Category: All Fragilecologies

Fragilecologies Archives
14 January 2000

On December 10, 1999, I was in Havana and went to see the demonstration in favor of repatriating Elian from the USA to Cuba. The ambiance was one of festivity and not the somber demonstration I had expected to see. This, however, does not mean that the participants of all ages did not have a view on the issue.

Elian Gonzalez
Courtesy of 4OnLine

Most of the people that I spoke to about the situation felt that it was a bad situation for all involved, especially the mother and the stepfather. There was considerable sympathy for the father. “The boy,” they say, “belongs with his father.” The paradox is that some of the kids on the street were making a play on words about the situation.

“Send me to Miami and I will send Elian back by plane.”
“Elian, remember my clothing size.”
“To survive in Cuba, you must have ‘fe’. Fe in Cuba stands for two things: faith and familia enstranjero, or family overseas (family that can send money and clothes to their relatives in Cuba.)”

Wall located in Havana, Cuba.
The poster on the left displays Elian’s picture with the following caption: “Return Elain to Cuba!”

Many of the demonstrators were bussed in from the countryside, as one could tell from the uniforms that teenage students wore. Many kids were brought by school buses to the ‘Malecon’, the avenue that runs along the coast in the heart of Havana. On the day before this demonstration, I saw buses lined up in caravan formation making their way to yesterday’s demonstration in the same location — in front of the building housing the American interest section in the Swiss Embassy along the Malecon.

Many held posters of the boy. Others had small pieces of paper with the boy’s picture and a slogan to return him to Cuba. Many people had paper Cuban flags glued to rough wooden sticks. There were large flags draped from balconies and an extremely large banner with Che Guevara’s face on it.

There were several members of the military and young teenagers in military schools. Families were walking from all parts of the city to get to the demonstration. After the demonstration, people were lined up waiting for city buses to come — too many for the next bus or two to carry.

In sum, the mood was more like a party than that of a sad occasion. After all, these manifestations had been going on all week. One person said that, for the past few days, little if any work had been done.

The loud speakers carried music of the revolution and speeches of various people. Every so often the crowd would cheer and raise their placards and Cuban flags. Weaving in and out of the crowd were men and women selling peanuts for a peso a pack (5 cents), and some other sweet food was being sold. Water trucks were providing water to the crowd if they had brought a container with them.

I left just past dusk. The students were leaving then also, many running back to catch their buses back to school or to home.

Photo Gallery of Demonstration in Cuba

Fragilecologies Archives
4 January 2000

By Dr. Michael H. Glantz and Dr. Igor Zonn

On the way to the airport in Makhachkala, (Dagestan) — a Republic in the Russian Federation, it was clear that something unusual was happening. After a morning visit in mid August 1999 to Sarikum, the largest sand dune in all of Europe, we noticed lots of Russian troop activity on the outskirts of town. In town, we learned that Chechen rebels had crossed the border from landlocked neighboring Chechnya. They captured two villages in the border area in the central part of the Dagestani border with Chechnya. While the Chechen government denied that the rebels had invaded Dagestan, all knew that that was precisely what had happened.

Russians step up security in Dagestan

Chechnya has had a violent relationship with the Russian Federation, and before that with the Soviet Union, ruled from Moscow. With the breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, the Chechen Muslims sought independence from the Federation that they had been forced to join a century earlier in Tsarist times. This desire for independence, coupled with a willingness to fight, led to the Russian war with the Chechen Republic. After about 80,000 deaths in the war, a truce was called, putting the political and military conflict on hold. In essence, it gave the Chechens de facto independence from Moscow. During the war, the Chechens took the conflict to Moscow, blowing up one of the stations in its famous metro system. At the same time the Russians were destroying the Chechen capital of Grozny.

The truce brokered in 1996 has been an uneasy one. With no one really running the Russian government and with the army in its weakened, demoralized state, the Chechens apparently saw an opportunity to fulfill a desire to create a ‘Greater Chechnya’ in the Northern Caucasus. One belief is that they wanted to take over only the southern half of Dagestan below Makhachkala. The northern part is quite different geographically and is a coastal plain that is semiarid to arid. The southern part contains both mountains (like Chechnya) and a coastal plain bordering on the oil- and sturgeon-rich Caspian Sea.

Eventually, the second Chechen war will end — possibly before the Russian Presidential election in June 2000. However, there is a high probablility that a guerrilla war will continue afterwards.

The Republic of Dagestan and the Russian Federation

I was invited to visit Dagestan by a Russian environmentalist and colleague, Dr. Igor Zonn in Moscow, and a biological scientist, Dr. Zalibekov in Makhachkala. The purpose was to discuss the potential for the development of scientific research activities related to the Caspian Sea and fluctuations in its level. We were also there to review the situation of Caspian sturgeon poaching, much of which was being carried out along the Dagestani coast.

