Spreading the 'G' Word

Last night I had the pleasure of making a presentation on "Applications of Geo-Information Science to Social and Environmental Science Careers" to students and faculty at Endicott College.

The focus of my presentation was on how geospatial technologies - and specifically Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - could be applied in a variety of disciplines. I was asked by Dave Parry, Professor of Criminal Justice, to give particular attention to law enforcement applications, which I did. Of course, as a Geographer, I was delighted to have the opportunity to wander through a variety of disciplines. In fact, I talked about applications of GIS to

• business and marketing
• natural resource management
• environmental health
• communications infrastructure
• extra-terrestrial mapping
• law enforcement
• emergency management planning

The presentation was exceptionally well attended (at least in my experience!). I think there were more than 75 students present - at a 7pm event! I was given a very warm welcome and fielded a lot of good questions from both students and faculty. I am hoping that we can find the opportunity to work more closely with Endicott.
I want to thank Professors Alice Locicero and David Parry, as well as Dean Peter Eden for the opportunity.

Climate Threat Inflation

As the legitimacy and urgency of climate change have sunk in, the scope of considered impacts has broadened. One area drawing increasing attention is national security - issues that affect the integrity of nation-states. What does it mean to take a "national security" approach to climate change?

In June 2007, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post in which he connected political instability in the Darfur region of Sudan with drought exacerbated by climate change. For at least the last five years, nations with Arctic borders have been contemplating a new tangle of claims over previously inaccessible domains. Dramatic decreases in sea ice over the Arctic are opening up vast areas of ocean bordered by Canada, Russia, the US and Nordic countries - all of whom see in this change a variety of opportunities (like new shipping lanes) and strategic conundrums (like who owns what). More recently, Senator Kerry has made the national security implications of climate change a central issue, and it seems the Pentagon has been listening.

Of course, Pentagon concerns draw their own concerns. Climate change skeptics, like James Carafano of the conservative Heritage Foundation, are clearly wary of lending climate change any more credibility with the imprimatur of military concern, while more liberal-minded scholars are worried about the inverse, justifying military investment with the imprimatur of climate change. Regardless of the political motivations, the Pentagon has in fact begun to explore national security implications of potential climate change impacts: flood, drought, environmental refugees and mass migration, and wars over natural resources. Potential conflict, of course, draws the most attention.

Interestingly, there is actually a large body of empirical evidence showing that nations are more likely to find peaceful solutions than go to war when faced with competition over scarce natural resources - like water. Aaron Wolf, a professor of Geography at Oregon State University and director of the Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database, has compiled an enormous database on this exact issue. In a recent report for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, he and his colleagues pointed out:

• No nation has gone to war specifically over water for thousands of years.
• Between1945 and 1999, instances of cooperation between river-sharing nations outnumbered conflicts by more than two to one.
• In the last 50 years, only 37 disputes involved violence, and 30 of those occurred between Israel and one of its neighbors.
  
• Outside of the Middle East, researchers found only 5 violent events while 157 treaties were negotiated and signed.

Violent conflicts do occur, of course, but they mostly occur within nations, rather than between nations. Think on that. The authors conclude that water is actually a "pathway to peace" rather than conflict between nations.

Surely climatic instability has the dire potential to create social instability. How can people get along if they are worried about survival? But threats carry the potential for unity as well - especially common threats. According to an old Asian proverb, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The trick is to define the threat/enemy clearly and in a way that highlights our common interests in defeating this threat together. It has been done before and it can be done again.

Counting Trees

On Friday morning I attended an informational session on the current tree inventory that is being conducted for the City of Chelsea. The inventory is being led by the Urban Ecology Institute (UEI), though it includes a variety of other governmental and non-profit participants. The tree inventory is a count of street trees only, although aerial imagery is being analyzed at the University of Vermont to calculate total canopy coverage for the whole city. The survey is not complete yet, but preliminary results seem to show that Chelsea is seriously lacking in tree coverage - about 9% of the city's area is covered by tree canopy, compared to Boston's average of 29%. It is worth noting, however, that East Boston (where this author lives) had a calculated tree canopy coverage of only 6% when Boston's tree inventory was completed in 2006. The lowest in the city.

