Monday, September 26, 2011
Wangari Maathai on Equity and Environmental Justice
Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize, died on Sunday night of cancer. She was 71. A feminist, social activist and an environmental crusader who showed no fear, her Green Belt Movement, founded in 1977, planted tens of millions of trees. She came into the GRITtv studios in September 2009, where she talked about the responsibility of all countries, industrialized and developing, to live within their means. Asked about resource wars, she spoke powerfully about equity and human rights, comparing the society to a forest, she said, "the canopy and the mushrooms both need light." It's powerful stuff. She'll be sorely missed. Maathai was in New York at the time for the UN summit on climate change. There have been promises from the major industrialized nations, including China and the United States, to take action, she said, but they've mostly failed to follow through. She looked ahead to the Copenhagen summit with caution. Caution that proved disastrously well placed. In the last two years, the industrialized nations have slowed, not sped, their progress towards change. Maathai's death, as activists around the world marked "Moving Planet Day, a global mobilization "to move beyond fossil fuels" underscored what she taught, namely that action on climate change will be driven, not from the top, but from below. Plant a tree for Maathai?
Honoring Wangari Maathai
Sad news. Wangari Maathai passed away at a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, as a result of cancer. Here is her obituary, as written by Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times.
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
NAIROBI, Kenya — Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who started out by paying poor women a few shillings to plant trees and went on to become the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, died late on Sunday after battling cancer. She was 71.
Mrs. Maathai, one of the most famous and widely respected women on the continent, wore many hats — environmentalist, feminist, politician, professor, rabble-rouser, human rights advocate and head of the Green Belt Movement she founded. She was as comfortable in the gritty streets of Nairobi’s slums or the muddy hillsides of central Kenya as she was hobnobbing with heads of state. In 2004, she won the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Nobel committee citing “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” It was a moment of immense pride in Kenya and across Africa.
Mrs. Maathai toured the world, speaking out against environmental degradation and poverty — which she pointed out early on were intimately connected — but never lost focus on her native Kenya. She was a thorn in the side of Kenya’s previous president, Daniel Arap Moi, and when he finally stepped down after 24 years in power, she served as a member of parliament and as an assistant minister for a few years. But she soon fell out of favor with Kenya’s new leaders and lost her seat. In 2008, after being pushed out of government, she was tear-gassed by the police during a protest against the excesses of Kenya’s well-entrenched political class.
“Wangari Maathai was known to speak truth to power,” said John Githongo, an anticorruption campaigner in Kenya who was forced into exile for years for his own outspoken views. “She blazed a trail in whatever she did, whether it was in the environment, politics, whatever.”
Wangari Muta Maathai was born in 1940 in Nyeri, Kenya, in the foothills of Mount Kenya. She was a star student and won a scholarship to study biology at Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan. She went on to obtain a doctorate in veterinary anatomy, becoming the first woman in East or Central Africa to hold such a degree, according to the Nobel Prize Web site. In 1977, she formed the Green Belt Movement, which planted trees across Kenya to fight erosion and to create fuel (i.e., firewood) and jobs for women.
During the 1980s, the Kenyan government labeled the Green Belt Movement “subversive,” and Mrs. Maathai seemed to provoke a special scorn from Mr. Moi by leading the charge against a government plan to build a huge skyscraper in one of central Nairobi’s only parks. The skyscraper proposal was eventually scrapped, though not long afterward, during another protest, Mrs. Maathai was beaten unconscious by the police.
Home life was not easy either. Her husband, Mwangi, divorced her, saying she was too strong-minded for a woman. When she lost her divorce case and criticized the judge, she was thrown in jail. Still, throughout the years she managed to rack up honorary degrees and innumerable awards, including France’s Légion d’Honneur and Japan’s Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun.
Her Green Belt Movement has planted over 30 million trees in Africa and helped nearly 900,000 women, the United Nations said.
“Wangari Maathai was a force of nature,” said Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nation’s environmental program. He likened her to Africa’s ubiquitous acacia trees, “strong in character and able to survive sometimes the harshest of conditions.”
The Nobel committee hailed her for taking “a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular” and serving “as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights.”
