Category: Social World

Gardens Reduce Violence

A fascinating article on the relationship between environmental conditions and sociology, explains how urban community gardens — in formerly vacant lots — actually reduced violence in the areas around them.

There’s been a growing body of research that suggests that urban farming and greening not only strengthen community bonds but also reduce violence. …

Over the course of 10 years, [gradens] reduced shootings in the areas surrounding these renewed lots. Part of it was practical: The vacant lots had previously been hiding places for guns. … and … “People just became more in touch with their neighbors. People felt more connected to each other.”

— Kotlowitz and Schiffer (2012): Plant Tomatoes. Harvest Lower Crime Rates in Mother Jones.

Fish Genes in Tomatoes

PBS has a nice list of genetic modifications to four different plants. First on the list is the antifreeze gene from a fish that was inserted into a tomato. The tomato was infected with a bacteria that had the gene in a genetically engineered plasmid. The PBS site also discusses Bt Corn, which produces it’s own pesticide, Golden Rice, which produces it’s own beta-carotene, and the herbicide resistant Roundup Ready Soybeans.

Golden Rice produces beta-carotene, which the body uses to produce Vitamin A. Two genes, one from daffodils and one from a soil bacteria, were inserted into the rice DNA. Image from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) via Wikipedia.

A Global Warming Primer

The Discovery Channel has an interesting series of videos about the effects of global warming on: polar bears; the Antarctic Ice Sheets; the Amazon rainforest; and the Great Barrier Reef. They also have a nice bit on what goes into the average American carbon footprint.

Drought on the Mississippi

Last summer’s drought, and more weather extremes probably due to large-scale global climate change, is having dire effects on shipping on the Mississippi River. Suzanne Goldenberg has an excellent article in the Guardian.

Students look upstream at the Missouri River from the Melvin Price lock and dam, just north of St. Louis, and close to its confluence with the Mississippi River. The dam is tasked with maintaining about 9ft of water in the river for shipping.

Shipping companies say the economic consequences of a shutdown on the Mississippi would be devastating. About $7bn (£4.3bn) in vital commodities – typically grain, coal, heating oil, and cement – moves on the river at this time of year. Cutting off the transport route would have an impact across the mid-west and beyond.

…

Farmers in the area lost up to three-quarters of their corn and soya bean crops to this year’s drought. … Now, however, [they] are facing the prospect of not being able to sell their grain at all because they can’t get it to market. The farmers may also struggle to find other bulk items, such as fertiliser, that are typically shipped by barge.

— Goldenberg (2012): Mississippi river faces shipping freeze as water levels drop in The Guardian.

The proposed solution is to release more water from the Missouri, however there would be a steep price to pay.

The shipping industry in St Louis wants the White House to order the release of more water from the Missouri river, which flows into the Mississippi, to keep waters high enough for the long barges to float down the river to New Orleans.

…

Sending out more water from the Missouri would doom states upstream, such as Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota, which depend on water from the Missouri and are also caught in the drought.

“There are farmers and ranchers up there with livestock that don’t have water to stay alive. They don’t have enough fodder. They don’t have enough irrigation water,” said Robert Criss, a hydrologist at Washington University in St Louis, who has spent his career studying the Mississippi. “What a dumb way to use water during a drought.”

Why Diversity is Important

Diversity has been a recurring theme this semester. It started with the diversity conference our middle schoolers attended earlier this year, which, unfortunately, I’m not sure they got a lot out of. As a result, I’ve been making a little bit of a point to bring up the subject when it intersects with our work. This week were were talking about evolution and natural selection, as was able to talk about the practical advantages of both genetic and social diversity.

When the environment changes, species don’t usually have time to adapt. Instead, individuals who already have the genes for beneficial existing traits — traits that work well under the new conditions, like the ability to survive warming climates — will tend to breed more, and over the generations, more and more of the population will have the advantageous trait.

Therefore, to ensure the continuation of the species, we’ll want to have the maximum amount of genetic diversity.

Then I tacked. I asked if anyone was not interested in seeing the continuity of humanity, and the usual wags piped up to say that they could take homo sapiens or leave it. So I showed them the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement website. VHEMT advocates that people voluntarily stop having kids so that humanity eventually will become extinct, restoring the Earth’s environment to a healthy state. Their motto is, “May we live long and die out.”

The class was pretty uniformly aghast.

I particularly like the VHEMT website because it’s really hard to tell if they’re serious or not; which drove my students a little bit crazy. And I eventually got the key question I was angling for, “How could anyone want humans to go extinct?”

My response was, for them at least, quite unsatisfactory, because I chose to answer with a different question: “Do you think that diversity of thought is good?”

For some, their answer was no. However, I then reminded them of that first amendment to the U.S. constitution has to do with freedom of expression, which does seem to suggest that the founders thought diversity of ideas was a good thing. Just like species, countries with greater diversity of ideas are more likely to be able to adapt to changing conditions and succeed.

The application of evolutionary theory to social situations has, historically, been fraught with abuse (see the eugenics movement in particular). I also did not have time to bring the conversation back to why we might want to protect biodiversity. However, this particular lesson gets the point across that diversity has some important practical benefits that might not always be obvious.

Notes

An interview with VHMET on the Discovery Channel:

Suffrage in the U.S.A.

Go back in time and see who would have won the last presidential election. BuzzFeed has an excellent set of maps showing who would have won the election if voting was restricted as it was in the past.

2012: The actual voting map. (Image from BuzzFeed).
1970: Adults over 24 years old (before the voting age was lowered to 18). (Image from BuzzFeed).
1920: Women’s sufferage. Only white voters (men and women). (Image from BuzzFeed).
1870: Only men can vote. (Image from BuzzFeed).
1850: When only white men could vote. (Image from BuzzFeed).

The video below gives a quick history of when voting rights were extended to different demographic groups.

Diwali

Dias in St. Louis.

I remember driving around town looking at the lights … arcs of dias sitting on split-bamboo trellises … everywhere. Hundreds and thousands of little flickering lights.

I remember refilling the oil in the dias and replacing the wicks as they went out.

I remember attending prayers, and eating good food — curry, dal, rice, roti — with my hands off banana leaves.

I found a new Indian/Pakistani grocery last week, just in time for Diwali. Diwali’s got elements of Thanksgiving (harvest feast), Christmas (lights and some present giving), and New Years (in some parts of India). Mostly, I remember it as the Festival of Lights. So, I picked up six dias at the store, and improvised with cooking oil and string (for the wicks), so my kids could have their chance to play with fire.

I think I’ll bring them into school too. Last week the middle schoolers attended a diversity conference. They didn’t seem to get too much out of it, so I’ve been trying to be a little more explicit about the subject.

Taking care of the dias on a cold, November night.

Living next to Chernobyl

Hanna Zavorotnya, 78, lives in Chernobyl’s dead zone. Image from RENA EFFENDI/ INSITUTE via The Telegraph.

We were talking about environmental disasters, specifically nuclear radiation, and looking at pictures of Chernobyl, when a student asked if anyone still lived there. The city and surrounding region was evacuated, however some 1,200 people returned to their homes. Holly Morris has an interesting article on how “The women living in Chernobyl’s toxic wasteland” survive. Curiously, 80% of the remaining survivors are female.