prospective teachers have to take. He mentioned quite a number that are all absent from traditional programs. The first course he described was on democracy. He said that prospective teachers must understand that democracy can never be fully realized, but only approached “asymptotically.” In particular, we are closer to being a democracy today than we were a decade ago when we seemed to be heading in the wrong direction, at risk of succumbing to what Bert Gross called “Friendly Fascism,” but we are still far away from a democracy.

“Our course, Democracy for the Classroom, focuses on eight fundamental principles of a democracy and how they apply to teaching. These are: a vision of a sustainable and desirable

Envisioning

Media Arts Center San Diego Digital Gym

Students at all grade and age levels should be tasked to work in groups on projects to make the world a better place.

world; authority based on fairness, access, transparency, persuasion, and negotiability; rights, such as freedom of expression, privacy, and due process; inclusion, so that every one is invited to belong; knowledge of how the world works scientifically, politically, and economically; participation; an environment which encourages all to reach their full potential; and, equality.”

To give me a sense of how this translated to teaching. Dr. Epstein took me to observe a high school class on urban planning. The students were divided into functional groups, such as transportation, food systems, recreation, art and culture,

and energy. We wandered around to observe the work of the groups more closely. One thing that struck me was the willingness of the students to challenge current ideas about knowledge. For the most part, they observed protocols that were prominently displayed on posters around the room. These included: “Challenge ideas, not people,” “You must have reasons to challenge knowledge or ideas,” and “Rely on logic and evidence, not beliefs.” Despite this, we would occasionally hear a student say, “I believe…,” which would elicit a chorus of, “Tell us what you think and why, not what you believe.”

Later, when discussing the class, I suggested that getting students to operate according to these principles has to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, since their parents, and most of the adults they encounter, must violate them every day. I pointed out that there was extensive research by the psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and others that many, if not most, people struggle with making decisions on the basis of evidence and logic, but rather commonly use biases and heuristics. Dr. Epstein’s response was that this is why we have to start early, as early as kindergarten and inculcate these ways of reasoning.

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Envisioning

Converse College

A student teacher in a 5th grade art class.

I then asked Dr. Epstein how he is able to do this when the students’ parents are not used to making decisions on the basis of education and logic. It seemed to me that the teachers and students would be challenging the parents’ knowledge and ideas about how the world works. Dr. Epstein responded that there is the occasional parent who transfers his/her kids out of the demonstration schools, but more often the kids, with their teachers’ encouragement, talk to their parents about what they are doing at school and, as far out as it may seem, the kids are sometimes teaching their parents.

We returned to the required courses in the teacher preparation program. He said the second fundamental course is “Utopian Visions.” In this course

students survey the history of utopias, read numerous utopian works, including those by Thomas More, Edward Bellamy, William Morris, H.G. Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin and others. The students in the course, working in groups, are encouraged to imagine a world as good as it can be, and to share that vision with others. The only constraints on their visions are that they should be environmentally, economically, and politically sustainable; they must be desirable in that most people would find it [that world] gratifying; and, they must be based on current knowledge and technology.

He also briefly described several other courses that he argued are essential for teachers in order to make sense of the world for their students. These

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are: Learning Theory (informed by brain research); The Social Psychology of the Classroom; Confronting Racism and Other Bigotries; Elementary Economics with an emphasis on how different schools of the profession affect schools and opportunity; and Callenging Issues (War, Poverty, Social Injustice, and Environmental Degradation).

Finally, he described a course on “Science as Method and Practice,” which involves both theory and work in the classroom. As he described the theoretical part, using case studies, the prospective teachers learn how science is always based on challenging current knowledge, how knowledge is tested and refined. Then, with this theory and the modeling behavior of their mentor teacher, they practice this in the

Envisioning

Gary Peeples / USFWS

An elementary student engages in a hands-on science project, planting a seedling that she can then monitor the growth of.

classroom, guiding students in making hypotheses and then designing ways to test them and then, if necessary, to refine them as a consequence of what was learned.

To see the fruits of this, I was able to observe a science class at the elementary school and it was a wonder. All the students were actively participating and incredibly animated. When I got there, the students were recording data about the growth of plants according to how much sun they were exposed to, the frequency of watering, and how much fertilizer they were given. They plotted their data on graphs and made conjectures about which factors had the greatest response, and discussed the design of experiments to test their

hypotheses. Dr. Epstein suggested that it was classes like this that would ultimately demonstrate the efficacy of his approach, even to the graduating of a new generation of scientists.

He asserted that, as contrasted with traditional teaching where all but a handful of students never learn what it really means to do science, this approach has the potential to keep all students excited and engaged. And, since we do not really know who has the aptitude to excel at science, we are likely to encourage students with high potential who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to do science.

We didn’t have time to observe a math class, but Dr. Epstein said the principles are the same.

All in all, the visit was fascinating. Dr. Epstein has some very novel ideas and approaches to teaching and teaching teachers. However, even as he preaches, he remains skeptical of his own theories and ideas and is willing to put them to the test. An outside evaluation team periodically visits the demonstration schools, tests the students and compares them to similar populations of students at more traditional schools.

The data will not be available for several years in order to give the program the opportunity to develop and shake out its bugs. We will just have to be patient and await judgment of Dr. Epstein and the Education for the Future Project.

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Pence, A. (2015). Leading Nonviolent Movements: An Interview with Srđa Popović. Solutions 6(5): 16–19. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/leading-nonviolent-movements-an-interview-with-srda-popovic

Idea Lab Interview

Leading Nonviolent Movements: An Interview with Srða Popović Interviewed by Audrey Pence

I

n 1998, Srða Popovic´ helped to found the Serbian nonviolent resistance group, Otpor! Two years later, this nonviolent movement helped to remove Serbian dictator Slobodan Miloševic´ from power.

In 2003, Popovic´ established the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action (CANVAS).

As Director, Popovic´ has worked with pro-democracy activists from more than 50 countries and has become an international leader in promoting and teaching principles for success in nonviolent resistance.

It’s been almost 15 years since the group Otpor! that you helped to lead overthrew Milošević. Can you reflect on where Serbia is now and how it has developed for better or for worse since 2000?

The general goal of the movement was to move the country towards Europe. Fifteen years after, I think these goals have become the mainstream of Serbian society and politics.

I think we’ve progressed a lot in terms of interaction and democracy. The parties that are advocating approach to the European Union are representing 90 percent of the Serbian electorate. It is a lot slower than I would expect. All this was achieved in big part thanks to the first Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinðić, who took over after Milošević and led the country until his assassination in 2003. If he had stayed alive, it would probably be a faster process.

In your TED Talk “How to Topple a Dictator and the Rise of People Power,” you defined the principles of success

as “unity, nonviolent discipline, and planning.” How do each of those qualities affect the success of a nonviolent movement?

Every single movement is different.

But you will never win without the three principles—unity, planning, and nonviolent discipline. In Serbia, it was a political unity. There were 19 opposition parties with only

of participation. Not too many people will go to demonstrations where cars are burning and the windows are smashed. And part of the story is avoiding being affiliated with potentially violent groups. I see this happen over and over where you have a bunch of nonviolent organized people being overtaken by a few dozen people from super extreme groups.

Wherever you look, the most complicated types of unity that you achieve are also the most important ones. one Presidential candidate who ran against Milošević in 2000. In the Arab world, it’s more like sectarian or religious unities. In some other cases, we are talking about the gender unity. Wherever you look, the most complicated types of unity that you achieve are also the most important ones. How you build the unity is how you build the joint vision for tomorrow. How you mobilize your potential allies is what very often distinguishes the movement between success and failure. The vision of tomorrow is just a daydream without clear planning on how to get there. The nonviolent discipline is self-explanatory. When you look at the research of Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, you will find nonviolent movements in the last 100 years twice more successful than violent movements. And the reason for this is, of course, the level

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You’ve advocated for using humor as a strategy. What advice do you have for the best way to utilize humor? And are there any times the use of humor can be detrimental to a cause?

We were looking at a very specific use of humor. It’s not only jokes about the bad guys. It is designing a situation.

The story we always use is the Serbian petrol bottle story where we painted the picture of Milošević on the petrol bottle, and people had fun hitting it with a bat. Then, the police appeared and arrested the bottle. Humor breaks fear and apathy. And fear and apathy are, reportedly, the most important factors of status quo. Also, it’s very important to understand that humor is only one of the tools and that it should be the supplement to your grand strategy and the tactics you are taking. Otherwise, you can turn into the prankster.

Idea Lab Interview The Internet has in many ways changed the way revolutions and movements are conducted. How instrumental has the Internet been in recent movements?

Has its importance been at all exaggerated at times?

The Internet has changed the battlefield very much. You make things faster, cheaper, and less risky. It would take you weeks and leaflets and pamphlets and radio commercials and a lot of manpower, a lot of money to assemble people to rally. And now you can make it available and everybody knows. The second important role is the side of the Internet where you get into the journalism world. Now, wherever you see demonstrations in the world, from Baltimore to Bahrain, you see people taping with their cell phones, and you have truth. Not least important, the Internet makes it possible to learn from each other in faster ways.

Now, you can find access to online education. At the same time, look at the power of horizontal learning where one group in Venezuela makes a cool viral video and another group in Ukraine picks it up horizontally.

The speed of learning is probably the most underappreciated role of the Internet. However, the Internet, like any other technology, comes with two sides. You have this phenomenon of “clicktivism” and the whole range of pages claiming they are saving the polar bears by having millions of clicks. Nothing is really happening in the real world. We call this activism from your couch. And there are so many people clicking from their couches and thinking they are doing something really good instead of going on the streets. One of the many things which came with new media is “occupyism.” Because people were so excited seeing Tahrir Square, they

Stephan Röhl/Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

Popović speaks at an event in Berlin in 2012.

got the very wrong idea that all we have to do is sit in an occupied public park or place for long enough and M&M chocolates will start falling from the sky. If you are sticking to an occupation tactic, you will be incapable to build numbers because people are busy with their own lives.

And it will alienate the very people you want to recruit. By blocking the street, you are actually destroying peoples’ businesses. These are the people you want to recruit, not to harm. All your opponent has to do is sit on their fat ass until your

numbers dwindle. Which is exactly what mainland China did in the case of Hong Kong. It is actually a very demanding, high-risk tactic that successful movements were always keeping until the end when they’d already built their numbers and organization. Beware of the easiness of assembling people.

You’re quoted in an article in The Guardian as saying, “Foreign military interventions don’t bring change.” You also say in that article that sanctions, for the most part, are unsuccessful.

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Idea Lab Interview What do you think is the best move for foreign countries when a revolution falls to violence or a civil war?

There is no proof that the use of force brings long-term democracy.

When the system is attacked from the outside, everybody rallies around the leadership. If you look at Milošević’s ratings, they were highest during the NATO bombing. When we are talking about sanctions, there are things that work and things that don’t work. You can technically divide this into shotgun sanctions, which are designed to target the population, and sniper sanctions, which are basically designed to target officials. The first sanctions don’t work. When the international community came out with a petrol embargo over Serbia, people in the government, people in the police, made a deal with the petrol smugglers. So, everybody was becoming a petrol smuggler, and that destroyed the middle class. The middle class was too busy surviving, and they didn’t have time to think. It is the middle, urban, more educated class that you mostly rely on when you start recruiting for a democratic nonviolent movement. However, when you look at the sanctions targeted at members of the regime, they are very effective.

I think there are so many things that internationals can do, and they deal mostly with values. How to promote the values in the society, how to promote independent institutions, how to promote free media. One of the most effective helps that we ever got from abroad was buying the equipment for the independent radio and TV stations in Serbia, which enabled the democratic movement to have a voice and to fight back against Milošević’s regime state TV propaganda. One of the things you can do, you can offer people free online resources, free

Peter Durand

A poster depicting Ivan Marovic, a founding member of Otpor.

books. There are so many different things outside of bombing and sanctions that a government can do. I think this is one of the tasks for the future: to identify the effective cases of foreign support and to compare them with ineffective cases of foreign military intervention and to really look at what brings goodness and support and what only brings misery and more support for the bad guys on the top.

Many countries are mired in intractable conflicts, such as Iraq and Afghanistan—imagine a future in which all the right steps were taken to move towards peace and security.

Describe what that scenario looks like, and what would have to happen in order to get there?

I think understanding the needs of the people is very important, and I think

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we’ve learned a lot about how to build successful nonviolent movements in the past. Where we lack knowledge is how to follow up the successful revolution with a successful transition.

I think looking at the delivery and skills the people need and institutions to be built, and all this boring work, which at the end brings you the wellorganized society, is the way to go. I don’t have really precise advice, but as in any struggle, you can’t win without having the majority of the people on your side. The majority of people are always in the middle, never on the fringe. And the majority of people will care only for things they find personally important. Listening to what is personally important to these people and directing your help towards building what is important for them is a good way to start thinking.

Idea Lab Interview

Bartolomeo Koczenasz/TEDxKrakow

Popović outlines his principals for successful movements at a TEDx event in Krakow. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 19

Talwar, I. (2015). Saudi Women Take to the Political Arena – Even if It Means Sitting in the Back Seat. Solutions 6(5): 20–23. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/saudi-women-take-to-the-political-arena-even-if-it-means-sitting-in-the-back-seat

Perspectives Saudi Women Take to the Political Arena—Even if It Means Sitting in the Back Seat

by Ilina Talwar

T

his December, Saudi Arabia will have its third round of elections in the history of its Kingdom and the first where women will be allowed to participate. Hundreds of thousands of Saudis are expected to flock to the polls, along with dozens of candidates and a flurry of international media, but only a few of these will be women.

Women in Saudi Arabia face many obstacles, but merely getting to the polls in a country that forbids them from driving is their biggest challenge.

Earlier this year, Wall Street Journal reporter Ahmed Al Omran voiced his frustrations on Twitter as he urged ride-share apps like Careem and Uber to provide free services for women to the polling booths.1 A few hours after his initial post, Careem promptly responded, saying, “boom, we’ll do it,” and just like that, what had started as an innocent comment on Twitter became a national campaign for women’s rights.

Careem made their official announcement later that day, tweeting “Because #yourvoicemakesadifference, we will help you make a difference.

For women, trips will be free to the election polls.”1 In Saudi Arabia, 80 percent of ride-share app customers are women.

Restricted by laws governing their freedom, car services like Careem give Saudi women some independence and autonomy.

Saudi has a long history of limiting civil rights. While other Arab nations underwent a limited process of democratization in the 1980s and 1990s by introducing liberal reforms to their legislature, Saudi Arabia lagged behind in granting such political freedoms.2

Ultimately, in 2005, citizens were given the right to vote under the rule of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

Following a policy of appeasement, he hoped to curb the increasing dissent over the lack of participation in the political arena.

In this authoritarian regime, the municipal elections symbolized an ‘exercise in democracy’ that helped further the State’s agenda to portray Saudi Arabia as a progressive and liberalized civic society instead of a “closed and secretive society that fosters Islamic extremism” in a post 9/11 world.2

Contemporaneously, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud granted women the right to vote by a royal decree and included women in his Shura council. In a speech to the advisory board, speaking on behalf of the ulama (clerics) as well as political officials, he announced the inclusion of women in the following elections.

“Because we refuse to marginalize women in society in all roles that comply with sharia, we have decided, after deliberation with our senior ulama and others...to involve women in the Shura Council as members, starting from the next term.”4

The Baladi campaign, run by a group of pioneering Saudi female activists, rallied the masses in taking a strong stand against the exclusion of women.

However, failing to achieve this, coupled with a decision to exclude women—a clear reflection of pluralism and lack of separation between politics and religion in the state—Saudi’s image deteriorated even further.

The next elections scheduled for October 30, 2009, didn’t take place until September 2011. The delay was allegedly to “expand the electorate and study the possibility of allowing women to vote” according to officials.

Nonetheless, in 2011 the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs stated that women would not be allowed to participate “because of the kingdom’s social customs.”3

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The ulama’s sudden change in stance could be attributed to mounting political pressures placed by King Abdullah, who grew wary of the fragile internal and external dynamics at the time. Inside the state, activists demanded that all 178 seats be elected through a democratic process.

Furthermore, the Baladi campaign, run by a group of pioneering Saudi female activists, rallied the masses in taking a strong stand against the exclusion of women. Outside the state, revolutionaries overthrew regime after regime, toppling ruthless dictators and gaining freedom for their country. Fearing Eisenhower’s Domino Theory, King Abdullah made

Perspectives

Edward Musiak

The upcoming December elections in Saudi Arabia will mark the first election in which women are permitted to vote. Despite this, many women will still not make it to the polls. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 21

Perspectives the decision to include women, just nine months after the wake of the Arab Spring.

Now in 2015, women not only have the right to vote but also to run as candidates. This is a great step forward for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, a country marred for its reputation as oppressive and rigid in its treatment towards women.

“It is also a vital step towards moderation, and for reaching a better understanding of our own society,” said a Saudi graduate student at George Washington University.5 However, taking one step forward and two back, the Saudi government has managed to find alternative ways to undercut women’s involvement in the elections. They shut down an initiative by the Baladi campaign to provide free training sessions led by UN ambassadors and leaders from across the Arab region to help candidates with their campaign.

Structural and cultural barriers such as lack of public awareness, remote registration centers, and a system of male guardianship are keeping women away from the polling booth as well.

Being placed under a male guardian, or mahram, requires women to have “male approval to be able to travel, work outside the home, or access higher education.”6 Social norms and government regulations have worked hand-in-hand to completely immobilize women.

Public condemnation prevents women from using the poor forms of public transportation available. A woman getting into a cab or travelling the metro on her own “is often seen as lacking morals.”7 And although there is no law that overtly prohibits women from driving, it is customary for granting authorities to refuse licenses to women.

SouRider.222

Women’s rights activists have led several campaigns to remove the driving “ban,” including media such as this flier.

The rationale behind this is based in Saudi’s conservative ideology.

Women must not come into contact with male traffic officers or medics (in case of an accident) and, therefore, must not be allowed to drive. A religious cleric even went as far as to say that driving could cause harm to a woman’s ovaries.8 Women’s rights activists have led several initiatives to remove the driving ‘ban’ but failed despite of their vigorous efforts. One such case is the Women2drive campaign, where women posted pictures of themselves driving on social media as a form of resistance.9,10

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According to The Economist Democracy Index, the Saudi government is the seventh most authoritarian regime out of 167 countries that were surveyed, scoring far lower than its Arab neighbors.11 The birthplace of Islam and home to two of the most hallowed cities, Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.

Originating in the 18th century, Wahhabism has become well known for its subjugation of women and extremist ideology, serving as a building block for global terrorist organizations such as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and more recently the Islamic State of the Levant (ISIL).

