Category: All Fragilecologies

Fragilecologies Archives
15 April 1998

There have been at least two meetings that I know of which have had the title, “Is This [1997-98] the El Niño of the Century?” One was held in October 1997 in Peru on the eve of El Niño’s impacts in that country. The other was held in April 1998 in Southern California following El Niño’s major impacts in North America and, more specifically, in California. The media, and even policy makers, have many times over-referred to this El Niño as a record-breaker and as the Event of the Century.

To be sure, it is a healthy scientific question. But such a question raises other concerns of equal or greater importance. What, for example, are we going to measure to determine whether this El Niño was the true El Niño Event of the Century? From the standpoint of the public, people will consider this to have been the “winner” of the El Niño “Olympics,” if the devastation associated with it in areas with which they happen to be familiar has been greater than in other years. They may also come to believe whatever the press reports or whatever a group of scientists decides. But the reality may be something we as a community of scientists (physical, biological, and social) do not want to hear: that El Niño is a natural phenomenon that we do not yet know well enough to answer this question.

We are in a position, as evaluators of El Niño who hold the public’s trust, to say anything we wish to about El Niño, and much of the public will accept it. That being the case, we must approach answering this question (“Is this the El Niño of the Century?”) with great care.

How, for example, do we want to measure this event? Do we focus on the degree of change (i.e., above average) in sea surface temperature of the central Pacific Ocean? Do we rely on how hot the water gets off the coast of Peru? Do we focus on how widespread its global impacts have been? Do we rely on the costs of the devastation associated with El Niño? Do we rely on the amount of media coverage, political interest, or public awareness of the 1997-98 El Niño to decide whether this El Niño has been the Event of the Century? Making such a designation requires much more care than we seem to be giving it.

I would argue that many of the El Niño events in this century could earn the distinction of the “El Niño of the Century.” The 1925 El Niño was a devastating one to Peruvian communities and ecosystems. Although it was a phenomenon that at the time was little understood, even in Peru, it was enough of an event to capture the attention of the Peruvians. This is the year that Peruvians began to collect rainfall (and other) information in a systematic and serious way.

The El Niño of 1939-41 was more controversial. It was, until recently, labeled as the longest El Niño of this century, running across three years (according to some researchers). The 1957-58 El Niño could be considered for the “Olympic” title because it is the El Niño that was observed accidentally (i.e., it was not part of any planned scientific experiment) during the IGY (International Geophysical Year)taking place at that time. It sparked the interest of a small number of American scientists. It was the information gathered during the IGY that was central to UCLA Professor Jacob Bjerknes’ identification of the links between changes in sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific (the earliest definition of an El Niño) and the see-saw pattern of sea level pressure systems in the western part of the Pacific basin (called the Southern Oscillation).

The 1972-73 event was the first to draw the attention of the public. It was a big event (although not the biggest, even up to that time), but its impacts on Peru’s fishing industry captured the attention of the international press and of some researchers. One could easily argue that it was this El Niño that deserves the title of “El Niño of the Century,” because it was the one that started researchers on the proverbial “slippery slope” of interest in the phenomenon on the part of an increasing number of scientists.

A mild El Niño in 1976 could legitimately seek to capture the title as well, but for reasons that are not so obvious. Researchers now seem to agree that there was some sort of change in the behavior of El Niño in the mid-1970s, following this event. (It is important to note that some researchers have referred to this as the 1976-77 El Niño, while others have suggested removing it from the list of legitimate El Niño events because it did not meet certain newly defined criteria.)

And then there is the 1982-83 event which, until recently, firmly held the title as the “El Niño of the Century.” It was extraordinary in size, unexpected in its timing, and devastating in its impacts around the globe. It captured the attention of the scientific community to such an extent that funding agencies of governments supported their interest by investigating in a ten-year multinational research and monitoring effort known as TOGA (Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere). This El Niño is the one that resulted in public awareness to such an extent that such popular magazines as Reader’s Digest (December 1983) and National Geographic (February 1984) produced articles about it. It is the event that led to the development of the excellent monitoring system known as the TAO Array across the equatorial Pacific, using satellites and on-the-spot (in-situ) measurements from fixed and drifting ocean buoys.

The 1986-87 event deserves special consideration, but not for its size, timing, duration, or impacts. It deserves recognition as having been the first El Niño to have been forecast to the public by researchers (i.e., Mark Cane and Steven Zebiak at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory). Their public prediction went against the existing (at that time) but unwritten forecasters’ code not to go to the media with such experimental projections. Despite the grief they received at the time from the scientific community for “going public,” it was only a few years before all groups trying to forecast El Niño’s onset followed their lead and were going to the media with their projections.

The 1991-92 El Niño started out as a typical event. And it seemed to have spawned typical impacts around the globe, with droughts and floods falling in the approximate locations in which they might have been expected (e.g., Australia and Indonesia suffered major drought, while northern Peru and southern Ecuador suffered from excessive rains and flooding). But this El Niño did not go away. Late in 1992 it appeared to be in its decay phase; however in 1993 it re-emerged as another El Niño. It did this again in 1994. To the Australians, it was an event that caused a five-year drought in that country. To Peruvian fishermen, it appeared to be three successive, weak El Niño events with little impact on their highly productive coastal fishing operations. This extended El Niño prompted the public (at the instigation of some researchers) to blame global warming for such a long El Niño, now called by some the longest of this century (making it a contender for the “El Niño of the Century”). Two researchers gave the 1991-95 El Niño(s) a probability of occurrence of once in 2,000 years, a probability that has been challenged by other researchers.

And now we have the latest El Niño of 1997-98, perhaps (and I say this while biting my tongue) the last of the 20th Century. It, too, has manifested unusual (more correctly, unanticipated) characteristics. It developed earlier than expected, stayed strong longer than expected, grew bigger than expected, and was hotter than expected. On these characteristics alone it merits consideration as the “El Niño of the Century.” But that is not all it did. It prompted the biggest media response of all previous events. It captured the attention and interest of most national policy makers around the globe. It sparked the development of numerous bureaucratic units to deal with the phenomenon and its impacts. It has been the most observed El Niño event ever, from its onset to its decay phase. Some scientists, policy makers, and members of the media have suggested (yet to be proven) that its impacts on societies and ecosystems around the globe have well surpassed those attributed to the previous El Niño champion, the 1982-83 event. This event captured its own daily news spot on CBS’s Dan Rather show, along with mention on political and business news and sports! In essence, just about everything that happened during this El Niño (climate-related or not, legitimate or not) has been blamed on it.

