Log for Spring Global Stewardship Institute

Here I'll track my activities in the courses, continuing the collecting summarized in the meta file I built over the last two months

How complex issues are tied together
How the World Works

...to see through appearances

Overload

contradictory
neutrality?
objectivity

?How does one evaluate, summon the clarity and honesty that must underwrite intelligent decision-making?

put into perspective: situated knowledge

?the Way Things Are?

learn the conventions to READ the Landscape
embedded information
metageographies
assumptions, tacit and otherwise
deception, propaganda, interests

of agriculture:

efficient
'overall'
productive
intensive

22 April
Today is Earth Day, and the Global Perspective is ascendant. See Galloping Globe Gallery ...and Ron adds livingearth.com

Ron sent me a news item from Common Dreams on sugar:

Sugar Industry Threatens to Scupper WHO by Sarah Boseley (originally published in The Guardian 21 April)

The sugar industry in the US is threatening to bring the World Health Organization to its knees by demanding that Congress end its funding unless the WHO scraps guidelines on healthy eating, due to be published on Wednesday.

The threat is being described by WHO insiders as tantamount to blackmail and worse than any pressure exerted by the tobacco lobby.

In a letter to Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's director general, the Sugar Association says it will "exercise every avenue available to expose the dubious nature" of the WHO's report on diet and nutrition, including challenging its $406m (£260m) funding from the US.

The industry is furious at the guidelines, which say that sugar should account for no more than 10% of a healthy diet. It claims that the review by international experts which decided on the 10% limit is scientifically flawed, insisting that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.

"Taxpayers' dollars should not be used to support misguided, non-science-based reports which do not add to the health and well-being of Americans, much less the rest of the world," says the letter. "If necessary we will promote and encourage new laws which require future WHO funding to be provided only if the Organization accepts that all reports must be supported by the preponderance of science."

So here's a tip of an iceberg, a springboard for a very interesting Stewardship (and Globalization and Environmental Justice and and and) Issue, and an opportunity to explore how to set about following up on the information challenges the news story implies. Incidentally, the salt industry is also upset... see a collection on sugar

Nestle, Marion.
Food politics : how the food industry influences nutrition and health 
Berkeley : University of California Press, c2002.
TX360.U6 N47 2002.

24 April
via email I learned about the latest issue of Journal of World-Systems Research, which generally has a global perspective. One of the especially useful articles is The Attacks of September 11 in Three Temporalities (Steven Sherman), full of interesting springboards. One of them is what Sherman identifies as "the Chinese diaspora":

...the emergence of a Pacific Rim economy, involving many states integrated by the Chinese diaspora and Japanese capital... This economic complex has become the productive and financial center of the world, even while possessing minimum political integration and, indeed, not really possessing many nation-states of the conventional sort. The region has been integrated both through the transnational investment of Japanese and US capital, and the integrative work of the Chinese diaspora. The latter has wedded the pre-modern technique of minimizing transaction cists by relying on trust fostered through kinship networks to a set of post-developmental, export-oriented states. (150-151)

...Today, the majority of emigrants departing for destinations around the globe originate in an area the size of Delaware (2,396 square miles or about 6,133 square kilometers) in China's Fujian (Fukien) Province...

Global human smuggling : comparative perspectives / edited by David Kyle and Rey Koslowski. 
Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. 
JV6201 .G56 2001. 

Geographic Origins of Chinese Illegal Immigrants, State Dept view ...see more of this perspective

google search for ' fujian "new york" immigrants '

The World as a Blog (needs Flash plugin)

Historical population density from USDA 1994

25 April
Michael Friendly's page on history of statistical graphics and Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization

The World of Corn, 2002 (National Corn Growers Association)

The real reasons for hunger Leading Indian ecological activist Vandana Shiva disagrees with Amartya Sen's analysis of global hunger and argues that famine has returned to democratic India. (also here)

"Globalization and Poverty" Amartya Sen Transcript of lecture given at Santa Clara University, 10/29/02 (from Institute on Globalization at Santa Clara University, 2002-2003

fabrica ocupada google search

Two books worth a look:

Davis, Mike, 1946-
Late Victorian holocausts : El Ni{228}no famines and the making of the third world IMPRINT      London ; New York : Verso, 2001.
HC79.F3 D38 2001.

Sen, Amartya Kumar.
Poverty and famines : an essay on entitlement and deprivation 
Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1981.
HC79.F3 S46.

Ron's 'metageography' google search

27 April
What do I get when I do a google search for 'unipolar world'? More than 7000 hits... Do any of these help me understand the meaning(s) of the term? And what about multipolar via a google-eye view?

US State Dept dead end?

results of an Annie search for kw 'world order' (478 hits... 7 published ion 2003, 26 in 2002, 24 in 2001, 32 in 2000... and a Title search for 'New World Order' finds 80 with the phrase in the books' titles)

The term occurs as a phrase only once in Science: a review by Vaclav Smil of Mike Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts (and see a recent Freeman Dyson review of a book by Smil... in New York Review of Books)

See, by the way, a remarkable review of two books on/by James Watson by M. Susan Lindee in the 18 April issue of Science

/global/nalandcov/ is the location of the http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/glcc/tablambert_na.html (Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area Projection File) of NAmer coverage --but it's an .img and I can't open it ('invalid raster dataset'). Transforming the coordinate systems of various raster map sources into a common system might help.