Perspectives Although granting voting rights for women is a tremendous achievement that should not go unrecognized, it is doubtful that women will be instrumental in making any sort of policy change. Municipal councils in reality have very little authority, as only half of electoral seats are popularly elected, while the King appoints the rest. They are in charge of ‘overseeing’ the budget, giving ‘suggestions’ for further regulation and ‘administering’ urban development projects.

The only real governing body with limited influence over the monarch is the Shura council, where women are still firmly underrepresented.

References 1. Rivero, D. and N. Prakash. How one tweet is helping Saudi women vote for the first time ever. Fusion [online] (September 2, 2015) http://fusion.net/ story/192438/how-one-tweet-is-helping-saudiwomen-vote-for-the-first-time-ever/.

2. Kraetzschmar, HJ. The first democratic local in elections in Saudi Arabia in 2005. LSE Public Policy Group [online] (January 2011) http://www.lse.ac.uk/ government/research/resgroups/LSEPublicPolicy/ Docs/Saudi_Arabia_Democratic_Elections_ Kraetzschmar.pdf.

3. Saudi Arabia to hold elections next month after year and a half delay. The Star [online] (March 22, 2011) http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2011/03/22/ saudi_arabia_to_hold_elections_next_month_ after_year_and_a_half_delay.html.

4. Al Sharif, A. Saudi king gives women right to vote.

Reuters [online] (September 25, 2011) http://www. reuters.com/article/2011/09/25/us-saudi-kingwomen-idUSTRE78O10Y20110925.

5. First Saudi women register to vote. Al Jazeera [online] (August 20, 2015) http://www.aljazeera. com/news/2015/06/saudi-women-registervote-150621081535058.html.

6. Chittal, N. Saudi women register to vote for the first time. MSNBC [online] (August 24, 2015) http://www.

Al Jazeera English

Structural and cultural barriers still limit Saudi women’s freedom and actions.

msnbc.com/msnbc/saudi-women-register-vote-thefirst-time.

7. Zavis, A. Banned from driving, Saudi women turn to Uber and other ride-share apps. Los Angeles Times [online] (May 7, 2015) http://www.latimes.com/ world/middleeast/la-fg-saudi-women-rideshareapps-20150507-story.html.

8. Jamjoom, M. Saudi cleric warns driving could damage women’s ovaries. CNN [online] (September

30, 2013) http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/29/world/ meast/saudi-arabia-women-driving-cleric/.

9. Fields, L. Saudi women record themselves behind the wheel to protest ban on female motorists. Vice News [online] (October 26, 2014) https://news.vice.com/

10. Women’s Rights Campaigning. Women2Drive in Saudi Arabia [online] (2015) https://womensrights. informationactivism.org/en/cases/women2drivesaudi-arabia.

11. Democracy index 2010: democracy in retreat. The

article/saudi-women-record-themselves-behind-the-

Economist [online] (2010) http://graphics.eiu.com/

wheel-to-protest-ban-on-female-motorists.

PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 23

Shilton, A.C. (2015). These Three Colleges Stopped Investing in Fossil Fuels – One Year Later, Their Endowments Are Doing Just Fine. Solutions 6(5): 24–28. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/these-three-colleges-stopped-investing-in-fossil-fuels-one-year-later-their-endowments-are-doing-just-fine

Perspectives These Three Colleges Stopped Investing in Fossil Fuels— One Year Later, Their Endowments Are Doing Just Fine

by A.C. Shilton

Light Brigading

Student activists demonstrate in favor of fossil fuel divestment outside of a building at University of Wisconsin Madison in 2014.

Y

ou can hear the sounds of new construction from just about any point on Sterling College’s bucolic Vermont campus. The whir of saws and the plink of hammers ricochet off the nearby Lowell Mountains as students—26 percent more than were enrolled just two years ago—shuffle to class through a carpet of fall leaves.

Things have never been better at this small college, which specializes in environmental education. An entire Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Center, which will house a new major on the same topic, is in the works. And not a dime of the money

used came from investments in fossil fuels, because the college sold off all their stock in that industry last year.

On college campuses nationwide, the key argument against divestment— or removing all investments from oil, coal, and natural gas companies—has been that it is not economically feasible; divesting would be an abdication of fiduciary responsibility. Not “warranted or wise” were the exact words Harvard President Drew Faust used in October 2013, to excuse the Ivy League institution from taking its USD $30 billion endowment out of environmentally devastating corporations.1

24 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

But evidence is mounting against that argument. Several colleges and universities have completed the process of divestment. None have declared financial ruin. In fact, many, like Sterling, are seeing improved returns on their investments.

Meanwhile, the call to divest has never been stronger. During the week of the People’s Climate March in September 2014, individuals and institutions pledged to divest more than USD $50 billion from fossil fuels.2 With evidence and enthusiasm on the side of divestment, schools like Harvard may need to rethink their portfolios.

Perspectives

David Shankbone

Naropa University is a medium-sized school in Boulder, Colorado that completed its student-driven divestment process in 2013.

Three Days Sterling College’s move to divest came at the behest of the school’s trustees, many of whom were already familiar with the issue. The school’s president, Matthew Derr, said that Sterling had a relatively small percentage of its investments in fossil fuel companies.

But, he felt divestment was the right thing to do because of the school’s environmental mission.

The financial committee broach­ed the topic with the students and faculty to make sure there was campus-wide buy-in before moving forward. Then, Sterling hired Trillium Asset Management, a Boston-based firm that focuses on sustainable investing, to manage the transition.

“We sold everything in three days,” says Matt Patsky, Trillium’s CEO, who estimates that about 13 percent of the college’s endowment had been invested in fossil fuels in some way.

“We sold all those funds and bought them a portfolio of individual stocks and individual bonds that were fossilfuel free.”

Patsky says that he rolls his eyes when he hears about schools promising to divest over the next five, 10, or even 15 years. “Why five years?” he says. “We know from history it can be done in a much shorter period of time.”

Not long after Sterling College completed its divestment, the school announced that, for the first time in

its history, its endowment had surged over USD $1 million.

It is tempting to want to credit that success to its newer, cleaner portfolio, but that is not the whole picture.

“They also had an aggressive capital campaign,” says Patsky.

Sterling is a pretty unusual school.

It has a small population, with just 123 students. It is also a work college, where students are required to hold on-campus jobs, thereby offsetting overhead costs. It might be tempting to call the school a divestment anomaly, but it is not.

Other schools that have divested are seeing the same kind of results. On October 31, 2013, Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, finished its

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 25

Perspectives divestment process. This time, students were the driving force behind the campaign.

“We’re a values-driven school and we believe in leading by doing,” says Todd Kilburn, the school’s chief financial officer. “We value our role in being the tip of the spear on this issue.”

Unlike Sterling, Naropa is a medium-sized school, with both graduate and undergraduate programs. It also has a bigger endowment, around USD $6.25 million.

San Francisco-based Veris Wealth Partners helped Naropa manage its transition, which was completed in less than one year.

Almost exactly a year later, Patricia Farrar-Rivas, the CEO of Veris, said: “It hasn’t had a significant change on their portfolio.”

But, what about a really big school?

De Anza and Foothill community colleges work together as a single ‘college district’ that serves more than 600,000 students each year in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area.

The private foundation that supports the two schools is among the largest in California, with USD $33 million in assets. Unlike Naropa and Sterling, which are private and are attractive to students because of their strong environmental commitments, the state-mandated mission for De Anza and Foothill is clear: to offer affordable education to the community.

While both of the community colleges have campus-wide sustainability management plans in place, it is neither institution’s main focus. “My first goal is a fiduciary one,” says Robin Lyssenko, interim executive director for the Foothill-De Anza Foundation. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that providing open access education was important.”

In 2012, students approached the foundation about divesting, but the foundation requested more

information. Six months later, the students came back armed with data and a resolution passed by the student body. Lyssenko and the board were impressed.

A review of the foundation’s assets showed that about one percent of its USD $33 million in holdings was invested in some of the worst fossil fuel offenders. Eight months later, the foundation’s portfolio was clean of them. “To date, I don’t think there’s been an impact on our investments because of it,” says Lyssenko. In fact, the endowment recently broke USD $35 million, although that is also partly due to several successful fundraising campaigns.

proceeds from stock sales in ways that offset this tracking error.

When index managers are diverting funds from fossil fuels, they are able to look at which ones have performed similarly to fossil fuels in the past, and reinvest in those. For example, a stock’s ‘beta estimate’ quantifies a stock’s volatility over time. If, for example, you take Exxon Mobile out of your portfolio and it has a beta estimate of .79, you could replace that stock with Target, which historically has had a beta of .78. By doing this, you can tweak your divested portfolio so it tracks similarly to the overall index.

Divesting also offers the benefit of letting schools reinvest in things that

Several colleges and universities have completed the process of divestment. None have declared financial ruin.

The Mechanics of Divestment It turns out that divesting is not nearly as calamitous as Harvard’s president might have had us believe.

Any time you take stocks out of your portfolio, you create a ‘tracking error,’ which means that your portfolio will track differently than the overall index. If the S&P 500 is your baseline, taking out certain stocks will change how your portfolio performs in relation to that baseline. In the simplest terms, the more stocks you take out, the bigger your tracking error is going to be.

A tracking error is not necessarily a bad thing—a fund with a tracking error can do better than the overall index. But, it tends to make investors nervous because there is always a chance that things will go the other way. There is a way to fix that though: investors can reinvest the cash or

26 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

fit with their beliefs. At Sterling, this meant reinvesting in companies that produce solar power, an LED light bulb manufacturer, and even in a company that produces carpets from recycled materials. Naropa was already invested in green real estate, sustainable forestry, and land conservation companies prior to its divestment process, but it added even more weight to those investments, as well as adding more healthy-living-focused companies to its portfolios.

If trading Exxon Mobile stock for shares in sustainable businesses seems like a bad financial move, consider this: a 1997 paper in the Journal of Investing analyzed the long-term performance of portfolios that had been modified to exclude a variety of unsavory investments.

It found that portfolios adjusted for all social issues—with the exception

Perspectives

Light Brigading

Student activists demonstrate in favor of fossil fuel divestment outside Peter Bowden Divest Lesley University Rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March 2015.

of military-related companies— performed better than their non-adjusted counterparts.3 This is partly because socially questionable stocks often have high volatility. Oil is a perfect example.

Depending on world events, oil prices can be up, down and around the corner before noon.

All of this data makes Harvard’s reluctance to divest (even as students and faculty engaged in a week-long hunger strike last fall) seem, well, silly.

Sure, Harvard has the largest endowment of any university in the nation, but risk is risk, regardless of dollar amount.

Instead, what is most likely causing Harvard’s noncommittal response is pressure from its trustees and big donors, many of which (like hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, who gave USD $150 million earlier this year) have assets tied up in the fossil fuel industry.

If a university like Harvard dumped its massive volume of stocks, prices might be affected. And that would be a problem for large shareholders like Griffin, an outspoken supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline.4 Harvard’s resistance is losing ground, as the first half of 2015 has seen the university divestment movement build steam. As the

Harvard debate rages on, a laundry list of large, well-known American universities have committed to divesting from fossil fuels. In January, the New School of New York approved a motion to divest its USD $220 million endowment from fossil fuel companies. March saw another victory for the movement, with Syracuse University in New York announcing the divestment of its USD $1.8 billion endowment from coal mining and fossil fuel companies. In May, the University of Washington unanimously voted to divest its USD $2.8 billion endowment from coal, making it the largest public university to do so.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 27

Perspectives Most recently, June marked the decision of Georgetown University, a prestigious Ivy League school in Washington, DC, to divest from coal.

These schools are recognizing a low-risk opportunity in promoting environmental justice, following the lead of students and supporters who increasingly recognize oil companies as social pariahs.

Ultimately, “The incremental risk of divesting is really, really minimal,” says Liz Michaels, director of environmental, social, and governance investing and socially responsible investing at the Aperio Group, a firm based in Sausalito, California, which specializes in handpicking stocks for investors. “Despite that, there’s some decision-making that has to go into it,” Michaels adds.

At Sterling, that process was easy.

“When it was brought up, it wasn’t so much of an ‘aha!’ moment as it was a ‘duh!’ moment,” says President Derr.

He adds, “We knew we were willing to forgo the concept of maximum return to be in line with our mission.”

What the school’s administrators did not know, however, was how easily divestment could help them meet their responsibilities to both students and the bottom line—no fossil fuels required.

References 1. Harvard Will Not Divest Fossil-Fuel Holdings.

Harvard Magazine [online] (2013) http:// harvardmagazine.com/2013/10/harvard-will-notdivest-fossil-fuel-holdings.

2. Collins, C. Incredible Hulk and Former Goldman Sachs Guy Are Among the Many Pulling $50 Billion Out of Fossil Fuels. Yes! Magazine [online] (2014) http://www.yesmagazine.org/climate-in-our-hands/ incredible-hulk-divestment-pledges-50-billionfossil-fuels.

3. Guerard Jr., J. Is There a Cost to Being Socially Responsible in Investing? The Journal of Investing Vol. 6, No. 2: pp 11-18 [online] (1997) http://www. iijournals.com/doi/abs/10.3905/joi.1997.408416.

4. Delevingne, L. Blocking Keystone XL pipeline ‘tragic’: Citadel CEO. CNBC [online] (2014) http:// www.cnbc.com/2014/04/29/blocking-keystone-xlpipeline-tragic-citadel-ceo.html#.

Peter Bowden

A student protester at the Divest Lesley University Rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March 2015.

28 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Pence, A. (2015). Oral History Project Takes on Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan. Solutions 6(5): 29–32. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/history-project-takes-on-bride-kidnapping-in-Kyrgyzstan

Perspectives Oral History Project Takes on Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan

by Audrey Pence

Evgeni Zotov

A Kyrgyz wedding in Karamyk, Kyrgyzstan.

A

la kachuu directly translates to “to take and run away” in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and is known to the world as the practice of bride kidnapping. It can occur both consensually, as a staged elopement, and non-consensually. In the non-consensual form, a woman is forcibly taken to a man’s home where his family members will attempt to convince her to marry someone she may know or have been dating, or a complete stranger.

Despite the strengthening of laws around this practice, it is still a prevalent issue. With this in mind, it is crucial to address the cultural perception surrounding the practice.

One way this can be done is through a campaign of videos on television, and through seminars to address how the victims, perpetrators, and other members of society perceive the practice.

Many active and passive participants in this practice believe

that bride kidnapping is an ancient tradition, and that there are few places to turn if you are a victim. Neither of these views is founded in fact, and disseminating this truth is crucial to combatting the issue.

For the last six months, a team of Kyrgyz and Western scholars has been compiling 40 oral histories of women who were kidnapped. They plan to publish a book locally, and to present their findings at a conference

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 29

Perspectives in United States in the fall of 2015. The hope is to show how different people experience kidnapping, and to hear thoughts about it.

“A lot of the conversation in the country is about this as a tradition, but we have found that it is not a tradition as much as a stereotype about gender involving men wanting to dominate and control women, and bride kidnapping is one way of doing that,” says Dr. Zhanyl Bokontaeva of Issyk-Kul State University.

Another innovative approach to the issue came from a project in the World Economic Forum’s campaign Creative for Good.1 This campaign created and broadcast a series of videos on television and held seminars to combat the problem of bride kidnapping. They targeted parents of potential victims, potential kidnappers, youth who may be indifferent to the issue, and potential kidnapping victims to change the cultural attitudes surrounding bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Councils used the project Creative for Good to encourage a number of pro-social campaigns that utilize creative solutions. The campaign that came out of this project for bride kidnapping resulted in service announcements broadcast on public television in Kyrgyzstan during the year, as well as a series of seminars.

According to Cynthia Werner of The Wilson Center, the percentage of kidnapping cases with minimal consent has increased from zero to 18 percent from the 1970s to the 1990s.

“Nationalism and independence [have] taken its hold in Kazakhstan,” Werner says in her report, citing a number of reasons for this increase.2 With a rise in Kazakh nationalism, there has been an increase in support for more traditional gender roles.

Along with reverting gender roles,

members of society were eager to develop and foster the traditions of their ancestors in building a newly independent society. One of these perceived traditions to boast of and expand with nationalistic pride was bride kidnapping.

Although bride kidnapping may seem like an isolated issue, it is crucial that it be addressed.

As Werner expressed, “The rise of non-consensual bride kidnapping is likely to cause a host of other social problems, which might include

“A lot of the conversation in the country is about this as a tradition, but we have found that it is not a tradition as much as a stereotype about gender involving men wanting to dominate and control women, and bride kidnapping is one way of doing that.”

—Dr. Zhanyl Bokontaeva Many experts believe bride kidnapping began during the period of time when Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were being governed by the Soviet Union. Arranged marriages, the traditional way young men and women were married, was outlawed in an effort towards more equal rights. Along with the outlaw of arranged marriages, collectivization made the bride’s dowry more difficult to afford. Many young men and women were going to university and had a newfound independence.

At this time, many bride kidnappings were a consensual means by which newly independent youth could circumvent disapproving parents or the expense of a marriage.

Pauline Jones Luong wrote of her research into bride kidnapping that the practice worked, in many ways, as a solution to the conflict between Soviet values for a woman to play a role in choosing her marriage partner and Kazakh values that stressed a woman should not be too eager to get married or be involved in the process.3

30 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

domestic abuse, depression, drug abuse, and high divorce rates. All of these problems hinder economic and social development in the region.”4 In a report by the Forum of Women’s NGOs of Kyrgyzstan in 2011, it was estimated that approximately 35 to 45 percent of married ethnic Kyrgyz women are married against their will through bride kidnapping.5 In 2010, Public Fund “Open Line” questioned 268 victims of bride kidnapping and found that 77 percent of respondents did not know it was possible to ask for help anywhere, including from police or crisis centers.6 The Public Fund report also found that 74 percent of respondents said they were subjected to psychological pressure while 23 percent said they faced physical violence, including rape.7 One Kyrgyz woman, Nazgul, said of her groom, following a bride kidnapping, “He promised that we’d get married another way.”8 She said she did want to marry him, but not at this time. Members of

Perspectives

Lukas Bergstrom

A statue of the Kyrgyz hero of legend, Manas. The Epic of Manas serves as the main source for Kyrgyz customs, but the poem does not include any reference to the practice of bride kidnapping.

her family said they had hoped she would finish school before marriage.

When asked why she did not fight her kidnappers more, Nazgul said, “Since I was already taken, they wouldn’t leave me alone anyhow. I think that it’s kind of our tradition.

Actually it’s a custom that comes from ancient times.”

In the same report, leading expert Russell Kleinbach of the Kyz Korgon Institute that works to abolish bride kidnapping said, “The main source for Kyrgyz customs is the national epic, Manas. But, if you read the entire Manas, nowhere in it does the hero

kidnap his wife or even reference the practice. Actually, according to our research, we think the practice of bride kidnapping started in the 19th century and didn’t become popular until the 1940s and 50s, when Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union.”9 The Epic of Manas is a traditional epic poem of the Kyrgyz people that might be considered the most valued piece of literature expressing the Kyrgyz national heritage.