But the last event of the century is drawing to a close. It is perhaps time for the judges to rank the performance of this event as compared to its earlier competitors. It is most likely that, regardless of indicators used by the various judges, the 1997-98 El Niño will go down in the public perception as the Event of the Century. Most people don’t remember events before 1983. In fact, many people do not really remember the 1982-83 event (although we have been constantly reminded of it during the recent El Niño, because it was used for comparative purposes by scientists and the media).

As a lone judge, however, I would probably have to protest this search for the “Event of the Century” by throwing away my score card. Each of the events mentioned above had its own unique quality. Each event has contributed to our understanding of the El Niño process. I am afraid to say publicly that, while we know a great deal about this natural process, there is a great deal more that we still do not know. We must recognize this, not to dampen our optimism about El Niño research progress, but to avoid the pessimism that could ensue when we are surprised by the behavior of the next El Niño event.

Before we start ranking El Niño events, we ought to make explicit the indicators we are using to rank them. And we ought to recognize that others may be measuring and comparing El Niño according to different sets of indicators.

In a way, this essay has the ring to it of a parent responding to the question, “Which one of your children do you like best?” The answer, to the public at least, is likely to be, “I like all of them equally well.” And she may be answering truthfully, but most likely she is measuring them each by different sets of criteria. The same is true for evaluating El Niño events. However, it is important to make the conditions (and indicators) surrounding our comparative assessments known so that our responses can be better understood and evaluated by others.

Fragilecologies Archives
12 December 1997

Policy-makers, government agencies, scientists, social scientists, and the public are increasingly focusing on El Niño as one of the few bright spots in forecasting future states of the atmosphere and their impacts on societal activities. There will still be some failures (that is, misses) in forecasts of future El Niño events, but scientists are increasingly developing a more complete understanding of this important natural phenomenon. Combining this increased knowledge with an improved understanding of how El Niño can affect weather around the globe will surely enable governments and people to prepare for, as well as soften the impacts of, the adverse weather anomalies that have so far been reliably associated with El Niño events.

1. El Niño does not represent unusual behavior of the global climate.El Niño is usually described as a climate anomaly, or as an unusual or abnormal interaction between the air and the sea in the Pacific Ocean, that is not part of the normal climate system. In fact, El Niño is a normal part of the climate system and not apart from it. While we can talk about how the sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean may depart from some mathematical average condition, we must not view that departure as abnormal. El Niño (a warm event), like its counterpart La Niña (a cold event), is an integral part of the global climate system. Making this distinction more obvious and explicit can help people to realize that El Niño events have occurred for thousands of years and that they are to be expected and, hence, prepared for. Indeed, to go through a decade or two without an El Niño would be truly unusual.
2. El Niño is part of a cycle.El Niño gets all of the attention, not only from the media but from researchers as well. But, it is important to remember that El Niño is the warm phase of a cycle that also includes a cold phase, often referred to as La Niña. There has been less interest in La Niña over the past two decades because there have been fewer cold events than warm ones. However, there are also extreme weather events around the globe that have been associated with La Niña. Scientists say that La Niña-related extreme events are the opposite of those caused by or related to El Niño; for example, drought usually accompanies El Niño in Southern Africa, while flooding is associated with La Niña. However, researchers have yet to focus much of their attention on the cold part of the cycle.
3. Every weather anomaly throughout the world that occurs during an El Niño year is not caused by that El Niño.We must be careful concerning the adverse impacts on society and on ecosystems that we blame on an El Niño. There is a tendency to blame just about everything that happens during an El Niño event on that particular El Niño. This is just plain wrong. Only some parts of the globe are directly influenced by El Niño-spawned regional climate anomalies, and even those areas are not necessarily influenced in the same way by different El Niño events. Every year, even in non-El Niño years, extreme record-setting weather events are occurring at various locations around the globe. The linkages between El Niño and regional climate anomalies have been identified through:
   1. observations of direct linkages between warm surface water in the equatorial Pacific and distant regional anomalies (such as drought in New Guinea or Australia);
   2. statistical measures identifying probable linkages; and
   3. wishful thinking, whereby people think that a particularly disruptive event was due to El Niño.
4. El Niño has a positive side as well.For example, during an El Niño the number of hurricanes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are greatly reduced in number. During the 1997 El Niño year we did not have a devastating blockbuster hurricane. In fact, it was an unusually quiet hurricane season. As another example, during an El Niño year there is a sharp increase off the coast of Ecuador in the amount of wild shrimp larvae, which is good for that country’s shrimp industry. Very little research has focused on compiling the instances where societies have benefitted from El Nino’s appearance.
5. There will continue to be surprises associated with future El Niño events.Scientists have really only focused on El Niño as a Pacific basin-wide phenomenon since the mid to late 1970s. We have not yet witnessed all of the ways they can form, nor have we witnessed all of the ways that they can affect societies and ecosystems. Thus, each succeeding El Niño will likely surprise scientists as well as the public in the timing or frequency of its onset or in the magnitude (level of destruction) of its impacts.
6. The impact of global warming on El Niño is not as yet known, speculation notwithstanding.Despite the increasing speculation about the possible ways that global warming of the atmosphere could affect El Niño events (timing, frequency, magnitude), the scientific community is unable at this time to say with any degree of reliability or confidence what the impacts of a global warming will be on El Niño.
7. Forecasting El Niño is different than forecasting the impacts of El Niño.Scientists are trying to forecast El Niño by focusing their research efforts on identifying those characteristics of El Niño that appear early in its development. The success (or failure) to forecast El Niño several months in advance of its onset is different from forecasting the impacts of that particular El Niño. Forecasting impacts on societies around the globe requires different research methods. Each El Niño seems to cause a different set of impacts (such as droughts, floods, fires). However, some impacts tend to happen during most El Niño events. Problems in forecasting El Niño (the event), therefore, are different from those related to forecasting El Niño’s impacts.