See a nice Getting Started from U Ark, for ArcGIS

29 April
From a google search for MTBE:

MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) and Underground Storage Tanks (EPA)

American Petroleum Institute MTBE Resource Center

Illinois Corn site on MTBE

Despite MTBE’s air-quality benefits, regulators have discovered that MTBE is highly soluble, does not biodegrade as easily as ethanol and pollutes drinking-water supplies when it leaks from faulty underground storage tanks, pipelines and other gasoline conveyances. MTBE also fouls lakes and rivers when discharged in exhaust from boats powered by two-stroke engines. (The Wall Street Journal, 11/3/99)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A trade tribunal has struck a blow against Methanex Corp's nearly $1 billion complaint over California's banning of the gasoline additive MTBE, but left the door open for the Canadian chemical company to try again to seek damages.

In a complicated ruling made public on Wednesday, the North American Free Trade Agreement panel said it needed more evidence to support Methanex's claim that it was the victim of a political deal between California Governor Gray Davis and agribusiness company Archer Daniels Midland Co., which makes a rival additive product... (see US Water News story, and another from SJ Merc-News)

And for 2003:

google search, including Petrochemical Alert ("US Ethanol industry confident it can meet MTBE void")

Hoovers on Methanex

search in MEDLINE for MTBE

Potential Effects on State & Local Government from the Western Governors' Association

...the MAI may also have the effect of impinging on the sovereignty of state governments. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of MAI proposals for state sovereignty and to explore actions the governors can take to protect state interests. As explained in this paper, MAI proposals may impact law-making powers of state and local government in several areas

MAI draft, 1997

globalissues.org summary ("Due to the provisions in the text there would be a real transfer of decision-making power to unaccountable private corporations, making it more difficult for elected governments to pass and apply laws for their public's interest, with the effect of reducing democracy so that people are locked in to corporate-rights agreements...")

The Passion for Free Markets: Exporting American values through the new World Trade Organization By Noam Chomsky

The Metalclad toxic waste dump in Guadalcazar, San Luis Potosi

Metalclad vs. Mexico: The Toxicity of NAFTA's Ruling by Gerard Greenfield

Naomi Klein's view

Metalclad v. Mexico: A Play in Three Parts (Todd Weiler)

Trading Away the Future: Concerns Arising From the Investor-State Mechanism of the NAFTA... (Episcopal Commission for Social Affairs)

NAFTA Investor To State Cases - Setting the Record Straight (R. Pollock)

...I felt that many of the claims being made were simply untrue, they were myths which now self-perpetuated on the semi-infinite grape-vine of the web (from looking at what was written about this it had swiftly become obvious that there were only a few real information sources and that most other articles were derived from them). My final conclusion was that while it is undoubtedly true that Chapter 11 does provide a new and unprecedented right of action against national governments to 'investors', this right is not nearly as wide, inequitable or without good reason as has been alleged.

cost of Mariel Boatlift and 'involuntary migrants'

Missouri v. Holland

Camp of the Saints: one, and another and google search ...and limitstogrowth.org summary (see their home page: "the web home of the Bay Area Coalition for Immigration Reform (BACIR) and Immigration Reform Network of Silicon Valley (IRNSV), grassroots groups located in the San Francisco Bay Area... While spanning a diversity of political viewpoints, our members agree that environmental concerns, economic equity, social harmony and citizenship issues can be adequately addressed only with a stabilized U.S. population. This means a reduction in immigration to a level leading to a sustainable population.")

bsq arcmap google search

30 April
I used instructions at http://www.esricanada.com/english/support/faqs/arcgis/sa2.asp to clip the nightlights raster using a shapefile extracted by selecting country boundaries for Turkey (see it here, and with levels set to enhance slight light here). Saved at /nigh/turklights.mxd and instructions for eventual tutorial here.

About 'stewardship'

1 May
a draft by Syed Khurram Husain of an article on the intellectual background of prominent neocons (posted to the World-Systems listserv)

NPR Morning Edition story on Senator Lisa Murkowski

ARNOLD: Like her father, Murkowski views responsibility, or stewardship of designated wilderness a burden, not a blessing. She sees it as locking up valuable resources and locking out those who want to develop them.

Sen. MURKOWSKI: That's something that most states simply cannot relate to. And so when we talk about ANWR, it's truly an educational process, because it's not just about drilling for oil in the Arctic. It's about access to our lands.