Restless Beings, an NGO in Kyrgyzstan, has created a safe refuge center and home where victims of bride kidnapping can turn for

counseling and services. They also work to raise awareness and continue research on the practice.

Rimma Sultanova, an expert with the Women Support Centre, said only one out of 700 cases is pursued by the justice sector and only one in 1,500 cases results in a judicial sentence in Kyrgyzstan.10 The World Economic Forum’s Creative for Good campaign on bride kidnapping targeted parents of victims, potential kidnappers, indifferent youth, and potential victims with a unique video for each to share the offense of bride

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 31

Perspectives

Farrukh

Participants take part in an event put on by Restless Beings, an NGO in Kyrgyzstan that raises awareness around the issue of bride kidnapping and offers refuge and resources to victims.

kidnapping and the options victims and their family members have.

After the campaign and the work of other NGOs and lawmakers, President of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev approved an amendment to the Criminal Code on January 26, 2013. This amendment changed the sentence for forcing women into marriage from a maximum of a three year prison term to a maximum ten year prison term. Since, there have been more calls to the police and to the Public Fund “Open Line” for victims.

There have also been four criminal cases on bride kidnapping, whereas before the campaign there had been none.11 More action, like this campaign, is needed to change the culture surrounding bride kidnapping and the perception of it in society.

References 1. Bride Kidnapping (Kyrgyzstan). Creative for Good, World Economic Forum [online] (2014) http://www. weforum.org/best-practices/creative-good/bridekidnapping-kyrgyzstan.

2. Werner, C. The Rise of Non-Consensual Bride Kidnapping in Kazakhstan: Developing a Culturally-Informed and Gender-Sensitive

uploads/2012/01/Access_to_justice_Report_ Kyrgyzstan_en.pdf.

6. Bride Kidnapping (Kyrgyzstan). Creative for Good, World Economic Forum [online] (2014) http://www. weforum.org/best-practices/creative-good/bridekidnapping-kyrgyzstan.

7. Bride Kidnapping (Kyrgyzstan). Creative for Good,

Response. The Wilson Center [online] (2011)

World Economic Forum [online] (2014) http://www.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-rise-

weforum.org/best-practices/creative-good/bride-

non-consensual-bride-kidnapping-kazakhstandeveloping-culturally-informed-and.

3. Luong, PJ. The Transformation of Central Asia: States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2004).

4. Werner, C. The Rise of Non-Consensual Bride Kidnapping in Kazakhstan: Developing a Culturally-Informed and Gender-Sensitive

kidnapping-kyrgyzstan.

8. Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan - Part 5. Vice [online] (2015) http://www.vice.com/video/bridekidnapping-in-kyrgyzstan-part-5.

9. Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan - Part 5. Vice [online] (2015) http://www.vice.com/video/bridekidnapping-in-kyrgyzstan-part-5.

10. New law in Kyrgyzstan toughens penalties for bride

Response. The Wilson Center [online] (2011)

kidnapping. UN Women [online] (2013) http://

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-rise-

www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/2/new-

non-consensual-bride-kidnapping-kazakhstan-

law-in-kyrgyzstan-toughens-penalties-for-bride-

developing-culturally-informed-and.

5. Stakeeva, B., C. Kartanbaeva, and N. Djanaeva.

kidnapping.

11. Bride Kidnapping (Kyrgyzstan). Creative for Good,

Access to Justice for Victims of Bride Kidnapping in

World Economic Forum [online] (2014) http://www.

Kyrgyzstan. Forum of Women’s NGOs of Kyrgyzstan

weforum.org/best-practices/creative-good/bride-

[online] (2011) http://www.karat.org/wp-content/

kidnapping-kyrgyzstan.

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Josol, J. (2015). Assimilative Capacity Trading: An Integrated Solution to Problems Related to Freshwater Use. Solutions 6(5): 33–36. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/assimilative-capacity-trading-an-integrated-solution-to-problems-related-to-freshwater-use

Perspectives Assimilative Capacity Trading: An Integrated Solution to Problems Related to Freshwater Use

by Jairus Josol

L

ess than three percent of the planet’s available water is suitable for most human uses.1 This fraction could, nonetheless, meet global demand. The problem is its uneven distribution and mismanagement, which leads to pollution and severe shortages that harm human and planetary well-being. In 2013, 1.2 billion people experienced water scarcity. Another 1.6 million were deprived of access because of limited financial resources.2 In 2000, approximately 66 percent of the world’s major river basins were polluted.3 Continued population growth, climate change,4 and existing development gaps, such as inadequate sanitation,5 will likely exacerbate these problems in the future.

Traditional solutions to meeting the water scarcity and pollution challenge have failed because they rarely tackle issues of water depletion, degradation, and uneven distribution with the sort of market-based, hybrid approach that offers the most sensitive and flexible of solutions.

Water usage can be difficult to monitor. Corporations and private interests have traditionally found it easy to externalize environmental and social costs, leaving the costly business of remediating damaged aquifers and water sources to the public pocket.

Most policies addressing water usage separate the issue of water shortage from that of quality. Large-scale infrastructure, such as dams, is often constructed to meet shortages,2 but this fails to address factors that drive demand, such as inefficiencies in water use and unequal distribution (to say nothing of the social and environmental impact). For quality, effluent standards that limit the concentration

of pollutants in wastewater are often imposed.6 While effective in the short-run, these standards often don’t respond quickly enough to changes in pollution sources. In the United States, for instance, the Clean Water Act only succeeded in meeting water quality objectives in the first two decades.

From the 1990s, however, increases in pollution and shifts in its composition from being predominantly industrial to agricultural—an activity that is not covered by the regulation—limited its effectiveness.7

like changes in seasons that in turn affect the ability of a water body to absorb waste.9 What the current market mechanisms lack is the ability to harmonize environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, and feasibility.

The idea of a dynamic permit-trading scheme that tackles a broad range of issues is not novel. Several schemes that issue withdrawal permits or pollution caps are in operation in the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia, and Singapore.10 However, withdrawal permits and pollution caps are defined and operated separately.

The ideal set-up is to continuously account for changes in environmental conditions, demand, and pollutant load

What the current market mechanisms lack is the ability to harmonize environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, and feasibility.

Market-based approaches for allocating water to users, along with rights to pollute, are one solution that governments are experimenting with. But despite the promise of allocative efficiency, such markets risk unequal outcomes as water use tends be equated with the ability to pay. Moreover, noncommercial uses such as maintaining flows for an ecosystem’s health are likely undervalued because financial returns are limited.8 Creating a market based around a cap-and-trade scheme on the amount of pollution any user can generate can offer a more accurate system. Yet any pollutant cap is still a somewhat artificial measure that fails to take into account changes in water levels due to consumption and natural processes

patterns to ensure that water quality goals are always reached.11 This would involve defining a target based on assimilative capacity that can integrate both concerns. Assimilative capacity (AC), which refers to water’s ability to absorb waste, is sensitive to both flows and quality of the resource stock.12 For example, AC is diminished during low water flows or when large volumes of pollutants are deposited. This, in turn, limits the ability of the body of water to provide services, making the AC trading ratio a vital measure in weighing up the relative impacts of withdrawals and pollution loading to ecosystem integrity.

Creating an AC market would then provide users with the flexibility to meet targets and could stimulate innovation and reduce compliance costs in

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Perspectives

UN Photo/Albert González Farran

Uneven distribution and mismanagement of the world’s clean water resources result in widespread water scarcity. Severe water shortages in North Darfur limited access to clean water to only two hours each day in January of 2014.

the long run.13 An AC market would also promote efficient practices, such as water conservation measures and nutrient management, because a price on AC sends an economy-wide signal to internalize externalities.

An AC market is not without its downsides. The cost of operationalizing a trading scheme, which involves establishing baselines, monitoring, and enforcement, is not negligible. In existing pollution markets, transaction costs account for five to 25 percent of the permit price, although this can be offset by aggregating permits from other pollution sources and allowing centralized auctions instead of bilateral trades.10,14 Transparent

schemes can also help with management of the scheme by allowing users to self-monitor and enforce rules.

Another problem that AC markets don’t tackle, but which policy makers need to address for the scheme to be effective, is perverse incentives such as fertilizer subsidies. In most developed countries, inefficient fertilizer application is the major cause of eutrophication, or excess nutrients that cause algal blooms. A fifth of total nitrogen and phosphorus inputs can be reduced without impacting global yields.15 An AC market would need to work together with a public information campaign to help farmers develop more efficient practices. Tax breaks

34 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

may still be needed to assist poorer families cope with any price increases.

Taken together, these approaches combine regulation and market instruments to ensure that the triple bottom line of sustainability is met. As opposed to conventional approaches that measure either water quantity or quality, a trading scheme based on assimilative capacity offers a common metric with which tradeoffs in appropriating the different and often-conflicting water uses can be assessed. However, despite the promise of assimilative capacity, success is not inherent in theory. Several design measures need to be in place to overcome practical, institutional, and political

Perspectives

USDA NRCS

A water sample taken from a wetland in Iowa by the US Department of agriculture. Assimilative capacity refers to water’s ability to absorb waste.

barriers. These include instituting safety mechanisms that account for the heterogeneity of AC and water pollution sources, correcting policies that distort the price signal, and addressing potential distributional concerns.

crisis: syndromes from a meta-analysis of coupled

10. Zhang, Y., Y. Wu, H. Yu, Z.Dong, and B. Zhang. Trade-

human–water studies. Water Resources Research 48,

offs in designing water pollution trading policy

1–16 (2012).

with multiple objectives: a case study in the Tai

5. Evans, A., M. Hanjra, Y. Jiang, M. Qadir, and P. Drechsel. Water quality: assessment of the current situation in Asia. International Journal of Water Resources Development 28, 195–216 (2012).

6. Howe, C. Taxes versus tradable discharge permits: a

References 1. Gleick, P. and M. Palaniappan. Peak water limits to freshwater withdrawal and use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, 11155–11162 (2011).

2. Cooley, H et al. in The World’s Water Vol. 8 (ed.

Gleick, P) 1–15 (Island Press, Washington DC, 2014).

3. Liu, C., C. Kroeze, A. Hoekstra, and W. Gerbens-

review in light of the U.S. and European experience.

Environmental and Resource Economics 4, 151–169

Lake Basin, China. Environmental Science & Policy 33, 295–307 (2013).

11. Ning, S.K. and N.B. Chang. Watershed-based point sources permitting strategy and dynamic permit-trading analysis. Journal of Environmental Management 84, 427–446 (2007).

12. Gleick, P. and M. Palaniappan. Peak water limits to freshwater withdrawal and use. Proceedings of the

(1994).

7. Mariola, M. The commodification of pollution and a pre-emptive double movement in environmental

National Academy of Sciences 107, 11155–11162 (2010).

13. Horan, R. and J. Shortle. Economic and ecological

governance: the case of water quality trading.

rules for water quality trading. Journal of the

Organization and Environment 24, 1–18 (2011).

American Water Resources Association 47, 59–69

8. Hudspith, E. Freshwater management in New

(2011).

Leenes. Past and future trends in grey water

Zealand: a challenge for ecology, equity, and

footprints of anthropogenic nitrogen and

economic efficiency. New Zealand Journal of

markets: historical lessons for modern energy and

phosphorus inputs to major world rivers. Ecological

Environmental Law 1, 277–317 (2012).

climate planners. Renewable and Sustainable Energy

Indicators 18, 42–49 (2012).

4. Srinivasan, V., E. Lambin, S. Gorelick, B. Thomson, and S. Rozelle. The nature and causes of global water

9. Ingram, H. and C. Oggins. The public trust doctrine and community values in water. Natural Resources Journal 32, 515–537 (1992).

14. Sovacool, B. The political economy of pollution

Reviews 49, 943–953 (2015).

15. Mueller, N. et al. Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management. Nature 490, 254–257 (2012).

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Perspectives

Stephen Melkisethian

Climate activists in Washington, DC protest the expansion of a natural gas transfer and storage facility at Cove Point on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland in the summer of 2014.

36 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Zafirah, Z. (2015). The Place of Muslim Women in Islamic Space. Solutions 6(5): 37–39. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/the-place-of-muslim-women-in-islamic-space

Perspectives The Place of Muslim Women in Islamic Space

by Zafirah Zein

Zafirah Zein

Women’s prayer area in Suleymaniye mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

T

he amount of space afforded to women in Islam has long been a topic of debate. Traditionally, men lead prayers at home and outside.

Men raise the call to prayer, preach during sermons, and take up more space in mosques. There are far less female imams, and women typically pray in separate, more modest quarters allocated to them.

In 2011, Istanbul’s former deputy mufti, or Muslim jurist expert Kadriye Avci Erdemli implemented the “Beautification of Mosques for Women” campaign, which strove to improve the facilities and conditions

of women-designated areas in the city’s mosques. In a city that is home to more than 3,000 mosques, including a few of the world’s most majestic, Erdemli had found that many betrayed Islam’s message of equality in spaces of worship. While men are more obliged to attend mosques within Islamic tradition, the conditions of female spaces in Istanbul were turning away women from visiting these sacred places at all.

Inspections under the campaign revealed that many mosques lacked female toilets, and that the areas reserved for women were either unkempt or used for storage purposes.

The walls and curtains that carve out these spaces also limited the view women had of the mosque from where they were situated—at the back.

Under Erdemli, massive clean-ups and structural changes ensued, and imams were advised to educate their congregations on the roles of women in mosques. At an event co-hosted

by Women in Islam, Inc and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to the United Nations held last year, Erdemli said that there was a rise in women’s attendance in mosques by 70 percent as a result of the campaign.1 Turkey has also made other strides aimed at greater inclusion and gender equality in its religious spaces. Sakirin Mosque in the conservative area of Uskudar is the first in the country to be designed by a woman. Zeynep Fadillioglu and other female artists oversaw the construction of Sakirin, where women now pray on its second-floor balcony. From this location, women are granted an unobstructed view of the dome, chandelier, and the area below where the imam leads prayers. At the mosque’s inauguration in 2009, Emine Erdogan, wife of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said, “This art is the proof that there is no distance between women and mosque in Islam.”2 While Turkey has tackled this issue by enhancing the spaces allocated to women, women in other parts of the world are taking matters into their own hands. In January 2015, the first women-only mosque opened in the United States. Located in Los Angeles, the Women’s Mosque of America was founded by two women who sought to improve the place of Muslim women who are often relegated to second-class status in their communities.

In China, the women of the country’s minority Hui Muslim community have been symbols of female leadership and empowerment for over 300 years. Nusis are women-run

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 37

Perspectives

Zafirah Zein

Women’s prayer area in Sehzade mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

mosques that cropped up in Hui Muslim enclaves in China due to the scarcity of male Islamic teachers. In order to preserve their faith from getting usurped by the majority Han culture, the community encouraged their women to promote Islamic education among their young. What started out as Quranic schools for girls transformed into mosques run solely by women, with female imams spreading Islamic education, leading prayers, and delivering sermons.

While these independent female spaces represent a positive anomaly in Islam’s status quo, the struggle remains for women fighting for space within areas where men have traditionally dominated. Islamic scholars diverge on whether women

are allowed to pray in the same space alongside men, and whether they are allowed to lead mixed congregations.

When asked what she thought of gendered spaces in mosques, one 23-year-old Turkish woman, named Cansu, said, “Women and men need their own space. The issue is not the segregation of space, but of equal rights. Women should have the same amount of area and facilities in the mosque as [men]. Most mosques in Istanbul don’t have this.”

On March 18, in honor of International Women’s Day, Amina Wadud, a well-known American Islamic scholar and author of Quran and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective, led a mixed congregation in a Friday jum’ah prayer.

38 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

As the imam, she delivered the sermon and led more than one hundred men and women in prayer. Although it was not the first time a woman was the head of a mixed gender congregation, it was the first to gain international attention. While some hailed it as a revolutionary, groundbreaking step towards representing Islam’s egalitarian message, others condemned the defying of Islamic tradition. The event even received bomb threats and was finally held in an inclusive church in Manhattan.

Journalist and activist Asra Nomani, who specializes in Muslim reform and Islamic feminist movements, was the primary organizer of the March 18, 2015 event. She raised the call to prayer without donning the

Perspectives

Zafirah Zein

Women’s prayer area in Kilic Ali Pasa mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

headscarf, earning criticism for her methods of promoting gender equality and encouraging mixed gender prayer worldwide.

In a blog post in 2010, well-known Islamic spiritual speaker and author Yasmin Mogahed responded to women-led prayer by stating, “For 1,400 years, there has been a consensus of the scholars that men are to lead prayer. As a Muslim woman, why does this matter? The one who leads prayer is not spiritually superior in any way.

Something is not better just because a man does it. And leading prayer is not better, just because it’s leading.”3 Cansu’s friend, Sena, 21, had a similar viewpoint. “I think for your concentration during prayer, it’s

important for men and women to have their own space. According to my religion and opinion, women and men are different. Women are more emotional, and we need to be protected. There are different roles and I have no problem with men being in front of me in prayer.”

The issue of women’s space and rights in Islam has hence stirred debate between different Muslim circles. The tension between what is perceived as Western feminism and Islamic feminism, as well as between conservatives and liberals, is a thread that runs through various issues on the minds of today’s Muslim societies.

It is worth recognizing, however, the steps taken in respect of women

and their empowerment, such as the beautification of mosques campaign in Turkey and the women’s mosques of China’s Hui. References 1. Hassan, M. and S. Sayeed. Women in Islam, Inc and the OIC Mission to the UN Co-host an All-day Event Aimed at Breaking Down Gender Barriers in the Mosque. Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [online] (2014) http://www.oicun. org/9/20140505010850569.html.

2. Wrathall, C. Istanbul: Beauties of Byzantium.

Harper’s Bazaar [online] (2015) http://www. harpersbazaar.co.uk/travel/travel-guides/istanbulbeauties-of-byzantium.

3. Mogahed, Y. A Woman’s Reflection on Leading Prayer. YasminMogahed.com [online] (2010) http://www.yasminmogahed.com/2010/12/19/awoman%E2%80%99s-reflection-on-leadingprayer/.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 39

Hoffman, A. (2015). Laudato si’ and the Role of Religion in Shaping Humanity’s Response to Climate Change. Solutions 6(5): 40–47. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/laudato-si-and-the-role-of-religion-in-shaping-humanitys-response-to-climate-change

Feature

Laudato si’ and the Role of Religion in Shaping Humanity’s Response to Climate Change

by Andrew Hoffman

Leo Soueu

“Praised be to you, my Lord, with all of your Creatures. Respect, don’t contaminate the environment.”

