AASHE’s ‘Higher Education Occupation’ Project

The Occupy Movement should give true sustainability advocates reason for hope. Sustainability isn’t just about cleaning up our environmental act, but about building a new society that respects peopleand planet. Sustainability happens when Earth justice meets social justice. At the core of this new society must rest equal access to higher education for all, no matter what their background or wealth. Occupy the so-called ‘Ivory Tower!’ Demand publicly-funded, affordable education.

-Justin Mog

Occupy UC Santa Cruz

Read more and see pictures from the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education’s blog post at “AASHE’s ‘Higher Education Occupation’ Project.”

Occupy UC Santa Cruz is planning the following:

What: Occupy Education UCSC Campus Shutdown
When: Thursday, March 1st – Rallies at 12pm and 5pm
Where: UCSC Main Campus Entrance, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz 95064
What: Thousands of students, faculty, staff, and community members rallying in support of public education from K-UC.

The problems in California’s education system affect everyone, not just current students. The K-12 students of today are the UC students of the future, and the price tag for a college education is increasing, while vital services are simultaneously cut. We are asking for support of the Santa Cruz community, and hope you will join us in the activities planned over the course of the day. We are doing everything possible to ensure that this action will be safe for all participants, especially children. Aside from emergency vehicles, faculty and family student housing, health services, and psychological services, all other vehicles will be denied campus entry on that day.

On that same day, we will put forward a Tent University, an alternative vision of education to counter the agendas imposed by the UC Regents and other corporate elites. This alternative Free University will include outdoor classes, educational workshops, music, poetry, speeches, food, world cafe discussion, and a space to have conversations about ways forward. The Tent University will be an open setting at the base of campus for students, teachers, and community members to peacefully teach and learn together. All interested in teaching can contact organizers about scheduling a space by email (tentucsc@gmail.com) or on the strike website (http://march1strikeucsc.org/). Donations for food and materials are greatly appreciated and can be made through the website.

The events taking place on March 1st at UCSC will also serve as a stepping-stone towards a statewide mass mobilization to the state capitol in Sacramento on Monday, March 5th to shut down the political nervous system of the 8th largest economy in the world. On the 5th, students & teachers will travel to Sacramento to rally with more than 10,000 of our peers from other UC’s, CSU’s, community colleges, and K-12 schools. We encourage any interested parties to take advantage of free bus transportation (sponsored by the Re-Fund California Coalition) to Sacramento to participate in this historic action.

Peak Oil and Transportation Alternatives

I’m a bike commuter.  I’ve said it and I’m proud.  Earthstonstation has a new post about why single-occupancy cars are such a bad idea for the future, with some important updates about Peak Oil and the folly of putting hope in new sources like tar sands:

The era of cheap oil is over. Are you making any preperation for your future transportation needs? The  International Energy Association claims crude oil output peaked in 2006. “All the easy oil and gas in the world has pretty much been found. Now comes the harder work in finding and producing oil from more challenging environments and work areas” according to William J. Cummings, Exxon-Mobil’s official spokesman.  Lord Ron Oxburgh, former CEO of Shell Oil says, ” It is pretty clear that there is not much chance of finding any significant quantity of new cheap oil. Any new or unconventional oil is going to be expensive”.

Some would have you believe that peak oil was a myth and is no longer a concern now that new types of oil are available in the Athabasca Oil Sands of western Canada, the Green River Shale Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming plus the Orinoco Belt of Venezuela. Joe Carroll wrote this headline for the Bloomberg news service on Feb. 6th 2012 ” Peak Oil Scare Fades as Shale, Deepwater Wells Gush Crude“. He goes on to say “Two decades and four energy crises later, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that more than 2 trillion barrels of untouched crude is still locked in the ground, enough to last more than 70 years at current rates of consumption”. Whoopie! problem solved, 70 years worth of oil. Tell that to your grandchildren. Oh by the way what is the projected rate of consumption when considering the developing economies of China, India and others?

Earthstonstation has nailed some of the critical questions, but leaves out the social and environmental costs of accessing this remaining oil and continuing to release it’s fossil carbon into the atmosphere.  I also just watched the superb  2007 film A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (reviewed here and here).   We can’t keep this up much longer; we are already living in the “Age of Consequences,”  and the ride is likely to get much bumpier from here.

I disagree a little with Earthstonestation’s suggestion to get one of those infernal-combustion kit bikes.  Why burn gas, when electric motors can be so much more efficient, and oh-so-much quieter?  My electric bike has the advantage of being a very smooth ride, and VERY quiet. I got it 8 years ago (almost to the day), and it’s still my commute ride about 90% of the time. True, I’m fortunate enough to live in Santa Cruz county, which has a lovely California costal climate and a relatively bike-aware populace, but I am LAZY, and I still haven’t given it up.