Mark Rush's presentation

Growing Global Migration and Its Implications for the United States (CIA report, 2001 --see the National Intelligence Council Publications list)

some (im)migration stuff I found for Journalism

Remittances

MIGRANT ASSOCIATIONS, REMITTANCES, AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Between Los Angeles and Oaxaca

Migrant worker remittances, microfinance and the informal economy: Prospects and issues

google search

Joel Cohen Hypsography Meets Demography ...and see CIESIN list for other pointers... and here for LOTS more. Landscan google search (data at http://www.ornl.gov/gist/landscan/index.html, awaiting password...) see also LandScan Global Population 1998 Database description from ORNL

/global/worldp/ has landscan-01

/nigh/world2001.mxd is pretty dramatic:

2 May
immigration and environment posting forwarded by Ron, containing a bibliography of "literature that discusses the impact of international migration on the environment"

I got Africa, Europe, South America and North America from www.ornl.gov/landscan/ and turned them into .mxd files

4 May
Global Anthropology

This website is dedicated to the Global Anthropology founded in the 1970s by Jonathan Friedman (Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Lund, Sweden and Directeur d'etudes, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France) and Kajsa Ekholm-Friedman (Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Lund, Sweden)

Project for the First People's Century

Don't miss your chance to live & work in the US

in R:/global/ are both the Human Development Report 1999 data as a .shp (hdr99.shp) and a list of the variables (HDall285.txt), from Latoya Sherron's work for Robin LeBlanc.

Malaria

malaria gis ddt google search, and "malaria mapping" ditto

GIS Gambia page (the data are in r:/global/gambia/ as extracted from the .e00 file). The class values for the map are available at http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/9551/readme.txt

Malaria Mapping for Mexico

A spatial statistical approach to malaria mapping Kleinschmidt et al.

An Empirical Malaria Distribution Map for West Africa Kelinschmidt et al. 2001

Malaria and Poverty (Malaria Consortium, 2001)

Links for GeoMed: Spatial Analysis of Disease Patterns (U Michigan)

Dr Richard Griggs (University of Cape Town) and Peter Hocknell (International Boundaries Research Unit), in collaboration with the Center for World Indigenous Studies (Olympia, US), are currently setting up a project to identify, map and monitor the Fourth World Nation ‘faultlines which represent the potential international boundaries of the future.

Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000 R. E. Evenson* and D. Gollin

Human Development Report 2001

1998 figures for HDI

1998 HDR

Human Development Report variables, 285 of them...

Injury Maps, CDC Injury Center's interactive mapping system, gives you access to the geographic distribution of injury-related mortality rates in the the United States. Injury Maps allows you to create county-level and state-level maps of age-adjusted mortality rates for the entire United States and for individual states.

See also 10 Leading Causes of Death American Indian and Alaskan Native (Both Sexes, Males or Females) 1995-97

Leading Causes of Death Reports, 1981-1998 (e.g., Hispanics in California)

Get Caught Mapping from The Guardian

webmapper.net (a blog)

Geography of the Information Society (a UCSB class)

Personhood of corporations:

a shoal of quotations

Book Review: Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights and The Hijacking of the 14th Amendment (Doug Hammerstrom) ...see also Thom Hartmann's summary of the issues, and see the Website for the book and a heap of reviews

Other issues from today's class, each of which could be expanded substantially:

People --and organizations, enterprises, groups-- have interests and means to command attention to those interests. That's a lot of what politics is about.

It would be interesting to catalog the historical succession of "New Eras" that have been recognized as 'dawning'. The New Era of the moment seems to be centered on Information and communication networks; the notion that experts (technical, scientific, etc.) should lead and make decisions is often voiced.

Bits of American (and British) history raised: Trusts, Labor Laws, commodification and 'alienation' of labor. Also the substitution of capital for labor: we see several processes embedded in "technological change":

• movement of facilities to where labor is cheaper (textiles from New England to the South; various production to Mexican maquiladoras; shift to China, Indonesia, etc.)
• computers changing the nature of work for many, both directly and indirectly
• creation of a new kind of worker, with new skills

The World Trade Organization: said by one British commentator to be "where governments get together to conspire against their people" --or, as Ron rephrased it, to negotiate their positions in what Manuel Castells has named the space of flows

The Space of Flows: notes on emergence, characteristics and possible impact on physical space by Felix Stalder
World City Network Formation in a Space of Flows PJ Taylor
Explorations of Manuel Castells' "space of flows"
Boundaries in a Space of Flows The Case of Migrant Researchers' Use of ICTs
Landscapes of Global Capital: Representing Space

Thomas Jefferson:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813

Measuring Inequality in Income Distribution (Gini index overview)

Inequality datasets:

see meta.html 14 April ("a clean Inequality dataset, /global/utip.shp") and 15 April ("US inequality": /global/usinequal.mxd --and /global/usinequal.shp has the Gini data as the last column) and /global/usgini.mxd ) The latter is based on Gini coefficients, "inequality of the distribution of family income". See World Bank Inequality pages and Geographic Aspects of Inequality and Poverty

6 May
Belloc's quotation as a springboard:

Brett Wallach's Human Geography (Globalization section)

19th Century Imperialism & Technology

Hiram Maxim

the latest from Matt Petrusek

7 May
Historical Text Archive

Trade deficits: graphs, US 1940-2001 and with specific countries, 1990-2001

TCU Economic Data summary:

US Income Distribution basic data

US government debt

US Bureau of Economic Analaysis International Accounts Data --for example, U.S. INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN GOODS AND SERVICES February 2003 and U.S. Multinational Companies: Operations in 2000 (from International Accounts Articles

US Foreign Trade Statistics, for example Imports from Angola and Imports from Brazil and Imports from Mexico, and Exports to Mexico, 1998-2002

8 May
I made a centroid shapefile for US counties, another for lower-48 counties, another for southern states, and one more (to get under the 300 total) for "Deep South" defined as Ark LA MS Ala. All are in R:/global/uscounties/