The vegetative cover in urban areas is vitally important for the healthy functioning of the city itself (i.e. mitigating storm runoff, moderating temperature extremes, reducing air pollution), as well as quality of life issues. Interestingly, the analysis for Boston, and the soon-to-be-released report on Chelsea, reveal the potential for a substantial increase in vegetative cover.

In 2007, the City of Boston announced a plan to plant 100,000 trees by 2020 with the goal of increasing the city's canopy coverage from 29% to 35%. While ambitious, it seems that Boston's goals are quite tame in comparison to other cities' tree planting programs.

The tree survey of Boston, and the one going on in Chelsea, are focused on street trees. However, according to UEI's John Walkey, Director of the Sustainable Cities program, street trees represent only 8% of the city's canopy coverage. The rest is on private property. This presents an interesting problem for devising policies to increase canopy coverage.

Spread World PEAS

On Thursday Neenah and I attended the New Entry Sustainable Farm Tour in Dracut, Massachusetts. The tour was arranged by World PEAS (People Enhancing Agricultural Sustainability). We and about 100 other curious visitors were invited to see how the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project trains people with limited resources who have an interest in small-scale commercial agriculture, to begin farming in Massachusetts AND to see how the food that the World PEAS CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) sells is grown. This is the second year that Neenah and I have been members of the World PEAS CSA and it was quite exciting to meet the people who grow our veggies and to see how the whole operation works.

We visited two working farms where a number of current trainees manage acre-sized plots (an acre is A LOT of land) to grow a variety of crops for market, to learn how to grow food organically, and to prepare to get their own commercial farms up and running. It was a beautiful day to be out - sunny, mild and dry. Of course, the nice weather belied the struggles the farmers have had with this year's unusually wet weather. Large areas of the farms were unusable because they were still too wet. Worse, the outbreak of late blight has devastated this season's tomato crop, especially for organic farmers. Nevertheless, the farmers we met were happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

The farmers we met with were a testament to the breadth of this program:

• A group of young people from inner city Lowell who are part of UTEC (United Teen Quality Center), a safe-haven program for youth development and grass-roots organizing. Teens involved in the UTEC Fresh Roots Program grow and cook healthy food to feed and educate their community. This group manages a two-acre organic vegetable plot in Dracut and a commercial kitchen in downtown Lowell. THEY DO COMMERCIAL CATERING for anyone in the Merrimack Valley. In fact, they prepared a full buffet for our visit, using the food they had grown, and it was incredible.
• Bill the farmer, an affable man and quick to laugh. When asked how he had come to the New Entry program, he said, "Through the unemployment office." He was out of work and needed to change directions. Now he's preparing a business plan for his own farm. He provided us with a bumper crop of peppers this season, and was one of the very few organic farmers to actually get red tomatoes!
• Adisson from Haiti. Adisson is a trained agronomist with experience in managing coops. He and his teenage daughter are growing a variety of vegetables with the idea of going back to Haiti to teach others how to grow food without pesticides.
• A Korean woman who already has a full time job and but manages her farm on the weekends.
• A number of farmers from southeast Asia who are experimenting with ways to grow tropical crops in Massachusetts.

The New Entry program and the World PEAS Coop represent a remarkably progressive approach to sustainable and socially just agriculture. Their goal is to advance local, organic agriculture by helping small scale farming operations by immigrants and others of modest means succeed. This is more than just environmentally friendly agriculture; it is a program to help empower otherwise marginalized people to help themselves and others.

Grit Over Smarts for Success

This Sunday's Ideas section in the Boston Globe contains an article about research on an underappreciated mental quality that Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the UPenn, has termed "grit". Grit is a quality of stick-with-it-ness that seems to be common to those who are successful in life. More specifically, researchers are accumulating evidence that grit is a better predictor of future success (not explicitly defined in the article) than more conventional measures of aptitude or potential such as IQ. Indeed, some researchers argue that focusing on IQ may not only be misleading, but may in fact set a person up for failure. The implications for education are, of course, important.

The value of understanding grit seems quite practical. The article spends some time on the search for ways of better measuring grit, and more importantly, ways to encourage or instill it. There are at least two implications from this article, however, that I find a little disturbing.