During the visit, we traveled by car along the Caspian’s coastal plain and the foothills. We started in Makhachkala in the center of the coast and ended in Derbent a couple of hours to the south and near the international border with Azerbaijan.

I was accompanied by the deputy director of an institute devoted to biological research in the region and especially in the sea. I have traveled the whole world over and have stayed in some pretty dismal places. The first night in Dagestan equaled at the least the worst place I had stayed in over a three-decade period. It was the remnants of a half-built resort right on the Caspian near the town of Kaspisk. Construction on this resort facility came to a halt with the collapse of the Soviet Union some years earlier.

Along the route we saw some touristic sites (for example, a natural profile of Pushkin on the side of a mountain) and the remnants of some vineyards, largely unattended and in disrepair. We also visited a working vineyard centered on an expansive historic underground wine storage site. Each place we visited, people expressed interest in more interactions with Americans and Europeans for the purpose of commerce. While there may have been a desire among Dagestanis for independence from the Russian Federation, given the constant threat (now conflict) of Chechen origin, no attempt was made to seek that independence. Russia provided protection for Dagestan from the Chechens, much as an alliance with Russia would do for Turkmenistan in any potential conflict with Uzbekistan. Some Chechen factions had demanded that the two republics merge into one large Islamic republic, independent of Moscow’s control.

Interestingly, along the roadside that paralleled the Caspian coastline, several people were selling gasoline in small containers to drivers passing by. The gasoline was cheaper than that sold in the official or private gas stations because it had been smuggled across the mountainous border with Chechnya. It was sold openly but on the black market. It appeared that the Dagestani police apparently chose to look the other way rather than confront the illegal cross-border traders.

During the visit I had heard talk of a free Dagestan. But, the reality is that the region is too unstable for independence. With landlocked Chechnya as a neighbor and such breakaway quasi-independent, ethnically based republics such as Ingushetia and Nagorno-Karabak and Ostia nearby, it was better to stick with the Russian Federation (as if the Federation would let them out!).

Dagestan is poor. It is on the Caspian Sea and therefore has value to its covetous landlocked neighbor. Hence, the rebel attack on Dagestan from its neighbor’s territory, obviously with the implicit backing of the Chechen government. Russia was viewed as militarily weak, following its defeat in the first Russo-Chechen war in 1994-96. It was also viewed as hesitant to use its weakened military establishment. One can only assume that the Chechens saw Southern Dagestan as a ‘sitting duck’. They took aim, crossed the border, captured 2 Dagestani towns. . . and then all hell broke loose.

My Russian colleague and I were there at the time of the invasion, one of the last political crises of the 20th century or, for that matter, of the second millennium. We were not in the mountain towns that had been captured. However, we were but tens of kilometers away. In just one day the signs of response to the invasion were evident and growing. Russian troops were at the airport in Machachkala. They were increasingly visible in the streets. People were abuzz about the Chechen invasion. They wondered what Moscow’s response would be. After all, the Russians had essentially been defeated in Chechnya a few years earlier. There was talk that the Russian leaders would not fight the Chechens, other than to seek to contain and, if possible, remove the rebels from Dagestani territory.

The Chechens and the rest of the world (probably including many Russians) were surprised by the Russian military response. The Russian leaders were reacting not just to the invasion but also to the several terrorist attacks that had also occurred in Moscow. Unknown terrorists (more correctly mass murderers) — but likely Chechens — detonated explosives that destroyed several apartment building blocks within the metropolitan area, leaving more that 300 dead and hundreds more wounded. These attacks were part of what, in military jargon is referred to as ‘countervalue attacks’. Such attacks are designed to demoralize the civilian population by selecting civilian targets to destroy instead of focusing on military targets.

The Chechen rebel strategy backfired. The attacks raised the ire of the Russian population. The sporadic terrorist attacks in Moscow provided an issue on which various political and ideological factions in Russia could agree . . . take on the Chechen terrorists directly. The NATO strategy in Serbia with regard to the Kosovo crisis provided the Russian military and government with a way out. Wanting in the worst way to avoid troop casualties and the popular opposition to them, they had suffered in the earlier war with the Chechens, Russian generals decided to bomb from the air various alleged terrorist sites in Dagestan as well as other strategic targets, in order to cripple the rebels, their supply routes, and to cripple the Chechen economy that supported them.

Regardless of how one views the history of Russia’s presence in the North Caucasus, it appears that most foreign governments chose, at least initially, to back the Russians. They did so mostly by not getting involved or by not condemning the Russian effort (except on technical treaty grounds with regard to NATO-Russian Federation agreements). Pleas from the Chechen president to the international community for disaster relief and for help from other countries apparently fell on deaf ears. Tens of thousands of Chechen refugees fled into neighboring Ingushetia, a Russian Republic with little in the way of resources to help them.