EarthTrends watersheds ("a special collection of river basin data")

Freshwater 2003
Major Watersheds of the World 2000
Groundwater and Desalination 2000

Will there be enough water?
Giving Nature Its Share: Reserving Water for Ecosystems

Found while [unsuccessfully] hunting for Gini data for Mexican states:

The Many Mexicos: Income Inequality and Polarization in Urban Mexico during the 90s (Andalon and Lopez-Calva)

NAFTA: A Cautionary Tale By Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher

Redefining the Territorial Bases of Power: Peasants, Indians and Guerilla Warfare in Chiapas, Mexico Guillermo Trejo

Sending Money Home... For Now: Remittances and Immigrant Adaptation to the United States (Louis DeSipio)

Gini surfaces: representing data (a weblet under construction)

DIASPORAS AND DOLLARS: TRANSNATIONAL TIES AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CUBA Susan Eckstein, Feb 2003

9 May
Understanding Waves of Globalization and Resistance in the Capitalist World(-)System*: Social Movements and Critical Global(ization) Studies Christopher Chase-Dunn (Institute for Research on World-Systems University of California, Riverside) and Barry Gills (University of Hawaii)

A collection of materials on residuals from regression and other high-end GIS stuff:

Analysis in GIS (ppt from UFlorida)

mapping residuals exercise

Assessment of spatial autocorrelation in empirical models in ecology (Mary Cablk et al.)

Constructive contrasts between modeled and measured climate responses over a regional scale (Henrietta Jager et al.)

google search 'raster regression gis'

google search "spatial interpolation"

NCGIA Spatial Interpolation I

NCGIA Spatial Interpolation II (both of the above from GIS Instruction and Assistance from Stanford's Branner Library)

NCGIA GIS Core Curriculum for Technical Programs

NCGIA USING DERIVATIVE SURFACE OPERATORS

Aral Sea homepage

Source: Water and Sanitation News from Holland

for example:
Bolivia: citizens excluded from suit against company’s failed water privatization scheme

The Bechtel Corporation was handed a powerful victory last week, when a secretive trade court announced that it would not allow the public or media to participate in or even witness proceedings in which Bechtel is suing the people of Bolivia for US$ 25 million (EUR23.2 million). Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of the California-based engineering giant, is suing South America's poorest nation over the company’s failed effort to take over the public water system of Bolivia's third largest city, Cochabamba. After taking over the water system in 2000, the company imposed massive water rate hikes, which resulted in widespread protests countered by military force that killed one person and wounded 175 others. “It is inexcusable that a panel considering an issue as fundamental as the right to water should be able to exclude the very people whose rights will be affected by the case”, said Martin Wagner, an attorney for the US-based law firm, Earthjustice.

See also Cochabamba: victory or fiasco?

www.narmada.org ...and Narmada dams and human rights, briefing note which "outlines the technical, hydrological, economic and political controversy surrounding the damming of the Narmada River in Western India", Information Damned

River Systems Research Group at U. Washington

Ron found these:

The Use of the Landscape Metaphor in Understanding Population Data ("an approach to exploring population data using 2-1/2 dimensional surfaces and is illustrated using 1991 data for London")

Analysis of spatial association on a regular lattice... (Kabos and Czillag)

Spatial Analysis of U. S. Socioeconomic Data Using Fundamental GIS Capabilities (Charles T. Ziehr)

3 Gorges Dam Information on the Internet

UNESCO Water Portal

Water Issues (links to many topics, sites --e.g., Water and Ethics

10 May
Does the Western World Still Exist? (Immanuel Wallerstein)

On Dams:

http://www.atlas.usgs.gov/damsm.html

This map layer includes the locations of over 7,700 majors dams in the United States. The information in the map layer was provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The original dam information came from the National Inventory of Dams (NID) which was produced by USACE in cooperation with FEMA's National Dam Safety Program. The full NID contains over 75,000 dams and is used to track information on the country's water control infrastructure.

http://crunch.tec.army.mil/nid/webpages/nid.cfm for more detailed data --a more or less complete Inventory (I've put the CA data into R:\global\dams\ca\ and the project into R:\global\dams\usdams.mxd )

Using Geographic Methods to Understand Health Issues (AHCPR Pub. No. 97-N0)

Representing and Visualizing Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Information Spaces (Batty and Miller)

Californians for Population Stabilization

California is on the brink of a major water crisis.

Farmers are already being required to cut back on the water used for crops. The San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta, the major water source for two-thirds of the state, is increasingly challenged by its fragile levees and growing demand. By the year 2020, demands on our water supply will result in shortages of 6-14% a year. The state has been ordered to wean itself from the excess of 800,000 acre feet of water over its legal allotment from the Colorado River each year, but we have no viable alternative source. Yet the state acquires new water users at a rate of at least 500,000 people per year! Clearly something must give. With water supplies shrinking every day, the best solution is to decrease the growth in water demand. The only way to do that is to reduce the rate of population growth. Since over 96% of California's population growth is the direct result of immigration, it's clear where we have to start.

