News - Dec 21st

• 1) Queen Elizabeth given land in the Antarctic - the queen was given a piece of land in the name of her honour. This has been accused by Argentina as imperialism in the modern world. 
• Britain and Argentina have always had a strained relationship because of physical land disputes. The Falkland Islands have been the main source of conflict since it's an oil-rich land and both countries claim to own it.
• Land disputes like this parallel to Japan and China over Diaoyue Islands. Land disputes seem to be the main source of conflict between nations. Why is this ? Is it because of, once again, how control over resources means control over the people ?
• Those who control resources, e.g. South African waters, have the power to control lives of the local citizens. And why does China want the Diaoyue Islands anyways ? Aren't they large enough already ? What's the hidden motive ? 

Garrett Hardin - Tragedy of the Commons , flaws and summary

Hardin - Tragedy of the Commons  - Hardin's theory was that if there was a common pasture that a group of people used, the land would become degraded because there was no property rights and land ownership. Although each person is aware of the consequences of the abuse, each's selfishness, competitiveness and desire for exploiting the resource will eventually make the land unusable for all.  SHARED RESOURCES WILL ALWAYS BE MISUSED. 

Applying the Tragedy of the Commons to natural resources: It is said that nature is the "global commons" - something shared and needed by all human beings on Earth. The air is an example of a "free" resource that has no ownership - hence people continue to pollute it without thinking about the knock on effects elsewhere; carbon dioxide pumped out from a small factory in rural China can diffuse into Hong Kong, affecting Hong Kong people's healths and lungs, causing detriment to a large number of people. Pollution here affects ice melting elsewhere.

Water is another example - surface water (versus groundwater) are often commodified and valued. Water is "owned" by either the state or private companies, e.g. in South Africa. However, since water is a transport, deposition and erosion agent and can carry within it a lot of organisms, if water is degraded in Himalayas, Bangladesh can be affected because water flows across the Brahmaputra. 

Applying the Tragedy of the Commons to Green Grabbing: The theory has been applied to justify green / land grabs by rich countries and private businesses, because the theory argues that the only way to stop the degradation is by ownership and privatization of resources, which provide incentive for landowners to maintain the land's quality. It's used to justify and legitimize taking land from indigenous people and privatizing many resources that should be evenly distributed (eg water).  

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Flaws: 

1) How do you define "ownership of the land" ? Many indigenous people own land by customary rights, inheritance or by simply being there first, crafting a livelihood for many generations on the same piece of land. It is equally as valid a form of land ownership as a piece of paper. 

2) Ignores the self-regulation of people - it assumes people are naturally destructive. It ignores the fact that people may want to sustain the land knowing that degrading it will harm everyone. It adopts a cynical, pessimistic view of human nature that isn't always true. 

3) Assumes that the farmers can't adapt to disaster - even if land is degrading, farmers can adapt and mitigate - human beings are changeable beings. 

4) Assumes herders WANT to maximise their herd.

5) Privatisation is always good - is it ? Some private owners can't care for their land well , causing more degradation, soil erosion etc. 

Paul Collier - Summary of Traps

Paul Collier is an Economist from Oxford University who wrote a book titled "The Bottom Billion - Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it". He gives 4 main reasons why the poorest countries (Sudan, Angola, East Timor), home to approximately 1 billion people, have failed to develop despite aid and international support. The four "traps" that cause economic stagnation are:

1. Resource Trap - More natural resources means more conflict. There's 3 reasons for this paradox: 1) Resources make conflicts more likely as certain individuals want to control and take the resource. 2) Dutch Disease , whereby a country's manufacturing industry declines as resources are exploited. The country focuses much more on extraction rather than organic economic growth. 3) Countries are too poor to harness the money - the money gained flows out , or is wasted due to saturation. The stagnant economy stops future economic growth. 
2. Landlocked Geography - Countries who are landlocked, with few resources and without good neighbors will be in poverty. One example is Rwanda-  it does not have sufficient trade links and can't have easy access to the markets because of it's instable neighbors and lack of natural resources. Switzerland is landlocked but has good relationships with it's neighbors for easy trade. Botswana, a relatively thriving African country, is landlocked too but has plentiful resources to extract and trade. Coastal cities do not have this issue as they are open to trading with the world via ship. One solution is to strengthen infrastructure and physical trade links. 
3. Poor Government - Poor governments lack the means to enforce a good democracy and implement strong policies. There are often corrupt individuals ho use public office for private use, and often transfer funds received from aid or trade of resources to their own accounts. A poor government leads to a viscous cycle of poverty - the top leaders do not have a social contract with it's people, so it's people are poor and without adequate skills and money. A lack of money and skill means no money is invested for education, and a lack of education means a lack of quality professionals and future leaders in the next generation. This trap can be fixed by importing skilled brains into the nation as a temporary fix. 
4. Conflict - Conflict is often caused by civil war. For example, in East Timor's long struggle for independence, civil war was rife and caused violence, rape, crime and a negative downward spiral. Conflict means an instable environment for people to focus on development. People live in constant fear and the priority is shifted to the military and war, rather than to foster more social and economic growth. Conflict is worsened by inequalities in society. The fix is to promote more peace. 

Flaws:

• Collier's solution is that military intervention is NECESSARY to break the viscous cycle. He advocates positive violence to discipline these instable governments, many in Africa. This will surely cause much disagreement amongst many people! 
• Collier assumes rationality. He ignores the African nationalism and inferiority complexes (towards themselves, which prompts nationalis thinking and rejection of the "white man") of the bottom billion, many of whom are anti-West due to negative ideological legacies of colonialism. He assumes that these people will act "rationally" and choose to cooperate to set up better governments, better policies from this TOP DOWN approach. 
• In reality, there are so much more factors to be considered. Social, cultural and historical aspects have to be considered, I believe, in order to implement change. Top down approaches may work but it may cause much resistance at the start and prompt claims of "neocolonialism". 

Geography News - Dec 8th 2012

• China buys Canadian Oil company for 15 billion - Canada has approved a deal from China for an oil company called Nexen, for 15 billion pounds. This dea has been negotiated just after Canada approved a Malaysian firm that bought up another oil sand company. This is China's biggest energy investment ever recorded. 
• Canada is rich in natural resources unlike it's American neighbor. It has the Alberta tar sands, which are huge 
• Hence, natural resources from the land has great potential for economic profit. If it is controlled by private companies, the state has little power to actually control the actions of the multinationals. This is a form of geopolitics. 
• In a neoliberal world, where markets are open and there's a ROLL BACK ON STATE CONTROL and ROLL IN of privatisation. The issue is how to make these extraction of resources sustainable and not too damaging for the environment. The state can, at most, play a regulatory role and impose laws, sanctions and incentives. The application / society aspect though, is determined by the TNC's actions which often directly affect the local people. If TNCs are allowed unlimited access to resources, there will be conflict and increased INEQUALITIES due to privatisation of commodities. This can worsen conflict, although it is not a direct cause of conflict. 
• Economist Polanyi said land, labour and money are the building blocks of a capitalist system. Both "Green grabbing" and "buying up oil companies" constitute new ownership and transfer of ownership of land. The land's potentials are being extended, and one wonders whether China's buying up of the oil company in Canada constitutes a "land grab". After all China is buying up Canada's resources and using it for it's own benefit - what is the difference between this and "land grabbing" where the buyer extracts nature from the sellers? 
• One criticism I have of the article about Green Grabs are that they don't focus on countries in the Global North. Canada is part of the Global North - and here, isn't China "grabbing" Canada's natural resources through buying a company ? It is an NIC that is doing the grabbing this time! We should examine other similar instances. 

• Nelson Mandela hospitalized for tests - Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, Nobel Peace Prize winner and the leader who fought to lead South Africa out of the apartheid is in hospital for health reasons. 
• The reason this news is important is because of Nelson Mandela's link with the history of South Africa, one of the richest countries in Africa. The apartheid is important in Geography because it was a legalised form of racism starting from the 1940s, whereby laws were implemented to separate blacks and whites SPATIALLY and geographically.  
• Privatisation of commodities often create more inequalities, and privatisation of resources like water can create an ECONOMIC APARTEID. This continues on the segregation and inequalities created by law in the past, as rich whites control and own the water, whilst poor blacks cannot afford it and are impoverished. 