Fragilecologies Archives
19 November 1997

In Kyoto, Japan in early December, delegates from well over a hundred countries and scores of nongovernmental organizations (“NGOs,” such as environmental groups and industry lobbies) will gather in one of the most important environmental meetings of the twentieth century. This may sound like a rather boastful statement, but I believe it is true, even though the worldwide media coverage of the event until now has been relatively sparse. Perhaps El Niño moved it off the front page or out of a highlighted TV news spot. Or, perhaps it is a meeting that some of the participating governments wish they had not agreed to several years ago.

Delegates to the Kyoto meeting, called COP3 or the Third Session of the Conference of Parties, are attempting to move beyond the verbal obligations their governments made at the Rio de Janeiro “Earth Summit” in 1992 to develop actions to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere. As you may know, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps long-wave radiation near the earth’s surface. Trapping this radiation leads to the heating up of the atmosphere and to global climate change (popularly called global warming). As a result, the more there is of this greenhouse gas, the bigger the climate change will be. This worries many governments and people because they are used to the present-day climate and do not know what the local and regional effects of a global warming might be. Scientists have suggested, for example, that with a warmer atmosphere there would likely be a more extreme climate, accompanied by more extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. Scientists have also suggested that diseases will move northward into the cooler regions from the tropics once the cooler regions become warmer.

Back to Kyoto. I was there in mid-November and was surprised at how little attention was being paid to COP3 by the Japanese media, especially so near to the beginning of such an important conference — one that could determine the rate of energy consumption and the prospects for economic development well into the next century. By the end of the week I was in Tokyo, where an increasing amount of newspaper space was going toward stories about the Kyoto conference. In fact, some of those articles are calling on Japan to “go nuclear” in order to stop global warming, calling for the development of 20 new nuclear facilities in the near future to cover energy needs that would be created by cutbacks in fossil fuel usage.

Several national and regional plans are being proposed for consideration at COP3. The strongest plan comes from the European Union. It wants a 15% reduction in CO2 emissions below the 1990 level by the year 2010. It also exempts developing countries from having to make any cutbacks in the near future. Much of the developing world supports the European position. China and other developing countries contend that the rich, industrialized countries caused the problem by putting all that CO2 in the air and that it was the responsibility of those countries to take care of the problem. President Clinton has proposed returning to the 1990 level of CO2 emissions by about 2008-2012. The US Congress passed a resolution stating that it would not support any Kyoto agreement unless it called for some efforts by developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. So, Kyoto is shaping up to be a diplomatic battleground of sorts.

Cutting back on carbon dioxide emissions is a very sticky problem for governments around the globe. Even the developing world is split on the issue, as low-lying, small-island nations fear the sea level rise that could result from global warming. Such an event would essentially cause island countries like the Maldives to “go under water” and therefore “go out of business.”

But this is a meeting of governments, and the participating governments will have to produce something, even if the agreement they produce is a weak one (in essence, a “paper tiger” that looks good on paper but won’t have any “teeth”).

Now consider the NGOs (nongovernmental organizations). These are comprised of environmental groups, industrial groups, cultural groups, and so forth. They are planning to attend the COP3 in droves. They understand the importance of this meeting, even if the media do not. NGO representatives, along with lobbyists and other special-interest groups, will be in Kyoto, trying to influence official delegates to support their positions on responses to global warming.

One example of a major outspoken group is Kiko 97, which was formed over a year ago to generate support for “stopping global warming.” It has been effective in bringing to the attention of the Japanese public the facts about its government’s weak attempts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Although Kiko 97 has gotten lots of press, it has thus far been unsuccessful in getting the Japanese government to change its conservative position on this issue.

Kiko 97 recently created the “Group of 21.” This group is made up of 21 people from infants a few months old to 21-year- olds, representing 21 countries. They symbolically represent the interests of future generations. This group is calling for a 20% reduction below the 1990 level of CO2 emissions worldwide by the year 2005!

The organizers of the Group of 21 have asked people to send postcards, faxes, or e-mails so that, on the opening day of the COP3 in Kyoto, the Group can present one million postcards to the Conference in support of their position. This gesture is intended to remind the COP3 delegates and participating governments, as well as the NGO representatives, that the decisions they make in Kyoto in early December will have a major impact on future generations.

To send a postcard to the Group, you may write to The Group of 21, Kiko Forum, #305 Takakura Building, Takgura-dori Shijo-agaru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 60, Japan.

Here is your chance to influence decision-makers in Japan (and elsewhere) on THE global issue of the twentieth century.

Fragilecologies Archives
5 November 1997

We’ve got it pretty good in Boulder. In fact, we probably don’t know how good it is … until we get outside the city.

A lot of my work takes me to places that are not safe for a variety of reasons: because of war, because of political turmoil, because of poverty. Poverty leads to lots of problems we never get to see unless we travel. Whether in Ethiopia during its revolution or in Angola, they are the same: little food to eat, few clothes to wear, shanty towns everywhere. The same can be found in Rio de Janeiro, in Nairobi, in Johannesburg — or even in Detroit.

Part of the fallout of poverty is unemployment and, following that, delinquency.

So, why am I writing all this stuff in a column that is mostly on the environment?

While attending a conference on the environment in Ecuador recently, I had my first direct encounter with delinquents. Actually they are called delinquents here because that is a relatively tame word in English, one that covers a range of possible activities. I guess I would call these individuals thugs or parasites or something much more descriptive and closer to reality.

Before I get into the story, I want to tell you something about the country. Ecuador has one of the poorest economies in South America. Unemployment is high among the general populace and very high among the young. Its government is often changed and controlled by the military. Its economy is largely dependent on the export of food like shrimp, bananas, cacao, and coffee, all crops that are heavily dependent on the weather.

Ecuador is flood-prone, especially Guayaquil, a southern port city of about 2 million people where flooding usually accompanies El Niño events. During the past few El Niño events, Guayaquil has received more than four times the amount of rain it usually gets in a year. Today, Ecuadorians are worried about El Niño.

