With knowledge comes responsibility

What is the point of learning about the world if we live for ourselves?  What the is point of research and of generating knowledge if we do not take what we learn to heart?

Scientists and engineers occupy a unique and powerful position in this culture, and they always have.  While kooks and quacks no doubt exist, scientists and engineers do important work in chemistry, atmospheric sciences, biology, physics, ecology, building and designing.  But if you're a scientist or engineer reading this, it is likely that you have been educated to (or at least told to) just doing the science and engineering, and leaving the decisionmaking that stems from it to others--policymakers, lawyers, businessmen, and politicians, many of whom do not have the best interests of people and nature at heart.  Scientists and engineers thus leave it to others, others who many not fully understand the implications of this knowledge, to decide what should be done about what we know, so scientists and engineers do not lose their "objectivity," so they do not cross the supposedly strict boundaries between scientific, reductionist research and the murky world of "values."

But in this glacier-melting, toxic tresspassing, obesity-inducing, mass-species-extinction, large corporate culture, scientists and engineers can no longer sit on the sidelines of decisionmaking.  Traditional means of scientific communication have led, for example, to politicians undermining and denying climate science (although in this episode of This American Life, it becomes clear that many politicians fully accept climate science, but just do not admit it).  Instead, given the incredible diversity of thought, skill, and knowledge they possess, scientists and engineers must take full responsibility for what they know and do, and that is to become front and center the faces of the radical social, political and economic change needed to align this culture and its laws with ecological holism and peace.

Fortunately, there are a handful of such brave men and women out there already, and Sandra Steingraber heads the list of courageous scientist activists.  A poet, essayist, author, environmentalist and ecologist, Steingraber has written extensively (in Orion magazine, among other places) about the links between industrial chemicals released into the environment and human health impacts, specifically cancer.  Recently, she has been intimately involved with the opposition to the extremely destructive practice of fracking, for which she was jailed.  In a conversation with Dick Gordon on The Story, Steingraber says,

In the absence of a powerful human rights movement behind the science, I don't think we can move this forward.  The world's most powerful industries are standing in our way.  And so I think science needs to be coupled with a kind of activism, similar to what we saw with [the] Civil Rights [Movement], similar to what we saw with the Abolitionist Movement.  And so, I feel inspired in the work that I do not just by the power of the data, whether it's on climate change, or on the growing evidence that we have linking childhood asthma to crummy air, [but also by how] Martin Luther King Jr. did what he did, and how my dad, at age eighteen, had to go off and fight global fascism even though at the time it looked like an overwhelming task...People under very desperate circumstances rose and said, "This is wrong." 

I carry around this German name, Steingraber, and my dad [was] also German...and what I learned from my dad was to not be a "good German."  If you see something is wrong because you have evidence, whether it is the kind of evidence that the French partisans had or whether it is evidence like I have as a biologist, we have a moral obligation to make sure that that evidence [leads to change].  You don't just say, "Here's the evidence," and that's your job, you're done.  But if nobody is coming to take the evidence and turn it into change, then you have to do that yourself.  It becomes your own responsibility. 

I hope to continue to develop these thoughts on the blog over the days and weeks to come; they formed an important part of my dissertation, and continue to be something I write about more academically.  I hope to translate more of that writing here.  I am sure many of you have thoughts on this very important issue, and I welcome them in the form of comments and even guest blog posts.  Until then, I encourage you to listen to Gordon's full conversation with Steingraber, which I have posted below.  You can also find the conversation on The Story's website, here.

Part 1 of Gordon's conversation with Steingraber.

Part 2 of Gordon's conversation with Steingraber.

Guest blog #28: Scott Wagnon's thoughts on population

(My last post generated a lot of activity on Facebook.  I also received an email from my labmate Scott Wagnon, whose detailed response to the post is below as a guest blog post.)

 

I feel as if Darshan downplayed the role population plays on environmental issues.  Where I wholeheartedly disagree with the unnamed professor (and I know Darshan does, too) is that race is a factor in the interconnection between the environment and population.  Environmental impact is something that is caused and felt by all age, race, gender and socioeconomic demographics.  I know and recognize that certain slices of the demographic pie contribute and/or are impacted more significantly than other slices, as Darshan mentioned in his post.  