In Brief There are many ways in which people have sought to make climate change personally salient and actionable through self-interest, such as national security and human health. But the Pope’s recent encyclical letter, Laudato si’ has elevated the importance of religious morality as a motivator. It’s a bold appeal to re-evaluate our worldviews, values and spiritual beliefs and elevate climate change and the broad sweep of environmental issues beyond that of strictly an “environmental issue,” a label that has ghettoized the issue as one that is associated with a liberal environmental movement. When people hear the message to address climate change and protect the environment from the church, mosque, synagogue or temple, it will have far more power to motivate action than a regulatory or economic message ever will. Religion, unlike any other institutional force in society, has the power to directly influence our values and beliefs. And at this particular moment in our human existence on Earth—the epoch of the Anthropocene—this religious voice is all the more important. A proper response to the Anthropocene Era calls for a new set of values and beliefs about our relationship with the environment, with each other, and for many, with God. 40 | Solutions | September-October 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

I

n 1949, conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote that no important change in our ethical appreciation of nature could ever be accomplished “without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections and convictions. The proof that conservation has not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy and religion have not yet heard of it.”1 In 2015, the Pope’s encyclical letter Laudato si’ or “On Care for Our Common Home” is correcting that oversight,2 taking concern for the environment and climate change to the level of religious faith.3 This adds to the ongoing efforts to connect climate change to concerns for national security,4 economic competitiveness,5 and human health,6 which can convince people to protect nature through self-interest, financial incentives, and pragmatic reasons. But a connection to religious beliefs compels us to act for reasons that go far beyond our narrow personal interests and evoke words like sacred, divine, reverence, and love.

If his message truly takes hold, it will make the issue personally salient in ways that go far deeper than other attempts to stir attention and spur action. When people hear the message to address climate change and protect the environment from the church, mosque, synagogue or temple, it will have far more power to motivate action than a regulatory or economic message ever will. Religion, unlike any other institutional force in society, has the power to directly influence our values and beliefs.7

The Core Religious Message Pope Francis lays blame for our ecological crisis on rampant consumerism, unrestrained faith in technology, blind pursuit of profits, political shortsightedness, and the economic inequalities that force the world’s poor to bear the brunt of an imbalanced system. His message calls for us to “promote a new way of thinking about human beings,

life, society and our relationship with nature.” It’s a bold appeal to reevaluate our worldviews, values, and spiritual beliefs and to elevate climate change and the broad sweep of environmental issues beyond that of strictly an “environmental issue,” a label that

Key Concepts • Religion is a critical motivator for action on climate change. When people hear the message to protect the environment from the church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, it will have far more power to motivate action than a regulatory or economic message ever will.

• The Pope, through his encyclical letter Laudato si’, can reach segments of the public that the three primary messengers on climate change— environmentalists, Democratic politicians, and scientists—cannot.

• The Pope’s message can give political cover for emerging Republicans to upend the notion that you cannot be a conservative and believe in climate change, or that you cannot believe in God and believe in climate change.

• In Laudato si’, the Pope is challenging centuries old interpretations of biblical theology—such as misinterpretations of the Genesis mandate—as well as calling for new forms of economic, civic, and political action as being consistent with moral responsibility.

• In the end, Laudato si’ is a response to the unprecedented challenges that we now face in the Anthropocene Era, calling for a new set of values and beliefs about our relationship with the environment, with each other, and for many, with God.

has ghettoized the issue as one that is associated with a liberal environmental movement and all the cultural and political baggage that accompanies such a label.

Instead, the Pope is framing climate change as an issue of social equity.

We live in a world where the richest

20 percent of the global population (namely us) consume 86 percent of all goods and services, while the poorest 20 percent consume just 1.3 percent.8 And yet, it is these poor people that will bear the brunt of the environmental impacts of climate change. It is not a giant leap to connect these injustices with a call to act on climate change to fulfill and enact our religious beliefs and the dignity of all humankind, not just the affluent few. Against such a moral backdrop, the very call to “make the business case to protect the global climate”—a common tactic to argue for action on climate change—seems rather absurd.

Re-examining Sacred Texts: The Genesis Mandate Pope Francis calls for a re-examination of the meaning of “stewardship” within the book of Genesis and what it means to have dominion over nature.

This has been a much-debated and contested issue, one that exploded in 1967 when Lynn White wrote that our ecological problems derive from “Christian attitudes towards man’s relation to nature,” which lead us to think of ourselves as “superior to nature, contemptuous of it, willing to use it for our slightest whim.”

He doubted that changes in those attitudes could occur unless, first, “orthodox Christian arrogance towards nature” were somehow dispelled and, secondly, we move beyond that idea that science and technology alone can solve our “ecological crisis.”9 In Laudato si’, the Pope offers a revised view, writing that our interpretation of dominion “is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church.” Instead, he writes that the Bible teaches human beings to “till and keep” the garden of the world, where “‘tilling’ refers to cultivating, plowing or working, while ‘keeping’ means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving.” In 1991, Pope John Paul II offered a similarly provocative

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counterpoint to the widely accepted view of man’s domination of nature in his encyclical letter Centesimus annus or Hundredth Year: “Man thinks he can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray.”10 But unlike his predecessor, Pope Francis has elevated concern for the environment in an encyclical letter all its own.

The Messenger is as Important as the Message The public debate over climate change today has been caught up in the so-called “culture wars,”11 where the majority of Democrats believe in climate change and the majority of Republicans do not.12 In explaining this divide, research shows that we openly consider evidence when it is accepted or ideally presented by sources that represent our cultural community, and we dismiss information that is advocated by sources that represent groups whose values we reject.13 As such, the Pope can reach segments of the public that the three primary messengers on climate change—environmentalists, Democratic politicians, and scientists—cannot.14 First, the Pope can reach the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics with an unmatched power to convince and motivate. And it would appear that Catholics are a receptive audience. According to a survey by the Yale Project on Climate Communication, a solid majority of Catholics (70 percent) think that global warming is happening and 48 percent think it is caused by humans, compared with only 57 percent and 35 percent of non-Catholic Christians respectively.15 But the Pope’s reach extends far beyond his Catholic followers. A survey by the Pew Research Center

Lawrence OP

A stained glass window by Henry Holiday depicting the creation of the earth in the Southwark Cathedral.

found that the Pope is extremely popular with both Catholics and nonCatholics. Americans are particularly fond of Pope Francis, with more than three-quarters (78 percent) giving him positive marks. In Europe, Catholics and non-Catholics view the Pope with very similar acclaim.16

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An Ecumenical Response to a Catholic Message The Pope’s message is calling attention to the ongoing efforts of religious environmental groups (such as Interfaith Power and Light, the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, the Catholic Climate Covenant, GreenFaith and

Elvert Barnes

The encyclical frames climate change as an issue of social equity that disproportionately affects the poor.

others) and leaders in other denominations, notably Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Orthodox Church, nicknamed the “Green Patriarch,” who has been calling out the “sin” of environmental degradation for years.17 But his message is prompting responses from representatives of other denominations as well.

The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences drafted a declaration on climate change that mirrors many of the encyclical’s key messages. The declaration ends with a call to action for Muslims everywhere to play a role in tackling climate change—and calls on other faith and religious groups to join in the effort.18 Similarly, more than 300 Jewish rabbis signed a rabbinic letter on the climate crisis, calling for vigorous action to prevent worsening climate disruption and to seek “eco-social justice.”19 The Dalai Lama has publicly endorsed the Pope’s encyclical, calling it “wonderful,” and asking his fellow Buddhists, as well as all people, to “say more. We have to make more of an effort, including

demonstrations.”20 He suggested that tackling climate change may be better led by a religious coalition than a political one, stating, “Countries think about their own national interest rather than global interests and that needs to change because the environment is a global issue.”21

Changing the Debate More than asking people to adjust their beliefs, Laudato si’ is quite explicit in its call for changes in our behavior.

For example, the letter calls on people to change their consuming and purchasing behavior, pointing out that “A person who could afford to spend and consume more but regularly uses less heating and wears warmer clothes, shows the kind of convictions and attitudes which help to protect the environment. There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions.” Going further, the letter advocates for consumers to “bring healthy pressure to bear on those who wield political, economic and social power. This is what consumer

movements accomplish by boycotting certain products. They prove successful in changing the way businesses operate, forcing them to consider their environmental footprint and their patterns of production. When social pressure affects their earnings, businesses clearly have to find ways to produce differently. This shows us the great need for a sense of social responsibility on the part of consumers.”

Finally, the letter seeks change within our political system, stating that “Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world.” To that point, the 114th Congress has 138 Catholic congressmen (70 of whom are Republican) and 26 Catholic senators (11 of whom are Republicans).22 Those 81 Republicans have followed the party lead in rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change, not always because of the scientific evidence, but rather by yielding to party politics.23 But the Pope’s message can give political cover for emerging Republicans to upend the notion that you can’t be a conservative and believe in climate change (or the notion that you can’t believe in God and believe in climate change, an argument that Rush Limbaugh and others have tried to make). In particular, it may shift the presidential debate on climate change. Already, we can see signs of the quandary that Pope’s message creates for religiously inspired political candidates. For example, where presidential candidate Jeb Bush said in 2009 that you can’t put your “faith in a safety deposit box until you finish your service as a public servant and then go back and get it.

I never felt that was appropriate…

It’s who you are,” he responded to the Pope’s encyclical by saying that “I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my Pope.”

Rick Santorum similarly said that Pope Francis should “leave science to scientists.”24 For voters who agree that

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Stephen Melkisethian

Pope Francis’ message has tied climate action to religious faith, calling upon the moral responsibilities of the faithful.

religious faith should guide political action, these kinds of statements appear inconsistent.

In the long run, with polls showing that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change (including 48 percent of Republicans),25 the shifting debate may lead Republicans to re-examine their party position on, not only climate change, but environmental issues in general. To that point, this past March Republican Senator and presidential candidate Lindsey Graham from South Carolina argued: “You know, when it comes to climate change being real, people of my party are all over the board… I think the Republican Party has to do some soul searching. Before we can be bipartisan, we’ve got to figure out where we are as a party…What is the environmental platform of the Republican Party? I don’t know, either.”26

Why Now? The Anthropocene As we contemplate the possible implications of the Pope’s encyclical letter, it is worth asking the question, why has this come out now? The modern environmental movement has been with us for more than 50 years. Why does this encyclical resonate so much today?

One reason is that we are at a unique moment in our time on Earth as a species, one never faced before, and one requiring a new system of ethics, values, beliefs, worldviews, and above all, spirituality.27 Geophysicists have given this moment a name: it is called the Anthropocene.28 The Pope’s landmark encyclical provides a moral compass to help navigate this emerging era.

The Anthropocene is a proposed new geologic epoch, one which leaves the Holocene behind and acknowledges that humans are now a primary operating element in the Earth’s ecosystems.

Though the concept has not yet received full, formal recognition by

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geophysical societies, it points out that we can no longer describe the environment without including the role that humans play in how it operates. This era is argued to have started around the industrial revolution of the early 1800s, and has become more acute since “the Great Acceleration” around 1950 onwards.29 It is marked by the reality that, according to Nobel-prize winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, who first proposed the term: “Human activity has transformed between a third and a half of the land surface of the planet; Many of the world’s major rivers have been dammed or diverted; Fertilizer plants produce more nitrogen than is fixed naturally by all terrestrial ecosystems; Humans use more than half of the world’s readily accessible freshwater runoff.”30 Though the Pope singles out climate change in his encyclical letter, this is just one of nine “planetary boundaries” that scientists say represent “thresholds

Stephen Melkisethian

Climate activists at the Moral Action on Climate Rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. watched live as Pope Francis addressed the U.S. Congress on September 24, 2015.

below which humanity can safely operate and beyond which the stability of planetary-scale systems cannot be relied upon.”31 In terms of science, acknowledging an unprecedented shift in our geophysical reality would be a significant and unprecedented moment in history. But, the social and cultural shift is even more profound.32 Recognition of the Anthropocene signals an urgency and complexity that the general idea of sustainable development lacks, compelling change deep within the structures of our collective understanding of

the world around us. According to geographer and political philosopher Rory Rowan: “The Anthropocene is not a problem for which there can be a solution. Rather, it names an emergent set of geo-social conditions that already fundamentally structure the horizon of human existence. It is thus not a new factor that can be accommodated within existing conceptual frameworks, including those within which policy is developed, but signals a profound shift in the human relation to the planet that questions the very foundations of these frameworks themselves.”33

Droughts, wildfires, food insecurity, water scarcity, and the social unrest that results are all emergent markers of the Anthropocene Era that point to a fundamental system failure created by our social structures. We now have control over the biosphere and therefore, the human systems which depend on it, in ways that are monumental. A response to the Anthropocene Era calls for a new set of values and beliefs about our relationship with the environment, with each other and for many, with God. And this is what the Pope’s encyclical letter is trying to articulate. He specifically calls out a desire to change “the dominant

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United Nations Photo

Pope Francis addresses the UN General Assembly in September 2015. In his speech, the Pope stated that, “Any harm done to the environment, therefore is harm done to humanity.”

technocratic paradigm and the place of human beings and of human action in the world” and in this way bring about a “paradigm shift,” as Thomas Kuhn called it,34 which occurs when scientists encounter anomalies that cannot be explained by the universally accepted paradigm. This precipitates a period of “intellectually violent revolution” in which “one conceptual world view is replaced by another.”

True to the form of a paradigm shift, his message will not go down easily. The accompanying tensions that such a shift will create are likely to be more pronounced than the currently polarized debate over climate change. The Anthropocene challenges our ways of understanding the environment and how they change on both regional and global scales. It leads to a transformative cultural shift that is akin to the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Enlightenment

was built on a cultural shift from perceiving nature as subsuming the human endeavor, to one in which humankind embarked on the “conquest of nature” and a metaphor of the planet as an enemy to be subdued. In similar ways, the Anthropocene is an acknowledgment that the scientific method which was essential to the Enlightenment is no longer fully adequate to understand the natural world and our impact upon it.

As the Pope points out in the encyclical letter: “Given the complexity of the ecological crisis and its multiple causes, we need to realize that the solutions will not emerge from just one way of interpreting and transforming reality…If we are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable of remedying the damage we have done, no branch of the sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out, and that includes religion and the language

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particular to it.” In responding to the “urgent challenge to protect our common home,” he asks us “to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development.” Indeed, this kind of global common cause is a challenge we have not yet faced as a species. It will require a level of cooperation that we are not prepared for, and that requires a global set of ethics and values we do not yet know.

The Lasting Legacy?

Many have compared Pope Francis’ letter to the 1891 Encyclical Letter Rerum novarum or “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor,”35 in which Pope Leo XIII addressed the condition of the working classes. In offering a way to understand the unprecedented confusion of clashing capitalist and communist notions of labor in the midst of the industrial revolution,

Rerum novarum has become a foundational document for Catholic social teaching.

Will Laudato si’ offer a similarly transformative way to understand the unprecedented confusion over global scale environmental and social changes that we are creating? The answer to that question is not solely a testament to the Encyclical Letter’s importance; it will be a testament to our ability to hear a message that is hard to hear, and harder still to act upon. As the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote in 1985: “We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life’s continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are.”36 Pope Francis is asking us to face this new reality with a religious frame of reference, calling for respect for the natural world around us and a humility to recognize our limitations in understanding how it works and what we are doing to it. He is asking it at a key moment in time when we are taking a new place in the natural world; what he is careful to call “creation” a term that connotes far more spiritual importance.

6. Costello, A et al. Managing the health effects of climate change. The Lancet 373, 1693–1733 (2009).

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15. Yale Project on Climate Communication. American Catholics worry about global warming and support U.S. action. Yale School of Forestry & Environmental

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28. Stromberg, J. What is the Anthropocene and are

Studies [online] (2015) http://environment.yale.edu/

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30. Crutzen, P. Geology of mankind. Nature 415, 23

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com/2012/12/04/science/bartholomew-i-ofconstantinoples-bold-green-stance.html?_r=0.

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(2002).

31. Rockström, J et al. Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society 14(2), 32 (2009).

32. Hoffman, A & P.D. Jennings. Institutional theory and the natural environment: Research in (and on) the Anthropocene. Organization & Environment 28(1), 8–31 (2015).

33. Rowan, R. Notes on politics after the Anthropocene

19. Waskow, A. Pope Francis inspires 300+ rabbis to sign rabbinic letter on climate. National Catholic Reporter

4. CNA Group. National security and the accelerating

[online] (June 8, 2015) http://ncronline.org/blogs/

risks of climate change. CNA Military Advisory

eco-catholic/pope-francis-inspires-300-rabbis-sign-

MAB_2014.pdf.

americans-support-government-action-on-climate-

climate-change-borick-rabe.

3. Hoffman, A & L. Sandelands. Getting right with

Board [online] (2014) http://biospherology.com/PDF/

www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us/politics/most-

www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/03/04-

as dire threat. RTCC [online] (July 15, 2015) http://

141–162 (2005).

climate-change/.

25. Davenport, C & M. Connelly. Most Republicans say they back climate action, poll finds. The New

francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.

theocentrism. Organization & Environment 18(2),

change encyclical is hogwash. Time [online] (June

hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html.

[online] (December 3, 2012) http://www.nytimes.

nature: anthropocentism, ecocentrism and

climate-change/.

va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/

1949).

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partisan/wp/2015/01/23/hope-for-republicans-on-

17, 2015) http://time.com/3924287/pope-francis-

10. Pope John Paul II. Encyclical letter: Centesimus

stance on environment. The New York Times

Vatican [online] (2015) http://w2.vatican.va/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-

24. Hale, C. Jeb Bush’s response to Pope Francis’s climate

Here and There (Oxford University Press, New York, 2. Pope Francis. Encyclical letter: Laudato si’. The

org/2015/01/05/faith-on-the-hill/.

23. Stromberg, S. Hope for Republicans on climate change? Washington Post [online] (January 23, 2015)

8. Crossette, B. Kofi Annan’s astonishing facts. The

http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/12/11/pope-francis1. Leopold, A. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches

dalai-lama-praises-popes-environment-encyclical/.

22. Faith on the Hill: the religious composition

asks us to examine our deepest values and beliefs.

Pew Research Center [online] (December 11, 2014)

References

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rabbinic-letter-climate.

in After the Anthropocene: politics and geographic inquiry for a new epoch (eds Johnson, E & Morehouse, H). Progress in Human Geography 9–12 (2014).

34. Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962).

20. Melino, C. Dalai Lama endorses Pope Francis’s

35. Pope Leo VIII. Encyclical letter: Rerum norarum.

encyclical on climate change. EcoWatch [online]

The Vatican [online] (1891) http://w2.vatican.va/

‘Sputnik moment’ in green technology race. The

(June 29, 2015) http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/29/

content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-

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5. Goldenberg, S. US energy secretary warns of

theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/29/us-greentechnology-energy-investment.

xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html.