Climate Change reports through history

1. Kyoto Protocol (1997, came into action in 2003) - This was a binding treaty that arose after talks in the UN Climate change conference where countries gathered to discuss how to reduce greenhouse gas and what share of responsibility each nation should get. It involved 37 industrialized nations and the EU , whereby a 5% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are to be in place by the next decade. The USA supported this treaty but did not ratify it. The treaty also gave rise to a system called Carbon Trading, where countries can buy and sell their carbon credits (amount of carbon they can release as pollutants). This scheme was a further development in the commodification of nature and in the "economy of repair". 
2. Rio 1992 - The first major climate change conference which began the idea of a global society and brought a sense of togetherness and "urgency" to mankind vs. climate change. It sparked new interest in policy changes to combat global climate change. The "Precautionary Principle" - whereby action against environmental degradation is to be taken even though there is no full range of evidence - was stated in Principle 15. However, the summit's grandiose, large-scaled and broad goals remain largely unachieved. 
3. Stern Report (2006)- Economist Nicholas Stern wrote a 700 page report on the effects of climate change on economic activity. It is a large cost/benefit and risk assessment of climate change impacts on the global economy. It concluded that acting against climate change outweighs the costs of not acting. He advocates mitigatory and adaptative policies. 
4. These reports tie in well with the 1st article I was asked to read. Also - Kingdon's policy criteria can be applied here: we have the solutions in front of us and proposed laws, but the application and society aspects, cooperation and compromise, are lacking. Hence there's no policy window available for viable solutions to take place. 
5. Lastly, maybe we should stop focusing on global climate change - there is a flaw in the title since climate change has local effects and global talk means not enough local action.

Geography News - Dec 5th 2012

• 1) Philippines hit by Typhoon Bopha - Philippines was hit by a strong typhoon yesterday and the impacts of this disaster is great. More than 50 citizens are reportedly killed, and tens of thousands are displaced. In the UN Climate Change conference in Doha, a representative from the Philippines said that "Hurricane Sandy and now Typhoon Bopha are evidence that climate change is really happening" and urged developing nations to reduce their CO2 emissions. 
• Firstly, to what extent are disasters now to be blamed for climate change ? Philippines have a history of strong typhoons during the December months, and is annually subjected to typhoons similiar to Bopha. Is Bopha merely just another typhoon, or is it more serious in other ways ? A climate scientist from the USA said that Bopha is indeed stronger than previous typhoons, but it is not the largest-scale disaster to hit the nation. 
• Secondly, this raises the issue of climate refugees and migrants. Are the displaced citizens of Philippines considered refugees or climate ? Generalisations and labeling of a "refugee", and gaining refugee status allows access to certain rights and power. A refugee can enter some countries, e.g. Hong Kong, as asylum seekers, and legally have rights of abode after a certain number of years. This generalization carries power and weight. But the new category of "climate refugees", meaning the people who are forced to leave their homes because their livelihoods and ways of life are threatened by climate change disasters, has unclear legislature and is a new, broad and uncertain realm.  
• Lastly, this news seems to imply that the Doha conference isn't really conclusive and heading in a good direction. It is a blame game of who is responsible - Them or Us ? 

• 2) Aids drugs increase South Africa life expectancy number for up to 5 years - The increased distribution of antiviral drugs have increased the average life expectancy of South Africans by 5 years from 2006 to 2011. This is an improvement from when former president Mbeki denied the impacts of AIDS and it's presence in South Africa. However, 30% of pregnant women are still HIV positive and the disease is still highly prevalent amongst the population. 
• Two key points: 
• 1) The scientific community and media is actually reinforcing Said's Orientalism theory by frequently citing AIDs with African nations. Although AIDS have been attributed partly to the sexual practices of some groups of societies in Africa, science remains ultimately very political. 
• Science is influenced by politics and society in various ways. Funding and grants for research are usually provided to scientific studies that support the governments' agendas or political stance. Without funding, often there can be no study carried out. Politicians often have a vested interest in particular aspects of a scientific study, hence can choose what evidence is shown to the public. Authors and lecturers select pieces of science that support their own theories to present in public literature. 
• For climate change, if a particular research cluster comprises of pro-climate change scientists, then results will be skewed towards positive findings. If the panel is made up of climate change deniers, then the results will swing the opposite way. The fact that terms like "believers" and "deniers" are used shows that science often has political implications and non-objective connotations! 
• 2) The word AIDS / HIV carries negative stigma. This association is a constructed social discourse. Applying Foucault principles, then I ask - what is the true situation of these aids suffers in Africa ? The diseased are often subjected to a victim status. They are victimized, and deemed helpless, poor and wasting away. 
• Visual discourse of AIDS suffers are not unlike famine victims - emaciated, children and women looking sad, slums, flies, dry land, uninhabitable homes and degraded farmland in the background. Is it effective ? Many in the Global North become desensitized to these images depicted. 
• The image of AIDS is very much political, and just like famine, this image is used for political reasons - to gain support for a large-scale aid project, to gain funding to donate many antiviral drugs to South Africa, and to raise money to run agencies and continue the market cycles of aid agencies.  