 

From any perspective, it is just and right to advocate on behalf of people whose rights have been impacted, whose voice cannot reach a broad audience, or whose voice may not have the same impact as ourselves as wealthy, "educated" people.  But the simple fact remains that we--all of humanity--cannot have tens of billions of people consuming a few resources, as much as we--all of humanity-- cannot have a few people consuming tens of billions of resources.  Population control via family planning through various birth control options, abstinence, and education (see Darshan's post on the "entitlement" of having children, and the short discussion generated); increases in efficiency; and reduced consumption of resources are three equally important ways to reduce the impact of the choices we make.    

 

Those of us, such as Darshan and myself and likely you, who have been empowered with the means to make and enact such choices, should especially look at every aspect.  As Darshan pointed out in his post, wealthy, "educated" people--us--often consume the most.  (On a side note, I use "educated" because I wonder how smart we really are based on certain decisions that we make as a society... having to look no further than our collective treatment of the environment.)  If we--the large consumers, including myself :/--choose not to have large families, use less resources, and use resources more efficiently, we're fostering a culture where the environment is valued not as a commodity, but as something for all of humanity to enjoy.  We live in a finite world, so barring our expansion beyond this beautiful planet, all of humanity must always remain mindful that Earth can only sustain a finite population at even the smallest necessary levels of resource consumption.  We are all effectively one family altering our common home, for better or worse, through the choices we make.  I hope we all continue to make better choices.

 

~Scott Wagnon

Transforming the obligatory passage point

As you’ve probably noticed, the frequency of posts on this blog went from five per week to one (maybe two) per month over the past few months; I have been working on my dissertation, which I am glad to tell you I have just completed. (Well, it is bittersweet, really, because my not-so-well-kept secret is that I have loved graduate school; my advisor is an amazing woman.) And speaking of school, I wanted to elaborate a little bit more on the role and power of higher education in creating a changed culture, one that is aligned with being more ecologically holistic and socially just. As I have written about at length previously (here and here), the current higher education system continues to create students with cognitive bias those good at one thing and not many, all the while making vast amounts of money.

When we think of universities, we think of them as bastions of critical thinking and academic freedom. The (wishful) goal is that college is a place where naïve youth are transformed into active and engaged citizens…the University of Michigan modestly calls its students and alumni “The Leaders and Best”. But while my experience at the University of Michigan has served me well, I also feel that the University, and the higher education system more broadly, is doing a disservice to the families and students that are paying out of their noses to obtain a college degree. Grade inflation and not-too-rigourous course requirements basically mean that it takes a motivated student to get a valuable experience. Within the higher education system, it seems as though universities compete on the front of how employable to large industry and Wall Street their students are, how much corporate funding the universities receive, and how large their endowment coffers are (Michigan’s stands at several billion dollars). When it comes to graduate school, recent unionization efforts of graduate student research assistants have uncovered a whole host of unseemly student-advisor relationships; the point of research seems to be the professor’s ability to get more grants. Each one of these points I can elaborate on at length, which I will spare you from now.

During my defense, Andrew asked me about recommendations I had on how young engineers can align their work with the causes of social justice and ecological soundness, rather than with extractive industry and militarism…a complicated question for a dissertation defense…Of course, the first thing I thought of is…higher education…In reality, that’s how many debates end: “We’ve screwed things up, and it will be up to “the next generation” to get out of the messes of today. We must educate the next generation differently.” While it may seem that many of these words are empty and used lightly, I do believe that education reform stands the best chance of culturing people to be more concerned about social justice and ecological soundness. 

People from all over the world gather in a place like Ann Arbor; sprinkled and scattered widely, students, faculty and staff are now concentrated, and they are shaped and morphed by the education and educating process. The diploma students walk out with symbolizes the transformation. And once students leave, they leave for elsewhere; the students are scattered and sprinkled again. (Unfortunately, it is my impression that most students from Michigan go to one of four places: Chicago, San Francisco, Manhattan, and Boston, and not back to where they came from.) The best place for intervention in production is the factory. (How sad that mass production is an apt metaphor for higher education.) Higher education is an obligatory passage point in the modern world—without a degree, life can be difficult (and it may be difficult with a degree, too). In social science theory, an obligatory passage point is essentially a node in a social network of actors--in the creation of federal policy, the House and the Senate are obligatory passage points; in approving drugs for use, the FDA is an OPP...you get the gist. Therefore, one of the best chances the world stands for transformation is through the transformation of higher education. As students, I believe that we must demand an education that allows us to transform the structures that support unjust and ecologically degrading outcomes, not an education that keeps us entrenched in those structures. Indeed, that may be the best thing we as students can do for the next generation.