Mine’s a Synergy Cycle from Electric Sierra, and the heavy old clunker of a thing can still do 12 miles between charges.  I think it cost me $800, minus a couple hundred because of an incentive the wonderful folks at Ecology Action were offering at the time. It probably costs less than $0.04 per mile to charge it, and when I have a place where I can install solar and/or wind, it won’t even have that electricity as a carbon footprint.  Newer models are lighter and go much longer on a charge, and many cost far less than a high-end non-motorized street bicycle.  Pedal when you can (it’s good for you), electrify when you don’t wanna sweat!

Honestly, I think a much bigger hurdle than the pedaling is the fear. Riding is scary – worse in some towns than others – because of all those big four-wheeled things.   I’m used to feeling like my life is in jeopardy once or twice a day.  It’s kind of like living with grizzly bears might have been.  Sometimes I think I should adopt the nickname “Dances With Busses,” since they move at about the same pace as me while we weave in and out of bike lanes should I happen to coincide with one.

Painful Topics: Primate Conservation

I realize that the title of my blog probably makes some think that I’d be talking about non-human primates a bit more.  But, despite the fact that I could be called an expert on them, I find it very difficult to devote much time or thought to these creatures that I love.  It simply hurts way too much.

Bonobo (Pan paniscus) - photo by FJ White

I went to Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) to study female cooperation among bonobos in 1996.  I had to leave after a couple months, in part because a civil war was brewing (it continues to simmer).  War is bad for any primate that’s unwittingly caught in the middle – for large monkeys and apes in Africa, it means an increased threat of poaching as well-armed mauraders move through their habitats.  In Congo, a lot of the money that keeps the war going comes from coltan – essentially, people like us buying electronic gadgets.

Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii) - photo by M Merrill

So I changed my research topic to social learning in orangutans, and went to Sumatra in 1999.  While I was there, one of the research sites where I lived was being logged illegally.  I wrote letters and set up a website about it, but I wasn’t able to do much to stop it.  I somehow managed to get through analyzing what data I had and get my dissertation done in 2004, and I haven’t really been involved in primate research since.  The wounds just never healed right.

I face the pain from this every semester when I come to the place in the Introduction to Biological Anthropology classes I teach where I have to talk about my research and primate conservation.  It’s always a hard week.

Now I’ve been asked to co-present on great ape conservation with some of my colleagues at Cabrillo College, so I’m facing it at least twice this semester.  This also necessitated putting together some resources (though Renee found more of them) – I’ve posted those here: Great Ape Conservation.

I keep hoping someday this will get easier, it will hurt less so I can do more, but the news keeps getting worse.  So I try to focus on the things I can do here, just simple stuff like changing the entire culture of consumerism that is driving the destruction.

Wish me luck!

Uniting Against “Citizens United”

Money is not speech

corporations are not people

January 21st is the second anniversary of the ridiculous “Citizens United v. FEC” ruling by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court.  I highly recommend Annie Leonard’s Story of Citizens United v. FEC video:

It is time – as it is always time – to help the people of this country wake up to the fact that money is not speech and corporations are not people.  Events, activists and organizations across the nation are attempting to do just that:

• Occupy San Francisco is working to shut down the financial district today “to draw attention to the choices that many of these banks, corporations, institutions, and the courts have made (and continue to make) that created (and maintain) the economic inequality that is devastating the lives of so many families in our community, and in our world. It does not have to be this way.”
• Satirist Stephen Colbert shines a spotlight on the insanity with his Jon Stewart’s “Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert SuperPAC“.
• United for the People has listings of actions across the country to “…[focus] America’s attention on the dangerous influence of corporate power in our democracy and the urgency of taking all necessary measures to undo that influence, including amending the Constitution. “
• Another listing of actions for Friday, January 20th: Occupy the Courts
  
• Move to Amend is an organization specifically dedicated to creating a constitutional amendment that would undo the Citizens United decision and end the fiction of corporate personhood:

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

Californias Higher-Education Disaster – The Chronicle of Higher Education

…budget cuts caused enrollment in California community colleges to decline by over 400,000 students. That’s more than the total number of undergraduates enrolled in the entire California State University system.

Californias Higher-Education Disaster – Brainstorm – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

One of the concerns I have about the way we think about higher education in this country is the question of who it serves.  Popular rhetoric suggests that colleges are there to serve students, and the more business-minded the college administration is, the more likely they are to frame college as a place that serves students as customers, and that emphasizes student outcomes (usually in terms of graduation rates and sometimes subsequent job placement).  As teachers, we’re expected to be motivated to promote student success, and be rewarded by our interactions with students (since we certainly can’t expect to be rewarded financially in keeping with our workload and level of expertise).