Back to the delinquents.

When I left the airport in Guayaquil, I could see the hotel I was to stay in, which was about 10 blocks away. I told another person from the plane that I would walk, and he said not to — the city is too dangerous. It was 8 a.m., there were lots of pedestrians, a lot of traffic, and I thought: “How dangerous could it be?” He offered to drop me at the hotel when his company car picked him up. That was my first warning to beware.

The second warning came when I had to buy some clothes because my bags hadn’t arrived. The shopping mall was only ten minutes away, so I said I’d walk. Everyone said no. I was told that a car and driver would take me there and pick me up at a designated time.

So, the handwriting was there — Guayaquil is not a safe place for tourists (or anyone) to roam around in, on foot. The message was starting to sink in.

Some friends who live in Guayaquil wanted to show me some of the sights. It was my first visit, and I wanted to get away from the hotel, a city unto itself with shops, restaurants, etc. There was no need to go out of the hotel compound, which (by the way) was guarded by private police armed with machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and pistols.

As soon as we got into the car, my friends insisted the city was safe. Then they told me to lock the car door. We visited walled and guarded communities in the midst of the city. We drove around the center (the old part) of town, but they said we couldn’t visit the waterfront because it was too dangerous.

One could see armed guards everywhere. Even small shops hired them for protection from gangs and robbers. As soon as we pulled up to a shop, a guard would approach the car and then accompany us to the shop. When we left, he would escort us back to the car.

We then went to a high point in the city, and my host pulled up to the curb so that I could take a photo. I noticed a group of boys in their late teens and early twenties lazing around the corner. A small boy was flying a kite. When the driver stopped, I asked him to go on because we didn’t need to take a picture from that spot. But the driver was out the door before I could finish my sentence.

So I got out too. I managed a couple of photos before I felt the camera, which I was then holding up to my eyes to look at the panorama, being jerked away from me. My first reaction was to pull back, not knowing what was happening. I held on to the body of the camera and grabbed the strap as well. On the other end of the camera strap was a “delinquent,” about 20 years old, pulling and shouting at me in Spanish (I later found out that he had been yelling for me to let go of the camera). He kept tugging with one hand and threatening to punch me with the other. He never struck, but a lot of tugging and shoving followed. In the midst of all this I was totally oblivious to the other eight delinquents who were standing by, watching their friend fight with this stranger.

I had never been in this situation before — not in Africa, Asia, Russia, the US, or in other places in South America.

What must have been a few minutes seemed like hours. Although he was threatening to hit me, I never even thought about the possibility of a weapon (I’ve heard that knives are the preferred choice). We continued to struggle, and I looked for an opportunity to defend myself. His legs were spread apart to maintain his balance, so I aimed my foot between them — twice. But for some reason, it seemed to have no effect (he seemed drugged and perhaps would not feel anything until the next day).

The strap to the camera gave way as I gave him yet another shove. He lost his balance, went down, and I found myself holding the camera and half a strap; he had the other half. I quickly turned and tossed my camera into the car and jumped in. The attacker was pretty angry as he threw the other part of the strap at me. The others in the car told me how lucky I had been. Not because I kept my camera but because my attacker’s eight friends (who had been standing by) had not joined in. They also said I was lucky that no weapon was produced on the spot.

That night I was pretty mellow, wondering what my fate would have been had the gang gotten involved or if a knife had been drawn. I think I was in mild shock from the incident. That night, I noticed a few more bruises. By morning, everyone in the hotel had heard about the incident and tried to console or joke with me about it. But it was no joke. This time I was the victim, not some passive observer reading about an incident in some faraway place.

It also made me realize that my assailant and his friends are likely to go nowhere in life. They live in a relatively hopeless economy with no hope for further (or perhaps any) education, no chance for a job — even a menial one would not release them from their prison of poverty.

We can call them delinquents, thugs, or parasites. There were many articles in the Guayaquil Sunday paper about how delinquency was the number one problem there. I can personally attest to the fact that it is a real problem with no easy solution. Those guys hanging around on that corner represent Ecuador’s lost generation, with no hope except to get through the day with alcohol or drugs bartered for stolen goods.

How many people around the globe can be counted as prisoners of poverty? As we approach this millennium, I can only wonder if it was like this a thousand years ago. We have come so far technologically in the last millennium. But have we come all that far socially?

Fragilecologies Archives
24 September 1997

As we get closer to the year 2000, there will no doubt be an increasing amount of coverage of … The Millennium. One of the things we are likely to see and hear stories about is how far civilizations have come in the past 1000 years or so. In the earlier centuries of this millennium, in the midst of the Dark Ages, life was fairly basic. The dominant influence on societies was likely to have been the changing of the seasons. If the growing season was good and lots of food was produced, then life during the following year would likely be good. If, however, food production was adversely affected by a combination of weather-related problems such as drought or flood, then life would be difficult.

In those days life expectancy was much shorter and medicines were nowhere near as sophisticated as they are today. People were susceptible to numerous diseases, and the local doctor doubled as a barber whose principal cure was the application of leeches. Yada, yada, yada.

In fact, it is easy to identify many differences in those civilizations that were in existence at the turn of the last millennium and those that are about to survive into the next millennium. The reporting on these differences will likely become a sort of “sport” in the next few years, as we count down the last days of the Twentieth Century. Progress! That’s what the media, policy-makers, and cultural leaders will most likely focus on: How wonderful it is to see how far we have come in the past one thousand years.

The English are much more into the millennium at this stage of the countdown to the year 2000 than are the Americans. A search of the Internet confirms this. For example, a quick Web search reveals a Millennium Commission in Great Britain, which is focused on the future. It expects to allocate more than $2 Billion to support about 2000 activities around the country, among which will be projects, awards to the public, and a Millennium Exhibition.

There is probably good reason that the British are taking a keen interest in the turn of the millennium, as they were around and on their island at the turn of the last millennium. Compared to Britain’s long history, however, colonized America is only a few hundred years old. To many Americans, crossing from the Second to the Third Millennium will generate no more interest than providing a good reason to party.