The Greenpeace Commons

I might be going out on a limb here, but most of me feels like I am not.

If you walk into the Dana Building on Central Campus, which houses the School of Natural Resources and Environment, you will notice that the student commons area is called the Ford Commons. Ford...the automotive corporation. Cognitive dissonance smacks me in the face so much so that I avoid turning my gaze to that part of the commons when I am there. 

I wonder, what if a school calling itself that of "natural resources and the environment" named its commons something like the Greenpeace Commons. How might that be received? What would that say about the intentions of the school?

To the (supposedly) "neutral" observer, I sense that putting the word "Greenpeace" anywhere sends a repulsive shiver up their spine. I mean, Greenpeace? Those "radical" environmentalists? Those people that claim that corporations are "ruining" the environment not only for us but for every human to come in the future, not to mention the non-human life and elements that make up complex ecology? If they are radical, they are clearly not "objective". And if they are not objective, then they lose all credibility...because we really like the idea of objectivity (when we agree with what the data mean for our lives, and if we don't then we say the "process" is wrong).

But on the same token, naming a gathering spot for students the Ford Commons is not neutral. First, it assumes that symbols are neutral, which they are clearly not. Symbols are representative, just like the Keystone XL pipeline would be a massive symbol of how deeply ingrained ecological and social degradation are in this culture. Second, and more importantly, it assumes that corporations, like Ford, are neutral and beneficent and magnanimous and respectful and fully concerned about ecological issues. It assumes that the F150, or F250, or F350, or any similarly massive vehicle can be owned by anyone, even if they have no recognisable need for something like it. It assumes that their concern for the environment is on par with their concern for money and power. While they may be concerned with the environment, and employ one or two people that try to keep the company in line with the legal regulations that currently exist, their concern for the environment is no where near the concern shown by a group like Greenpeace. What should the School of Natural Resources and Environment be concerned about? Money from corporations? Or what they teach to students?

This speaks to larger cultural and educational issues. Institutions and organisations like the University of Michigan, and its schools and colleges, thrive on corporate funding. A massive chunk of their multi-billion dollar endowments are invested in corporations, and thus, universities might never divest from corporations that profit from war-making and ecological degradation. As David Noble writes about in his tome America by Design, colleges like engineering colleges stemmed from corporate interest, and engineering curricula were determined from the outset by the interest of corporations; universities are their lifeblood.

Greenpeace is repulsive to people because what they advocate for is fundamentally against an ecologically degrading culture. But a small step to cultural change might be to change the name of the commons in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment to something else, to remind students that we are not here to protect Ford, but rather to protect the interests of groups that actually care--a more holistic, thoughtful, and sustaining future.

Education and expertise

It is no secret that education, or what is commonly thought of as it, changes us. Education has the capacity of changing our perspectives on human relationships, our interactions with the man-made parts of our world, as well as with the biophysical parts of our world. It changes, fundamentally, the way we think. In the hyper-specialised culture that has developed out of "competition" and industrialism, our education has become hyper-specialised, too. But there is one thing that I haven't really thought much about, and that's one reason why I love being around people that know so much about so many other things!

As Avik told me yesterday, there is a whole body of literature that has studied expertise. What has been particularly defining of the recent environmental movement, is that scientists have tried continually to raise awareness about the dire situations and scenarios we face with climate change and yet, we see very little mass acceptance of their findings in this country. There are several reasons for this. One, of course, is that people's lives, and what defines them, are fundamentally challenged because of what issues of the climate dictate we ought to do. Secondly, different people comprehend issues differently because of their cultural identities. Thirdly, and quite interestingly, those people that are aware of the issues actually view the world differently because of their "education." When I say education in the post, I mean the education that most of us think of--become a scientist, or a doctor, or engineer, or lawyer, or accountant, or whatever.