Her battle with ovarian cancer was a surprise to many here in Nairobi. Her organization did not provide details but Kenyan media reported that she had been in the hospital for at least a week and had been suffering during the past year.
She is survived by three children, Waweru, Wanjira and Muta, and a granddaughter, Ruth Wangari, according to a statement from the Green Belt Movement. The organization said, “Her departure is untimely and a very great loss to all of us who knew her, as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model and heroine or those who admired her determination to make the world a peaceful, healthy and better place for all of us.”
On Monday, condolences flooded in from around the world.
Fellow Nobel winner Al Gore said “Wangari overcame incredible obstacles to devote her life to service — service to her children, to her constituents, to the women, and indeed all the people of Kenya — and to the world as a whole.”
During her Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Mrs. Maathai said the inspiration for her work came from growing up in rural Kenya. She reminisced about a stream running next to her home – that same stream has since dried up – and drinking fresh, clear water.
“In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other,” she said.
“That time is now.”
Andrew Revkin wrote this in Dot.Earth today:
Maathai is best known for creating the Green Belt Movement, which has planted tens of millions of trees around Kenya, but she also personified a positive strain of environmentalism that stands out in a world where “woe is me” messages dominate. Click on the video clip above for a sample.
Radu Sigheti/Reuters Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, center, in Nairobi in 2004.Her work centered on improving the lives of women, building a sustainable relationship between people and the land and education. Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her efforts. I encourage you to read the defense of her prize, which was criticized by some, from Anna Lappé and Frances Moore Lappé of the Small Planet Institute. Here’s a snippet:
Mrs. Maathai, one of the most famous and widely respected women on the continent, wore many hats — environmentalist, feminist, politician, professor, rabble-rouser, human rights advocate and head of the Green Belt Movement she founded. She was as comfortable in the gritty streets of Nairobi’s slums or the muddy hillsides of central Kenya as she was hobnobbing with heads of state. In 2004, she won the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Nobel committee citing “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” It was a moment of immense pride in Kenya and across Africa.
Mrs. Maathai toured the world, speaking out against environmental degradation and poverty — which she pointed out early on were intimately connected — but never lost focus on her native Kenya. She was a thorn in the side of Kenya’s previous president, Daniel Arap Moi, and when he finally stepped down after 24 years in power, she served as a member of parliament and as an assistant minister for a few years. But she soon fell out of favor with Kenya’s new leaders and lost her seat. In 2008, after being pushed out of government, she was tear-gassed by the police during a protest against the excesses of Kenya’s well-entrenched political class.
“Wangari Maathai was known to speak truth to power,” said John Githongo, an anticorruption campaigner in Kenya who was forced into exile for years for his own outspoken views. “She blazed a trail in whatever she did, whether it was in the environment, politics, whatever.”
Wangari Muta Maathai was born in 1940 in Nyeri, Kenya, in the foothills of Mount Kenya. She was a star student and won a scholarship to study biology at Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan. She went on to obtain a doctorate in veterinary anatomy, becoming the first woman in East or Central Africa to hold such a degree, according to the Nobel Prize Web site. In 1977, she formed the Green Belt Movement, which planted trees across Kenya to fight erosion and to create fuel (i.e., firewood) and jobs for women.
During the 1980s, the Kenyan government labeled the Green Belt Movement “subversive,” and Mrs. Maathai seemed to provoke a special scorn from Mr. Moi by leading the charge against a government plan to build a huge skyscraper in one of central Nairobi’s only parks. The skyscraper proposal was eventually scrapped, though not long afterward, during another protest, Mrs. Maathai was beaten unconscious by the police.
Home life was not easy either. Her husband, Mwangi, divorced her, saying she was too strong-minded for a woman. When she lost her divorce case and criticized the judge, she was thrown in jail. Still, throughout the years she managed to rack up honorary degrees and innumerable awards, including France’s Légion d’Honneur and Japan’s Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun.
Her Green Belt Movement has planted over 30 million trees in Africa and helped nearly 900,000 women, the United Nations said.
“Wangari Maathai was a force of nature,” said Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nation’s environmental program. He likened her to Africa’s ubiquitous acacia trees, “strong in character and able to survive sometimes the harshest of conditions.”
The Nobel committee hailed her for taking “a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular” and serving “as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights.”