The Chechen attack on a defenseless, economically depressed, ethnically diverse Dagestan was a bad strategic choice, especially under the banner carried by Chechens labeled as terrorists. Taking the war to Moscow was a guerrilla tactic that failed. The bombings did not help their cause. It exposed the fact that the Chechens did not understand the Russians any more than the Russians understood the Chechens. As a result, the Chechens gambled with their country’s quasi-independent status in favor of territorial expansion into southern Dagestan . . . and they lost. Now Chechnya faces being re-absorbed back into the Russian Federation or, worse than that, destruction. Shortly after my visit in August 1999 the Russians gained control of the flatlands in Chechnya, the northern part of the country, north of the Terek River. It appeared then that, with a smell of possible victory in the air, the Russian military would soon move across the Terek … and it did.

Today, a few months later, Chechnya’s capital city of Grozny is encircled by Russian troops. Air attacks on the city have been relentless. Hundred of thousands of refugees have fled the country. The international humanitarian community has become more vocal, opposing Russia’s indiscriminate scorched earth policy and its failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets. Even governments that had been silent have begun to challenge Russia’s military tactics, but not to the extent of pressuring Russia to end the campaign against Chechnya.

I would guess that the history books will recall the mess in the Northern Caucasus as the fallout of an erroneous Chechen guerilla (if not government) strategy to (a) seek territorial expansion and (b) to terrorize Russian leaders by indiscriminately bombing Russian apartment houses and subway stations. Whatever hostile reaction that befalls the Russian Federation as a result of its activities, the Chechen blunder will most likely spell an end to its brief period of independence.

For more information on crisis in Dagestan, visit:
Chechen Refugees: “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”
on the Disaster Relief web site.

Russian troops take up positions

Russian soldiers in Dagestan

(All photos appear courtesy of the BBC Online Network News)

Fragilecologies Archives
26 October 1999

When I was just starting out as a young researcher interested in the interactions between human activities and climate variability from one year to the next, I stumbled across an obscure (at that time) process that has captured my attention ever since. The process was referred to simply as El Niño. Today, many people have become enamored of this phenomenon, the result of air-sea interaction in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Some science writers have referred to that interaction poetically as a “dance” between the ocean and the atmosphere. Reviewing todayís newspaper headlines, one would hardly remember that three decades ago, no one but a few scientists were interested in this dance or its impacts.

Just a couple of years ago, relatively few people had any strong feeling about why they should consider, let alone care about, forecasts of El Niño when they make decisions that could be affected by changes in seasonal climate. Of those places among the least concerned about El Niño or its potential wrath were the islands of the North and South Pacific. They knew of cyclones and floods, droughts, and fires, along with occasional outbreaks of disease, but they viewed these as random acts of nature or of God. In 1997, all that changed drastically.

At an international workshop in Fiji in mid-October 1999 organized by SOPAC (a Pacific regional geoscience organization), people from national weather bureaus, water management agencies, natural disaster programs and regional organizations came together to review what climate-related impacts had happened in their countries during the 1997-98 El Niño.

They came from what are collectively referred to as small island developing states in the North and South Pacific. To be quite honest I had not been aware of several of them, having focused much of my attention on sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. The countries of which I had heard, I had learned about by collecting stamps as a kid in the 1950s — Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Samoa, the Marshall Islands, the Solomons. And then there are those I had not heard of till recently — Vanuatu, Niue, Kiribati [pronounced Kiri-bahs], Tuvalu.

For much of the 1990s, policy makers from these islands have also been concerned about global warming because many of the islands are at or near sea level in height. If the climate were to heat up, as scientists have been suggesting, then they would be at risk to increasingly damaging storm surges, as well as sea level rise. In fact, one of Kiribatiís uninhabited atolls has already disappeared below the seaís surface.

The people at the workshop openly acknowledged that they had only begun to consider El Niño as a result of the forecast of an intense El Niño for 1997-98. The agencies involved in monitoring sea surface changes in the tropical Pacific, along with the media and groups modeling and forecasting El Niño, began to claim that the looming El Niño would rival the intensity of the major 1982-83 event, which for the past 15 years had been referred to as the “El Niño of the Century”.

During El Niño events, almost all the Pacific islands suffer from drought and, as a result, water shortages are highly likely to follow. Water is a scarce commodity in these island nations even under “normal” conditions (and it is growing scarcer). Expanding population, combined with agricultural and industrial growth, are increasing the pressure on limited fresh-water supplies. So, now El Niño has become synonymous with drought in the North and South Pacific island states. The only exception is Kiribati, which receives considerable rain during El Niño and suffers drought during La Niña events.