Another interesting effort focused on the year 2000 is the Millennium Alliance. This is an attempt to coordinate all of the various activities around the globe that relate to the turn of the century and new millennium. Its organizer, Hillel Schwartz, has noted that, “For decades, the years 1999-2001 have been anticipated by planners, poets, prophets, philosophers, and pop musicians across the continents. This decade, the Year 2000 has become the focus for environmental action, political promises, cinematic fictions, and forecasts about everything from jeans to genetics.”

The Alliance is looking toward the future. It has posed questions that it wants people to reflect upon, such as: What priorities should we set for ourselves as denizens of a planet that is neither infinitely rich nor invulnerable? What am I — what are we — willing to put at risk? What is already at risk?

So, some millennial efforts will focus on the future, while others will focus on past achievements and culture.

But I think there is yet another “sport” that should be pursued as well. We should seek to identify similarities between civilizations of a thousand years ago and those that exist today. I would like to see a focus on how we have NOT changed over the past ten centuries. For example, most people around the globe still live one or two stories above the Earth’s surface. We still depend on scratching the Earth’s surface to produce our food. Our food supply is still dependent in large measure on the natural flow of the seasons. We still depend on ports, rivers, and roadways for our transportation and movement of goods. We still license our domestic pets (it used to be pigs that were taxed, now it is dogs and sometimes cats). We are still responsible for clearing our sidewalks, a custom that originated after the Black Plague decimated Europe’s’s population in the 1300s. Toll roads still exist, as they did centuries ago. The point is, many of the things that we do today and many of the laws that we live by have their roots in the early centuries of the current millennium.

There are also more unfortunate things that seem to have survived the test of time. Warfare remains one of the ultimate ways to resolve
disputes. Ethnic and religious rivalries abound and have become even more threatening due to the easy availability of high-tech weapons. Pollution is still plaguing us. The world’s poor exist in large absolute numbers alongside the few super-rich.

As important as it is to prepare for the future, it is also necessary to report on the past. During the next few years, we can (and most assuredly will) highlight positive achievements over the past one thousand years. But it will be equally important to report on areas in which we have not changed our ways. It is in some of those areas where change has not occurred (for example, in the way we settle disputes between people as well as between countries) that a change in the way we do things in the next millennium will sorely be needed.

Fragilecologies Archives
29 August 1997

Times have changed. In Boulder now you hear people say, “Do you mind if I smoke?” Boulder as a town is fairly unique in this regard. In a way, it’s a non-smoker’s haven. How unique and innovative we are (despite jokes to the contrary). The rest of the country, let alone the rest of the world, is not like Boulder. Smokers are everywhere.

In a recent conversation with the former head of the National Weather Service (NWS), I mentioned how Boulder had become a sort of smoke-free zone. I told him how restaurants and other buildings had banned smoking because of the concern people have about second-hand smoke. He informed me that the NWS was way ahead of its time when the Director of the Weather Bureau in 1900 banned smoking inside its building. The following is the notice that he issued:

“So many instances wherein the excessive use of cigarettes has caused a material deterioration in the mental and physical condition of employees have come to the attention of the Chief of the Weather Bureau that he feels constrained to warn the members of the service against indulgence in this injurious habit. The smoking of cigarettes in the offices of the Weather Bureau is hereby prohibited. Officials in charge of stations will rigidly enforce this order, and will also include in their semiannual confidential reports information as to those of their assistants who smoke cigarettes outside of office hours.”

Chief, U.S. Weather Bureau
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Weather Bureau, Washington, D.C.
March 21, 1900
Instructions No. 51.

So, here we are almost 100 years later, and Boulder is following the same path and reasoning as was witnessed at the Weather Bureau at the turn of the century.

When I was growing up in the 1950s in Providence, Rhode Island, the culture of smoking was strong. In fact, it was a pervasive aspect of our culture. There were ads on TV, in the newspapers, in magazines, and on billboards encouraging us to smoke. Smoking would make us sexy, look cool, ride horses better, swim better (which was appealing to me because I couldn’t swim), etc.

I remember visiting Times Square in New York City with my parents and having them point out the Camel cigarette billboard. The man on the billboard had his mouth wide open, and out came circles of smoke! Cool, really cool.

I guess the strongest pressure on me to smoke as a teenager probably came from friends and strangers. Often, I’d be asked to take a cigarette. To resist was not cool; it would set me apart from my friends. It was as if I had to apologize for not lighting up. Can you imagine? It was almost as if I had to say to them, “Do you mind if I don’t smoke?”

I don’t smoke, although I flirted with cigarettes when I was an undergraduate in college. My parents smoked numerous packs a day. And the tobacco companies in the 1950s and 1960s were in an apparent full-court press in their advertising to get people to smoke their products. But, for whatever reason, I managed to avoid their traps.

Why is that other people around the globe do not seem to share this awareness or concern?

I’ve come to realize just how removed from the rest of the world Boulder is when it comes to smoking. This fact was brought home to me during a recent trip to Israel. There, just about everyone smokes, although there is a campaign to get people (young people especially) to avoid the habit, with TV ads that state that “It’s cool not to smoke.” However, in Israeli taxis, restaurants, and even in no-smoking areas people smoke. In one taxi there was a no-smoking sign in the back seat where the passengers sit, while up front the taxi driver was smoking like a chimney.

When my wife and I returned to the US from our trip to Tel Aviv, we had a long layover in the Frankfurt (Germany) Airport before we could connect with our flight back to the US. When we checked in for our Lufthansa flight, we discovered that we had been put in the smoking section. When we mentioned it to the check-in person, we were told that the flight had been greatly oversold and that we were indeed lucky to get seats at all. So, we were forced to sit in the midst of smokers while second-hand smoke swirled around us. This reminded me of the time a few years ago, on a different Lufthansa flight, when my side of the aisle was designated as non-smoking and the other side as smoking. Apparently, the concept of a non-smoking section is something that Europeans fail to grasp.

As soon as we arrived at the Frankfurt Airport, we were surrounded by smoke. Smokers immediately lit up cigarettes on the bus from our connecting flight to the main terminal. Inside the terminal, many more people were smoking.