• Implication #1: Success is achieved through narrow and sustained focus, while lack of success happens from wandering interests. The article states: "While parents and teachers have long emphasized the importance of being well-rounded - this is why most colleges require students to take courses in all the major disciplines, from history to math - success in the real world may depend more on the development of narrow passions."

This issue is at the heart of the debate on the purpose and value of a liberal arts education. If one sees a college or university education as simply job training with the objective of higher pay and status, then yes, one might be better served by simply choosing a subject and studying only that: no science for English majors, and no Literature or History for Biology majors. Of course, one should still ask: is this form of 'success' the purpose of education? It's interesting to note that the article suggests that MCAS and similar tests may be missing the point by focusing on IQ, but I think that the point is still being missed.

• Implication #2: Success in life is based on an individual's traits, not political or social circumstances.

This one is always a doozy. The second half of this implication is never actually stated in the article, but it should be clear enough. More importantly, I think this implication deserves more scrutiny because it is something that too easily resonates with the American myth of "pulling yourself up from your bootstraps," and is therefore more likely to be embraced uncritically. Social and political context are certainly not everything, but there is too much evidence from history and the social sciences demonstrating, repeatedly, that for the vast majority of human beings, the social and political hand you are dealt is most important. If anything, it is important to recognize ideas or perspectives that may serve to de-politicize important social issues. We already give ourselves and our political representatives too many excuses to duck and cover from complicated things.

My point is not to dismiss or even diminish the idea of 'grit' as an important ingredient for success. Rather, I hope that we can extract its more useful possibilities without stretching the meaning to justify other, less constructive, agendas.

You can you can take the 'grit survey' at www.gritstudy.com to get a measure of your own grittiness.

Climate Change Squared

On Thursday I attended two very different and similar meetings on climate change.

Climate Change Meeting 1
The first meeting was with the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (REEP) - a youth-led environmental justice organization based in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. I visited with them at ACE in order to help them with their presentation on global warming. They have their script down pretty well - concise and basically right. Not surprisingly, there were some kinks and some needed clarifications:

1. The 'greenhouse effect' is actually a natural process. The problem is that we are over-enhancing it.
2. Global warming and the ozone hole are two different problems (a lot of people seem to confuse these two issues).
   
3. It's generally okay to use the terms 'climate change' and 'global warming' interchangeably, but 'global warming' should not be interpreted to mean it's just going to get warmer. The effects of climate change are not the same everywhere. The western US is getting drier and hotter, while the northeast is getting a lot more precipitation and stronger storms both in summer AND winter (including more intense ice storms).
4. The biggest immediate and chronic impacts on urban communities are heat stress and worsened air pollution. Heat stress is deadly for the very young, the very old, and the chronically ill - especially if you don't have A/C, have under-treated health conditions because you lack money or health insurance, and are stuck in a concrete environment with little or poorly maintained vegetation. Add to that the fact that smog - especially ground-level ozone and particulate matter - are enhanced by warm weather. Worse smog can be deadly, if not downright unpleasant, to the very young, the very old, and the chronically ill ... you get it. Houston, we have a problem.
   

Unlike most organizations raising the alarm about climate change, REEP is primarily interested in the meaning of environmental problems for vulnerable communities. It also means that they are looking for opportunities in this crisis. The last point is an interesting one, and it overlaps in interesting ways with the other meeting.

Climate Change Meeting 2
The second meeting (to which I arrived late because it was hard to stop talking over at ACE) was with the state's Climate Change Adaptation Advisory Committee. I've been attending the Key Infrastructure subcommittee. I need to thank Gene Benson from ACE, who was actually appointed by the Governor to the Committee, for suggesting me as a participant, as well as Brian Brodeur at DEP, for vouching for me to the subcommittee chair. The subcommittee meetings have been where the action is, but this big meeting was an opportunity to hear what all the other subcommittees have been doing regarding: coastal zones, public infrastructure, health and human welfare, terrestrial habitats, government and private business, etc. Each of the subcommittee chairs summarized their work to date, most of which had to do with identifying key vulnerabilities and suggested strategies. However, the point, as the Committee Chair reminded us, was not to "get into the weeds" on the details.

