Author Archives: Nikki

Activism, the rent for living on earth

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Last Saturday’s talk held by Esmeralda started with each of naming the social issue that has the most significance to us. On of the questions that was the most interesting to me was that whether movements were meant to die? In my opinion a movement never gains all that it aims for since there are a lot people resistant to changes and inequalities always exist within a society. Therefore, members of a movement have to be constantly fighting for their ideas. There was this  quote from Alice Walker “Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet that Esmeralda mentioned which illustrates better how all of us have a responsibility of fighting for our rights.

One of the other questions that was brought up was about the effectiveness of leadership. The common belief is that when movements which have known leaders have a higher chance of achieving their goals. However, in my belief leadership is not the most important issue since in many instances the identities of leaders has prevented them from acting further. The only thing that matters is that people should feel an urgency around an issue so that they rouse to action. Again there was this quote mentioned about how movements become more effective around a sense of urgency:  “The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.”

Overall, I liked the talk a lot and I wish there would be more events which focus on discussing social issues.

More about soil

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In this Rose Café, Dr Dawit Solomon who is researcher of plant science at Cornell gave a talk about the importance of soil. As a person who has not taken a Biology course since high school, I felt that I learned a lot of interesting facts about soils.

I never knew that 25% carbon in the atmosphere is contained by soil and how it affects global warming. What was also more interesting to learn about was that how evidence was found that some civilizations had developed material that enriches soil.  At the end Dr Solomon spoke about his research in developing material that keeps Carbon contained in soil and Professor Blalock brought a sample of Dr Solomon’s product which other than reducing the Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also enriches the soil with other ingredients.

Is humor the way to get more people to become environmentally friendly?

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Professor Sachs’ discussion on the role of comedy in the environmental movement was both fun and thought-provoking. Sachs observes that some of the best American comedy has arisen as “gallows comedy” in the face of difficult circumstances. The environmental crisis surely seems like a difficult circumstance and the question is why there isn’t more humor about it. Another key observation is that in many cases our minds are more receptive to changing our views through effective comedy versus through a serious discussion of potential tragedies. This is partly because comedy makes abstract things more concrete for us, and also because our minds have a tendency of forgetting tragic events and stories. And yet, this aspect is also not being seized upon by environmentalists. It’s not that there are no comedies about environmentalists. For example, we watched a Richard Pryor clip where he portrays the Sierra Club’s charter to save mountain sites so middle class white people could go hiking there on weekends. Or a dark-comedy clip (by The Onion) that discusses making the Iraq war more eco-friendly, ignoring the atrocities of war and focusing on killing humans in an eco-friendly way. Nevertheless, comedy by environmentalists about environmental issues remains quite rare.
I certainly believe that more comedy can play an important role in raising awareness about environmental issues. After all, we are a nation where the most serious news topics are consumed through late-night comedy programs. Given the high value we (unfortunately) give to entertainment over substantive discourse, it seems quite plausible that delivering the message on complex topics such as global warming is best done through entertainment and comedy. However, I do believe there is an important aspect of environmental issues that makes it more difficult for us to grasp, regardless of whether it is conveyed through comedy or serious discourse. As part of the way we have evolved, we are good at perceiving things that happen in the timescale of seconds to several years. And in an analogous manner, we have great difficulty comprehending the impact of slow changes that take a much longer period of time (this includes imagining slow evolutionary or geological processes that lead to huge changes after millions of years). This issue about perception of slow changes is likely one of the key reasons environmental issues have not been as top-of-mind for us as say race issues (which has a whole host of gallows comedy associated with it). The only somewhat tragic silver lining is that environmental change is speeding up and the timescale at which we can see drastic and catastrophic change is getting to be much more near-term and hence perceivable. So that will likely be what will end up making the issues much less abstract for all of us. And whether it is through comedy or serious discourse, we will be much more likely to change our behavior as a result.