With five hours to wait for our connecting flight, we sank gratefully into two of the few available seats. Not more than two minutes after having found a place to sit, a woman nearby, with two young kids in tow, started to light up. (In fact, as I wrote this she had moved on to her second cigarette.)

At that point we gave up our search for smoke-free air, let alone clean air. It became pretty obvious that there was no way we would find it at the Frankfurt Airport.

So, we finally returned to Denver and then Boulder, grateful for the smoke-free environment at DIA, on the limo to home, and at our home. We also felt renewed sympathy for the flight attendants who were forced to breathe second-hand smoke for so many years. Having to breathe it for a week in foreign countries was more than enough for us!

Oh, by the way, some of my best friends still smoke.

Fragilecologies Archives
23 July 1997

Some years ago I came across the notion of “social invention.” A social invention is an idea that has a major impact on human behavior — on the way we think and on what we do. For example, the notion of the “space age” is widely accepted today. But there was a time when the space age was a distant, if not fantastic, idea, something for a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon movie. Space travel, aliens, other planets, wars of the worlds, and so on were great fare for the Hollywood film industry.

But all that changed with the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union. Sputnik was a satellite launched into space in the late 1950s. It sparked the space race between the superpowers — the US and the USSR. It also sparked new thinking. Space colonies became a possibility. Moon walks became a reality. Outer Space was put off limits to warfare through international agreements. “Star Wars” technology was offered. Spy satellites, space blankets, and Tang all came to us as part of the space age. In a scholarly book published in 1965 on the space age, there was mention of the fear among the public in the 1800s that railroad travel generated. Going 60 miles an hour on a train would certainly scramble one’s brains, or so it was thought.

I became attracted to the notion of social invention as a result of the articles in Professor Bruce Mazlish’s book, entitled “The Railroad and The Space Program.” It caused me to realize that there are concepts and notions that rival new technologies with regard to impact on our lives.

In an Internet search for information on social inventions, I came across various organizations in Europe that focus their attention on
social invention. Many of these organizations refer to themselves as “idea” banks. London, for example, has an Institute for Social Inventions and a Global Ideas Bank, The Netherlands has the Institute for Social Inventions, Sweden has the Swedish Institute for Social Inventions (SISU), Norway an “Idebanken,” Germany a Global Challenges Network. France boasts several organizations whose activities focus on the future and social inventions.

The UK’s Institute for Social Inventions holds a contest every year to identify “imaginative and feasible ideas or projects for improving the quality of life.” It seeks ideas from the public worldwide and offers a total of 1,000 pounds (UK Sterling). Some of the innovative ideas they’ve received in the past include the following: No garbage, no garbage bill; a memorial for extinct species; Local Agenda 21 as a way to influence councils (Agenda 21 is a report that came out of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, calling for the environmental protection of various ecosystems); the use of lottery payouts as a reward for good deeds; a declaration of the Rights of Nature; development of software for saving the planet; packaging taxes (the more packaging a product has, the higher the tax on it); deposits on newspapers; deposits on all kinds of batteries; an “environmental legislation” ideas bank.

Many of the social inventions are planned ones. They are ideas for creating a better future as seen through the eyes of the inventor. However, the notion of a Space Age was not a planned invention. I believe that the ramifications of that notion for societies around the globe (not just the engineering hardware associated with it) were not really foreseen. Perhaps the notion of Global Change will prove to have been one of those unintended social inventions. Like the Space Age, those who designed the notion of global change had no idea of its potential impacts on societies everywhere.

What may have started out as a way to gain increased funding for scientific research (e.g., the Cold War is over — we need to focus on something new — why not global environmental change?) turned out to have had a major impact on the way we think and the way we behave as well as the way we view the Earth. Now, just about every major academic institution has a teaching program centered on global change. Congressional research funding also favors the notion of global change. People talk of sustainable development, reforestation, arresting desertification, preserving marine life, recycling, energy efficiency, and so on.

The interest in global change has penetrated into our school systems from grades K to 12, as well as into the universities and halls of government. It has been, in large measure, responsible for the ratcheting up of the public’s awareness of environmental issues. It does so without necessarily telling us what to do but, rather, lays out the benefits and costs of protecting a particular portion of the Earth’s environment. We, individually and as a society, get to decide what to do and how to proceed.

Fragilecologies Archives
9 July 1997

Seeing a helicopter in the skies above an American city is still an event that is rare enough that those who hear its rotors whirring tend to look skyward. I have had the chance to ride in a helicopter only a few times in my life, and those times were when I used to study revolution in Africa (Portuguese Guinea, to be exact). Riding in a helicopter is an exhilarating experience (at least it is to me). When it lifts off the ground, it seems to do so in slow motion. You can see just about every detail on the ground, more detail than you would expect to see.

Anyway, helicopter rides are rare. And when there is no war going on, just about the only time we come across them is when we hear a traffic report from a news station s helicopter reporters in the morning or late in the afternoon. In Boulder, we also see them when the Bolder Boulder and Kinetics races are run, or when the search-and-rescue teams look for lost hikers and climbers in the foothills. The rarity of helicopter sightings may be one of those things that is changing with the times, but not here in America; at least not yet.

During a recent trip to South America, I flew on Varig, a Brazilian airline. I was looking through its in-flight magazine, “Ícaro,” for June 1997 and came across an article by Brazilian writer Carlos Moreas called São Paulo, Helicopter Territory. São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, with a population of over 10 million within the city. Some experts suggest that the population of the São Paulo metropolitan region numbers between 17 and 20 million. Of the 10 million in the city, statistics suggest that there is one auto for every two people. That translates into major traffic gridlock at various times of the day and on different days of the week.

São Paulo, too, has its traffic reporters flying around the city in helicopters, warning drivers of traffic jams and suggesting alternate routes. Not unlike in some American cities during high traffic flow periods (such as going to and from work), it can take a few hours to go just a few tens of miles from home to work.