What's interesting to me, is the way in which many of the participants have seized on this crisis assessment as an opportunity for meaningful change - not just a panicked reaction to some imminent threat. As Ed Kuntz from DEP put it, we have the opportunity to change the whole paradigm of land use, economic development, and environmental management. Two strategies in particular stand out (at least to me):

1. Incorporating "nature-based" adaptation and mitigation strategies. This is similar to the idea of using "green infrastructure." Basically, this means recognizing and making use of the amazing variety and robustness of "services" that natural ecosystems provide. For example: wetlands for water filtration and buffering from storm surge; trees to provide cooling and absorption of excess water; open/green space to allow infiltration of rain and prevent excessive runoff and flooding, etc. Bob Zimmerman of the Charles River Watershed Association did an amazing presentation for the Infrastructure subcommittee on this issue.
   
2. Using the lens of community vulnerability to set priorities and design strategies. At a minimum, this means identifying those communities that are exposed to hazards AND less able to handle or recover from them - a concept known as resilience. It also means that when you look to clean things up, say by eliminating inefficient industrial practices or technologies, you begin by cleaning up the dirtiest in the most impacted neighborhoods. Finally, the lens of community vulnerability forces us to look for ways to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience by changing the very conditions that create vulnerability and low resilience - low socioeconomic status, geographic and social segregation, political influence, etc. First step: direct job and restructuring opportunities (i.e. stimulus funds) to communities most in need.
   

For all its threats, climate change presents a fascinating problem and a unique opportunity to redirect our society. Find more information on the Committee's website as well as notes from the public meetings. A final report to the state legislature is due December 2009.

Unexpected Recognition

About a week ago, the Chair of our Department called me into his office with little warning. I don't know why, but I always feel nervous when he does this - like getting called to the Principal's office. The President's Office (of the school, not the country) had called to ask that I attend an awards ceremony at the Hawthorne Hotel in recognition of my help on mapping Salem Woods. This was something I had worked on with Alan Young in Biology and one of my graduate students - Jen Sumael - three years ago! I agreed, of course, and contacted Jen to make sure she attended as well.
On Tuesday, the Hawthorne Hotel honored Chris Burke of the Friends of Salem Woods, and Salem State College, for our work in preserving a place of historical significance - Salem Woods (you can read about the event itself on the Hawthorne Hotel's blog). Alan Young was not able to attend, so President Meservey attended in order to receive the award on his behalf. When she spoke at the event, she described how her office had received a call from the Hawthorne Hotel announcing their desire to recognize Salem State for work on the Salem Woods map and brochure. The funny thing was that no one seemed to know who exactly at the College had done this work. It took the President's office a little while to figure it out and track us down. In any case, it was a nice surprise.

2009 Undergraduate Commencement

On Saturday I attended the 2009 undergraduate ceremony (the 199th for SSC!), along with Larry Goss, John Hayes, Steve Matchak, and Steve Young. Over 1,600 graduates this year! We had 19 from Geography, which is about normal. U.S. Rep John Tierney received an honorary degree and gave the commencement speech, which was remarkably short. I was particularly impressed, however, by the speech (or greeting) delivered by the President of the Student Government Association Quin Gonnell. Quinn was a graduating senior (and by all appearances, a young man), but he came across a like a seasoned leader. Mr. Gonnell hails from Lawrence, and by his own account, a not-so-privileged background. He is an exemplar of a student whose success was critically dependent upon a second chance and the support of people who maintain faith in the ability of remarkable individuals to exceed expectations.

2009 Graduate Commencement

I had the pleasure of attending the graduate commencement late Thursday afternoon. Keith Ratner and I marched with other faculty in our robes. It was a fairly large graduation - several hundred graduates. We had a particularly large cohort of graduates this year from the M.S. Geo-Information Science program - 8 in all (though the program listed one other who was not quite done yet). The highlight of this year's ceremony was clearly the commencement speech by Jonathan Kozol, one of the two recipients of honorary degrees in humane letters. Mr. Kozol is a longtime educator and children's advocate who has written numerous award-winning books on the plight of underprivileged children in particular. Though I think most of us were more impressed by the fact that he was a close friend of the late and beloved Mr. Rogers. Mr. Kozol was funny and moving, and surprisingly, fiery in his critique of the narrowing and regimentation of education that is happening in response to standardized testing (i.e. MCAS in Massachusetts). He implored the graduates - and the rest of us - to not let go of the spontanaity and creativity and humanness that makes good and worhwhile education.
After the ceremony we met with our graduates in a reception - very happy (and relieved) individuals.