Her battle with ovarian cancer was a surprise to many here in Nairobi. Her organization did not provide details but Kenyan media reported that she had been in the hospital for at least a week and had been suffering during the past year.
She is survived by three children, Waweru, Wanjira and Muta, and a granddaughter, Ruth Wangari, according to a statement from the Green Belt Movement. The organization said, “Her departure is untimely and a very great loss to all of us who knew her, as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model and heroine or those who admired her determination to make the world a peaceful, healthy and better place for all of us.”
On Monday, condolences flooded in from around the world.
Fellow Nobel winner Al Gore said “Wangari overcame incredible obstacles to devote her life to service — service to her children, to her constituents, to the women, and indeed all the people of Kenya — and to the world as a whole.”
During her Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Mrs. Maathai said the inspiration for her work came from growing up in rural Kenya. She reminisced about a stream running next to her home – that same stream has since dried up – and drinking fresh, clear water.
“In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other,” she said.
“That time is now.”
Andrew Revkin wrote this in Dot.Earth today:
Maathai is best known for creating the Green Belt Movement, which has planted tens of millions of trees around Kenya, but she also personified a positive strain of environmentalism that stands out in a world where “woe is me” messages dominate. Click on the video clip above for a sample.
Radu Sigheti/Reuters Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, center, in Nairobi in 2004.Maathai’s genius is in recognizing the interrelation of local and global problems, and the fact that they can only be addressed when citizens find the voice and courage to act. Maathai saw in the Green Belt Movement both a good in itself, and a way in which women could discover they were not powerless in the face of autocratic husbands, village chiefs and a ruthless president. Through creating their own tree nurseries – at least 6,000 throughout Kenya – and planting trees, women began to control the supply of their own firewood, an enormous power shift that also freed up time for other pursuits.[The writer Terry Tempest Williams sent this note by e-mail:
Then, through popular education, village women – who had watched public forests be used by the Moi regime to grant political favors – began to see forests differently, as something they, as citizens, had a claim to.
I met her when I was 28 years old in Kenya, she changed my life. She showed me what a powerful woman's voice not only sounded like, but felt like. And she taught me as we traveled through villages what interdependency is all about -- environmental issues are social issues are issues of social justice.]Maathai was not averse to speaking truth to power. John Vidal of The Guardian today recalls comments Maathai made on her first visit to England, in 1988:
Her fierce denunciation of the rich north, that day, was shocking: “The top of the pyramid is blinded by insatiable appetites backed by scientific knowledge, industrial advancement, the need to acquire, accumulate and over-consume. The rights of those at the bottom are violated every day by those at the top.”The Web site of her organization encourages well wishers to post thoughts on her Facebook page. They are welcome here, as well, of course.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Who Killed Economic Growth?
Here's a provocative video from Richard Heinberg, who, in his most recent book, The End of Growth, argues that we have come to an historic transition.
The publisher of The End of Growth puts it like this:
"Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.
Richard Heinberg’s latest[book] goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how and why it occurred, and what we must do to avert the worst potential outcomes. Written in an engaging, highly readable style, it shows why growth is being blocked by three factors:
The End of Growth describes what policy makers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth’s budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP."
Viewing the video alone will give you some food for thought.
The publisher of The End of Growth puts it like this:
"Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.
Richard Heinberg’s latest[book] goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how and why it occurred, and what we must do to avert the worst potential outcomes. Written in an engaging, highly readable style, it shows why growth is being blocked by three factors:
- Resource depletion
- Environmental impacts
- Crushing levels of debt
The End of Growth describes what policy makers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth’s budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP."
Viewing the video alone will give you some food for thought.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
A Robot that Flies Like a Bird
This TED Talk features new breakthroughs in dynamic propulsion and gliding, with a robot that simulates the motion of a bird. With new technology, will we overcome the limitations of the machines we build today and in the meantime make them more sustainable? Something to think about.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Jon Stewart Analyzes Fox News' "Fair & Balanced" Rhetorical Strategies
The sheer genius of Fox News posturing as a victim of liberal bias in the mainstream media is highlighted here by Jon Stewart. Just another great example of the power of rhetoric!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Jared Diamond on Climate Change
Climate Progress has posted a new video by Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, on the need to plan strategically to deal with climate change. Here's what Nick Sundt of Climate Progress tells us:
DIAMOND: There are so many societies in which the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run….