The islands are also subjected to cyclones (again, Kiribati is an exception as it straddles the equator), flash floods, severe wind, droughts and wildfires; it is possible for all of these to occur in the same year! So, disaster managers have the challenge of preparing for a range of potentially overlapping climate anomalies but with only minimal available resources. Some of these islands can be affected by a passing cyclone, which brings flooding, providing temporary relief from an El Niño-related drought, and wind damage. Often, the international community has to be called upon for support.

Disaster managers in this region clearly have their hands full. This has always been the case, even before they became aware of El Niño and La Niña. What is different now is that the onset of drought or flood can be linked to the ENSO cycle. Therefore, El Niño and La Niña forecasts can convert disaster responses from reaction to pro-action. Based on the adage that “forewarned is fore-armed”, disaster managers in these island nations can prepare their countries to reduce the damage of El Niño-related adverse impacts. SOPAC’s disaster mitigation advisor, Atu Kaloumaira, said that “It is encouraging that actions one can take still remain simple and familiar. The benefit comes from timely application. We are hopefully expectant that in the next El Niño we will be ready and will reduce suffering.”

Without question, the 1997-98 event generated a step-like jump in awareness, not just in this region but everywhere. By the time first El Niño of the 21st century rolls around in a few years, there will be numerous El Niño experts within the Pacific region. In addition to the numerous workshops and conferences on the topic, the Internet can help a great deal. With the media hype about the onset of an intense El Niño in mid-1997 came an explosion of websites and chat groups devoted to the topic. Now, equipped with Internet access, ordinary citizens along with regional scientists and resource managers can access El Niño information of all kinds — and in real time. They can see raw information that has been downloaded from satellites, read analyses of that data, or track its development vicariously through media stories.

The “romancing” part of the story stems from the fact that, after 25 years of activities to encourage researchers to use El Niño information (including forecasts), researchers and government agencies around the globe are finally starting to make good use it. They want to know more about the strengths and weaknesses in using El Niño information, as well as its level of reliability and accuracy. They are beginning to make requests to forecasters, telling them about the kinds of information they need and when they need it. In my travels around the globe — riding in taxis, chatting with shop keepers, waiters, and students, among others — I have seen that, in the short time span of a few months in 1997, El Niño has become part of the publicís vocabulary. Everyone wants to know when the next event can be expected.

All this is good news. Great news, in fact. In 1994 I wrote an article called “Forecasting El Niño: Scienceís Gift to the 21st Century”. Then came the onset of the 1997-98 El Niño. The forecasters missed forecasting the event and, later, its intensity. Colleagues chided me about the title, asking if I still believed it to be a gift to the next century.

In a sense, I no longer believed it. If I could (with hindsight) change one word in the title, I would change “to” the 21st century to “in” the 21st century. In another sense, though, I would stick with the original title. Why? Because, in the last few months of the 20th Century, there has been ample evidence to support the feeling that awareness of, and interest in, El Niño has finally taken hold in the minds of the public and government representatives. While the 1982-83 event was an “event of the scientists” (having sparked their interest in the phenomenon), the 1997-98 event could be considered the “El Niño of the users” (having sparked interest in the use of El Niño information, including forecasts).

If the level of interest expressed in the SOPAC (South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission) conference is any indicator of a new-found concern about El Niño, then scientists in the 20th century have given an important gift to future generations in the 21st century.

Fragilecologies Archives
19 May 1999

For the past 25 years people have celebrated Earth Day. Its beginning years were extremely valuable and eventful. We were emerging out of what might be called the dark ages of environmentalism; the decades preceding 1970 witnessed little concerted interest in saving Planet Earth from the destructive ways of its human inhabitants.

In the old days habitats were destroyed in the name of survival or out of a desire to create something that was viewed as a necessity.

Since the first Earth Day, we have come to look at Planet Earth in a new way. Perhaps it was prompted by the satellite photo of our Earth floating along in space — a “Blue Marble,” quite isolated, quite alone. That image gave us the feeling that we had better not “foul our nest.”

Much has happened since the first Earth Day. The level of consciousness of the people, of governments, and of many industries has risen to the point where the environment enters into our everyday decision-making.

So, now we look forward to Earth Day, which (like Christmas or Independence Day) comes but once a year. It is on our minds (and in the media) for a few weeks before and after. But, for the rest of the year, most people go back to thinking about other things besides the  fate of the planet.

When I was a kid about to return to school following a great summer of freedom from math and English, I had chores to complete. My room had to be cleaned up and my “floor-drobe” picked up and put away so I would have a new start for the school year.

Thus, my modest proposal.