Earth Days 2009

Congratulations to the winners of Salem State College’s 2009 Earth Days student art and poster competition!

Winning Artwork:
1) "Pouvez-Vous Nous Apporter De L'eau? Access To Safe Water World Map", digital print, by Masahiko Kakuta
2) "Plastic Mess", mixed media/found object interactive installation, by Michaela Giragosian*
3) "Vernal Pools", mixed media/found object interactive installation, by Kourtney DeMaine*

Winning Posters:
1) “The Effects of a Growing Population on the Assabet River Basin, Massachusetts” by Jennifer Carr (sponsored by Prof. Steve Silvern, Geography)
2) "Zebra Mussels in the Great Lakes Region" by Kimberly Nguyen (sponsored by Prof. Krishna Mallick, Philosophy)
3) "Lake Cochituate and the Milfoil Problem" by James Starr, Richard Kadlik, and Tanya Fennell (sponsored by Prof. David Tapley, Biology)
4) "India's Water Problems" by Megan Farmer, Laurie Granholm, and Katherine Do (sponsored by Prof. Alan Young, Biology)
5) "Geochemical Analysis of the North River Drainage Basin" by Joe Pyburn (sponsored by Prof. Doug Allen, Geology)
6) "Grain Size Characterization and Soft Shell (Mya arenaria) Clam Survival Rates in Selected Boston Harbor Tidal Flats" by Emily Crescenzi (sponsored by Prof. Brad Hubeny, Geology)
7) "A Multi-proxy Analysis of Sediment Cores from Chain of Ponds, Maine" by Courtnie Ciapciak (sponsored by Prof. Brad Hubeny, Geology)
8) "Seeking Cooperative Solutions in Fisheries Management, a Game Theoretic Approach" by Brian Girard (sponsored by Prof. Kevin Beckwith, Economics)
9) "Global Warming Threatens Antarctica's Marine Life With New Predators" by Alaina Peterson (sponsored by Prof. Alan Young, Biology)
10) "A Stratigraphic Investigation of the Goldthwait Reserve Salt Marsh, Marblehead, MA" by Andrea Sherman (sponsored by Prof. Brad Hubeny, Geology)

All winners receive cash prizes. The SSC Earth Day Planning Committee gratefully acknowledges the Tefferteller Foundation for their support in providing the funds for the cash awards to the winners of the Earth Day student poster competition and Earth Day Juried Art Exhibit.

This year’s art and poster competition was held in Vet’s Hall of the Ellison Campus Center on Monday, April 13, and drew students and faculty from all over campus. The Art submissions were juried by Art faculty. Over 100 posters were evaluated by 35 faculty judges from Art,
Biology, Chemistry, Communications, Economics, Geography, Geology, History, Philosophy, and Sociology, and by members of the community environmental organization HealthLink. Art and Poster winners were recognized on the evening of Wednesday, April 22, 2009, in Vets Hall.

Thank you to all the students, faculty, and community members who attended and participated to make this year’s Earth Days 2009 Art and Poster Competition such a success. We hope to see you next year!

Sincerely,

Earth Day Poster and Art coordinators: Marcos Luna (Geography) and Ken Reker (Art)
Earth Day Committee co-chairs: John Hayes (Geography) and Hope Benne
(History)

To learn more about Earth Days events at Salem State College and to see pictures of the art and posters, see http://www.salemstate.edu/earthday/ or visit our Facebook page "Earth Days @ Salem State"
*Earth Days Putt-Putt installation is visible in the John L. George Memorial Garden of Meier Hall for viewing over the next two weeks

Sustainability as Transdisciplinary (but not-so-diverse) Praxis

According to the most recent report on Sustainability in Higher Education, students graduating in 2008 were less likely to be "environmentally literate" than they were when the survey was administered back in 2001. The report attributes this backward slide in eco-awareness to a lack of exposure to ecological principles in the curriculum. The irony is that the report also showed a greening of physical campus infrastructure (e.g. recycling, renewable and reduced energy use, etc.) and ever greater pledges of commitment to reduced environmental impact by the campus administration and leadership. The report does not rank or rate individual campuses. I am not sure how our College compares to the report's overall findings, though it occurs to me that we have a campus "sustainability officer," and we report on our progress in greening our physical infrastructure, but we have no coordinator or measure of sustainability in our curriculum.