I can relate that to a famine example. Famine is mass death from starvation and related chronic diseases. A good case would be in North Korea in 1994, where nearly 3 million people died because of starvation. Not only did North Korea have limited food supply (though arguably they had enough to feed everyone - just not a huge surplus like our current 20% global surplus) it was the elites, like Kim Jong Il and his government officials, that obtained most of the food. Keeping the population starving and hungry is one key strategy to keep the Communist regime in power - people were too weak to rebel or to escape from concentration camps. Women suffered most - infant mortality and maternal mortality rates increased staggeringly. Famine affects different social groups differently. 

Amartya Sen - 3 key theories

Academic Spotlight- Amartya Sen 

• Amartya Sen was a Nobel Prize-winning economist who developed several key theories relevant to geography. In his book titled "Development as Freedom", key points are:

• 1) "There has never been a famine in a democracy" - Sen agrees that famines are political exercises and that famines often occur under governments that are authoritarian, opaque and non-democratic. Famines are not caused by actual food shortages (in fact, there are often more than enough food during famines - these are stored by hoarders waiting for prices to rise) but are caused by a lack of purchasing powers and rights. Famines also have a social context (e.g. "the strongest will survive") and are sometimes used for ethnic cleansing. 

• 2) Development means freedom for all - In his book of the same title, Amartya Sen defines development as people having "freedoms" and opportunities in society. These can be political freedoms, economic choices, social opportunities, transparency and security, which are different but inter-related. Democracy is the key to a successful economy and political atmosphere. It is another take on the traditional view of economic development as the ideal form of "development". 

• 3) Women are crucial to development - Sen argues that women's life expectancy and literacy rates (what I have used as criteria in my Women's Development Indicator) should be improved because these are key steps to improve children's well-being and lower the fertility rate. He says that enhancing women's opportunity to work and contribute to society is vital. Perhaps this is true, but we are not sure whether it is women's improvements in standards of living that CAUSE development or the other way around. The relationship is two ways. 

• 1) A UK company is planning to build the largest photovoltaic plant in Ghana, Africa - The Nzema Project is an ambitious, privately funded plan from a UK company to build a $400 million solar power plant in Ghana. The solar power plant will be the largest in Africa, and will be used to provide electricity for 100,000 homes. It is hoped that by building the plant, solar energy prices will be reduced and provide an incentive for more people to use this instead of fossil fuels. 
• Interestingly, this followed on from another news headline, where the UK pledged to contribute GBP 133 million more to help Africa tackle climate change. The UK promised in the UN Climate Change conference in Doha to give more aid and more money to "help Africa" build more solar power plants and develop it's renewable energies. 
• The question is three-folds: 
• 1) Why do we not see any stricter policies in the UK (or even other nations in the Global North) about climate change ?Instead, we see a prime example of Said's "Us versus Them" divide-  the Global North is pledging to help the Global South, in particular Africa, to combat "climate change" by giving aid, money and in many cases grabbing green land. To me, it seems like the focus is skewed - why is the UK focusing externally on Africa instead of looking within itself and trying to improve it's own energy mix ? Nearly 50% of UK's energy mix consists of non-renewables like coal and nuclear. Further, the UK has contributed immensely to CO2 emissions during the industrial revolution and economic take-off. 
• 2) Is this an attempt to assert UK's western superiority and divert attention away from the UK's own energy and CO2 problems ? Perhaps this is indadvertedly the case; as I have understood from the article titled " A review of recent developments in climate change science - understanding future change in the large-scale climate system", although climate change is a pressing issue that deserves critical attention, the uncertainty, lack of accurate models and lack of understanding for these complex physical and natural feedback systems means policy making is difficult. This continuing focus on the global, e.g. helping other nations or Global South to convert to greener energy sources, only leads us nowhere in terms of action. Countries should focus inward, not outward, for effective solutions. 
• 3) Is the PV plant in Ghana going to be sustainable ? Will it benefit the locals ? What are the true reasons why this UK company is investing in Ghana ? Is this another form of green-grabbing ? The energy will power 100,000 homes, but which ones ? The richer locals can afford it, but what about poorer populations ? Will this privatisation only serve to increase inequalities ? And also, there is a risk of the plant deteriorating after a few years, or simply not benefitting locals as the energy will be transported away from Ghana. The sun is also a variable and depends on the weather. We still cannot store solar energy effectively - what happens at night ? Solar developments, I believe, has not gone far enough yet to be truly effective and cheaper than coal. 