**Mapping Census 2000: the geography of US diversity

"Hispanic or Latino origin" (4 maps)
"Diversity" (5 maps, centered on "Hispanic or Latino origin")

China's Population by Age & Sex, 1950 - 2050 (animation)

animated map of human population growth through history

Scientific Visualization Studio at Goddard Space Flight Center --animations and other resources

**Hispanic Population Growth in Missouri: Changing Patterns, 1980 - 2000

Population Growth of the Southwest United States, 1900-1990 by Martin Chourre and Stewart Wright

** Balt-Wash 1792-2100 animation (no years shown, alas)

**US Population Growth from 1790 to 1990 for the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center

**Western Futures --see also tract-level animation, 1800-1999 and county ditto (David Theobald)

Active GIF Creator ($35)

** LA Black population and LA Hispanic population 1960-2000, and diversity index , "Asian and Pacific Islanders", and "Racial Majorities" (from Race Contours Project and California Demographic Futures Project, USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development)

** SF Bay region animation, 1800-1999 (mpg) from USGS Gigalopolis Project

LA to siphon water from minorities' bodies (The Onion, 1997)

Ron found Metro LA and Vicinity population maps, part of William Bowen's DIGITAL ATLAS OF CALIFORNIA (1990 Census data)

I got the China 1990 data again in both .e00 and .dbf forms, from the CIESIN site, and put it into R:/china/. The listing of variables is copied to http://home.wlu.edu/~blackmer/china/1990census.html and the ethnicity listing is at http://home.wlu.edu/~blackmer/china/1990ethnicity.html (there's a good deal of cleanup to do in s:/xmiley2/ so that the Anth230 stuff will be useable again...). The counties.shp stuff is also copied to R:/china... and R:/china/allgws90.shp is the WHOLE THING, with all the variables and all the counties.

First Impressions of the 2000 Census of China November 4, 2001, William Lavely

And here's a version of the infanticide?" map, with the RED being counties which in 1990 reported a large preponderance of male over female children in the 0-4 age cohort

Some other bits, sort of random, from ESRI Canada FAQ:

How do I connect to my Access database?
How do I define the projection of a coverage in ArcCatalog?

11 May
Messing with the China dataset, aligning the county.shp with ESRI2003 countries:

The administrative units (counties) map (pbd90) is defined at http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/china/admin/bnd90/bnd90desc.html to be:

Projection: Lambert Conformal Conic
Units: METERS
Spheroid: CLARKE1866
Parameters:

• 1st standard parallel: 25. 00, N
• 2nd standard parallel: 47.00, N
• central meridian: 110.00 E
• latitude of projection's origin: 10.00 N

--so the question is how to UNproject, or change it to GCS_WGS_1984, to match the coordinates of R:\china\justchina.shp

Asia_Lambert_Conformal_Conic is:

• 30.0
• 62.0
• 105.0
• 0.00
• ...GCS_WGS_1984 already

In ArcCatalog, right-click the .shp, highlight the 'Shape' entry on the Fields tab, mess with 'Spatial Reference', modifying the properties of the currently selected coordinate system

I HAVE managed to shift counties.shp, though it now lines up over West Africa... looks like its 0.0 longitude is Greenwich, but I'd left "central meridian" at 0.0... and I needed to set latitude of origin to 10.0. It's ALMOST right: but not quite.

But FINALLY I got it right: I needed to enter the 25 47 110 10 into the Spatial Reference Properties. Jeez, WHY did it take me so long?

first overall and South China and North China... and the projects are in R:\china\11v[xx].mxd (thus, 11vf.mxd has cities and provincial boundaries). I also grabbed the pplaces .e00 from ftp://ftpserver.ciesin.org/pub/data/China/DC_China/ and it's also included --11vg.mxd is zoomed on Xichuan

What I haven't done yet: make the allgws90.shp into a properly projected entity. I want to save it in its original form, and work on a copy. What I have to do is add layers in a specific order: justchina.shp establishes the coordinates, the places come in on top of that, the allgws90b next... then the /sutton/nitelitesgeog... all that is saved as 11vh.mxd.

I also grabbed uapreap1 and 2 .e00, and 11vj.mxd is zoomed on HK/Canton.

While I was at it, I got RR, roads, rivers, contours... just to have them all in one place (need to clean out other versions from some folders, doubtless)

see the readme for all those layers

11vk.mxd has roads and rr added.

12 May
China 1990 Census variables

R:\china\12va.mxd is contours

On Malthus:

An Essay on the Principle of Population An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers. LONDON, PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, 1798.

see also biographical sketch, and International Society of Malthus page

After some travel, he was appointed (1805) professor of history and political economy at Haileybury, the college established by the East India Company for its cadets. There he remained for the rest of his life.
(this from The Great Irish Famine, which also includes the following:

Peel was succeeded at Prime Minister by Lord John Russell, a rigid exponent of laissez-faire. In October, 1846, as it became clear that over ninety per cent of the potato crop of Ireland was blighted, Lord Russell set out his approach to the famine: "It must be thoroughly understood that we cannot feed the people...We can at best keep down prices where there is no regular market and prevent established dealers from raising prices much beyond the fair price with ordinary profits."

Russell's policies emphasized employment rather than food for famine victims, in the belief that private enterprise, not government, should be responsible for food provision. He also stressed that the cost of Irish relief work should be paid for by Irishmen. Peel's Relief Commission was abolished and relief work was put in the hands of 12,000 civil servants in the Board of Works who only found work for 750,000 of the starving people. In return for hard (and often pointless) work, starving peasants were paid starvation wages.