As we become more and more educated, while we are exposed to more and more things, we also bin ourselves more and more in our worldview. As I said previously, when you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail. Therefore, the more educated we become, the more we forget about what it was like to be uneducated, or what it is like to be educated differently. What this can result in then is a loss of capacity to communicate with those that are different than you. As a scientist, it may be entirely obvious to you that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to global warming, increasing hormones in water leads to hermaphroditic frogs, increasing the efficiency of something doesn't lead to decreased overall consumption of it. How do we explain to those that aren't experts? How much danger is there in being experts? Many have talked about the guardianship model of policy-making, in which 'experts' in a 'field' are given full responsibility to decide the course of actions that need to be taken about something--those that 'know' about health insurance decide national health insurance policy. This, of course, comes at the expense of so-called 'democracy'.

In the environmental movement, it would do us well if we are able to relate to those that do not accept what we say, to those that are not 'experts' in pollution or deforestation or fracking. We must be able to have the capacity to think like those that don't agree with us, so that maybe we can communicate with them in ways that are more approachable to them. More thoughts on the expertise literature to come.

Opening spaces for ourselves

Honestly, I am pretty tired (for now, at least...but I don't think I will be rejuvenated any time soon) of talking about the role of "government", "industry" and "education" to addressing the problems we face. We always hear from the industrial and corporate world, "Well, if the governments only did this, this and this, things would be okay," or "We need to deregulate," and so on and so forth. Government, on the other hand is dependent on the private sector more than ever before, whether it is for election campaign expenditures, taxes, war machinery, or whatever. Education seems to be the default answer to everything...and it's true. I do not disagree with that. Education (which to me means at bare minimum being equipped with knowledge and communication, cultural, analytical and critical skills that we can distill into critiques, appreciation, and wisdom to advocate for change, take action, tear down oppressive systems and forge ones, big or small, based more humane and ecologically sensitive values, and being able to live at peace with ourselves, our families, and communities...and not just something that provides us with a resume so that we can get a job...it is clear that this isn't what our government thinks of the role of education) seems to be the default fallback for all conversations: "If we only educate people differently, or better, things will change." Well, no duh. But education and changes to it also take time to unfold, all the while while ecosystems are being destroyed, waters polluted, and more and more people getting obese by eating shitty food.

And so, I hear this government/industry/education discussion all the time...and barely anything changes. For example, let's talk about something that we all relate to--food. You all probably know or have heard of Jamie Oliver, the sustainable and healthy food advocate from Essex. His awesome work and efforts have won him great recognition and publicity--a TV show, and the 2010 TED Prize. I encourage you to watch his talk below.



Oliver is energetic and passionate. Watching his talk makes you want to jump up and do something. Oliver has done a tremendous job at figuring out systemic problems in food production and service in the US and elsewhere, and has talked passionately about how government and corporations need to change. In response, he gets something like this: "Tomato sauce on pizza is a vegetable, says Congress." Now, I don't want to hear about the lobbies, about government intervening in our lives, and such. We all know about this. And so given this mess, what can we do? How can we open spaces for ourselves to create movements, change or tear down "the system", find the chinks in the armor? I am inspired by JR, a photographer, graffiti artist, activist, and winner of the 2011 TED Prize. Watch his amazing talk below.



There seems to be something so unique and different and exciting about JR's approach to awareness and engagement. It seems that his approach touches at something deep and fundamental and raw. And clearly, he is changing communities, and the world. I wonder, how can we jump on a different wagon of engagement and activism, rather than the same, old approaches that always seem to get diluted?

What are we being educated for?

Part of my dissertation work is about whether or not engineers think any differently about issues of the environment now than they did a century or so ago, and how these changes (or non-changes) affect technological development. But first, I must ask, What fundamentally drives technological development? The answers are not surprising--materialism, industrialism, and profit. Sure, many might say that technology and the role of the engineer is fundamentally for the good of human beings--to decrease mortality, to combat disease, to provide electricity, to supply clean drinking water. Okay...But, how did the profession of engineering come into being?