• 2) Green talks in Doha failing as countries blame each other - UK's Lord Nicholas Stern has said that the developing countries should start cutting their emissions seriously rather than refusing to act, whilst China and other rapidly developing nations have said that the Global North should be more responsible for their previous contributions during the 20th century era. 
• Doha's UN conference seems to be leading to no valid policy changes surrounding climate change. Countries are pointing fingers and there's no actions or conclusive declarations. 
• I think ultimately, there needs to be global altruism to fix this problem. We are asking people and individuals to change their comfortable, consumerism ways of living (and who doesn't enjoy this lifestyle!) and change altogether. What can and will address this global problem is, in my opinion, if everyone developed a heightened sense of altruism and make changes, even though the immediate "rewards" will not be visible to them, maybe not even in their lifetimes. 
• Perhaps the Global North should lower their high standards of living; the Global South should raise their environmental awareness and self-sustaining abilities, and the two should meet somewhere in the middle. 

• 3) Pandas in Edinburgh Zoo boosts sales by 50% - Today marked the 1st anniversary that two pandas were shipped from China to the Scotland zoo where they served as primary attractions. 
• This news just reminds me of how humans are spending many resources protecting large mammals that aren't necessarily essential to biodiversity. Large mammals are higher up in food chains, and their extinction will have least impacts than smaller organisms from lower down the chain. Humans have intrinsic and ideologies about large mammals, and we protect them for aesthetic and economical (tourism) reasons more than for the well-being of the environment. 

Geography News - Dec 3rd 2012

• 1) Carbon emissions continues to increase in 2012 and are too high to curb climate change - Carbon dioxide levels have increased from 2011 to 2012 by nearly 3%, and this increase means that at the current rate of emissions, climate change may escalate beyond the predicted 2 degrees threshold. A recent study showed that nearly 37 billion tonnes of CO2 had been emitted last year, hitting a record high in 2011. This extremely high number caused scientists to worry about the irreversible and harmful effects of global warming, and may mean that global warming may affect sea level rise faster than previously predicted. 
• This news raises issues about policy making and climate change (Kingdon's policy window, crisis and a strategy needed, etc.) It is largely the consensus that human beings have pumped billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere and has contributed to the warming effect we see. There needs to be action in societies all over the globe regarding reducing CO2 emissions, but why isn't any country seriously implementing policies and technologies now ? 
• One viable solution is to implement technologies that can create renewable energy. New light bulbs that last longer are being invented, as is liquid metal batteries which an MIT professor explained about in an energy TED talk. 
• I am interested, personally, in focusing on solar and photovoltaic as the sun is an abundant energy source which can be easily captured and tapped. It does not require engineering of infrastructure, such as for hydroelectricity, nor does it require any turbines to generate movement. The sun is invisible to the naked eye, yet is plentiful in many Asian, European and American countries. 
• If we make solar cheaper and more efficient, and develop a liquid metal battery to store it's energy so that it can be gridded, then solar can replace current uses of coal and fossil fuels. This is, I believe, a good way to lower the global CO2 emissions as each tonne of coal burned releases 3 tonnes of CO2. 