We are in the last days of this millennium, within striking distance of the next one. It is kind of awesome when you stop to think that this can only happen one year in a thousand. Most people and governments will celebrate the year 2000 as the beginning of the new millennium. Parties, extravaganzas, gala events and count downs will take place throughout that year. I suggest that we forget celebrating Earth Day in 2001. Instead, let’s make the year of 2001 Earth Year.

Let’s use 2001 to clean up the planet as best we can for the generations that will be born in the next millennium. Let’s give our descendants the best and cleanest planet possible. We can start now, just as if we were getting ready for Earth Day, but instead we would be preparing for a much larger endeavor, Earth YEAR.

Earth Day, to many, serves as a feel-good day. But I believe we can do better. We need a more substantial goal to keep our level of energy high so we can focus on protecting the environment for the generations of the next millennium.

Fragilecologies Archives
18 May 1999

There has been plenty of debate about the degree to which society is responsibile for supporting (or more correctly, covering the losses of) individual actions. A good example is constructing a new home in a known floodplain or on a hurricane-prone barrier island. Should insurance companies cover losses due to an ìexpectableî natural hazard?

During the 1997-98 El Niño, US TV news repeatedly showed the row of houses built on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When the cliffside collapsed as a result of heavy rains and soggy soils, several of the houses fell into the ocean. When interviewed, the owner of one of the houses said that he would rebuild on the same cliff 20 feet from the cliff’s edge; his reasoning — the view at sunset was just too beautiful to abandon! So, is it society’s responsibility to cover his investment in a high-risk situation? If his losses were not covered by society (directly or indirectly), would he still be willing to make such an environmentally stupid decision?

Smog in Indonesia

The 1997-98 El Niño made the phenomenon a household word worldwide. Media coverage was so constant and complete that the public referred to it as ‘media hype’. Consequently, people have become aware of El Nino’s potential impacts on their locales. Societies’ responses, both proactive and reactive, to the 1997-98 El Niño could be viewed as a dry run. Some actions proved effective and reduced those impacts, but others were not as successful. By reviewing how different societies (governments, companies, individuals) responded to the 1997-98 event, strengths and weaknesses in those responses can be identified. Such knowledge, if applied, can mitigate the future impacts of El Niño. These societies will then have little excuse for inaction in the face of the next El Niño.

The 1997-98 El Niño is over. It has been followed by a rather lengthy La Niña episode. Not surprisingly, the media dropped its coverage of El Niño like a ‘hot potato’ when El Niño waned. El Niño is no longer considered newsworthy by most of the media. The media argue that they respond to the public’s interest, and El Niño is no longer one of those interests. When El Niño returns — and it will return — it will once again become of interest, for as long as it lasts.

The following story about fixing a roof exemplifies the intermittent (dare I say fickle) interest in El Niño: when it rained, a farmer realized that he had to fix the leak in his roof, but when the rain stopped there was no immediate reason to do it. He would then be reminded that the roof needed fixing when the rain returned. Once again, he’d fix it when the rain stopped … and so it goes. There is considerable interest in improving societal coping strategies and tactics when it comes to El Niño. But when the event is over, societal interests turn to other issues. Like the farmer, society is again reminded about its neglect when the next El Niño returns a few years later. The time for societies to fine-tune future responses to El Niño events is between El Niños and not during them.

Regarding societal responsibility for known environmentally risky decisions: apply this question to the international community. Instead of individuals, we can talk about countries and governments. Instead of society, we can talk about the World Bank and other lending institutions. The question then becomes: should the World Bank (and other lending institutions) provide financial support to countries that are known to be affected by El Niño’s impacts but fail to develop ways to deal more effectively with those impacts between events? Should countries be ‘bailed out’ following El Niño’s adverse impacts, if they failed to support research and application of that research to reduce societal vulnerability?

When asked to undertake a $20 000 assessment of impacts and responses to the 1997-98 El Niño, one government responded by noting that it did not have $20 000 available for such a study. Yet, the damage to its economy and the country’s inhabitants could be $20 million or more (as a result of drought, flood, fire, haze). When governments appeal to development banks and other sources to cover the $20 million in damages, what responsibility falls on that government for not having taken previous steps to identify ways to minimize those damages?

The question then becomes — Should the World Bank, for example, provide El Niño-related funds to those countries that do not seek ways to mitigate El Niño’s impacts?

Fragilecologies Archives
26 April 1999

By Dr. Steve Schwartzman
Environmental Defense Fund

December 22nd , 1998 marked the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Amazon rubber tapper, union leader and environmentalist Chico Mendes. In honor of Chico Mendes life and work, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has launched the Chico Mendes Sustainable Forest Campaign, in partnership with the National Council of Rubber Tappers of Brazil. The campaign promotes the creation of new “extractive reserves”, Chico’s concept of reserves managed by forest peoples.