Tens of thousands of people died during the winter of 1846, but "Russell and his colleagues never conceived of interfering with the structure of the Irish economy in the ways that would have been necessary to prevent the worst effects of the famine."

An Gorta Mór - The Great Hunger

More on Haileybury haileybury "east india" google search

Agricultural Change Theory from International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences

History: Two hundred years since Malthus John A Black, British Medical Journal 1997;315:1686-1689 (20 December)

Conference on Malthus and His Legacy: 200 Years of the Population Debate Canberra, 17-18 September, 1998, including Malthus and the Third World: The Pivotal Role of India (John C. Caldwell) and Conversations with Malthus (Suzanne Rickard)

I decided that is was appropriate to begin at the end of Malthus’ life, not to praise him as a prophet or saint, but to place him in historical context and in conversation...

Los Angeles rejects plan to 'bank' water under Mojave Desert Project's financial feasibility questioned (San Francisco Chronicle 9 Oct 2002)

The Proposed Arsenic Regulation . Richard Wilson

Water Supply and Quality Websites from UCLA collection

L.A. Dept of Water and Power and Metropolitan Water District

Los Angeles Aqueduct Webpage

Chinatown Revisited: Arsenic and the Los Angeles Water Supply (Janet G. Hering)

Journal of American History letter on accuracy of "Chinatown" in Cadillac Desert video review by David Igler in the Dec 1998 issue

Cadillac Desert: The Sequel By Ellen Tauscher, Congresswoman (March 2003)

Water markets satisfy cities' thirst and protect farms New book Rivers of Gold proposes water allocation system that would satisfy cities' thirst while protecting agriculture in California

Haddad, Brent M.
Rivers of gold : designing markets to allocate water in California
Washington, D.C. : Island Press, c2000.
HD1694.C2 H23 2000

13 May
Malthusian Population Theory and Indian Famine Policy in the Nineteenth Century , S. Ambirajan Population Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1, Mar., 1976 pp. 5-14

This month's Wired arrived yesterday and has a whole section presenting "The Ultimate Atlas for the 21st Century" [at least so far...]. Below are links to several images that I just have to get to you. In a month or so the issue will be available on the wired.com Website:

Net population change per hour for some world cities (data from UN Population Division)

Top 30 Multinationals: "These maps chart 60 headquarters, roughly scaled to company revenues, and mark the various worldwide offices":
in the Americas, in Europe, Africa, and MiddleEast, in East Asia and Pacific, and top 30 outside G7
(Wired 11.06, June 2003)

Global traffic in genomic code

If there was a "Global Food System", what would it look like and how would one explore it? Is this just an abstraction, or are there foods (or foodstocks) that are "global" in some really meaningful sense? A google search for "global food system" does produce nearly 3200 hits. An Annie keyword search gets a dozen hits. Others, to examine for their different perspectives:

Reforming the Global Food System (State Dept --Remarks to the Washington International Trade Association by Alan P. Larson, Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, Jan 2002
Reshaping the Global Food System from FoodFirst.org
Towards a Sustainable Global Food System: What Will it Take? (Per Pinstrup-Andersen, International Food Policy Research Institute)
AN OPEN AND EFFICIENT GLOBAL FOOD SYSTEM (US Council for International Business, 1998)
Knowledge Management in the Global Food System: Network (Sporleder and Moss, 2002)
Building a Global Open Food System: the case for further agricultural trade liberalization (International Policy Council, 1998)

Consolidation in the Food System (papers from Food Circles Networking Project)

Consolidation In The Food And Agriculture System (Dr. William Heffernan, Dr. Mary Hendrickson, Dr. Robert Gronski)
Biotechnology and Mature Capitalism(Dr. William Heffernan)

Just what are the candidates for "Driving Forces"?

A Short List for Finding Results for Current Trends and Driving Forces (Prepared by Roger L. Caldwell in November 2002)

A chemist's perspective:

Driving Forces are those factors which are responsible for causing a reaction to proceed on to completion. All chemical processes need to have some reason for taking place. Those reasons are the Driving Forces. There are two factors which seem to drive a reaction, causing it to occur.

• All systems strive to release energy; in other words, all chemical processes would prefer to undergo an exothermic process.

• systems strive to increase entropy; in other words, all chemical precesses would prefer to undergo a change that leads to a state of greater disorder.

Ideally, chemical processes will accomplish both of these ideas. In reality, many systems are only able to achieve one of them. Under those conditions, the resulting reaction will be dependent upon the temperature of the system.

Driving Force Categories as selected by "experienced futurists", from a U Arizona course "Anticipating the Future"

UNEP Global Environmental Outlook ("The seven driving forces under consideration are demography, economic development, human development, science and technology, governance, culture and environment.")

Human Driving Forces and their Impacts on Land Use/Land Cover from Association of American Geographers

The Potential of Satellite Remote Sensing for Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Program Activities and Research (CIESIN Thematic Guide) --see also Human Causes of Land-Use Change

14 May
I copied the Landscan 2001 Global Population Database stuff into R:\global\world
...and also use /esri1/world/wsiearth.tif

R:/asia/14va.mxd and also R:/global/14va.mxd (East Asia with several layers...)