How our views have changed about melancholy

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Sarah Schlemm discussed the rich history of melancholy based on her PhD research on Renaissance literature. The word melancholy derives from Greek “melaina khole” meaning “black bile”, from the belief that an excess of black bile caused this state. Today, we define melancholy as “a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause”. Sarah gave various examples of melancholy in literature like Hamlet and in movies like Vertigo.
The most fascinating observation that occurred to me is that sadness, depression, and melancholy are considered as quite negative in our current western culture that seeks joy and happiness at all times. It seems to me that even though historically melancholy was considered as an imbalance, people likely also better understood some natural or positive aspects of melancholy. This is not to say that old superstitions such as someone being possessed (or even the concept of black bile) are better than our current scientific understanding of extended periods of sadness or depression. But more along the lines that pensive thoughtful sadness can have redeeming aspects such as more deeply grappling with issues and dealing with root causes; in contrast to the superficial approach we have today since we feel we need to to joyful and happy at all times and may avoid spending the required time to deeply think about uncomfortable issue). Or along the lines that contrast of sad and happy are important for us to truly enjoy our moments of happiness. We all naturally want to be joyful, happy, and full of energy all the time. We shouldn’t forget that a little dose of pensive sadness can give us more clear perspectives about our lives and also our place in the cosmos, and help us live and enjoy every day to our fullest potential.

What to do with those who Dream for a better future?

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Esmeralda Arrizon-Palomera’s presentation opened my eyes to the challenges that undocumented youth face in our country. The DREAM Act (short for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) was a bill in Congress that would have granted legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and went to school here. Although several versions of the bill have been introduced in Congress since 2001, it has unfortunately never passed. The term DREAMer originally took its name from the bill in Congress, but it has a positive double meaning about the undocumented youth who have big hopes and dreams for a better future.

 

DREAMers came the US at a young age, typically don’t have a clear consciousness about passing the border illegally, and as minors they did not do so based on their own free will. As undocumented immigrants, they face immense and persistent challenges in avoiding deportation, applying for scholarships to continue their education, and later on applying for jobs. The goal of the proposed DREAM Act has been to provide these youth with a path (albeit arduous) to become educated and legal citizens who can further contribute to our society.
As with any issue concerning immigration, such reforms are fought hard by opponents who argue against any perceived rewards for illegal behavior. And in this big debate, it is easy to forget that DREAMers are hardworking people who dream of a better future and are continuously striving and struggling for it. And even criminalizing their parents for having illegally cross the border may miss the fact that they were the ones who were aiming for a better future for their children. All of this is further evidence for me that we should deeply question our current immigration policies. Even though the issues are clearly quite complex and politically divisive, it behooves us to craft better policies that allows those who strive for the American dream to achieve it with more dignity and less strife.

Better technology or logical reasoning don’t necessarily change our behavior for the better!

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Immersed in technology and studying in an intellectual environment, it is too easy for many of us to feel that knowledge and technology are the panacea for the human race to lead healthier lives and to protect the ecosystems that the life of our species so very much depends on. Professor Blalock’s discussion on “Barriers to Adoption” did a great job of educating me about issues as economic or social aspects that can stand in the way of progress, and helped me clearly understand that the desired outcome will likely be out of reach unless those issues are also intentionally dealt with.

 

Even though Professor Blalock’s discussion was on “why technology isn’t helping the poor”, he astutely started the conversation with something closer to home that affects our own lives. He asked us about environmental issues, and specifically whether we believe global warming will be impacting us in the next few generations. And we had clear agreement in the audience that global warming will impact us. He then pointed out that more eco-friendly vehicles like the Prius can help reduce global warming, and asked why we aren’t all driving eco-friendly vehicles. In fact, as he expected, very few in the audience drove electric or hybrid cars. And the reasons from the audience ranged from cost to style to pragmatic issues such as size or safety of the vehicles. This simple poll of the audience made it abundantly clear that better technology and understanding its benefits are far from sufficient in making a real and significant change.

 

Professor Blalock proceeded to discuss his own research on clean cooking stoves in East Africa. In Uganda, villagers commonly use a three-stone wood-burning stove that is both harmful to their health (smoke) and to the environment (inefficient burning of the wood leads to more deforestation). There is no shortage of relatively cheap technology that is much healthier and more efficient than these stoves. Nevertheless, many issues stand in the way of adoption. For example, a stove that costs $15 is not affordable. Cheaper but slightly less efficient stove are also available but are not adopted widely. As part of the research, villagers were allowed to try the stoves for free for a month and either return it or pay for it across several months. This approach led to a much higher adoption rate of about 50%. So it is clearly possible to get higher adoption if people become more familiar and comfortable with a new technology and it is made more affordable through financing. But the real shocker is that after a few years, many of the purchased stoves were no longer being used and people were back to the three-stone alternative! So clearly not all barriers to long-term adoption were dealt with.
As someone pursuing a career in high-tech, it was enlightening for me to understand that significant adoption of new technologies has many potential barriers and that those barriers need to be explicitly dealt to achieve wide-spread adoption and a real shift in behavior.