21. Melino, C. Dalai Lama praises Pope’s environment encyclical. Catholic Herald [online] (June 29, 2015)

36. Gould, SJ. The Flamingo’s Smile:Reflections in Natural History (Penguin Books, New York, 1991).

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Braimoh, A. (2015). The Role of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Addressing Land Degradation. Solutions 6(5): 48–57. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/the-role-of-climate-smart-agriculture-in-addressing-land-degradation

Feature

The Role of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Addressing Land Degradation

by Ademola Braimoh

Lance Cheung / USDA

A farmer handpicks sweet potatoes at Kirby Farms in Mechanicsville, VA. Soil is the most significant natural capital for ensuring food, water, and energy security.

In Brief Land degradation has profound consequences for food and water security, poverty, mass migrations, and increased vulnerability of affected areas to climate change. It currently affects 1.5 billion people and could lead to the displacement of 135 million more people by 2045. Feeding the growing population will require ingenuity and innovation in producing food and managing land sustainably. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) helps to address the problems of land degradation, food security, and climate change by sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes; adapting and building resilience to climate change; and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. CSA technological solutions include integrated soil fertility management, agroforestry, farmer-managed land restoration, conservation agriculture, rainwater harvesting, improved livestock management, and alternate wet and dry rice production systems. While CSA technologies and practices are generating significant benefits, their adoption often faces a variety of socioeconomic and institutional barriers. Urgent solutions for scaling up CSA include promoting nationallyowned climate smart agricultural policies to increase adoption of CSA technologies, increasing national investment to boost CSA, creating sustainable private-sector-led input markets, ensuring equitable access to land, and promoting inclusive and innovative knowledge management systems.

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E

very year, we lose an area of land roughly the size of Honduras to desertification, and 24 billion tons of fertile soil to erosion. This threatens the livelihoods of 1.5 billion people, and is likely to displace 135 million by 2045.1 We already have the first mass migrations in the Middle East, where the refugee crisis has been linked to years of drought in Syria and Iraq. Egypt, Ghana, Central African Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Paraguay are all experiencing significant land degradation and soaring food prices as a result.

As populations grow, the pressure on land resources will only increase.

Unsuitable or especially biodiverse land such as rainforest will be claimed for farming, and will become more vulnerable to degradation as a result.

The largest increase in food demand is expected in the poorest regions, where the most people live. Smallholder farmers suffer the most because poor soil conditions, climate and weather variability, land tenure insecurity, and limited access to markets pressure them to make short-term trade-offs that compromise long-term gains.

Feeding the growing population in the coming years will require ingenuity and innovation to produce more food on less land in more sustainable ways. So, how do we manage land better?

It will all come down to what we do with our soil, which is the most significant natural capital for ensuring food, water, and energy security while adapting and building resilience to climate change. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the soil’s nutrient cycling provides the largest contribution (51 percent) of the total value (USD$33 trillion) of all ‘ecosystem services’ provided each year.2 Yet soil’s important function is often forgotten as the missing link in our pursuit of sustainable development.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an alternative approach to managing

land sustainably while increasing agricultural productivity.3 The idea, first championed in 2010 at the first Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change at The Hague, is composed of three main pillars: sustainably increasing

Key Concepts • Smallholders suffer the most from land degradation; degraded soil conditions combined with climate variability, land tenure insecurity, and limited market access pressure them to make short-term tradeoffs that compromise long-term gains.

• Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an alternative approach to managing land sustainably and increasing agricultural productivity under the new realities of a changing climate.

• CSA is composed of three pillars: sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes, adapting and building resilience to climate change, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.

• Farmers face substantial barriers in adopting CSA practices. These include significant upfront expenditures required for adopting new technology, lack of information about the potential gains of adopting a new technology, the non-availability of inputs in local markets, and limited capacities in implementing improved practices.

• Action-oriented solutions for scaling up CSA include promoting nationallyowned climate smart agricultural policies to increase adoption of CSA technologies, increasing national investment to boost CSA, and building sustainable private-sector-led input markets, ensuring equitable land access, and fostering inclusive and innovative knowledge management systems.

agricultural productivity and incomes; adapting and building resilience to climate change; and, reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions.4 The techniques developed over the

past few years are already transforming the way the world thinks about agricultural assistance. The idea of facilitating the supply of chemical fertilizer and genetically improved seeds to farmers and enhancing their access to output markets is giving way to an approach that is centered on developing smallholders’ ability to help themselves.

Happily, soil is the central element of most CSA approaches.5 One of the best examples of CSA in action is the use of so-called ‘Integrated Soil Fertility Management.’6 This approach, developed in Africa in the early 2000s, involves fostering the use of plants that have historically been adapted to the local environment, and thus already have a high genetic yield potential, pest and disease resistance, drought resistance, and nutrient and water-use efficiency. Combined with judicious quantities of mineral fertilizers, as well as organic inputs, such as crop residue and manure, that are readily available to smallholders, you have a low-tech solution that offers the greatest resilience to climate change.

Other climate-smart practices include agroforestry, an integrated land-use system combining trees and shrubs with crops and livestock; and, conservation agriculture, a system based on minimum soil disturbance through mechanical tillage, permanent soil cover through residue management, and crop rotation and diversification using legumes and green manure or cover crops.

Degraded croplands and grazing lands can be restored through farmermanaged natural regeneration (FMNR) of trees and shrubs from tree stumps, roots and seeds. Rainwater can be harvested; alternate wet and dry rice production systems can be employed that use flush irrigation to strategically supplement rainfall for parts of the growing season. For livestock, improved pasture management, such as rotational grazing, can make a huge difference.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 49

IFPRI/Milo Mitchell

Tilling soil in Senegal, where land degradation is a prominent issue. Adopting integrated soil fertility management practices will offer farmers a higher profit and increase sustainability, yet adoption rate of the method remain low in the region.

While CSA practices are generating significant benefits, farmers face substantial socioeconomic barriers to their adoption. Land management practices that require any upfront expenditure is often a barrier for poor farmers. The non-availability of inputs in local markets can also be a major obstacle. Despite the widespread growth of cell-phone use, the ability to pass on information to those in need is another constraint. Lastly, when technologies are inconsistent with community rules and traditional practices, their adoption is often resisted.

Breaking down centuries of poor practice—or more recent adoptions of chemical fertilizers—can be the stiffest challenge, but one that brings with it the most reward, because it is when smallholders work together that they can have the greatest success.

Over the past five years since CSA became a priority among the development community, we are starting to see solutions emerge to each of these challenges, which, taken together, suggest a program for change.

Promote climate-smart agricultural policies The goals of climate-smart agriculture cannot be met without policies and initiatives that encourage agricultural innovations and research, and establish stronger linkages between farmers, climate-smart supply chains, and markets. CSA needs to shift beyond development practitioners to involve government agencies more often.

We have seen that nationally owned climate-smart agricultural policies and action frameworks tend to increase the adoption of CSA technologies. Brazil,

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for example, has invested in research to support sustainable intensification, while creating legal and regulatory mechanisms to protect forest areas as a response to unrestrained agricultural expansion driven by market demand.7 CSA requires judicious policy management: proper coordination between agencies across different sectors at central and local levels. A wider landscape approach is needed for the better management of agricultural production and ecosystem services.

Increase investment in agriculture An increased level and quality of national investment is needed to boost CSA. Improvements in agriculture can be a powerful engine for economic development and poverty reduction.

It is well established that growth in

Neil Palmer (CIAT)

An example of agroforestry at a natural reserve near Palmira, Colombia. Agroforestry is an integrated land-use system combining trees and shrubs with crops and livestock.

agriculture is twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth originating from other sectors.8 Investments made in the agricultural sector have traditionally been intended to achieve multiple objectives, such as agricultural growth for food security, poverty reduction and economic development.

However, climate change has significantly altered agricultural investment needs.

The estimated investment gap for food security and adapting agricultural systems to climate change in developing countries amounts to US$320 to $360 billion per year according to the World Investment Report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.9

Taking these measures can help ameliorate land degradation. But, the real Holy Grail is to reverse existing habitat loss. Direct public investment in landscape restoration and rehabilitation can bring about sizeable livelihood benefits and create better conditions for attracting further investments by farmers and communities, but this requires strong political will. The China Loess Plateau and Rwanda Hillside Land Husbandry are welldocumented success stories of landscape restoration. The China Loess Plateau project sought to restore China’s heavily degraded Loess Plateau through one of the world’s largest erosion control efforts, with the goal of returning this poor part of China to an area of sustainable agricultural production.11 More than 2.5 million people in four of China’s poorest provinces—Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu, as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region—were lifted out of poverty. Incomes in project households grew from about US$70 per year per person to about US$200, while the employment rate increased from 70 percent to 87 percent. Agricultural production has changed from generating a narrow range of food and low-value grain commodities to high-value products. Per capita grain output increased from 365 to 591 kilograms per year. Sedimentation of waterways dramatically reduced: flow of sediment from the Plateau into the Yellow River reduced by more than 100 million tons per year. Tree replanting and bans on grazing led to an increase in perennial vegetation cover from 17 to 34 percent.

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The Loess Plateau in Shanxi, China. The China Loess Plateau project sought to restore the heavily degraded plateau through one of the world’s largest erosion control efforts, and lifted 2.5 million people out of poverty.

Agriculture as the backbone of the Rwandan economy accounts for 39 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), 80 percent of employment, 63 percent of foreign exchange earnings, and 90 percent of the country’s food needs. The sector is challenged by land constraints due to population pressure (population density is 490 persons per square kilometer), poor water management, small average land holdings, lack of public and private capacity, and limited commercialization constrained by poor access to output and financial markets. The country’s average annual income of US$550 per capita reflects a rural poverty rate of 49 percent, a figure that soars to 76 percent for families whose main source of income is agriculture. To address this problem, the Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation project was initiated to increase the productivity and commercialization of hillside agriculture in target areas. The project has reversed harmful erosion by protecting 2,346 hectares of land, increased the share of commercialized products from target areas to 69 percent, increased rainfed productivity of non-irrigated land from US$469 to $2,240 per hectare, and benefited 19,828 Rwandans.12

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Improving land governance—the manner in which land rights are defined and administered— can be the missing link between abundant land and development. Mexico’s successful registration of communal lands (ejidos) during the 1990s and Brazil’s successful model of market-assisted land reform offer positive lessons for many countries.17,18 In Africa, Tanzania has surveyed almost all of its communal lands; about 60 percent have been registered, at an average cost of about US$500 per village. Malawi successfully piloted a community-based, willing-seller willing-buyer approach to land reform, benefiting more than 15,000 poor farm families, raising agricultural incomes by 40 percent per year, and attaining an economic internal rate of return of 20 percent. Ghana reduced the number of days to transfer property from 169 in 2005 to 34 in 2011, and increased land-related revenue from US$12 million in 2003 to US$132 million in 2010 by decentralizing and computerizing its land registries, merging its land agencies, and strengthening property valuation. For countries to boost land governance, such improved approaches and comprehensive policy reforms will need to be scaled up. The estimated cost of scaling up improved land governance in sub Saharan Africa is USD$4.5 billion over 10 years.19

Chaos

While increasing national investment in CSA might be a tall order in countries with severe budget constraints, finite public resources can be more selectively targeted by prioritizing CSA approaches that generate the most short-term returns or by introducing incentives that encourage private sector investment.

Public investment can also be used to

leverage private investment in areas such as research and development, provision of climate information services, or by bundling agricultural credit and insurance together and providing different forms of risk management such as index-based weather insurance.10

producers—are all too often locked out of land ownership by customary laws. Fast, effective, and low-cost approaches involving the use of satellite images, global position systems, and computerized data management technologies to access, register, and administer land rights are needed.

Ensure equitable access to land

Facilitate increased input use

Often what drives land degradation is the question of social justice and the equitable distribution of resources.

One of the most prominent issues is the practice of “land grabbing,” a phenomenon increasingly driven by the desire to secure land rights to the food and energy needs of foreign investors.13,14,15 It is estimated that up to 63 million hectares have been allotted in land deals, or are under negotiation in 27 countries in Africa.16 Other challenges of land governance include corruption, inefficient land administration, and low capacity and demand for land administration professionals.

Secure land rights are necessary for climate-smart agriculture, providing incentives for local communities to manage land more sustainably.

Customary land rights and gender equality need to be recognized.

Women—the primary subsistence

Reversing land degradation in Africa and South Asia will require increased but targeted use of fertilizers and other inputs. This, in turn, will require building sustainable private-sectorled input markets. But, progress in improving input distribution systems is likely to be unsustainable without strong, effective demand for the inputs. Effective demand can only be assured if farmers have access to reliable markets to sell their products at a profit.20 Thus, both demand- and supply-side interventions are needed to strategically break the adoption barriers associated with input use and other climate-smart practices.

Improve knowledge management systems A number of climate-smart technologies are knowledge-intensive, and promoting their adoption will require well designed, inclusive,

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | September-October 2015 | Solutions | 53

DEMAND-SIDE INTERVENTIONS

SUPPLY-SIDE INTERVENTIONS

Strengthen soil-crop research and extension • Support to public agencies • Public-private partnership • On-farm trials and demonstrations

Reduce input sourcing costs • Lower trade barriers to increase national and regional market size

Improve farmers’ ability to purchase inputs • Improve access to credits • Phased and incremental use (e.g., small bags for fertilizers) • Implement laws that enable farmers to use risk-free collateral for loans

Reduce distribution costs • Improve road and rail infrastructure to lower transport costs

Provide farmers with risk management tools • Improved weather forecasting, weatherindexed crop insurance

Strengthen business finance and risk management • Use credit guarantee and innovative insurance schemes

Improved quality and dissemination of market information • Public and private sector information systems easily accessible to farmers

Improve supply-chain coordination mechanisms • Establish product grades and standards • Develop market information systems to reduce information costs

Table. Interventions for Facilitating Increased Input Use

and innovative knowledge management systems. The priorities are to strengthen farmers’ knowledge of CSA practices, facilitate sharing the techniques, and provide the greatest support to local and indigenous knowledge systems.21 This will result in more robust knowledge systems and farmer-led approaches. The use of co-learning and co-management strategies involving scientists and farmers is one way to do this. Scientific experts and farmers working closely together will, in turn, lead to mutual accountability.

We need to reduce the negative impacts of land degradation, climate change, and desertification by returning to a CSA-based approach that returns our focus to smallholders and the soil upon which they rely for their livelihoods. Boosting prosperity and encouraging sustainable farming practices must go hand in hand.

References 1. United Nations Convention to Combat

Nov%203,%20The%20World%20Bank,%20

Desertification. Zero net land degradation

Opportunities%20and%20challenges%20for%20

[online] (2012) http://www.unccd.int/Lists/

a%20converging%20food,%20climate%20agenda.

SiteDocumentLibrary/Rio+20/UNCCD_PolicyBrief_ ZeroNetLandDegradation.pdf.

2. Food and Agriculture Organization. The state of

pdf.

8. World Bank. World Development Report 2007: development and the next generation [online]

the world’s land and water resources for food and

(2007) http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/

agriculture: managing systems at risk [online]

en/2006/09/7053031/world-development-report-

(2011) http://www.fao.org/docrep/017/i1688e/ i1688e.pdf.

3. World Bank. Climate-smart agriculture: a call to action [online] (2011) http://www.worldbank. org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/CSA_ Brochure_web_WB.pdf.

2007-development-next-generation.

9. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. World Investment Report 2014 [online] (2014) http://unctad.org/en/ PublicationsLibrary/wir2014_en.pdf.

10. Naseem, A, D. Spielman, and S.W. Omamo. Private-

4. Lipper, L et al. Climate-smart agriculture for food

sector investment in R&D: a review of policy

security. Nature Climate Change 4, 1068–1072

options to promote its growth in developing-

(2014).

country agriculture. Agribusiness 26, 143–173

5. Braimoh, A.K. and P. Vlek, eds. Land use and soil resources (Springer Netherlands, Heidelberg, 2008).

6. Africa Soil Health Consortium. Handbook for Integrated Soil Fertility Management [online] (2012) http://africasoilhealth.cabi.org/wpcms/wp-content/ uploads/2014/05/ISFM_handbookv2.pdf.

7. World Bank. Opportunities for a converging

(2010).

11. World Bank. Agriculture: an engine for growth and poverty reduction [online] (2008) http:// siteresources.worldbank.org/INTSDNETWORK/ Resources/IDA_Agriculture.pdf.

12. World Bank. Agricultural development in Rwanda: enhancing sustainability, yields, and access to

agenda: country examples [online] (2010) https://

finance [online] (2013). http://www.worldbank.org/

www.agriskmanagementforum.org/sites/

en/results/2013/01/23/agricultural-development-in-

agriskmanagementforum.org/files/Documents/

rwanda.

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UNHCR/F. Noy

A Darfurian refugee woman digs a plot in Eastern Chad. In many societies, women are the primary subsistence producers, and yet are locked out of land ownership by customary laws.

13. Byamugisha, F.F.K. Securing Africa’s land for shared prosperity: a program to scale up reforms and investments (WB, 2013).

14. Smaller, C. and H. Mann. A thirst for distant lands: foreign investment in agricultural land and water (IISD, 2009).

15. Cotula, L., S. Vermeulen, R. Leonard, and J.

[online] (2010) http://www.globallandproject.org/ arquivos/GLP_report_01.pdf.

19. Byamugisha, F.F.K. Securing Africa’s land for shared prosperity: a program to scale up reforms and

17. Byamugisha, F.F.K. Securing Africa’s land for shared prosperity: a program to scale up reforms and investments (WB, 2013).

investments (WB, 2013).

20. Agwe, J., M. Morris, and E. Fernandes. Africa’s growing soil fertility crisis: what role for fertilizer?

18. Childress, M.D. Brazil land-based poverty alleviation project. World Bank Agricultural

World Bank Agriculture and Rural Development Notes 21 (2007) http://siteresources.worldbank.org/

Keeley. Land grab or development opportunity?

& Rural Development Notes 31 (2008) http://

Agricultural investment and international land

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deals in Africa (IIED, FAO, IFAD, 2009).

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change and smallholder agriculture in Sub-Saharan

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Africa. Africa Agriculture Status Report [online] (2014)

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16. Global Land Project. Land grab in Africa: emerging land system drivers in a teleconnected world

INTARD/Resources/fertilizernote.pdf.

21. Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Climate

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Hillside farming outside of Burera, Rwanda. The Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation project in Rwanda was initiated to increase the productivity and commercialization of such hillside agriculture.

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IFPRI/IanMasias

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Weber, A. and H. Kurt. (2015). Towards Cultures of Aliveness: Politics in a Postdualistic Age – an Anthropocene Manifesto. Solutions 6(5): 58–65. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/towards-cultures-of-aliveness-politics-in-a-postdualistic-age-an-anthropocene-manifesto

Feature

Towards Cultures of Aliveness: Politics and Poetics in a Postdualistic Age— an Anthropocene Manifesto

by Andreas Weber and Hildegard Kurt Andreas Weber

Rambunctious garden: Red plastic bags and a lone poppy turn the untended lot between two Berlin traffic lanes into a contemporary wasteland.