18 May
Vital Climate Graphics Africa from UNEPGRID/Arendal

19 May
U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Policy April 25, 2003.

New Frontiers: The Geography of Change from Wired 11.06 --but the MAPS aren't there! (see 13 May entry for a few as scanned)

THE ART OF RENT: GLOBALIZATION, MONOPOLY AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF CULTURE David Harvey

At Disney World all the countries are much closer together, and they show you the best of each country. Europe is boring. People talk strange languages and things are dirty. Sometimes you don’t see anything interesting in Europe for days, but at Disney World something different happens all the time and people are happy. It’s much more fun. It’s well designed. (cited in Kelbaugh 1997)

A collection of Disney sources from Annie

google search for Disneyfication

Some sources on Tobacco, in re: current events and the meetings of World Health Assembly

World Heath Assembly, including WHO’s first global treaty: Framework Convention on Tobacco Control ("world's first public health treaty")

Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the more general Tobacco Free Initiative and guide to Tobacco on the Web

Understanding the Tobacco Industry: A "Vector Analysis" of the Tobacco Epidemic

The world’s most widespread, serious infection is purposely spread by its vector: the tobacco industry. To reduce the 500 million deaths tobacco industry products are projected to cause amongst those presently alive, public health advocates must study the life patterns of the tobacco industry as earnestly as they would any other disease vector. The investigative tools, however, are different. Rather than a tiny insect, this vector has economic resources rivalling those of many of the world’s largest governments.

infact.org --NB Bush Administration Efforts to Derail Tobacco Treaty Demonstrate Commitment to Protecting Philip Morris/Altria Profits Over Global Public Health: Infact Denounces US Attempts to Change Final Text of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Says Move Motivated by Tobacco Giant’s Political Ties, Vows Intensified Global Pressure... and c.f. How Big Tobacco Helped Create "the Junkman" (by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, PR Watch Archives)

Addicted to Profit: Big Tobacco's Expanding Global Reach By Ross Hammond

Guardian Unlimited Weblog Special on Big Tobacco

Bryan Alexander's review of Lessig The Future of Ideas

Some more water stuff, from a search for 'expropriation'

Every Member Tool: Water Supply ("historical and contemporary background information to help facilitate a discussion of the water issue and possible solutions to meet the Sacramento area's future water needs"

Negotiating Water Rights in Contexts of Legal Pluralism: Priorities for Research and Action Working Draft Bryan Randolph Bruns and Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Despite Abundance, New Talk About Limits Nestle Waters plant stirs Great Lakes security debate By Keith Schneider

On December 6, 2000, the Perrier Group, a subsidiary of Swiss-based Nestle S.A., the world’s largest food company, applied to the local health authorities for permission to drill two water wells on an 800-acre private hunting preserve in the county’s southern reaches. The company’s purpose: to establish a source for a new bottling plant to package and ship its popular Ice Mountain brand of spring water throughout the upper Midwest...

Priming The Invisible Pump by Terry L. Anderson and Pamela S. Snyder (Center for Free Market Environmentalism)

Remote Sensing guide

Blue Agave Peasant Producers and the Tequila Industry in Jalisco, Mexico Marco Antonio González

USING SPOT AND RADAR DATA TO INVENTORY FORESTS IN SARAWAK

R:\global\popecol19v.mxd combines the lights, the pop grid, and the igbp

UNEP GeoData Portal --I got gusgs (Global 1km land cover) and put it into R:\global\landcover\

20 May
Global Land Cover 2000: Classification legend for “Scandinavian Window"

USGS 24-step classification from http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/glcc/globdoc1_2.html#app3

4.4 USGS Land Use/Land Cover System Legend (Modified Level 2) 
Value 	Code 	Description 	
1	100	Urban and Built-Up Land	
2	211	Dryland Cropland and Pasture	
3	212	Irrigated Cropland and Pasture	
4	213	Mixed Dryland/Irrigated Cropland and Pasture	
5	280	Cropland/Grassland Mosaic	
6	290	Cropland/Woodland Mosaic	
7	311	Grassland	
8	321	Shrubland	
9	330	Mixed Shrubland/Grassland	
10	332	Savanna	
11	411	Deciduous Broadleaf Forest	
12	412	Deciduous Needleleaf Forest	
13	421	Evergreen Broadleaf Forest	
14	422	Evergreen Needleleaf Forest	
15	430	Mixed Forest	
16	500	Water Bodies	
17	620	Herbaceous Wetland	
18	610	Wooded Wetland	
19	770	Barren or Sparsely Vegetated	
20	820	Herbaceous Tundra	
21	810	Wooded Tundra	
22	850	Mixed Tundra	
23	830	Bare Ground Tundra	
24	900	Snow or Ice	

thus, R:\global\latam\landcover20va.mxd is centered on Chiapas, more or less, and has these categories.

In R:\global\ is olsonlatam, which is an "invalid raster dataset", unfortunately.