Opportunities at Jacobs Technion Cornell Institute

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Professor Adam Shwartz gave an overview of the Jacob graduate degree at Cornell Tech. The Jacobs institute is a collaboration between Cornell and Technion with a focus on training students for entrepreneurship and innovation in technology. Many of the degrees expose students to interdisciplinary topics and practical uses of technology. For example, Professor Shwartz discussed a masters degree in connective media which studies the convergence of communication, information and media. Aside from a strong technical focus, the degree is also centered around people-drive aspects blending with the disciplines of sociology, psychology, design and business. And students also get an opportunity to work one real-world problems with relevant companies as part of their degree. One of the interesting degrees is the Health Tech program, with the focus of designing new technologies tailored to healthcare. Part of the issue in working in healthcare is that engineers and medical specialists have their own specialized vocabulary, making it more difficult for the two groups to exchange ideas. Similarly, doctors have a difficult time getting patients to understand and improve their health conditions. Both areas can benefit from connective media and new applications that can improve communication and understanding and also influencing behavior effectively (e.g., if patients could have more clear understanding of how their own choices such as food and activity impact their overall health). Cornell Tech’s location in NYC is also intentional to keep it close to the many startups in that area. This program is in its infancy and will be growing in the next few years. And some of the graduate degrees are certainly appealing to me given my inclination towards a high-tech career.

Charity is not Always Virtuous!

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I always thought of charity as being a constructive act. I think of charity as helping people become independent and regain their dignity, and hadn’t deeply considered potential negative consequences of charitable and well-meaning acts. In this regard, “Poverty, Inc.” is an eye-opening documentary that provides genuine food for thought. The cruel irony is that good intentions by outsiders can in many cases make the problem worse, along with the not-so-easy message that some aid organizations may be cashing in as part of this process. The idea is not to discourage giving, but to illustrate how many current attempts fail. Consider the situation in Haiti, where high-profile backers like ex-president Bill Clinton supported policies to dump American subsidized tariff-free rice that ultimately wiped out local agriculture and sent more people to the slums. In hindsight, Bill Clinton confesses that this was a mistake leading to the loss of capacity to produce rice in Haiti to feed the people that the aid was originally intended for. Another example involves Toms shoes where for every pair of shoes bought a pair was donated to poor countries in Africa. The result was that people wouldn’t buy shoes from the local industry, making them go out of business. Or consider the orphanages in Haiti that encouraged poor mothers to give up their children instead of helping these mothers become self-sufficient to raise their children. It is all too often that charity and donations provide a temporary fix while deepening the underlying issues that have lead to poverty. While the right approach typically involves training and empowering the local workers and industry to become independent and get connected to the global economy. Giving the poor a leg up in this way is more effective than focusing on short-sighted hand-outs!

Power of Exploration and Story Telling

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In the Banff Mountain Film Festival, I watched some of the most exhilarating short clips I have ever seen. The common theme in all the clips is to explore nature and  inspire the viewer.

In one clip, a son took on a boating journey in the path his father (now old and unable to boat) used to take would take rekindle memories.  Another clip was about two women who broke a rock-climbing record on a Yosemite cliff. Interestingly, that was the only clip with women involved; there surely are more female adventurers out there so I hope future festivals show more journeys involving women. In another clip, several guys boated along 5 rivers in North America as part of a movement to prevent development along the watershed. It was inspiring to learn at the end of the clip that their activism helped in the passing of a bill to disallow development along 80% of the watershed in the Ukon region. In another clip, a few skiers went to an abandoned skiing town in northern Norway to watch an eclipse. After a lot of hardships, they succeeded in seeing the eclipse without cloud cover, and the scenery was also amazing with the Northern Lights that look so alien and unique to most of us. Overall, I was really impressed with the amazing cinematography, the compelling human stories, and the inspirational explorations and boundless variety and beauty of nature that was exhibited in all these short movie clips. There is definitely immense power in good storytelling centered around majestic natural scenery and human endeavors. One cannot help leave being immensely inspired with a positive attitude towards life!