As David Noble paints beautifully in his book America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism, the engineering profession as we know it today stemmed from the rise of modern industrial capitalism, and the need for engineers to fill the matrix of large industrial bureaucracies and corporations. Noble writes:

Modern technology, as the mode of production specific to advanced industrial capitalism, was both a product and a medium of capitalist development. So too, therefore, was the engineer who personified modern technology. In his work he was guided as much by the imperatives that propelled the economic system as by the logic and laws of science. The capitalist, in order to survive, had to accumulate capital at a rate equal to or greater than that of competitors. And since his capital was derived ultimately from the surplus product of human labor, he was compelled to assume complete command over the production process in order to maximize productivity and efficiently extract this product from those who labored for him. It was for this reason that mechanical devices and scientific methods were introduced into the workshop. It was for this reason also that the modern engineer came into being. From the outset, therefore, the engineer was at the service of capital, and, not surprisingly, its law were to him as natural as the laws of science. If some political economists drew a distinction between technology and capitalism, that distinction collapsed in the person of the engineer, and in his work, engineering. (page 28)

Noble points out how engineering curriculum development was guided by the needs of industry and in antagonism to the classical colleges' curricula. I find today that the bulk of engineering education is still focused on the needs of industry, and not that of thinking about when technical solutions to problems are appropriate. In my engineering education, there is very little mention of what it means to be an engineer, and how we must deal with the responsibility and authority that is given to us. And so, I wonder, are we still being educated to serve as fodder for ecologically and humanistically violent corporations? I believe so, and Rebecca believes that corporations thrive on young blood.

But this doesn't necessarily concern engineering. It concerns all of "higher education." And so I ask, What are we being educated for? Are we being educated to be an informed citizenry? A citizenry that can be critical of policies and actions? A citizenry that will speak up when something critical will be said? Or, are we being educated to be consumers, free to speak only when nothing critical has to be said, free to have "jobs" when they are in line with the broader values of government and industry? What do you think your education has meant to you? Has it prepared you to be a leader, to change social norms, to fight injustice, to be peaceable, to be thoughtful, to be caring, to be holistic, to be critical? Or has you education prepared you to be another cog in a vast machine?

Educating "sustainable" individuals

DJ Ferguson is a teacher at Chelsea High School here in southeast Michigan, and is an incredibly inspiring individual. He filled the amphiteatre at the Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor yesterday with vigour, passion, and enthusiasm when he gave a talk for TEDxNicholsArboretum. The theme of the conference was Actions and Reactions, and was focused on how to change the decisions we make that are inevitably degrading the environment not only for future generations (of everything), but also degrading our lives, here and now.

To that end, DJ Ferguson talked about the importance of creating "sustainable" individuals. The choices we need to be making, the changes we need to be advocating for, the emotions we must have invested in this spiritual journey must be embodied and articulated in teaching and education. Instead, as DJ mentioned, the education we promote is one focused on scores, and one in which there is no emotional investment in what we learn. The process of learning itself is void of any play, of any creativity, of any end other than the grade, the job, the money. There is no money to be made in education, and so of course the government and private institutions neglect the importance of truly critical and questioning individuals. (They probably don't want critical individuals, anyway. Look at how the government and the finance sectors have responded to the Occupy Wall Street movement.) This makes me think about how Wendell Berry has written about the mindless slavery of industrialisation and capitalism.

According to DJ, most everything about how we educate people is counter to the creation of sustainable individuals. First, in no way is learning balanced between mind and body. To him, there is an excessive focus on mind (and mindless) education, and almost none focused on the body. Therefore, it is not surprising to see ever increasing body image issues and diseases, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Second, the motivators for education are always the end goal, or are external motivators. For example, we go to college so that we can get a job, or we go to college so that we please our parents. It is like being paid a hundred dollars to push a button again and again and again and again. If we were internally motivated, however, we would see that education is not an end goal, but a process of constant thinking, of constant learning, of constant criticism, of constant enjoyment. Education is then a spiritual journey that knows no bounds, hopefully leading to an understanding that we live in a physically limited world, but one in which our love and emotions can continue to grow. Thirdly, the education we promote is decidely unintegrated with the greater world. We are tested in isolation, we sit indoors, no longer under trees as students learned in ancient India. But as with most everything we do, our actions unfold in contexts larger than the testing room, larger than the classroom.