Honestly, however, it’s not the individual students that we are serving.  We are serving society.  We are serving the future.  The people who have to live in the world our students create have almost as much stake in educational outcomes as our students.  They may not get the direct benefit of the improved employment opportunities, but the world that we all live in is shaped by the number of educated people, and the quality and intent of that education.  What technologies will be developed, what policies will be made, what new businesses will be created… these things are largely the domain of people with post-secondary education.

So when we get a statistic like an enrollment drop of 400,000 in California, we have to be clear that we are narrowing the idea pool for the future.   It’s not just that we’re serving 400,000 fewer “customers,” we are changing the capacity of our state to innovate.  We are responding to current budget crises by reducing our intellectual resilience as a community.

Marine Debris from 2011 Japan Tsunami

Shortly after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, I mentioned the concern about what would happen as all that stuff moved out into the Pacific.  See video below for a summary of NOAA’s recent work on this issue:

11 Holiday Gift Programs That Benefit Nonprofits and Make the World A Better Place :: 2011 Edition « Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog :: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits

While my favorite shopping option is Buy Nothing Day (followed closely, in at least two senses, by Buy Local Day - I succeeded with both this year), there are often a few people that we wish to get gifts, but we don’t want to burden with ever-more meaningless stuff.

This list has a nice mix of stuff-less-ness and stuff that at least helps someone and means something:

11 Holiday Gift Programs That Benefit Nonprofits and Make the World A Better Place :: 2011 Edition « Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog :: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits.

Pre-OCCUPIED

So much going on with the Occupy movement… I’m afraid all I can manage is a a few quick bytes:

What kind of pie?  OCCUPY!

It has just the right amount of absurd, silly nonsensical-ness to it that it suits this movement well.  In trying to explain why I thought this movement is so important, I realized that Occupy is a bit like the “uncarved block” from Zen teaching.  We don’t know what we’re doing, and we’re okay with it.  More importantly, it is only from this state of “beginner’s mind” that we can ever hope to learn and discover something truly new about how to live in this society.  Or as the Na’vi say:

Lu ngäzìk fwa teya sivi tsngalur a lu li teya.
It is hard to fill a cup which is already full.

Keith Olberman had an important point in his overblown rant about Bloomberg.  With the crackdowns and police brutality in NYC, Oakland, Seattle, Berkeley, and elsewhere, I’m reminded of what Gandhi (purportedly) said:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Not that we’ll win tomorrow, but clearly we’re getting closer.

Green lifestyle choices won’t solve the climate problem | Grist

This article clearly makes the argument that the efforts put into going even greener individually are much less effective than efforts to promote changes at larger systems levels:

Setting an example by doing some simple, logical things to reduce an individual environmental footprint is wonderful. But ultimately, we will not make up, through private spending or lifestyle changes, for the fact that we currently dont invest enough in public goods. Nor will we privately make up for the fact that much of our public spending is directed to the wrong public goods.

via Green lifestyle choices won’t solve the climate problem | Grist.

The one critical argument the author could also have made is the vast imbalance in the purchasing power  and therefore the ability and impact of personal decisions of the 1% compared to the 99%.

Now, I’m not going to start driving or eating corn-fed beef.  I’m still going to try to air dry my clothes whenever the weather and time permits, and tend the worms that eat my food scraps.  Perhaps I should try to get over my guilt when I have to bum a ride, or buy something packaged, but I know the world is still a better place if individuals keep doing the right thing.

Sometimes a little take-out or a plastic tarp gives an activist the personal energy for the big struggle.  The important thing is to continue to support the people who are working for the right things, even if they sometimes can’t maintain every ideal.  So I try to feel good about working with the parents who spend hours in their minivans to drive their kids to a half-dozen activities and lessons every day, because they do also help the more important work at the social level get done.  And I’m not gonna beat myself up for getting a pizza delivered now and again, and I’ll try to keep my guilt-tripping over new electronics purchases to a minimum (after all, we buy and turn over our stuff at a much slower pace than many people I know).  Yes, Gandhi said “be the change you want to see in the world,” but not everyone can be Gandhi all the time (probably not even Gandhi).

The system as it’s currently operating often makes doing the right thing extra difficult, excessively time-consuming, and occasionally dangerous.   It’s the mass movements that can bring about the big shifts we need to transform the culture into something viable for the coming century.

Occupy Gaia!

One example and a beautiful image

of the power and importance of the feminine in the global shift taking place:

OCCUPY! GAIA RISING! – ALEX NOBLE – Occupy!.

And, if we’re thinking global, check out