Enter the helicopter. From here on I’ve got to rely on Moreas to tell you what it is like in São Paulo: Helicopters are fast, safe, and comfortable. Moreas tell of how sophisticated some of them are, with the capability to fly by instruments even when there is zero visibility. He notes that there are a few score of helipads around the city, in addition to heliports. Helipads can be placed in open squares or on the rooftops of high-rise buildings. Their number doubled from 30 in 1995 to 60 in 1996. Heliports are much more sophisticated, providing hangars and maintenance facilities.

São Paulo is quite a developed city. When I visited it for the first time a few years ago, I could not see why Brazil was called a developing country. It has all the amenities that one can find in the most advanced cities in the world, including a subway system (called the “Metro”). I mention this because Moreas noted in his article that some Brazilian investors are planning to build a heliport right in the middle of town, next to one of the major Metro stations.

Helicopters enable businessmen and other executives to sharply reduce their commuting time, at least to the most important meetings and conferences. They are also used to bring executives in from their homes in distant parts of the greater metropolitan area and back to them at the end of the work week.

Some companies own their helicopters, others lease them, and still others use helicopter taxi services. The costs for buying them, according to Moreas, ranges from $175,000 for a two-passenger unit, up to $6 million for the bigger ones with all the amenities.

One suburban helicopter shuttle service, located about 15 miles from the center of town in a suburb called Tambore, is unique in the sense that it is run and operated totally by women — including its pilots.

Moreas also reported that shuttle service helicopters have been seen hovering in the sky near powerlines so that they can be repaired from the air. They also transport large pieces of equipment from the air, so there is no need for extended traffic or construction delays.

So, why did this particular article capture my attention? Because I think that it will eventually be the wave of the future. As transportation networks become increasingly clogged on the ground, more and more people will take to the air — more specifically, to helicopters.

It reminds me of the cartoon we used to watch some decades ago called The Jetsons. Set a few centuries ahead of the present, families used to jet around from one neighborhood or city to another in their little space ships. Well, before we get there, we are more likely to pass through the helicopter phase.

São Paulo is a city of the future. It is a huge megalopolis with transportation arteries that are often clogged. It is a booming city, the industrial heart (one might argue) of Brazil. Brazilian entrepreneurs are quite clever and do not miss many opportunities to make progress (“Progress” is one of the words on the Brazilian flag). When it comes to the use of the helicopter for commuting, I think that they have surpassed their counterparts in many countries. I would bet that we’ll be hearing a lot more of those rotor blades overhead in the not-so-distant future.

Fragilecologies Archives
25 June 1997

I had the good fortune a few weeks ago to be invited to a conference sponsored by the Brazilian government on the monitoring of natural and people-induced changes in their numerous national parks. The conference was held in Foz do Iguassu, in the southern part of the country where Brazil meets Argentina and Paraguay. The area is known for its waterfalls, 270 of which make up Iguassu Falls.

I had heard about the falls ever since junior high and had always wanted to visit them. I had all kinds of images of the region in my mind: tropical jungle, dirt roads washed out by heavy rains, hot and humid, mosquitoes, etc. Maybe that was the way it was when I first read about the falls in the 1950s, but it sure isn’t like that today. The roads are excellent. The national park is well-protected from surrounding development and construction. There are five-star hotels and cable TV, bringing CNN into your room all day long! And the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguassu now has almost 300,000 inhabitants. Nevertheless, a visit to Iguassu Park does give a visitor a glimpse of the way things used to be in the tropical rainforest surrounding the Falls.

I got a chance to see the falls from the Argentinean side (a much more spectacular view early in the day because of the way the sunlight hits the Falls and their spray), as well as from the Brazilian side. To do this, you must take a boat out to a walkway that is several feet above the river. The walkway takes you to the edge of the Falls and requires that you wear a plastic raincoat. Unprepared visitors find that their clothes are saturated in just a few minutes.

The sound of the crashing water at the base of the Falls is almost deafening. Most people tend to see water as soft and rock as hard. Yet, at the base of the Falls the force of the water eventually wears down the rocks. In Brazils wintertime (our summertime), there are fewer tourists, and one can be alone on the walkways and vantage points that encircle the Falls and Iguassu National Park. One can get a glimpse of the past, of what it might have been like centuries ago before colonizers discovered the Falls — Falls that local inhabitants had known about and enjoyed for centuries. In the local language Iguassu mean Singing Stones, in reference to the rhythmic noise of the flow of water over the Falls.

In fact, a visit to the region gives one the opportunity to see two opposing extremes of human interactions with Nature. At one extreme are the sites associated with the Falls and the river that feeds them. The other extreme is represented by the nearby Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este. This city represents (to me) the end result of uncontrolled commercialism and destruction of the natural environment. Those visiting this city can evaluate for themselves whether it was worth the sacrifice of the natural environment for the creation of such an eyesore.

I have heard that there are beautiful parts of Paraguay, but there are terrible parts as well. I believe that Ciudad del Este is clearly one of these. It is a duty-free haven serving southern Brazil and Argentina; in fact, the whole of Paraguay is a duty-free zone. This means that goods can be bought at prices much lower than they can be bought in either Argentina or Brazil. Whatever vegetation or forest had existed has been decimated so that people from other parts of the world can sell their plastic Barbie dolls, sneakers, Walkmans, TVs, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, etc, at very cheap prices.

In this relatively new town (founded in the late 1950s) on the Paraguay side of the Friendship Bridge with Brazil (it used to be called the Stroessner Bridge until a few years ago, named after Paraguay’s former dictator), there are thousands of shops, stores, and sidewalk stalls selling just about everything imaginable.

It was the filthiest town I have ever seen — and I’ve seen a lot of towns around the globe. Garbage (mostly discarded packing material), plastic bags of all colors and sizes, and beer cans were everywhere (I even felt compelled to take photos of it). Dark-colored plastic bags were visible floating downstream in the swift current of the mighty Parana River, one of the world’s biggest rivers. (Later I was told that the big plastic bags floating in the river had carried cigarettes or other smuggled goods and that the bags had been thrown into the river from the bridge. People downstream would recapture the bag of goodies, tossing away the bags).

The smell of urine, garbage, and car exhaust permeated the air, almost to a choking extent. Traffic on the bridge was so bad that cars and buses and vans could only crawl across the bridge, which aggravated the build-up of noxious fumes. Brazilian taxi drivers suggest (no, insist) that you walk across the bridge. Just keep walking, they said. Don’t show any hesitation and don’t offer to show your passport to border guards, unless they ask for it.

