WASHINGTON — The Trump White House, which has defined itself by a willingness to dismiss scientific findings and propose its own facts, on Friday issued a scientific report that directly contradicts its own climate-change policies.
That sets the stage for a remarkable split-screen political reality in coming years. The administration is widely expected to discount or ignore the report’s detailed findings of the economic strain caused by climate change, even as it continues to cut environmental regulations, while opponents use it to mount legal attacks against the very administration that issued the report.
“This report will be used in court in significant ways,” said Richard L. Revesz, an expert in environmental law at New York University. “I can imagine a lawyer for the Trump administration being asked by a federal judge, ‘How can the federal government acknowledge the seriousness of the problem, and then set aside the rules that protect the American people from the problem?’ And they might squirm around coming up with an answer.”
The 1,656-page National Climate Assessment, which is required by Congress, is the most comprehensive scientific study to date detailing the effects of global warming on the United States economy, public health, coastlines and infrastructure. It describes in precise detail how the warming planet will wreak hundreds of billions of dollars of damage in coming decades. (continues)
Amber Swindall
ReplyDeleteProfessor Dr. Oliver
PHIL 3340
11-26-2018
“Staying With The Trouble”
By Donna J Haraway
This is a book on “worlding” which opens up our ways of thinking in obvious and subtle ways. Written by Donna J Haraway, a distinguished American Professor in the history of consciousness Department and feminist studies department at the University of California, in Santa Cruz. Haraway is a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies, described in the early 1990’s as a “feminist rather loosely a post modernist.” Her work criticizes anthropocentrism and has emphasis on self-organizing powers of non-human processes, exploring dissonant relations between those processes and cultural practices, while rethinking sources and ethics.
Haraway says language can provide a route away from environmental catastrophe. That might sound implausible, but for this philosopher, ‘It matters what ideas we use to think other ideas.’ And language is the way we express these ideas and flow them into public consciousness. One key linguistic expression she thinks we should reconsider, Haraway explains in this book (which knits together various recent essays), is the increasingly popular terming of our current geological epoch: the ‘Anthropocene’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1uTVnhIHS8
Here is a paragraph used to introduce the coral reefs in a somewhat poetic way “The involuntary momentum of the crochet coral reef powers the sympoietic knotting of mathematics, marine biology, environmental activism, ecological consciousness raising, women’s handicrafts, fiber arts, museum display, and community art practices. A kind of hyperbolic embodied knowledge, the crochet reef lives enfolded in the materialities of global warming and toxic pollution; and the makers of the reef practice multispecies becoming-with to cultivate the capacity to respond, response-ability. The crochet reef is the fruit of “algorithmic code, improvisational creativity, and community engagement. The reef works not by mimicry, but by open-ended, exploratory process. “iterate, deviate, elaborate” are the principles of the process. DNA could not have said it better.
Haraway talks about the interconnections which create the life form or life strucutre of the Bobtail Squid. The squid doesn’t emerge alone: It has a specialized light organ on its body that’s inhabited by the bioluminescent V. fischeri. In exchange for a home and a diet of sugars and amino acids provided by the squid, the bacterium helps protect E. scolopes from predators by illuminating it with a blue glow. This counter-illumination hides the squid’s silhouette by helping it blend in with its surroundings.
This book has been captivating, continues to challenge me to think about environmentally related topics from various perspectives. If you have a moment before class today take a look at the link included in this introduction.
Also, here are a few discussion questions to be discussed.
What does Donna Haraway say language has the ability to do?
How are various topics expressed throughout the book?
How does Haraway define technology?
What creates the bioluminescent light which glows on the Bobtail Squid?
Glad I found this, didn't know you weren't an author. I'll send you the invitation, please try again to post your report. And please fill in what you were going to say in your presentation, before you cut it short.
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