“If a messenger from the sky came down and guaranteed that my death would strengthen our struggle, it would be worth it. But experience teaches us the contrary. It’s not with big funerals and motions of support that we’re going to save the Amazon. I want to live.”

— Chico Mendes

(From an interview December 9, 1988, published posthumously in O Jornal do Brasil.)

Image and Quote appear courtesy of The Chico Mendes Sustainable Rainforest Campaign

About Chico Mendes: Remembering Chico
(Words and photos by Stephan Schwartzman)

Fragilecologies Archives
19 April 1999
By Dr. Joelle Diderich

BRASILIA, April 15 (Reuters) – Brazil on Thursday lifted a blanket ban on clearing land in the Amazon after loggers and landowners agreed to a measure aimed at slowing the rate of destruction of the world’s biggest rain forest.

The environment ministry said it was revoking a measure that had suspended all new permits for felling trees in the Amazon River basin following unprecedented talks during which all parties involved agreed to new guidelines.

“This is the first time that there is a commitment involving non-governmental organizations, lawmakers, loggers and all sectors. The government considers this a great victory,” said a ministry spokesman.

Authorities applied the moratorium in February following the publication of data showing that an area more than half the size of Belgium — 6,500 square miles (16,800 square km) — had been cleared in 1998.

This figure represented a 27 percent jump from 1997 — when the equivalent of 5,000 soccer fields of jungle were lost every day, according to one estimate.

The agreement signed on Thursday reduces the maximum limits for land-clearing by small farmers and promises large landowners faster handling of their clearing applications, the ministry spokesman said.

Loggers, farmers and others who make their living from the rain forest also pledged to make better use of areas already degraded and limit the use of fire to clear new areas.

Environmentalists welcomed the move but cautioned that the success of the new guidelines depended on the vigilance of the government’s Environmental Agency (Ibama), which has been plagued by allegations of corruption.

“We think it was good to revoke this ban because it generated a lot of misunderstanding and conflict,” said Roberto Smeraldi, head of a programme to protect the Amazon with Friends of the Earth.

Smeraldi said that during a trip last week to Mato Grosso state, where illegal mahogany logging is rife, he saw deforestation had increased despite the ban.

Out in the field this ban simply has no effect whatsoever,” he said. “The problem which remains for any guidelines is the state’s lack of capacity to implement them.”

Fragilecologies Archives
15 April 1999

Most people throughout history have not lived from day to day, except under extraordinarily stressful conditions. They have lived from season to season.

Seasons are traditionally defined by astronomical factors. The natural, yearly progression of the earth’s position in relation to the sun has guided human activities related to food production, water resources, and energy needs. In the middle and higher latitudes, the seasons are determined by hot and cold temperatures, whereas in the tropical regions that straddle the equator, the seasons are determined by the timing and amount of precipitation. But this is only a simple view of how the natural flow of the seasons — seasonality — affects societies, ecosystems, and the environment.

The works of many writers and poets have focused on the seasons. They have written about the “season of our discontent,” “the winter of our years,” “’tis the season to be jolly,” and so on. There are (or used to be) distinct baseball, football, soccer, golf, hockey, and tennis seasons. In business there are seasonal changes in the clothing industry, stock trading, commodities, farming, and the auto industry, to name a few.

In agriculture we have the growing season, the planting season, the harvest season, the rainy season, the frost-free season, the mosquito season, the season for various kinds of bugs and other pests, and so on. In many parts of the world, they have what is called the “hunger season,” or that part of the year just before the harvest when people have consumed much of the food they grew the year before, have the least amount of food to eat, and are working the hardest because of the harvest.

The seasons have played a dominant role in our lives throughout history, as witnessed by, for example, medieval frescoes that pay homage to seasonal activities. The Druids, Anasazi, and Aztecs, among others, built structures that precisely indicated times of solstice. The farther back in time one looks, the more dominant has been the influence on human activities of seasonality. In ancient times, people stored grain from the harvest in order to feed themselves through the winter, spring, and summer of the following year, storing enough food to get them through at least one annual cycle and, in some cases, two or more such cycles (in the event of drought or other interruptions in the food production/supply process). Clearly, agricultural activities have been dependent on the seasons for as long as humans have farmed.

But humans are always thinking of ways to best neutralize the influences of Mother Nature. They have tried to develop ways to override the natural rhythm of the seasons. They have built dams and irrigation systems to ensure a flow of water out of season; they store water for hydropower energy needs as well. They have developed air-conditioning, which has been used to create pockets of the (cool) temperate zone climate in the tropics. (In the early 1940s, many thought the “air-conditioning revolution” would create a more vigorous and productive work environment, like the one that exists in the Northern Hemisphere. In the early part of the 20th century, differences in climate were seen as THE key determining factor in the large differences in productivity between cultures of the
North and cultures of the South.)