Over the winter break I attended a workshop at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia to learn ways to better integrate environmental sustainability into our curriculum. The workshop was sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and its purpose was to help "faculty leaders of all disciplines who wish to develop curriculum change programs around sustainability on their campuses." My original purpose in attending was to figure out how to improve our Department's new Sustainabilty concentration, but the workshop was actually aimed at showing us how to encourage and assist any or all faculty, in any or all disciplines, to integrate sustainability into their curricula: anthropology, biology, business, chemistry, English, foreign languages, geography, history, philosophy, political science, sociology, etc. The key, we learned, is to respect individual faculty members as experts in their respective disciplines, and to allow them to figure out how best to integrate sustainability. Our job is simply to educate or encourage appreciation of sustainability, and guide discussion and planning of curriculum changes.

The idea of breaking down disciplinary barriers was strong. One of the articles we read in preparation for the workshop went so far as to argue that schools should avoid establishing specific departments or programs in sustainability. Sustainability, they argued, will be more successful in the long term if it is a perspective or value that permeates all disciplines rather than being the protected turf of a particular department or group of experts. I know this must have raised some hackles, but they were raised quietly. This perspective makes sense to me. The concept of sustainability or sustainable development or environmental sustainability is supposed to occur at the intersection of economics, society/culture and the environment. How do we create, and sustain, a world that meets the needs of the present and the future across all of these domains? No one discipline or expert can possibly fathom all aspects of this problem (though Geographers come close!).

Inherent in this transdiciplinary ideal is an appreciation for the value of a diversity of perspectives. Indeed, our workshop hosts very deliberately admitted a diversity of attendees (37 in total): a wide variety of academic and professional disciplines, men and women, older and younger, tenured and untenured. Good. But somehow, racial or ethnic diversity, as far as I could tell, fell well short. I think, though I could be wrong, that I was the only racial/ethnic minority in the room. Not so good. Why does this matter? It matters for the same reason that it matters to involve people with different disciplinary training, with different forms of experience, or with different cultural orientations; different kinds of people, with different kinds of experience, bring different kinds of perspectives to what may appear to be the same issues (and to which people with the same perspective may be blind). For all of the self-congratulatory rhetoric about our post-racial society (look, we've got a Black President!), race/color/ethnicity remain defining aspects of Americans' identities, experiences, and for too many, their chances of success and happiness in life.

Low racial or ethnic diversity is a widely acknowledged problem in academia in general. However, I think it is especially problematic for sustainability. One of the most important transformations (or disruptions) in Environmentalism was the emergence of the Environmental Justice movement - the push to acknowledge the unique needs and problems of marginalized or oppressed groups in environmental problems and how these were interrelated with larger social (in)justice problems. Classic environmentalism was about saving the natural (i.e. non-human) environment and about averting catastrophic degradation of our world; not a bad thing. What often went unacknowledged, however, was how common environmental problems weighed most heavily on minority and working class or poor communities. Worse, efforts to cleanup or protect some places often mean simply displacing environmental burdens on to other places with less economic or political clout (read: marginalized communities). The issues go deeper, but the point is that these were aspects of our environmental crisis that were either ignored or were simply invisible, in part, because they were not within the experiences of the more privileged (i.e. well-heeled, White male) leaders of the early Environmental movement.

Today's Environmentalism is better for having acknowledged the social justice aspects of environmental problems. As with most big problems, however, our work is nowhere near done. My own anecdotal experience is that the socio-economic dimensions of sustainability continue to be underappreciated or misunderstood (why am I always the only one asking about the distributional implications of these efforts?). For sustainability to succeed, it must penetrate disciplinary boundaries AND it must incorporate the widest array of human perspectives. Otherwise, we're likely to miss something important.