• 2) Syria's displaced population increasing - Syria's authoritarian leader Assad is waging war against his oppositions, who want him to step down from his power and position. The result of this civil war is that there is growing numbers of refugees who are escaping political oppression. There are around 2.5 million internally displaced persons and 400,000 migrants in nearby countries who had fled from their homes.  10,000 people cross the Syria borders everyday to get away from the violence and war. America is worried about intervening because it might increase the number of Islamists. The Syrian people's living conditions are degraded and many live in unhygienic slums and refugee tents. 
• Migration is the issue here. Migration is defined as the movement of people in and out of both national boundaries and local boundaries. This is important to Geography because it involves people moving into foreign spaces across different time scales, for economic, social, political and cultural reasons. 
• Refugees are defined as people fleeing their home country because of political oppression. Giving them refugee status is a useful generalization  one that grants the refugees special rights and entitlements fo aid etc.  Syria has vast numbers of political refugees, yet they are not granted any entitlements or hold special rights. The civil war is political - the fighters do not care about the society and the people's families. Hence, these refugees don't have a choice but to move away from their homes and into crowded, dirty places nearby. This causes crowding problems, leading to a knock on spiral of cumulative causation. 
• What also struck me was how there's clearly a "Western" and "Eastern" divide amongst world view on the Syrian conflicts. Edward Said's theory about the Orient holds true - one refugee complained how there are so many journalists "staring at us in the face" whilst the refugee endured muddy floors and soaking tents in their attempts to flee. To what extend does this mentality worsen the conflict ? 
• Should America even be playing the role of "the hero" and decide which side it can support ?

Jared Diamond - Theory summary (Guns Germs and Steel)

I read reviews and summaries of Jared Diamond's thesis and theory about the European "advantage". 

Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel - The theory is this: 

Different civilisations arose differently, at various speeds because of their physical geography, not racial or biological differences (genes). There is no superior genome that gave the Europeans an advantage. On the contrary, European civilisations have developed far faster than other countries in the world purely because of their geographical advantage. Europe had the right animals, which allowed farmers to domesticate the right types of animals (cows, sheeps, goats etc). 

Europe also had mild climate - suitable for growing varied crop types and export them for trade. From the domestication of animals, settlers carried diseases and spread these deadly germs wherever they travelled, indirectly killing many of the indigenous populations even prior to colonialism. 

Diamond explains Western domination with ecological / physical reasons rather than any racial or genetic binaries. Europe, in some sense, got lucky with their initial advantage because of social and external forces (e.g. North America hunted down all the species that could have been domesticated). 

Europe was successful not because of inherent factors within itself, but because it used guns, germs, steel and colonialism to expand and conquer. 

- Hence Rostow's Model does not apply to Europe as Europe didn't develop by itself, within itself. It relied on external factors, and used it's colonialism to extract resources from foreign land, leaving behind it's ideological and material legacy in many places across the world. These legacies have aided the spreading of European literature, language and ways of thinking. 

Geography News - December 2nd 2012

• 1) India GDP growth slows down to 5.3% per year - The Indian economic growth has decreased slightly from it's previous 5.5% three months ago to 5.3% for this quarter of the year. The main reason for this decline is weaker global demand for exports and key political reforms implemented last month. This economic drop has meant that new policies to increase foreign direct investments and trade will need to be introduced by the Indian government in order to prevent more decline in the future. The Indian government wants to raise the growth to 6%, and will open up the aviation sector to FDIs and control how much banks can lend so that spending is encouraged. 
• India, like China, is a rising superpower in the global economy. With their sheer population numbers and vast quantities of human resources, China and India's growth rate in economic terms has been unprecedented in the last decade. Even though this report noted how there's a drop in economic growth for India this quarter, a 0.2% drop can hardly qualify as "significant" enough to impact upon the masses. 
• The fact that Indian authorities are so concerned upon a relatively small dip in economic output signals, to me, how the BRICs are focused almost entirely on economic growth. These nations aim for massive economic boom and China is an excellent example of rapid GDP growth (approximately 10% per annum) leading to a higher standard of living for many citizens. The question is two-folds: 
• To what extent is India (and China) growing economically at the extent of it's people ? Again, the issue is - can economic development signal high standards of living or high social development ? There is no fixed definition of development and economic development does not necessarily mean people are happy, "developed" or healthy. This ties in with a criticism of the Western model of development and Rostow's flawed model. 
• Can the world sustain both India and China's massive yearly GDP growth in terms of resources ? It is a known fact that if each person in China lived the life of an American (in terms of consumption of energy) there would not be enough resources in this earth to sustain the population. With China rising and seemingly unstoppable, will the rise of India also lead to the same conflicts ? 