The pace by foot across the bridge was rapid, but it was very crowded. Anyone who was in a hurry (which seemed like just about everyone) had to weave around slower people. Even walking fast, and making all the right weaving moves, it took about 20 minutes to cross the lengthy bridge.

I crossed into Paraguay and back into Brazil without anyone asking me for an ID. This was quite unusual for an international border crossing!! For their part, the police were busy inspecting cars and vans for hidden cargo and for a chance to confiscate vehicles or tax their cargo.

Cuidad del Este left me with the feeling that I had seen the future (or so a pessimist might think). Humans (and their societies) seem to have insatiable appetites for most material goods, unlike other living beings that tend to consume only what they need in order to survive.

Ciudad del Este represents a tendency by societies (and humans) to destroy nature for the sake of a few bucks — and it is not necessarily the locals who benefit from those few bucks. Many of the traders there are from the Middle or Far East. For example, there is a cable channel that broadcasts only in Arabic, and the town is alleged to have the largest Arabic population in all of South America.

The Brazilian city of Iguassu Falls can be said to represent the other end of the time continuum. It is protected by society and remains a pristine, beautiful, and serene nature park. In a way, it represents where we came from hundreds of years ago, while Ciudad del Este represents where we could be going decades in the future, if we do not pay attention to the adverse aspects of the uncontrolled, gross commercialization that is taking place in societies everywhere.

Fragilecologies Archives
11 June 1997

Black caviar. Not exactly the fare of most people. In fact, it is often eaten on buttered black bread and washed down with champagne or a fine wine. Although caviar-producing sturgeon species can be found in several countries, from Canada to China, it is generally agreed that the best and most costly caviar comes from three species of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, which is located in southwestern Asia. These three species supply an amazing 90 percent of the world’s trade in caviar.

Sturgeon is one of the oldest types of living vertebrates on earth. This fish is considered to be a living fossil, as pointed out in a United Nations report. Fossils of their species are known to go back 250 million years, to the Spielberg (oops!) Jurassic period.

In past decades, Caspian sturgeon could live to be 48 years old. Some of them nowadays survive until they are 28, but this is rare. They can grow to seven feet in length and can weigh up to 250 pounds. Females are taken for their eggs, which are marketed as caviar. A female can yield up to 14 pounds of caviar.

This sturgeon population has been slowly declining since the 1970s. Dams along the Volga River and other rivers that feed the Caspian Sea blocked the natural migration routes of spawning fish, and their ability to reproduce began to decline. Due to heavy overfishing, pollution and sea level changes have also had a negative effect on the sturgeon’s ability to survive.

Until the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, the management of the Caspian sturgeon fishery was in the hands of the only two countries that bordered the sea at that time …. the Soviet Union and Iran. Then, fishing was not allowed in the central part of the sea, in an attempt to ensure that the younger fish would be able to return to the rivers in order to spawn. Spawning would ensure a healthy standing stock, enabling sturgeon to reproduce.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, three new countries and two new autonomous republics operating within the Russian Federation were in a position to catch sturgeon and to harvest their eggs. The newly independent countries challenged the existing legal status of the Caspian Sea. Each of the new countries claimed part of the Sea as being within its territorial waters. This was an important move on each of their parts, not because of the caviar exports, but because the Caspian seabed is rich in oil and natural gas. Who owns what has yet to be determined in international law. Thus, no single country has the responsibility to monitor or to protect the sturgeon fish stock.

Caviar is a lucrative international trade item. Its major markets are in Europe, North America, and Japan. Most of what is produced is sold abroad because the countries bordering the Caspian Sea are in dire need of foreign exchange (dollars, pound sterling, yen, etc.).

But, alas, sturgeon numbers have declined sharply in the past several years. There is great concern that the species could disappear altogether — kaput, extinct, gone forever. Unfortunately, the high price of caviar, coupled with the poor state of the Caspian region economies and, perhaps most important of all, the lack of control by any single authority over the fishery, has drawn many poachers into the equation. Even if governments agree to cut catches to zero for a few years, Caspian fishermen will not obey. These fishermen are under great pressure to find creative ways to generate money in order to feed their families. For them, it is a “Catch-22” and also a downward spiral for the sturgeon population and the Caspian caviar trade. The end result of poaching will inevitably be the collapse of the sturgeon fishery.

In a unique move, Germany has proposed to save the sturgeon by putting Caspian sturgeon (and other such species around the world) on the endangered species list. If officially approved, trade in caviar would be banned or, at least, closely monitored. This idea has captured the attention of Caspian countries involved in the caviar trade. Serious international discussions about the fate of the sturgeon and attempts to control illegal poaching are now under way.

CNN recently ran a news story about the plight of the caviar-producing sturgeon and the plight of the fishermen whose families depend on catching them. The fishermen have watched their catches dwindle. But, they have also watched the region’s socialist economies crumble. They are in dire need of cash to buy even the most basic food and health items. Their only recourse, they argue, is to continue to catch fish, take the roe, and sell it illegally on the black market. They need work.

Making a bad situation even worse is the fact that the money they get for caviar has declined as the quality has declined; they are catching less mature fish, in part because of the pollutants dumped into the spawning sites, and in part because of the wretched conditions in fish-processing and caviar-canning factories.

But how can they be blamed for trying to feed their families when their governments seem incapable of, if not uninterested in, helping them? They are seemingly locked on a course of destroying the fish population and industry on which they depend in order to weather short-term economic problems. In the meantime, they are destroying their future.

But what can anyone do? The situation seems hopeless — or is it? Enter CITES (pronounced sight-eze).

CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which was originally formed to protect elephants from being massacred by poachers for their ivory. It protected the rhinoceros from being killed for its horn, considered to be an aphrodisiac in several Asian countries. By banning international trade in tusks and horns, the incentive for poaching would be sharply reduced (penalties for being caught buying or selling such items were raised). Thus, the sturgeon and other endangered animals could be saved for the betterment of future generations.