Another example is greenhouses in the deserts of the Middle East and of the American Southwest that have created artificial environments for food production, environments that would otherwise have been too hot and dry for such activities.

Clearly, when you take the time to think about it, the dominance of the concept of seasons shows up in literature, in our psychological makeup, and in just about everything that we do (or don’t do). It is clearly evidenced in the natural world of flora and fauna in different regions around the globe (e.g., the pollination season, the mating season, the spawning season, the migration season).

And there is another key aspect of the seasons that has been overlooked, even by most scientists. The seasons are where the weather meets climate.

Weather is defined in such a way as to occur on relatively short time scales — a few hours to several days. There is a research community that focuses its efforts on understanding the weather — studying severe storms such as tornadoes, blizzards, and hurricanes as well as brushfires, flash floods, freezes, and so forth. That community, with only a few exceptions, does not deal explicitly with climate.

Climate has been defined as “average weather.” It is a statistical notion based on taking a period of time (at least several weeks or more) and averaging the meteorological variables of that period (such as wind, rain, temperature, cloudiness) to determine the region’s climatic characteristics. The climate research community, for its part, seldom delves explicitly into the world of weather (that is, the shorter time scales). So, even the scientific community has, for the most part, failed to see the important role of the seasons as integrators of weather information that people need in order to live.

El Niño, for instance, is a climate phenomenon. With the return of El Niño, as is happening now, there are accompanying changes in regional weather patterns in the US. For example, the following changes are likely to occur: drier in the Pacific Northwest [more chance of water shortages], wetter in the Gulf states [more chance of flooding], warmer in the Northeast [a milder winter], fewer hurricanes [less concern about damage], and so on. A fair question is, why is it that many of the people who are interested in understanding the weather are only now, in the 1990s, starting to take notice of climate factors such as El Niño, the recurring warming of the ocean’s surface around the equator in the Pacific?

Societal and individual activities are physically, socially, culturally, and psychologically tied to the seasons — the astronomical, meteorological, agricultural, entertainment (TV, sports, summer movie blockbusters), health, and environmental seasons. Our society has not yet focused on such an expanded, eye-opening view of the natural flow of the seasons and the many attempts by societies to alter that flow to suit their own perceived needs. An understanding of this will become more important as we (America) move deeper and deeper into becoming a society dependent on services and not on mining, logging, or even manufacturing. Seasonal changes are much more important to us and our future than just the changing color of leaves in the fall. In sum, “the seasons are us.”

Fragilecologies Archives
14 April 1999

I have been wondering this past year if there might be a need for the development of a Climate Affairs Program at universities and colleges. I think the notion is a good one, but whether that notion can be realized in a university setting is an unaddressed question. I was able to receive some ‘seed’ funding from NSF’s Atmospheric Science Division to assess the feasibility of developing a “model” or template for such an academic program. There is an email advisory group, which has been discussing whether and how to go about developing such an activity (in theory) and what kinds of courses might be included.

The idea for a climate affairs activity in an academic setting was inspired by the University of Washington’s School of Marine Affairs. Invited to its 25th anniversary celebration in Spring, 1998, I became acquainted with many of its graduates, now ecologists, political scientists, legal scholars and practitioners, engineers, sociologists, fisheries experts, urban planners, coastal zone developers, among others. They all came out of the same program over the years and were thriving in their chosen careers…and, they were getting along in spite of their different political and ideological persuasions about human interactions with the marine environment. So, I thought, could this program serve as a model for those of us focused on climate and climate-related issues? Is the development of a “School of Climate Affairs” too far-fetched for consideration?

As of the mid-1960s there was not one formally established academic marine affairs program. Today there are more than 50 of them. The first ones emerged in the late 1960s and I suspect that their development had a lot to do with the on-going discussions to develop a “Law of the Sea”. In those discussions, a need was recognized for expertise in many aspects of the marine environment deliberations within and among countries. Academics with some degree of foresight realized that this area was fertile for research, application of research findings and therefore employment opportunities.

Today, one could argue that governments are in the midst of creating a “Law of the Atmosphere”. Concern about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming of the atmosphere, stratospheric ozone depletion, tropical deforestation, El Niño forecasting and impacts, and extreme climate-related events (droughts, floods, fires, infectious disease outbreaks, severe storms) have been added to the traditional concerns about the atmospheric environment: air pollution, transboundary atmospheric pollution, acid rain.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) focuses scientific research on climate science, climate impacts and climate policy needs. The Conference of Parties (COP) has met on several occasions over the years to discuss the Protocols to the FCCC (Framework Convention for Climate Change). As a result of concern about global warming, there has been a sharp increase in attention to the human aspects of climate variability and climate change. Aside from the climate change issue, concern has recently grown — thanks in part to El Niño and La Niña — about how well societies cope with interannual climate variability. The point is that there is now, and will continue to be, a growing “thirst” by societies worldwide for information about the physical, biological and societal aspects of the climate system. Industries as well as governments will need expertise that may not now exist.