• 2) Bhutan's Gross National Happiness (GNH) gaining attention in UN Climate Change Conference 2012 - Bhutan has always been a maverick in tackling developmental policies, claiming that national "happiness" is the most important indicator of well-being. Bhutan has ignored GDP as an indicato since the 1970s, and has accused other countries of putting the economy first over the environment. The authorities at the UN Climate Conference in Doha has called attention to Bhutan's GNH as a possible new indicator for "development" that the Global North / Western world should use and replicate in their policy and development models. 
• This article provides food for thought as to what exactly constitutes "development" and questions modernisation theories and development models. 
• It links in with Edward Said's theory about "The Oriental". Said claims that the Western nations create binaries and divides the world into an uncivilised "them" and a civilised "us", using this divide to justify developmental theories and colonialism. The Global North perceives the "East" (India, China, Middle East) as exotic, foreign, feminized, intriguing, mythical and uncivilized, versus the civilised, educated, enlightened and developed West. 
• This ideology and way of thinking has meant that the Western panel that dominates most of the seats of the UN Climate Change conference, will likely view nations like Bhutan as the "other" - foreign, culturally other and hence, under-developed in every way. Perhaps this is why the Bhutanese "oriental concept" (that happiness, rather than economic growth is true development) is currently subjected to much speculation and scrutinisation, and most importantly, FASCINATION. 
• Happiness aside, Bhutan also faces serious environmental threats exacerbated by climate change. Flooding is more serious, as with land and water degradation, which affects farmer's livelihoods. Can and will Bhutan prioritize "happiness", an intangible "soft" concept, over it's economic growth if it means people's livelihoods suffer ? Also, how do you measure happiness exactly ? 
• If you give a farmer a high-paying job in the city, or give him a lot of wealth, won't he be happy ? Economic gain and happiness, I believe, correlates to a certain extent. You can be happy being rich. 

Academic reading: Edward Said - I watched several of Said's lectures and can sum up his main theory. 

Said coined the term "Orientalism" to mean the attitudes and ways the Western nations view Eastern nations. Although he talks specifically about Arabic countries, this theory applies to China and Asia in general. The theory says that the West views the East with a certain ideology and stereotyped images - exotic, foreign, dangerous, sensual, feminine, uncivilized, barbaric, uncultured... and these values reinforce the West's own perception of themselves as cultured, civilised, stable, safe and developed. 

These binaries, and this ideology in viewing the "East" reinforced why development theories categorize the First world and Third World, and why colonialism leaves behind legacies that are often internalized. These perceptions (or stereotypes) are often internalized into both East and West nations. They are also used to justify colonialism ("we need to teach the orientals and help them improve") and to create a sense of self-congratulation / self-pride ("we are their savoirs"). 

John Kingdon - Policy Theory summary

John Kingdon is a public policy expert known widely for his multiple streams model of understanding policy process.

Kingdon's mutilpe streams model concentrates on the timing and flow of policy making and implementation - taking a bigger-picture perspective - in contrast to other models which focus on individual steps or components of the policy process.

The value of Kingdon's model is that it helps to understand the importance of context - political-climate, timing, and changing realities that must be dealt with in the policy and agenda setting process.

The model is particularly useful for understanding agenda-setting - why some issues become high priority and have tangible policy measures developed and why other issues are sidelined and focused on to a lesser extent, or not at all. 

We can apply that to the issue of inactive policy changes for Climate Change and in tackling Global Warming in the 21st century. 

Kingdon wrote the book Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, which investigates how society's issues end up on the government agenda as public policy issues. It discusses how issues are brought to the attention of legislators in the first place, how potential solutions are developed, and how and why individual issues are carried through the policy process and result in tangible policy measures.