I highly recommend watching his talk when it is put online. I will be sure to post it.

Furthering what's best and forestalling what's worst

How wonderful that quote from Mark Slouka is! It is the quote that I ended my last post with. I was just thinking about how it encapsulates fully the dilemmas we face as we move forward with addressing issues of the environment, culture, society, and justice. He said that we need "...men and women capable of furthering what's best about us and forestalling what's worst."

Slouka comes to the table from the position of an educator and a strong proponent of humanities education. He makes some fascinating points in a recent Harper's Magazine article titled Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school. But regardless of what position he comes from, and what he is advocating for in particular in the article (which is actually incredibly expansive and provocative), his statement is almost axiomatic. It speaks to me at a level that is very deep, touching on ethics, touching on greed, touching on power, touching on the good work that people are doing, touching on the forces at play that keeps that good work from being recognised. What I believe it says, partly, is the following--that there is something in most all of us that can be tapped into to cause introspection and reflection about the choices we are making as individuals and as a collective, and that the culture and society we live in have definitely not lived up, even partly, to the ideals they pay lip service to.

I have not written much about education explicitly on this blog (maybe once), although I have alluded to education by writing about dialogue and conversation, features necessary in a critical education. Education comes in many forms, and the idealist in me hopes that education never ends for anyone, anywhere. Of course, this isn't the case, with many public examples of people being uninterested in open dialogue, standing resolute in their beliefs in the face of well-founded facts. Regardless, the wisdom of what's best about us, and the knowledge of what's worst about us, a continuing education, that is, comes only from an openness of mind, the ability to accept that some things just aren't working, and the fortitude to expose the deficiencies in social norms, as I wrote in my last post.

Collin said to me today her vegetarianism can seem like a judgement on non-vegetarianism. To me, it is a judgement, because really, every decision we make is a judgement, and any critical thought stems from a judgement we make about norms and values. It takes fortitude to stick to these judgements, and it takes mettle to continually have the discussions provoked because of them. Only then will we able to expose what is best about us, and what is worst about us.

The modification of engineering

As an engineer, we are taught to "solve problems." These problems are generally created by 1) a perceived lack of functioning of a system ("build another road so traffic can be mitigated"), 2) the never-ending quest for improved efficiency, 3) a social myopia that leads to the creation of objects that just don't fit context and are thus destructive (many examples of this are evident in health care). Yet in the end, what engineers do is create objects - objects that try to defy gravity, objects that span nature, objects that destructively use nature, and objects that have serious social and cultural implications (just like the bridge that is being proposed here in Detroit that I have written about in these past few days).

There are a couple of key issues that go almost completely unaddressed in the traditional engineering curriculum - 1) problem definition and 2) the implications of the approach used to solve the problem. Generally, when working for a big company, the orders for what to do come from above. It is the young engineer's job to obey and work on the given problem, many times without context. Indeed, the definition of what the problem really is is generally narrow and focused, and much of the writings on this blog have been about this reductionism. 

In the general engineering curriculum (you can see the University of Michigan's undergraduate aerospace engineering curriculum here), you can see that there is little if any thought about the implications of engineering, and the responsibility that comes with being given the power of such knowledge. In my time at the University, not a mention has been made of the ways in which knowledge can be or should be used. Without an understanding and thoughtfulness of what it means to create and modify, young engineers can be swayed easily into creating destructive objects - people are involved in the creation of toxic chemicals for warfare and polluting industrial processes. Furthermore, many engineers are given very little skills in seeing what they can do with what we have invested in already. The work environment always pushes towards the use of the new and the untouched, which results in destructive extraction from nature. 

Now while some work is being done to address these issues at the University, it is my experience that engineering is a very conservative field. Students are not taught to be critical readers or radical thinkers. If we are to move toward a more sustainable future, several things will need to be done. Engineers must be taught to see underlying themes to the issues facing us, rather than superficially addressing problems arising far downstream from the source. Ethical considerations must move beyond just the professional - issues of justice must be considered. Engineers should design and build only in the situations that necessitate them and should design and build by thinking of how what they are building may be disassembled easily and reassembled to meet any future needs - this might be called "the engineering of modification."