In Brief Enlightenment thinking is coming to an end. The “Anthropocene” claims to step beyond the dualism of man–nature opposition. Culture is everywhere. This might be an opportunity for sustainable action: saving nature becomes a cultural endeavour. However, the salute to anthropocene stewardship masks the silent enclosure of life within technoculture and bioeconomy. Civilization still operates as if reality is about organizing inert, dead matter in efficient ways. It is impossible to achieve sustainablity with our prevailing “operating system” for economics, politics, and culture if the underlying “bios”—our unconscious assumption about reality—remains tied to an ideology of dead matter. On a profound level, nature is threatened by ignoring the principles of fertile, imaginative interpenetration, which shape existence. The real opportunity of the “Anthropocene” is to create a new bios for our thinking—an “Enlivenment.” This means to understand that man and nature pertain to a reality creating embodied processes of transformative relationships, expressive meaning, and true inwardness in biological subjects. The scope of the Enlivenment perspective is comparable to the shift in modern physics which realized that any observer is entangled with the system being observed. Biological entanglement happens emotionally and experientially through shared aliveness with other living subjects. The according “policy of life” strives for a civilization in which institutions and economic practices follow the maxim that life shall be. A policy of life struggles to liberate subjects from the colonization by the ideology of dead matter, granting them the right to embodied agency and to meaningful experience. This is not easily achieved, as it requires a deep change in our perception of reality. The “bios” of “Enlivenment” will require a long-term commitment comparable to the struggle for universal human rights.

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A

ground-breaking new vision of humankind is quickly spreading into the mainstream of our self-understanding. We are no longer standing apart from nature, so the new belief goes: we are enmeshed in it. Some authors even assert that nature and humans are one and the same.1 This comes not just as a philosophical claim but rather as an empirical realization. The cultural image man has of himself has become a scientific issue. Traces of pesticides, nuclear fallout, and nitrogen fertilizer can be found in the Arctic ice crystals and in the soils of the Amazon. Climate change has proven that humans are inescapably connected to Earth and its systems.

These are the signs of the “Anthropocene,” or, as some call it, the geological “epoch of humankind.”

“Anthropocene” was first coined as a geological term by atmospherical chemist Paul Crutzen.2 He argued that the extent of human domination over the biosphere has abrogated the idea that nature is separate from humans, thus ending the Holocene.

We still need to fully realize that the change in the geologic calendar named by Crutzen has heralded a distinctly new cultural epoch. In this new age, which has just begun, nature and mind are no longer separate. The duality between nature and culture, which stems from Enlightenment thinking, has been overcome, and this is big news. Dualism, which determined our thinking and actions for 250 years, has ended. The Enlightenment is over.1 Technology and science have ironically overcome their dualism through an obsessive insistence of it. Our civilization long believed that the Earth was an object separate from the human. In doing so, it has unwittingly proved the opposite.

In one respect, we should feel relieved. The split in our thinking that opens between nature conceived as soulless resources and human agents

as the rational actors was what started the ongoing environmental catastrophe, which includes global warming and the current “sixth extinction” wave of species loss.3

Key Concepts • The current ideology of dead matter, mechanical causality, and the exclusion of experience from descriptions of reality in ecology and economy are responsible for our failure to protect aliveness in our world.

• The challenge of the “Anthropocene” and the end of dualistic enlightenment-style thinking is to install a new “bios” into our concept of reality, putting aliveness, the world as a living process of mutual transforming relationships, subjectivity, and expression, at its center: an “Enlivenment” view.

• The scope of the “Enlivenment” perspective equals the shift in modern physics realizing that any observer is entangled with the system being observed. Biological entanglement happens emotionally and experientially through sharing aliveness with and relating existentially to other living subjects.

• Findings in the life sciences, particularly in biosemiotics, cognition research, and developmental biology, show that it is necessary to view organisms as goal-directed agents, who bring meaning and experience into the world as physically relevant powers.

• We need a “policy of life” as a new political–philosophical attitude to make “deep sustainability” possible.

It will supplant the idea of reality as iteration of “empirical facts” by an “empirical subjectivity” of shared aliveness and a “poetic objectivity” of describing and practicing relatedness and mutual transformation.

Many claim that the starting point for a new idea of sustainability and nature protection lies in the Anthropocene. Because nature and culture are supposed to be one, humans therefore should become

responsible for the Earth-system. As the argument goes, humans must become stewards for the whole natural–cultural Earth because they have totally infiltrated it.4 Sustainability from this perspective is thought to be a more attractive and convincing concept: it no longer means protecting the “other,” but cultivating ourselves.

An Old Fallacy with a New Fascination Relief, however, is not due. The reconciliation between humans and nature, which is held by many who favor the Anthropocene viewpoint, takes place as a universal victory of culture, negating the possibility to understand and protect life and aliveness. What is saluted as the end of dualism is a hidden new self-aggrandizement of humankind, an attitude that again threatens to convert nature into a project of cultivation and control.

Psychologists call such a situation a “double bind,” that is, to assert something but to do the opposite.

The philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno had pointed out this blind spot 70 years ago when criticizing Enlightenment-style thinking at the time. Horkheimer and Adorno claimed this thinking to be as “totalitarian as any system” and argued that its “untruth” lies in the fact that “the outcome is decided from the beginning. The world-rulership over nature turns against the thinking subject itself...” Horkheimer and Adorno wrote their analysis more in the first half of the last century. But has the situation really changed?5 Leading proponents of the Anthropocene still interpret connections as “distinction-and-domination,” and reconnecting with other living beings is performed as a dominance of humans over everything, even over ourselves. If all life is understood as culture, human superiority over nature has not ended. Instead, the human sphere has pervaded nature by a sort of hostile takeover.6

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Homes in the Wilderness: The North Sea echos a timid sky on an overcast spring day at the Norwegian south coast near Kristiansand.

Many proponents see the Anthropocene as revolutionary change. But much of its concepts thoroughly clutch to industrial modernism in the image of homo faber, which controls nature by technical means. Current thinking increasingly emphasises all agency’s artificiality and “createdness.” The “cyborg,” even the “monster,” has become an oftenused metaphor to understand our relationship with reality.7 Though the bias toward technical control has superficially changed its face, it has endured in the depths, leading to an overall celebration of “hybrid structures” that reflects a profound bias towards the human-created artifact, such as consciousness enhanced by data interfaces, or ecosystems that have multiple roles as species museums and high-yield agricultural fields.

The idea of the Anthropocene as an epoch of humankind is giving new force to ideologies of objectification,

manipulation, and control, whose true scope hides behind optimism and the “cool” rhetoric of communal eco-technological endeavours and “win–win” situations. In the wake of such marketing, industrialized countries are able to abuse the myth of a reconciliation between nature and technology in order to advance profit-oriented bio-economics, exploit global technology markets, and reify the economic and agrotechnological predominance. As has long been observed, such a move is even exemplified in the very term sustainability: from its origins as an eco-social concept, it has since mutated into a mere advertizing catch phrase.

Even the “green economy” is stuck in this attitude. The monetization of nature, and the creation of leveraged financial instruments from “ecosystem services,” has put the green economy on the path toward privatization and

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scarcity, thereby obscuring the subjective dimension of living nature, and taking away a community’s right to enter into meaningful relationships with their environment.8 If we believe that humans and nature can only be reconciled when technology dominates the Earth, and if we could admit presumed reconciliation, because we now have convinced ourselves that nature always carries a cultural stamp, we are prevented from seeing that every material exchange transforms the imaginative space of this world. We still disregard the interior and meaningful dimension of everything alive.9,10

Toward more Aliveness Most of the problems of our culture have a common origin: we view reality as dead. The economic, political, and educational mainstream see a world made of simple, nonliving building blocks, which can be

enhanced—without limit—by analyzing the underlying elements and reconstructing them using technological, economic, or ecological means.11,12 However, scientists increasingly understand reality as a meshwork of mutually transformative and meaningful relationships, which are experienced by subjects. From this vantage point, creativity and poetic expression, which since historical modernity was previously only reserved for the cultural sphere, become fundamental elements of reality.

This approach is not utopian. It is starting to find root in the current revolution of biological thinking, similar to the revolutions in physics roughly 100 years ago through relativity theory and quantum physics. Humans and nature are one, because creative imagination and feeling expression are natural forces—the only way to unite the lone spheres of matter and culture.9,11 We can, however, observe a dialectics coming to our rescue, which Horkheimer and Adorno would never have seen coming when formulating their Dialectic of Enlightenment.5 Insights gained in the natural sciences have forced us to reconnect rational understanding with a practice of imaginative aliveness. It is natural science, which by applying its rule of empirical objectivity, finds its opposite—meaningful subjectivity—in the depths of the unfoldings of the biosphere. In the findings of empirical biology, which pursue the semiotic approach, living beings are no longer understood as machines but as subjects bringing forth meaning.

Subjective experience is rooted in matter as the way biological organization is only possible.10-13 After the Enlightenment, we therefore need to work towards an “Enlivenment” that is able to close the gap between subjective experience and objective description.14

This attitude can counter our fixation with techné—analysis and reconstruction—and shift our attention to poiesis—our embodied symbolical imagination with its existential experiences of lived values.

When we pay tribute to poiesis, we understand life as a phenomenon in which matter reveals a tendency of generating individuals that can self-produce and self-maintain thereby giving them a meaningful standpoint.

Because we are part of this creative meshwork of relations, we can gather knowledge of it, not as a measuring device would, but in a way comprehensible to living beings. The “truth of nature” (as opposed to the “untruth” of the totalitarian system of a reality colonized by a dualist view Horkheimer and Adorno had analyzed so deeply) lies in nature’s creative openness that constantly gives life, rather than in the romantic sense of nature being “wholesome” or “healing.”

To preserve the biosphere, we need to focus our actions on the image of a living reality. We need to conceive a new “bios.” On the most profound level, nature is threatened not only by the disruption of biogeochemical circulation and species balances, but also by ignoring the principles of fertile, imaginative interpenetration, which shape our existence. Traits of this threatened but necessary aliveness are openness, diversity, potentiality, the exchange of gifts, transformation, and the existential paradox of isolation and unity.15,16 Experiencing the world as alive helps us to rethink our relationships to other humans, to other beings, and to matter. We can stop fashioning these connections into a means of exploiting resources. We will only decently survive the Anthropocene by realizing that humans not only pervade nature but consist of something not consciously made by man: a self-organizing aliveness profoundly enmeshed with ecosystems in terms of metabolism and metaphor.

The creative power inherent in reality cannot be turned off. To misjudge or disregard it, as we have done and continue to do, is dangerous and ultimately destructive for life. Ignoring reality always will generate violent encounters with it. Therefore the most important task in the Anthropocene is to rethink and regenerate aliveness.

What Humankind Can Be A future for humankind based on ecological and social justice is only possible if we emphatically renew our specifically human manifestation of what constitutes embodied existence: the middle ground where aliveness and creativity seek to experience themselves. We can call these qualities “soul,” “heart,” the “spiritual nature of man” (Erich Fromm),17 or the irreducible and indefatigable “wild” (Gary Snyder).18 These form the basis of everything alive and are enacted by us in a particular human cultural fashion.

Such an understanding of humanness-as-aliveness relies on the possibility of finding a specifically human interpretation of aliveness.

We can therefore never be entirely reconciled with living reality. Any such belief, which claims to have found a shortcut to the exhausting negotiations, pitfalls, and creative improvisations of being subjectin-relation, implies a new utopian version of control. We, however, do not need another impossible Utopia but must acknowledge our creative fragility. Only through this are we coupled to an infinite capability for living imagination and always open to healing.14 There already exist many sources from which the position of Enlivenment can find inspiration and support in its philosophical, economic, social, and scientific dimensions, such as the “capability approach” of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum;19, 20 Manfred Max-Neef’s “barefoot economics” grounded on human needs;21 and Albert Camus’ pensée du midi, a

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Andreas Weber

A fisherman’s friends: At the northern Greek lake Kerkini reservoir, built in the 1930s, Dalmatian pelicans have found a new habitat by being regularly fed part of the catch.

self-limitation based on poetic and sensual experience, which the French philosopher called the “Mediterranean spirit.”22 We can see the attitude needed already in practice in the economy of the commons proposed by Silke Helfrich,23 David Bollier,24 and Nobel-Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom;25 in the “dia-logics” of philosopher Edgar Morin;26 in Lewis Hyde’s “circle of the gift”;27 in the poetic biophilosophy of the “Biogea” vision developed by Michel Serres;28 and in the enlarged understanding of art in the wake of Joseph Beuys, who proposed artistic expression starts with acknowledging and liberating one’s own aliveness.29,30

Science as a Practice of Empathy The scientific community has a crucial task of re-shaping the relationship between humankind and the remainder of creation. Climate change has demonstrated how scientific methods are indispensable in the search for new ecological standards, and these methods have always shown our interrelatedness with nature, even when we believed otherwise.

Meanwhile, throwing more and better scientific techniques to resolve all open questions has proven futile.

What we can “know” has structural restrictions—reality is not a closed system. We are giving up the idea of a biology that follows linear and

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objective laws, like in Newtonian physics. In biology, as analogous to quantum physics, the researcher is entangled with his research subject, although this entanglement is not quantum but experiential. Both are alive and connected in an emotional relationship.9,14 If reality cannot be objectified, a value-free and neutral science is not possible. Our conception of the world determines how we treat it and how it changes. Accordingly, any position that assumes an objective, timeless, and value-free description of reality or a part of it is a violent self-authorization.

Any seemingly neutral and presumably objective attitude cements invisible structures of power. Knowledge is

Andreas Weber

Tree fort archaeology: The childhood culture of building shelters and makeshift houses has nearly died out within only one generation.

not objective when produced in this manner; it is valid predominantly in the sense that it stabilizes the system from which it arose.

Any knowledge is already an implementation of certain standards of treating the world and each another.

The task of living together on this planet therefore requires being attentive not only towards theory, but also toward scientific practice. When does science only produce results to satisfy the inner demands of a knowledge industry? When does it legitimize political, economic, or technological interests? We need to carefully scrutinize all reifications of scientific thinking and refrain from them in order to help science become more an authority that serves the unfolding of aliveness and helps humankind develop a self-understanding as selfhood-in-connection.30 In the Anthropocene, any form of science must consciously incorporate

its particular values and interests, as well as explicitly naming them.

It must reflect on its inevitable entanglement and creatively work upon it. Instead of producing merely functional knowledge, science should also focus on meaningful orientation, thereby carefully observing the world not from the perspective of a cybernetic system, but also as a meshwork of relationships with the power to bring forth aliveness. Through this, a culture of meaningful connection between humans and the remainder of creation can arise. It can be conceived as an art of embodied consciousness, as an ecological “Art of Living.”

Toward a Policy of Life In the Anthropocene, sustainability can only be meaningfully reconceived through the perspective of “Enlivenment.” We need to be devoted to “cultures of aliveness” to enable truly sustainable behavior.31

Unfolding cultures of aliveness is an epochal political project. It is a vision of civilization going beyond day-today crisis management and the “flight mentality” of current politics.

Let us call this vision a “policy of life.” A policy of life strives for a civilization in which principles, institutions, and economic practices follow the maxim that life shall be. Such an ethos cannot be achieved in the short term. It requires a commitment comparable to the struggle for universal human rights which unfolded in the centuries since the original Enlightenment idea had gained traction. This time it needs to be a strife to create a solidarity-in-being among all living subjects.

The political agenda of the Enlightenment was intended to elevate humankind from its incapacitation by granting it rational agency. A policy of life (Enlivenment) enlarges this struggle to a more comprehensive goal: liberating the feeling and creative human from the colonization by an ideology of dead matter, granting it the right not only to rational, but also to embodied agency, and to meaningful experience.

A policy of life preserves the necessary Enlightenment values—such as individual dignity, justice, and equality—while reconnecting them with their roots that rest in the co-creativity of everything alive. It does not substitute rationality with life but regards it as the quest to unfold a culture that is aware of, and responsible for, the potential imaginative aliveness in all living things.

A policy of life searches for alternatives to the dogma of growth and addiction to consumerism. It does not seek technological control but pursues the creative negotiation between equal participants in an ecosystem which all need to preserve.

It strives to promote the experience of aliveness. It creates economic productivity through ecological stability and meaningful actions.32

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Andreas Weber

Eddies in the stream of time: A Japanese cherry tree tripped over into a mountain stream in the Sikkimese hills continues to blossom amidst white water swirling over boulders and rocks

A policy of life strives for the following: • A global ecological agriculture, which secures yields by enhancing biodiversity and human existential experiences (meaning and joy); which integrates and does not separate.

• An economy that does not support the “use” of resources in a “market” built on “objectivity” and separation but enlarges the possibilities to participate in a shared planetary metabolism of commons economy and is guided by an understanding of economic exchange as the shared household of the biosphere.

• A culture that no longer functions according to the income-generating

model of private economics but participates in a co-creative process of production.

• A biology that understands organisms not only as ecosystemservice providers and molecular toolboxes but also as creative subjects, and which sees humans as a metabolic part of a biosphere enmeshed with life and feeling.

• An education that teaches an Art of Living and Connection; that does not follow only a standard of abstract knowledge, functionalistic technology, and “dead world” thought; that reduces valuations and judgements.

• A policy that understands regional administrative entities as selforganizing commons and does not

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follow rules of universal abstraction and selfish market interests.

• A shared livelihood with other beings in line with the South American creation ethos of “Buen Vivir” or the idea of “Conviviality”

by Caillé et al., that is, a solidarity of existence with all beings.33,34 • A regenerative transformation of the fractures and contradictions inherent in any connection, creation, and in life itself, in line with a bravery of being and an imaginative practice of aliveness with “manners, grace and style”(Gary Snyder).18 A policy of life makes explicit what implicitly keeps us alive while actively nourishing it. It is pluralistic, dialogical,

11. Hoffmeyer, J. Biosemiotics: An Examination Into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs (University of Scranton Press, Scranton PA, 2009).

12. Deacon, T. Incomplete Nature. How Mind Emerged from Matter (Norton, New York, 2012).

13. Kull, K. Semiosis stems from logical incompatibility in organic nature: why biophysics does not see meaning, while biosemiotics does. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology [online] (2015) http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2015.08.002.

14. Weber, A. Enlivenment. Towards a Fundamental Shift in the Concepts of Nature, Culture and Politics (Böll, Berlin, 2013).

15. Weber, A. Lebendigkeit. Eine erotische Ökologie (Kösel, München, 2014).

16. Weber, A. in The Wealth of the Commons: A World beyond Market and State (eds Bollier, D. and S. Helfrich) Ch. 1, 6–12 (Levellers Press, Boston, 2012).