Similarly, in the United States at present, the policies being pursued by too many wealthy people and decision makers are ones that — as in the case of the Mayan kings — preserve their interests in the short run but are disastrous in the long run.
Jared Diamond, author of the bestseller “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” has a fascinating video discussion of climate change. Below is the video and a blog post on it by WWF’s Nick Sundt.
In a new video, Jared Diamond talks about climate change, drawing parallels between modern Americans and the Classic southern lowland Maya – who failed to take the actions that might have avoided the collapse of their civilization. However, unlike the Maya, we have the “unique opportunity” and capacity to “learn from remote places and to learn from places remote in time,” Diamond says. “And among all the things that might incline me towards pessimism, that is the biggest thing that in the end inclines me towards optimism.”
Diamond explains that energy and greenhouse gas emissions are among a dozen key groups of environmental problems that confront us and “we’ve got to solve them all.” In the case of climate change, he explains that we must not only slow its pace by reducing emissions, but we must prepare for its impacts and adapt. To some extent, we now are “stuck with it”:
“We have to do things to adapt to climate change such as – in California – planting olive trees rather than almond trees. Then there are things to do for wild plants and animals. What do we do about some chipmunk species living on top of a mountain in the Western United States that thrives on cold temperatures, and the mountain is getting warmer and warmer? So this cold habitat is gradually moving up towards the top of the mountain, and the cold habitat is gradually moving off into the sky where there aren’t any chipmunks. What do we do about all those plant and animal species that are threatened by climate change? …It’s going to require having some either new conservation areas; or species that are now being conserved in Yellowstone National Park will increasingly be getting conserved in Glacier National Park further to the North. In some cases it’s going to require actual transplanting that chipmunk on the top of a mountain rising out of the Great Basin. That chipmunk is going to have to be moved somewhere because that mountain is not going to be suitable for the chipmunk. “
In the interview, Diamond draws lessons from the Mayan experience:
“There are so many societies in which the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run. For example, the most advanced society in the New World before Columbus was the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala and Honduras. They ended up collapsing …. because of a combination of climate change, drought, water management problems, soil erosion, deforestation….So the Mayan kings had strong power.
Why didn’t the Mayan kings just look out the windows of the Palaces and see the forests getting chopped down, soil being eroded down at the valley bottom. Why didn’t the kings say `stop it’? Well the kings had managed to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions – in the short run. Even while the forests were being chopped down, they were still being fed well by the commoners, they were in their wonderful palaces. And the kings didn’t recognize that they were making a mess until it was too late, when the commoners rose in revolt.
Similarly, in the United States at present, the policies being pursued by too many wealthy people and decision makers are ones that — as in the case of the Mayan kings — preserve their interests in the short run but are disastrous in the long run.”
Will we go the way of the Maya? Diamond is hopeful that we will choose otherwise:
“Today, we have archeologists who tell us about the mistakes that the Maya and the Greenland Norse and the Anasazi made, and we also have archeologists who tell us about the good decisions that the Tokugawa Japanese and the Icelanders made. So we can learn from the past. And then we can turn on our television sets. We can see what it’s like in Somalia. We can also see what it’s like today in Norway or Bhutan. And we can decide: Do we like the lifestyle of Bhutan or do we like the lifestyle in Somalia? Which do we choose to emulate? We have this opportunity to learn from remote places and to learn from places remote in time. No other society in world history has had that advantage. And among all the things that might incline me towards pessimism, that is the biggest thing that in the end run inclines me towards optimism. We have this unique opportunity.”
In an earlier video (November 2009), Diamond framed the climate change threat in another compelling way, not by referring to earlier civilizations but by focusing on more immediate, personal concerns and priorities:
“We are working so hard for our children and grandchildren. All of us parents send our kids to school; we debate endlessly about whether our kids are in the right school. We draw up our wills, and maybe we draw up trusts. We buy life insurance. It’s all wasted if what we are propelling out kids into is a world not worth living in.”
– Nick Sundt
Online Resources:
Classic Maya Collapse. Wikipedia.
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