Source: http://www.metagora.org/training/encyclopedia/Kingdon.html

Geographical News - Dec 1st 2012

1) Leveson Case - Lord Leveson finally issued his verdict on the UK's public enquiry case concerning phone hacking and privacy. The case stemmed from controversial allegations where News International reporters were accused of hacking the phone lines of news-subjects in order to pursuit headlines and write sensational stories. After a year-long court case, Lord Leveson summarised in his 2000-page report that there should be an independent, non-governmental organisation in charge of being a watchdog for journalists all around the UK, and that there should be more control over the British media and press' activities. 

Right in front of our eyes, we see the "Law"/ Application/ Society" concept in place. There's a new law being proposed - to regulate the media's reckless pursuits of information without regarding the people behind the stories, and to have a tighter control over what the press can report. Applying it, however, is being debated. David Cameron is opposed to a new regulatory body for various political reasons. Many Labour MPs are supporting this proposal, as are most of the UK press and UK citizens. 

To me, society seems to be accepting of Leveson's judgment, deeming it fair, just and good policy. Society and it's people matter in policy making, so much that it seems that  though judges write out law (and the length of the report already tells us how complex the issue is), it is actually people who reinforce the law.

What I question is whether it will truly be in place, and whether this new law has further implications. What about blogs and online reporting, especially in our digital age ? And does Cameron's argument that freedom of the press threatens human rights have any truth ? How will it be regulated and to what degree ?

2) Arctic and Antarctic Ice Sheets melting faster than in the last 20 years - The ice sheets are melting at a far greater rate than scientists had imagined, slightly faster than the rate the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted in it's 2007 report. At this rate, sea-level rise is becoming a bigger threat than imagined, and the ice-sheet's contribution to rising sea levels is bigger than previously thought. If all the ice melts, the sea level will rise by 64m. 

This scientific article ties in with another that I read, which was about the scientific updates on climate change since the IPCC's 2004 report. Both mention that the ice sheets are melting at a higher rate than previously monitored, and both express uncertainties. Both these recent articles was also vague and uncertain about the impacts and rate of melting. However, the fact that ice sheets are melting faster than before suggests that our climate is becoming warmer, and perhaps faster than we think. 

The obvious question this article raises is about combating climate change. Mankind tend to focus on the short-term, immediate problems rather than long-term, slow ones like climate change. The general consensus on limate change is that humans are accelerating the warming effect due to more greenhouse gas emissions from economic and social activities. What the bigger question is - why can't we have effective, immediate policies in place to tackle reducing greenhouse gas now ?

Academic Reading

My academic reading for today was John Kingdon. He is a political analyst from the University of Michigan who wrote a book about public policies. He came up with an interesting theory as to how policy change occurs and what ingredients you need for active policy changes to form in society. I think it wholly applies to climate change and more specifically, why humans are not acting upon climate change now and leaving the problem "for later". It also gives a good insight in the way humans act, which interestingly also applies to Leveson's case as we see it in action.

John Kingdon identified the 3 main components of a problem which fuels active policy change: the "crisis" or the problem that is gathering attention and momentum, the "pre-existing solution" that already exists in society, somewhere; and the "window of opportunity" needed for the solution to be linked up with the crisis.

When the window is open for policy change, if one solution is proposed and accepted by the public, it will go ahead and gather force.

We have the problem - climate change leading to melting ice caps, which can cause flooding and harm to human livelihoods. We have the pre-existing solutions: greening, sustainability, renewables, defenses, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

What we do not have is the window of opportunity. Surely, businesses and TNCs are using "greening" as an excuse for economic activity, seeing a window for money. But what we need is a window for full-on government intervention. But that's not really possible as countries operate independently , and it's not as simple as the Leveson Case where the legal boundaries are UK and Leveson is a British judge.

What we do not have is the window of opportunity. Instead, businesses and TNCs are using "greening" as an excuse for economic activity, seeing a window for money. Each government in each country needs to find that window and until then humans won't necessarily change our habits.

Maybe what we need is a global superpower or government. And a global judge. Everyone can be plaintiffs and defendants at the same time. We need to put out a verdict on ourselves. And as humans, we don't want to criticize ourselves and it's very hard to admit to mistakes. That is where the problem lies.