17. Fromm, E. To Have or To Be (Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2013).

18. Snyder, G. The Practice of the Wild. Essays (Counterpoint, Berkeley, 1990).

19. Sen, A. The Idea of Justice (Penguin, London, 2010).

Emma Weber

The shy torrents of spring: Late winter slowly thaws away on a track through the forest of the White Memorial Foundation near Torrington, Connecticut.

20. Nussbaum, M. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013).

21. Max-Neef, M. and P. Ekins (eds). Real Life Economics: Understanding Wealth Creation (Routledge, London, 1992).

and mediating. It understands reality as a commons in which all beings co-creatively partake. It assumes responsibility for reality and supports us on the way to ourselves, acknowledging that this way is never achieved and can only be laid down by walking.

Only when our new loyalty with everything alive becomes our cultural desire, the Anthropocene will truly merit the name of the “time of humankind.”

22. Camus, A. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt

References 1. Crutzen, P.J. and E. Stoermer. The ‘Anthropocene’.

Global Change Newsletter 41, 17–18 (2000).

2. Sepahvand, A., C. Rosol, and K. Klingan. in Grain, Vapour, Ray. Textures of the Anthropocene (eds Sepahvand, A., C. Rosol, K. Klingan, and B.M. Scherer) Introduction, 7–42 (MIT Press, Cambridge, 2014).

3. Kolbert, E. The Sixth Extinction. An Unnatural History (Bloomsbury, New York, 2013).

4. Marris, E. Rambunctious Garden. Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World (Bloomsbury, New York, 2013).

5. Horkheimer, M. and T.W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment (Verso, New York, 1997).

Acknowledgments Heartfelt thanks to Carsten Jasner, Myriam Kentrup, and Gerburg RohdeDahl for valuable in-depth discussions and helpful suggestions to improve previous versions of the text. Many thanks also to Celeste Ceguerra who did her usual eloquent native-language copy-editing. We are grateful for valuable suggestions by the reviewers.

The work was funded by grants from the Cocreatio Foundation for Collaboration and Collective Development, Kairos Foundation, and Selbach Foundation for the Environment.

6. Shellenberger, M. and T. Nordhaus (eds). Love Your Monsters. Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene (The Breakthrough Institute, Oakland CA, 2011).

7. Ferrando, F. Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Antihumanism, Metahumanism, and New Materialisms. Differences and relations. Existenz 8, 26–32 (2013).

8. Crist, E. On the poverty of our nomenclature.

Environmental Humanities 3, 129–147 (2013).

9. Weber, A. The Biology of Wonder. Aliveness, Feeling, and the Metamorphosis of Science (New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island BC, 2016).

10. Weber, A. and F.J. Varela. Life after Kant. Natural purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1, 97–125 (2002).

(Vintage, London, 1992).

23. Bollier, D. and S. Helfrich (eds). The Wealth of the Commons: A World beyond Market and State (Levellers Press, Boston, 2012).

24. Bollier, D. Think like a Commoner. A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons (New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island BC, 2014).

25. Ostrom, E. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015).

26. Morin, E. La méthode: Tome 5, L’identité humaine, l’humanité de l’humanité (Seuil, Paris, 2001).

27. Hyde, L. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (Vintage, London, 2007).

28. Serres, M. Biogea (Univocal, Minneapolis, 2012).

29. Beuys, J. In Kunst im politischen Kampf (ed.

Joachimides, CM) Ch. 3, 74–81 (Schäfer, Hannover, 1973).

30. Kurt, H. and D. Sacks. Die rote Blume. Ästhetische Praxis in Zeiten des Wandels (thinkOya, Klein Jasedow, 2013).

31. Weber, A. and H. Kurt. Lebendigkeit sei! Für eine Politik des Lebens.Ein Manifest für das Anthropozän (thinkOYA, Klein Jasedow, 2015).

32. Weber, A. In Patterns of Commoning (eds Bollier, D et al.) Ch 3, 354–372 (Lewellers, Boston, 2015).

33. Escobar, A. In Patterns of Commoning (eds Bollier, D et al.) Ch 3, 334–345 (Lewellers, Boston, forthcoming).

34. Caillé, A. Manifeste Convivialiste. Déclaration d’interdépendance (Le Bord de L’Eau, Lormont, 2013).

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Bartlett, R.V. (2015). Making Climate Resonate. Solutions 6(5): 66–70. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/making-climate-resonate

Reviews Book Review

Making Climate Resonate

by Robert V. Bartlett REVIEWING What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action

by Per Espen Stoknes

A

lthough our ignorance about climate disruption will always dwarf what we know, a staggering amount has been learned in the last three decades—not just scientific understanding of complex phenomena and the potential of various micro and macro technologies that might contribute to solutions, but an immense and rapidly growing body of knowledge about the social, economic, and political impacts.

These potential impacts threaten the well-being of much of the world’s population and even the existence of whole countries. Reports about this knowledge have been delivered in various ways to the public worldwide, and, in particular, to those persons with the greatest power to effect change. Still relatively little is being attempted in the way of solutions, and the level of alarm among either the public or the powerful continues to be muted. Why is nothing (so little, anyway) being done? Neither more frightening, scientifically-grounded scenarios nor more certainty of scientific understanding have made much, if any, difference to the political response over the last twenty years.

Scientists, environmentalists, and political pundits have attributed the cause of (or blame for) this ignorance, apathy, or immorality to, among other things: dysfunctions of the global political system; irresponsible news reporting and analysis; a highly effective anti-environmental

opposition in an era of extreme political polarization; and just the far-reaching alienation, shallow thinking, and addiction to amusement spawned by the rampant consumerist egoism of modernity.

The most common answers offered are to wait for problems to get worse, to hope for a huge ecological collapse or disaster to break through the fog, or to expect that the environment will become a priority once problems of the economy and security are resolved. But, if past experience tells us anything, it is that a perception that problems are getting worse will not change anything, a disaster will bring only a temporary blip in the attention-action cycle, and problems of the economy and security will always be with us and will always be more salient and more emotionally (and ideologically) charged than cumulative, long-standing, slow developing environmental challenges ever can be.

There are further problems with these diagnoses and solutions. There is little evidence of a strong appetite, even among scientists and environmentalists, for the kinds of sweeping radical public actions that one might think would be commensurate with the risks, urgency, and scale of a problem such as climate disruption.

Moreover, there is an abundance of evidence that, in most rich countries— and, indeed, in most poorer ones that have been surveyed—a majority of

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Chelsea Green Publishing

the general public already does accept that climate disruption is a serious problem, and has for a number of years. Nevertheless, support for serious action is tenuous.

According to John M. Meyer, this notable lack of response constitutes “the resonance dilemma.”1 Public opinion in many countries shows a similar consistent and long-standing gap between broadly-felt concern about immense environmental challenges and the absence of a sense of urgency or even priority regarding actions. Meyer’s solution for the resonance dilemma is for environmentalists, scientists, and political theorists to practice social criticism that engages more with the everyday material concerns that resonate widely with the public, by pushing pragmatically for change that is grounded in the material realities that everyone faces. The route to fundamental societal changes to minimize (or mitigate) climate disruption should run from the bottom

Reviews Book Review

Takver

The book employs psychological insights to analyze why people know and accept the facts on climate change, but fail to believe and act on them.

up, through the politics of everyday life—for example, in grappling with land as private property, automobility, and household practices. Whatever the merits of Meyer’s case, he presents it as the alternative to waiting, or hoping, for more of the same to have a different result. But, connecting better with everyday material practices is not the only way that greater resonance might be achieved.

A critical assessment of the resonance failures of climate disruption, and other daunting environmental challenges, might probe more deeply into the puzzle of why people do not respond to increasingly

well-documented facts and then ask whether the psychological sciences could better inform the political strategies and techniques that environmental activists, scientists, and policy entrepreneurs use to try to achieve political resonance. The primary aims of Per Espen Stoknes’s lively and accessible new book are to summarize the insights of psychology into why people do not believe established facts about climate (even many people who admit to knowing and accepting them do not really believe them), to identify the reasons that climate communications and campaigns of the past three decades

have been largely unpersuasive, and to outline the contributions that the psychological sciences might make toward greater belief and more action.

Part I of the book is a primer on the psychology of denial, both the hard denial of facts and also the soft denial of the need for urgent or substantial action. Synopses of distinctive schools of psychological research shed light on human understanding, belief, and behavior with respect to climate knowledge.

Evolutionary psychology helps explain the centrality for the human mind of self-interest, status seeking, social imitation, short-term thinking,

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Reviews Book Review and risk vividness. Strategies for collective adoption of climate action must be based on understanding how these forces inevitably shape thinking and action.

Cognitive psychology illuminates how the brain processes and judges information based on risk perception and framing. According to Stoknes, people “tend to downplay risks that are dull, common and familiar, anonymous, somewhat controllable, not much discussed, long-term,

It is not just immediate social groups who profoundly influence attitudes, cognition, and behavior.

The psychology of identity offers understanding of the resilience of broad cultural core beliefs and ways of living, cultural premises, and cognitions that can be resistant to change for a long time, even to the point of social collapse and disappearance, as many histories of Easter Island, the Norse Greenland colony, and others attest.

There is little evidence of a strong appetite, even among scientists and environmentalists, for the kinds of sweeping radical public actions that one might think would be commensurate with the risks, urgency, and scale of a problem such as climate disruption.

gradual, and natural, as well as those that affect others and lack any clear bad guy.” Climate change is a set of risks that presses all of these buttons.

Moreover, environmentalists and scientists have been complicit in framing climate disruption (for example, as non-threatening, uncertain climate change) in ways that are either neutral and reduce issue resonance or are counterproductive (losses, costs, and sacrifice).

Social psychology explains how people work to keep attitudes aligned with those of their primary social groups, as well as with their own internal matrixes, such that they try to keep behaviors and thoughts consistent with their feelings and emotions.

Changing attitudes is never a simple matter of providing information.

From these schools, Stoknes distills five main psychological defense barriers that keep climate messages from having an impact: distance, negative messages, dissonance, denial, and identity. The anti-climate movement has successfully triggered all of these barriers, but environmentalists, scientists, and climate communicators have triggered them too. Part II of the book focuses on strategic communications solutions for these barriers—using social networks, framing with emotionally positive messages, offering easy and convenient behavior choices, using the power of stories, and providing positive social impact signals.

Stoknes does an excellent job of following his own advice in suggesting what must be done differently

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in order to achieve effective climate communication for transformation, given that changing many more hearts and minds will necessarily be a political prerequisite for effective action. One could quibble that perhaps his coverage of the psychological sciences could be more comprehensive—not included, for example, are any insights from moral psychology although there are moral components to all attitudes, thinking, and behaviors related to climate disruption.2,3 And, Stoknes’s skill at writing clear and engaging diagnoses of the challenges of climate communications and his flair for succinctly distilling recommendations grounded in the sciences of psychology do not extend to a talent for writing inspirational reflections, counsel, and exhortations, which constitute Part III of the book.

In sum, much of what we know about climate, we have learned in the last thirty years—which likewise is true for much of what we know about human thinking, attitudes, and behavior. For whole societies and the global political system to respond appropriately to knowledge about the former will require lots of people to better ground their communications of all sorts much more on the latter. This book is a highly accessible and stimulating place to start learning about “a new psychology of climate action.”

References 1. Meyer, J. Engaging the Everyday: Environmental Social Criticism and the Resonance Dilemma (MIT Press, Cambridge, 2015).

2. Feinberg, M. and R. Willer. The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes. Psychological Science 24(1) 56-62 (2015).

3. Haidt, J. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon Books, New York, 2012).

Reviews Media Reviews Tackling Muslim-American Stereotypes with Satire

by Zafirah Zein “We’re not that kind of Muslim!” ends the opening credits to Aasif Mandvi’s Halal in the Family, a new web series battling anti-Muslim prejudice in the United States. The telling phrase sends out a direct message to its viewers: We are not who you think we are.

Emulating popular television classics such as All in the Family and The Cosby Show, it serves as the country’s first American–Muslim sitcom. The family is even named the Quosby’s, featuring Mandvi as the politically incorrect dad decked in eighties sweaters, perpetually embarrassing his wife and kids.

“Halal in the Family” has four episodes, each of which centers around a problem faced by Muslims in the U.S., especially after 9/11. It tackles issues such as government surveillance, stereotyping, media bias, and bullying by using satire. The series’ website also provides snippets of information and statistics to support the issues being raised in the various storylines. Its first episode, “Spies Like Us” reveals the family’s exaggerated paranoia upon having found out that the children’s white math teacher was volunteering at the neighborhood mosque.

An infographic accompanies the episode, highlighting the unlawful and protracted surveillance on Muslim communities by the New York Police Department that has led to naught in the U.S. fight against terrorism. Many American Muslims now live in an environment of suspicion due to governmental actions aimed at weeding out extremism.

In an article for The Guardian, Mandvi said, “The problem with the mainstream media is there’s no room for nuanced, complex conversations in terms of Middle Easterners and Muslims, and the millions of identities that that entails.”

John Edwards

Actor and writer Aasif Mandvi, creator of Halal in the Family, speaks at a Writer’s Guild of America East event in New York City.

The Indian–American comedian is best known for his work on The Daily Show, where he often features in parodies on Middle Eastern and Islamic topics that challenge the media’s painting of Muslims in a largely negative and unified light. With this fresh but unapologetically crude web project, Mandvi is contributing to continuing initiatives by Muslim activists and organizations in combating Islamophobia in the U.S. Halal in the Family portrays the diversity of the Muslim community

as a whole while proving that Muslims in the U.S. are just about as American as everyone else.

Despite this brave effort, Mandvi’s sitcom plays a heavy gamble as it employs provocative humor that sometimes serves to entrench the very stereotypes it wants to diminish. “Why would I build a mosque? I’m not trying to cause any trouble,” says Mandvi’s character Aasif Qu’osby, in a Halloween episode in which the family’s neighbors adversely react to their house decorations

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Reviews Media Reviews based on a misperception that the family was constructing an Islamic site. It begets the troubling view prevalent in today’s world: the more religious Muslim is the more dangerous one.

Still, Halal in the Family is a media breakthrough that pioneers the advent of Muslim voices in the American mainstream. Muslims watching can take consolation in the belly laughs induced by jokes that underscore the shared experience of being Muslim in America while the show’s non-Muslim viewers are allowed the realization that the world of American Muslims is not much different than their own.

SOS Children’s Villages Spread Knowledge for Mothers through SMS

Adam Jones

by Dana Rawls

SOS Children’s Villages’ program Mobile for Development uses SMS to send Sri Lankan mothers, such as this woman in Jaffa, daily information and useful advice around family development.

Communication technologies allow users to keep in touch with events occurring in far flung places of the world, no matter where they are. Now one country is using these same technologies to strengthen families and protect the most vulnerable among them.

In Sri Lanka, SOS Children’s Villages, a children’s charity operating in over 125 countries, has created a mobile technology program designed to provide women with parenting tips, guidance on effective family communications, and even financial advice in order to help provide safe and nurturing environments for children in the region. The program, called Mobile for Development, was started in November 2013 and uses mobile phone technology to address a myriad of children’s health issues.

The pilot Mobile for Development program involved 150 mothers in two impoverished areas of Sri Lanka devastated by the 2004 tsunami, who were able to choose for themselves the

type of content they would be receiving by phone. The women received three face-to-face training sessions and then SMS (text) messages for 180 days. The text messages, entitled ‘SMS Quicklearns,’ were provided by MobilTrain, which partnered with SOS Children’s Villages to provide content and technical support. The daily messages prompted the women to partake in self-reflection, practical ‘to-do’ or ‘to-try’ exercises, and homework assignments that were then monitored by a project focus group. The messages also provided the women with information on improving communications with their children, helping their children with their studies, and learning how to save money for more financial stability in the future. The mothers also had weekly meetings to discuss and share their experiences.

The program has already provided incredibly positive results. Among them, the women have said that they

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are now better able to understand the emotional needs of their children and families.

“The program has uplifted the education of children in these communities, reducing malnutrition, providing psychosocial support and capacity building of families,” says Ananda Karunarathne, National Director of SOS Sri Lanka. “The mothers are demanding this kind of project because they see the value of the method of learning and content.”

“It is a project that helped us learn about technology and how it can empower. It is beneficial in all aspects,” said one of the mothers participating in the program.

Due to the program’s success, SOS is planning to expand the program’s length from six months to one year.

Plans are also underway to introduce the project in other locations where it can strengthen families and help parents to better care for their children.

Garone, P. (2015). Drought in California: Entering a New Water Future. Solutions 6(5): 71–76. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/drought-in-california-entering-a-new-water-future

Solutions in History

Drought in California: Entering a New Water Future

by Philip Garone

Philip Garone

The Friant-Kern Canal, a 152-mile-long federal irrigation canal that delivers up to 5,000 cubic feet per second of San Joaquin River water to agricultural lands in the southern San Joaquin Valley, essentially dewatering the river below the canal’s diversion point at the river’s Friant Dam.

C

alifornia’s hydraulic infrastructure has vaulted the state’s development forward, creating a thriving agricultural economy and supporting a population that now exceeds 38 million. But this entire infrastructure—a vast system of dams, reservoirs, and canals designed to transport water around the state— has been based on the assumption that historical precipitation levels were the norm in California and not the exception. We now know that this assumption was false. California, like much of the U.S. West, is facing

the prospect of a water future characterized by longer and more severe droughts. In order for California to adapt to what appears to be a new climate regime, a systemic change to a century-old way of thinking about how the state stores and manages its water will be required. There will be no simple solution for California to engineer its way out of long-term or perhaps permanent drought, but first steps include recognizing the state’s true long-term climate patterns, identifying problems with the ways in which water has historically been

allocated, adopting new conservation methods, and introducing substantive structural changes to the state’s economy, most notably in its agricultural sector, which consumes the overwhelming majority of the state’s developed water supply.

The creation of modern California has taken place during a relatively benign, and wetter than average, climatic period. Paleoclimatologists have uncovered evidence of past droughts in California that dwarf the scope of those in the written record. Upright tree stumps preserved in Lake Tahoe, the

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Solutions in History

A portion of the Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada foothills that is usually submerged under the New Melones Reservoir. As reservoir levels drop, archeological sites and old structures, such as the Old Parrotts Ferry Bridge, pictured here, are exposed. This photo was taken in July 2015, with the reservoir at only 13 percent of capacity. Note the “bathtub ring” high up on the canyon walls.