The question then is as follows: Is it time for the academic community to consider whether students would benefit from an academic program that focuses on “climate affairs”, a program, like marine affairs, that encourages scientific study and the application of that science to address societal needs. I think so. Do You?

Fragilecologies Archives
6 April 1999

Well, in this column … my concerns about Kosovo have nothing to do with the environment. This column is not about environmental security in the Balkans. Nor is it about how refugees trample the environment to which they are forced to flee in order to hide from the enemy (and the bombs). It is about a book that I once read that I think might help people to understand how situations like that in Kosovo can happen.

On the edge of Europe and at the end of the 20th century, following on the heels of so much progress in the technical and social areas, war still happens. Why? Is it because two forms of government compete for dominance (democracy versus dictatorship)? Is it because the international system is in disarray? Is it genocide? Is it what has come to be known as ‘ethnic cleansing’? Is it a case of the ‘crowd mentality’ with a whole country getting behind a leader with a personal agenda?

As a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1960s, I was introduced to a Columbia University Press book written in 1959 by Kenneth Waltz. His book, entitled Man, the State and War, was an inquiry into the origins of war. Waltz approached this topic by looking at what he called three images, or three levels of social organization — individuals, groups and the state, and the international community.

The first image (individuals) focuses on human nature. He discusses the views of various philosophers on human nature. Are humans basically nasty and brutish with a propensity toward violence, conflict and outright war, or are they kind, peace-loving creatures whose values are distorted by the second image (the state or groups within the state)?

With regard to the second image, the influence of groups and the state government on human activities, people have argued, are the primary forces. Humans are kind and peace-loving, but their behavior changes when in groups. The group mentality takes over. French Philosopher Gustav Le Bon in the 1800s wrote about the crowd mentality. He suggested that if ten people gathered together, an eleventh invisible person would represent the mentality of the crowd and it would be the mentality of the lowest person in the group. Lynch mobs in the old US West might serve as one example.

National leaders can easily generate interest in and support for ethnic solidarity when they present a situation in terms of ‘we versus they’ or ‘our ethnic group vs theirs’; we are being attacked by enemies of our race, religion, culture, language, etc. Such statements from leaders tend to rally people with widely different ideological views around an ethnic flag. So, as long as there are groups or individuals wanting to seek personal political advantage, it is possible to play the ethnic solidarity (we vs. they) card when it comes to war.

Kosovo-Albanian refugees are supplied fresh water from relief workers

Waltz’s third image relates to the international community. Many argue that states go to war because there is no global authority strong enough (legally or militarily) to deter them. A solution, of course, is to create a world government, something that has been tried at least twice since the end of World War I: the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Another aspect of this would be the establishment of regional organizations or alliances that are set up in theory to keep the regional peace. The West set up NATO 50 years ago (1949) and the Soviet Union set up the Warsaw Treaty Organization to counter it. Several European countries set up the Common Market (EEC) and the Soviet Union set up COMECON to counter it.

I have used the book as a thought-provoking tool to generate discussion in foreign policy classes I have taught. The recent crises in the Balkans (and they are crises by whatever indicators you use) have caused me to think once again about the Waltz book.

Why is this conflict in Kosovo happening? Why now? Is it a first image problem — a madman who will do anything to stay in power? Is it because of a leader who played the ‘we-they’ ethnic card in order to rally groups to support his personal ambition (e.g., a second image aspect). Or is it that authoritarian regimes (such as Milosovic’s) are inherently more aggressive and war-like than democracies (also a second image aspect)?

Or is it a third image problem: anarchy in the international system now that the Cold War rivalry between superpowers has ended? Given the anarchical state of the international community and given the weakness of the UN system to act against aggression, is it that regional organizations, such as NATO, feel that it is their responsibility to “take charge”?

NATO air strikes in Belgrade

With respect to what is going on now in the Balkans in general, and in Kosovo in particular, I have my own biases, views and dilemmas to sort out. Which is worse? Media images of the bombing of a capital city in Europe, or the resulting death and destruction versus ethnic cleansing (a nice word for genocide?) and the hundreds of thousands of refugees of one ethnic persuasion seeking refuge from tyranny in neighboring countries. Which is the lesser of two evils?

This article is not an attempt to persuade the reader one way or another about the cause(s) of the Kosovo crises. It is simply an attempt to inform readers about a book that might provide some new and interesting insights into an incomprehensible war at the end of the second millennium.

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