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Solutions in History

Philip Garone

second deepest lake in the United States, point to a prolonged drought period that lasted for more than a thousand years during the mid-Holocene epoch (approximately 5,000 to 6,000 years ago), when the lake level had dropped by more than 20 feet.1 Tree stumps discovered in Tenaya Lake in Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake and the Walker River on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, and other locations point to two megadroughts that spanned most of the medieval period—during the so-called Medieval Climate Anomaly—in California, from approximately AD 900 to 1100 and AD 1200 to 1350. Annual growth rings prove that many of these trees lived upward of 140 years and as long as 220 years.2 Megadroughts are not necessary to expose the fault lines in California’s water management, however. Far shorter droughts, none longer than six to seven years, have already demonstrated the inadequacies of California’s current water policy. The most significant California droughts of the past century include those of 1928–34, 1976–77, 1987–92, 2007–09, and the current drought that began in 2012. The brief but severe drought during 1976–77 was the driest on record for the past 500 years, as determined by paleoclimate data, and prompted the state’s first real efforts toward water conservation, which included widespread urban water conservation and mandatory rationing.3 During the drought of 2007–09, a statewide proclamation of emergency was issued for the first time.4 This was also the first drought to take place during a time of unprecedented environmental restrictions on agricultural water exports to the south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta—the eastern portion of the estuary that extends from San Francisco Bay inland to the heart of California’s Central Valley at the confluence of the

Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.

Decades of water exports delivered by federal and state projects had reduced freshwater flows through the Delta, resulting in deteriorating water quality, severe decline of endangered native fish species, and the nearcollapse of the Delta ecosystem.5 California entered its current drought during a time of record warmth in the state. Higher temperatures are particularly problematic for water supply in California because the state’s hydraulic infrastructure was designed in large part to store snowmelt in reservoirs located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Climate models, predicated upon higher temperature regimes, show pronounced impacts on the Sierra Nevada snowpack—the primary source of the state’s freshwater supply—with a loss of half or more by the end of the century.6 On April 1, 2015, the California Department of Water Resources measured the content of the Sierra snowpack at 5 percent of average for that date, the lowest percentage in any year in records dating back to 1950.7 By that time, reservoir levels throughout the state had already fallen to record or near-record lows.

In addition to surface storage, California relies heavily on groundwater, which accounts for close to 40 percent of the state’s agricultural and urban water needs. During drought periods, that percentage rises.

Deprived of their full allocations of federal and state water, farmers increasingly mine groundwater from the state’s aquifers, hastening their depletion and leading to widespread land subsidence as the drained aquifers collapse. By 2014, the third consecutive year of drought, groundwater levels in many parts of the largely agricultural San Joaquin Valley (the southern half of the Central Valley) had fallen to more than 100

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Solutions in History feet below previous historical levels, resulting in declining water quality, wells running dry—especially in economically disadvantaged small rural communities—and land subsidence and consequent damage to the state’s water delivery system and other infrastructure components.8 According to a NASA report, between May 2014 and January 2015 land in some parts of the San Joaquin Valley was sinking faster than ever before, at a rate of approximately 2 inches per month.9 Despite these severe problems, until the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in September 2014, California was the only western state that had not enacted groundwater monitoring. Under the act, groundwater sustainability is to be achieved by 2040, but many argue that this is too little, too late, as groundwater levels are expected to continue to decline during the interim.10 The water challenges that the state faces are numerous and daunting: predicted longer and more severe droughts; greater risk of major wildfires, which will be particularly dangerous when they occur in densely populated areas at the wildland–urban interface; destruction of millions of drought-stressed trees from insect infestation; possible extinction of native fish species; deteriorating overall water quality and continuing decline of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta; and, somewhat ironically in an era of more severe drought conditions, greater risk of catastrophic floods as more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow and the pace of winter and early spring runoff accelerates.11 Adaptation to and amelioration of these conditions is both necessary and possible, and solutions will require efforts on a variety of scales from the hyperlocal to the regional. In April 2015, Governor Jerry Brown mandated

California Department of Water Resources

Total water use met by groundwater for each of California’s ten hydrologic regions. Note the especially heavy reliance on groundwater, by volume, throughout the Central Valley.

a 25 percent reduction in urban potable water usage.12 Household conservation, including reduced watering of lawns—which accounts for the majority of urban water use—has already proven capable of meeting this target in much of the state.13 State regulations now limit the percentage of new housing lots that can contain lawns, but stronger incentives for xeriscaping—the planting of droughttolerant vegetation—will be necessary.

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Substantial payments to homeowners to remove their lawns, such as those offered in other water-stressed western states, will facilitate a permanent reduction of urban water use, with minimal economic pain to residents.14 Agricultural priorities will need to change significantly as well, calling into question the future of California agriculture as it presently exists.

The greatest demand for water in California comes from the agricultural

Solutions in History sector, which accounts for approximately 77 percent of human water use in the state. Despite this disproportionate consumption, in recent years agriculture has accounted for just over one percent of the state’s gross domestic product (GDP) and about three percent of GDP if agricultural support industries are included as well.

Agriculture and all related industries account for only about five percent of the state’s employment.15 For a transition to limited and more efficient agriculture to take place, crops that have the highest water demand must face the greatest scrutiny. Alfalfa, for example, consumes more than 15 percent of the state’s water, and approximately half of it is grown for export. Furthermore, almost all the state’s alfalfa crop is still grown using flood irrigation, rather than more efficient drip irrigation.16 Almonds, 80 percent of which are grown for export, require approximately another nine percent of the state’s water.17 From the perspective of natural resource economics, by exporting these waterintensive crops, California is actually exporting a significant amount of its limited water supply and is doing so for the benefit of a relatively small number of farmers, many of whom are wealthy absentee landowners or corporations.

Despite such evidence pointing to the need to restructure California agriculture, the political power of large agribusiness enterprises, along with willing cooperation from highlevel elected officials, is driving the state toward an increased reliance on unsustainable engineering solutions, most notably in the case of the so-called Delta Tunnels. Under this latest multibillion-dollar plan to export water from Northern to Southern California, current methods of transferring water southward through Delta channels would be

superseded by twin tunnels 40 feet in diameter and approximately 35 miles in length that would transport up to 9,000 cubic feet per second of Sacramento River water south of the Delta, bypassing the Delta’s channels entirely and further threatening the Delta’s endangered ecosystem.

Meanwhile, even in the face of drought, farmers continue to increase acreage devoted to permanent planting of orchards and vineyard crops that require reliable year-to-year water supplies that the tunnels could provide, albeit at the expense of other parts of the state.18 The tunnels have become the most contested issue in California water politics in recent years, and the outcome remains uncertain, even as Northern California and Delta interests fiercely contest the plan.19, 20 California has previously demonstrated the ability to dramatically reassess priorities for water use and is capable of doing so again, despite resistance from entrenched interests. During the 1870s and 1880s, Californians rapidly came to the realization that the state’s economic future would be better served by agriculture than by the highly water consumptive and environmentally destructive practice of hydraulic mining, debris from which was burying fertile farmlands and causing widespread flooding. Nearly a century and a half later, it is time for another reassessment. Questionable patterns of water consumption can best be addressed by treating water as a public commodity. Under such a legal and regulatory framework, which is already well under way in California, the public benefits of water are balanced with its value as an economic input. This can be accomplished, for example, by regulating groundwater more stringently and strengthening environmental

review of water transfers, both of which can encourage a shift away from low-value and water-intensive crops. Integrating the management of groundwater and surface water, as well as the complex system of water rights that apply to them, will facilitate groundwater banking—the recharging of aquifers during wet periods for future use during drought—and thus improve water storage efficiency.21 Groundwater storage is both essential and more efficient than constructing expensive new surface storage (reservoirs), and can partially offset the shrinking Sierra Nevada snowpack. The water supply itself can be increased by constructing seawater desalination plants, such as the 50 million gallon per day Carlsbad Desalination Plant in Southern California, scheduled to come online in late 2015.22 As the experiences of Israel and other water-stressed nations have demonstrated, desalination plants have become cost-effective means of enhancing water supply, as has the recycling of gray water and sewage water.23 It has taken California more than a century to create its present hydraulic regime, and the climate for which it was designed no longer exists. It will take time to change course, but a multifaceted approach that includes revised priorities for water consumption, a stronger regulatory regime, groundwater banking, desalination, and conservation will go a long way toward avoiding escalating conflict over increasingly limited water allocations between urban residents, farmers, and fish and wildlife, many species of which are now protected under state and federal law. A livable and prosperous future is entirely possible for California, even under the challenge of climate change, but only if its people recognize that this future will be quite unlike California’s past.

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Solutions in History

Philip Garone

The San Luis Reservoir, a two million acre storage reservoir for both the federal and state water projects in the Central Valley, at less than 20 percent of capacity in August 2015. At full capacity, the water level would approach the top of the earthen dam.

References 1. Lindström, S. Submerged tree stumps as indicators

8. California Department of Water Resources.

14. Water Smart Landscapes Rebate [online] http://

of mid-Holocene aridity in the Lake Tahoe basin.

California’s most significant droughts: comparing

Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 12

historical and recent conditions (2015) 15, 37.

15. Hanak, E. et al. Managing California’s Water: From

9. Farr, T.G., C. Jones, and Z. Liu. Progress report:

Conflict to Reconciliation (Public Policy Institute of

(2), 146–157 (1990).

2. Stine, S. Extreme and persistent drought in

subsidence in the Central Valley, California. NASA

California and Patagonia during mediaeval time.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of

Nature 369, 546–549 (1994).

Technology [online] (2015) http://water.ca.gov/

3. Ingram, B.L. and F. Malamud-Roam. The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other

groundwater/docs/NASA_REPORT.pdf.

10. Miller, J. California’s sweeping new groundwater

Climatic Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow (University of

regulations. High Country News [online] (November

California Press, Berkeley, 2013) 21–24.

10, 2014) https://www.hcn.org/issues/46.19/

4. California Department of Water Resources. State of emergency—water shortage proclamation,

californias-sweeping-new-groundwater-regulations.

11. Hanak, E. et al. Managing California’s Water: From

February 27, 2009. California’s most significant

Conflict to Reconciliation (Public Policy Institute of

droughts: comparing historical and recent

California, San Francisco, 2011) 412–413.

conditions (Appendix 101–106) (2015).

5. Garone, P. The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of

12. Executive Order B-29-15 [online] (2015) http://www. waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/

California’s Great Central Valley (University of

programs/drought/docs/040115_executive_order.

California Press, Berkeley, 2011) 240–245.

pdf.

6. California Department of Water Resources.

13. California State Water Resources Control Board.

www.snwa.com/rebates/wsl.html.

California, San Francisco, 2011) 88, 91.

16. Holland, J. Dairy farms look at drip irrigation. The Modesto Bee (August 28, 2015).

17. Slater, D. California brownout. Sierra (July/August 2015) 26–28.

18. California Department of Water Resources.

California’s most significant droughts: comparing historical and recent conditions (2015) 69.

19. Bay Delta Conservation Plan [online] http:// baydeltaconservationplan.com/Home.aspx.

20. Restore the Delta [online] http://restorethedelta.org/.

21. Hanak, E. et al. Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation (Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, 2011) 315–348.

22. The Carlsbad Desalination Project [online] http:// carlsbaddesal.com/.

California’s most significant droughts: comparing

Media release: California water use drops

historical and recent conditions (2015) 24–25.

31.3 percent, exceeds 25 percent mandate for

experience to California. National Public Radio

7. U.S. Geological Survey, California Water Science

July [online] (2015) http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/

[online] (2015) http://www.npr.org/sections/

Center. The California drought [online] (2015)

press_room/press_releases/2015/pr082715_july_

parallels/2015/06/14/413981435/israel-bringing-its-

http://ca.water.usgs.gov/data/drought/.

conservation.pdf.

years-of-desalination-experience-to-california.

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23. Harris, E. Israel bringing its years of desalination

Sebzeci, Ö. (2015). Cycling 14,000 Kilometers for Women. Solutions 6(5): 77–80. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/2015/5/cycling-14000-kilometers-for-women

On The Ground

Cycling 14,000 Kilometers for Women

by Ozge Sebzeci

R4RW

A group photo of the R4RW women in Baku, Azerbaijan.

F

our tall, athletic ladies are easy to spot in the crowd with their cycling gear, helmets, and bike glasses.

They have sweat profusely after several hours of biking and hiking up the hills, and are now resting quietly at the side of a road. While two of them are leaving for a bike repair shop, I start speaking with the other two.

They are Dutch ladies pedaling from Indonesia to Holland for a cause: to foster awareness of women’s rights.

They embarked on their journey in September 2014 with a pair of third-hand, in-tandem bikes, riding an average of 75 kilometers everyday

and meeting with many women’s organizations, government officers, and consulates as well as locals in each country they visited. They are observing common problems for women, trying to understand the mentality behind them, and profiling some of the extraordinary women they meet on the road. By the end of the journey, they will have completed over 14,000 kilometers and crossed over 22 countries in 400 days.

“On our graduation year, our classmates were working only for their resumes. We wanted to do something for others,” says Carlijn Bettink, 25,

the president of R4WR and a medical anthropology and sociology graduate.

She and her three childhood friends Lidewij Ponjee, Monique van der Veeken, and Sophie van Hoof took a different tack and established together a women’s rights organization called R4WR (Ride for Women’s Rights) that specializes in gender inequality, family planning, and education after they got their Master’s degrees in 2013.1 “We all have different backgrounds but when we sat together, we understood that women’s rights are a priority for all of us,” Bettink says. “Many women are lacking the

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On The Ground

R4RW

Meeting with UNFPA an and Municipality Counsil Eskisehir in Turkey.

possibilites we have in our home country and they’re not as fortunate as us.”

The R4WR girls already had an annual tradition of travelling together since they were 14, which continued even after they left for different cities to pursue higher education. That’s how they came up with an idea of a long journey. They had a rigorous period of planning their trip where they scheduled meetings with different women’s rights organizations and consulates, looking for sponsors, and dealing with all kinds of travel arrangements.

They chose their starting point as Jakarta, Indonesia, and followed a route via Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe, as it allows the longest distance to bike. However,

Lidewij Ponjee, 24, the secretary of R4WR and a Dutch language and literature graduate, adds that is the main but not the only reason: “There are many interesting countries on our route with different women’s rights problems and many closed societies where we want to get a better understanding of how women live in these areas.” The team have so far passed through Singapore, Vietnam, Myanmar, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Georgia.

In the past year on the road, they have witnessed different problems women are facing. In Nepal, they saw that boys are much preferred to girls, and that girls are lacking education.

In Azerbaijan, they learned about the increase in child brides. They found out that migrant domestic workers

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were treated very badly in Singapore.

However, in all the problems and hardships women faced in their lives, there is one common theme they heard in every country and in every language: violence against women.

“Historical backgrounds, culture, and religion play a role in struggles in women face in their country,” says Bettink. “And change does not come overnight.”

However, the group were also able to meet with prominent women and different women’s rights activists. They profiled some of the extraordinary women on the road, like Hameeda Hossein from Bangladesh, who has dedicated her life to fight for human rights in her country. She is the founding member of Ain O Salish Kendra, a leading NGO that specializes in

On The Ground

R4RW

Meeting with university students in Eskisehir, Turkey.

collecting testimonies and providing legal perspectives on human rights in the country. What is more interesting is that her passion has also passed to her daughter who has become a human rights lawyer. In Turkey, they met with We Will Stop Women Murders, an organization that focuses on high numbers of women murders in the country and fights to stop them through changes to the legal system. The personal stories can be both brutal and inspiring.

“I see that every woman has potential to achieve anything they want,” Ponjee concludes.

All four of the R4WR women are inspired by the stories of women’s rights activists and hope to inspire more women with their profiles. They aim to publish 40 stories on their website by the end of their journey.

Ponjee, a tall, cheerful brunette who has gained a lot of muscle since they started their trip, adds that the physical challenge of cycling over 14,000 kilometers in 400 days is a way to attract people’s attention. Actually, this is their first long biking trip: “We’re coming from a cycling nation, but no one of us have travelled abroad with a bike before,” Ponjee says.

At first, they didn’t make a specific connection between cycling and women. However, once they started their journey, they have seen that cycling has also a symbolic meaning.

“We travel independently, we carry all our own stuff including a tent, food, and water. We have learned to solve a lot of technical issues by watching and doing the work of the professional bicycle repairmen. We have

been empowered both physically and emotionally as a woman during this journey,” points out Bettink.

Cycling is also a way to gain independence for women in the countries they visited. Bettink remarks: “In Iran it was forbidden for women to cycle until recently and it is not quite common now as well, but lifting the ban is a positive sign of change.”

The women prefer staying with locals instead of hotels, and sometimes they stayed at police or fire stations or at restaurants where they slept on their mattresses. During these long nights, they were able to discuss women’s rights with men, and rarely with a single female police officer or firefighter.

Although they haven’t yet faced any security problems, they met with

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On The Ground many prejudgements expressed in comments such as, “You are travelling just with the four of you? No men?

Very brave.”

However, lots of women supported their journey, and some of them even cycled with them for a while and said “they are encouraged and inspired by it.”

The team mentions Turkmenistan as the most mysterious and unexplored country of their journey, and they are stunned by what they saw there. They had the chance to meet with UNFPA and UN Women’s Turkmenistan office, where they learned more about women’s lives in thr country. The society’s tribal structure has changed under Soviet rule, and women became active members of society. Nowadays, women have many rights on paper, but as the goverment has a closed policy, there is hardly any data or research on women’s rights.

“Domestic violence in a country like Turkmenistan is still a taboo, and you’re not supposed to tell what happens behind the doors.”

The women have also observed that gender inequality is absolutely not only a women’s issue, and that both men and women should be involved in this process. In Kosovo, they met with a project of CARE International that focuses on men instead of women, called the Young Men Inititative. Its main goal is to change the attitude of the youth by breaking stereotypes about men and women. They started with the campaign “Be a Man” in 2009, which has continued to grow ever since. One of their recent projects has the motto, “Be a man...and a cook,” where boys are being taught how to cook, and they then serve their homemade dishes to local families and community members.

The Dutch team is still on the road in the Balkans, although the countdown for the final days has almost

R4RW

The team at Salt Lake, in Turkey.

begun. They have become even more motivated as the finish line comes into sight, and are pulling out all the stops to cross it on time. They hope to arrive in their native Amsterdam on October 31st where there will be a special “Welcome Back” party given for them with the beer and typical Dutch cuisine that they’ve been longing for.

Bettink already refers to the trip as a once in a lifetime experience. Ponjee is giggling and adds, “this is an unforgettable, sweaty experience.” They all

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look forward to spending more time in their home village and resting for a while. Nevertheless, they will continue to work in the field of women’s rights. They have already started planning their talks and lectures about their journey in universities and public spaces, and hope their journey will inspire more people to take action on women’s rights.

References 1. R4WR [online] (2015) www.r4wr.org.

EARTHACTION

Gund Institute

for Ecological

Economics

University of Vermont

The Alliance for Appalachia

National Council for Science and the Environment Improving the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking

Associated Socie<es International Society for Ecological Economics

Annmarie Byrd / Green Patriot Posters / Creative Action Network / www.dustyponydesign.com

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