I sent Ron these links re: Mississippi Delta satellite imagery:

http://landsat7.usgs.gov/gallery/change/218/4
with the high-rez images at http://landsat7.usgs.gov/gallery/images/L7_218_21_40_03312003_full.jpg
and a useful text summary: http://ca.umces.edu/president/Diversions.pdf
also Delta in flood: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/MissDelta.jpg
and an infrared: http://www.geologia.com/foto/land1.jpg
another: http://www.athenapub.com/rivmiss2.htm
and http://www2.msstate.edu/~vrudis/REPORT.PDF

...and some on hypoxia:

http://www.ucsusa.org/gulf/gcplacesmis.html
and from Illinois, some confounding data: http://www.sws.uiuc.edu/docs/hypoxia/IntegAssDiagrams.PDF (Illinois Comments on the Draft Hypoxia Integrated Assessment) and http://www.fb.com/issues/analysis/hypoxia3.html for comments of the Chief, Illinois State Water Survey
EPA draft plan comments: http://www.epa.gov/msbasin/comments.htm
USDA intro, with useful links: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/ConservationAndEnvironment/Questions/consenvcoast1.htm

See also Land Loss Animations of Coastal Louisiana (and see other maps, one level up, and Wetlands section)

Union of Concerned Scientists on Mississippi Delta

LandScan 2000 documentation

The LandScan data set is a worldwide population database compiled on a 30" X 30" latitude/longitude grid. Best available census counts (mainly at sub-national level) were apportioned to each grid cell based on probability coefficients, which are based on proximity to roads, slope, land cover and nighttime lights. LandScan 2000 has been developed as part of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Global Population Project for estimating ambient populations at risk.

Shortage of Girls in China from Population Reference Bureau (Judith Banister)

21 May
GIS Activities at DECRG Estimating vulnerability --he's showcasing a number of the datasets we've been using!

22 May
On the Invention of Tradition

From Hobsbawm and Ranger The Invention of Tradition (1983)

There is probably no time and place with which historians are concerned which has not seen the 'invention' of tradition... we should expect it to occur more frequently when a rapid transformation of society weakens or destroys the social patterns for which 'old' traditions had been designed, producing new ones to which they were not applicable, or when such old traditions and their institutional carriers and promulgators no longer prove sufficiently adaptable and flexible, or are otherwise eliminated: in short, when there are sufficiently large and rapid changes on the demand or supply side. Such changes have been particularly significant in the past 200 years, and it is therefore reasonable to expect these instant formalizations of new traditions to cluster during this period... (4-5)

...three overlapping types: a) those establishing or symbolizing social cohension or the membership of groups, real or artificial communities ['communitarian'], b) those establishing or legitimizing institutions, status or relations of authority, and c) those whose main purpose was socialization, the inculcation of beliefs, value systems and conventions of behaviour... (9)

Today, whenever Scotchmen gather togethr to celebrate their national identity, they assert it openly by certain distinctive national apparatus. They wear the kilt, woven in a tartan whose colour and pattern indicates their 'clan'; and if they indulge in music, their instrument is the bagpipe... (15)

the creation of an independent Highland tradition, and the imposition of that new tradition, with its outward badges, on the whole Scottish nation, was the work of the later 18th and early 19th centuries. It occurred in three stages. First, there was the cultural revolt against Ireland: the usurpation of Irish culture and the re-writiong of early Scottish history... Secondly, tmhere was the artificial creation of new Highland traditions, presented as ancient, original and distinctive. Thirdly, there was the process by which these new traditions were offered to, and accepted by, historic Lowland Scotland: the Eastern Scotland of the Picts, the Saxons and the Normans. (16)

The idea of differentiated clan tartans... seems to have originated with the resourceful manufacturers who... saw the prospect of a far larger market... In 1819 Wilson and Son of Bannockburn) prepared a 'Key Pattern Book' and sent samples of the various tartans up to London, where the (Highland) Society duly 'certified' them as belonging to this or that clan... (30)

An American example:

The Invention of an American Tradition
Most people assume that the pledge of allegiance is as old as the Republic. In fact, it was invented in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, director of youth activities for the magazine Youth’s Companion. Bellamy drew up the “pledge to the flag” (as it was then called) and publicized it as part of the activities surrounding the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in America. On Columbus Day in 1892, ten million children recited Bellamy’s pledge and it soon became a daily ritual in American schoolrooms. (from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5762/)

What does this have to do with stewardship? Seems to me that the 'protect' facet of the Steward's role readily extends to questions of identity

Terhune, Chad. "Brawny's Lumberjack to Get Facelift In Attempts to Revive the Aging Brand."Wall Street Journal. February 13, 2002. Like all other makeovers, its hard for Brawny to turn around and show a new side and be accepted. With only holding on to 10.9% of the $3 billion paper towel business, which Procter & Gamble holds about 30%, shows that there's a need to switch from lumberjack, or Brawny man. Omnicom Group president Martyn Straw stated that "He looks like a 1970s porn star." Well the porn star is going on vacation to get a makeover, while racing legend Richard Petty will sub for probably the rest of the year. The Brawny man will however newly appear at five Nascar races this year. The up-dated and improved Brawny man is schedule to premiere early next year. Its risky business changing a icon, so the Brawny man will still have his macho edge. Georgia-Pacific got Brawny with other worn out brands in 2000 and have set a new marketing team to take on the task. The icon has hardly changed in 30 years and is definitely still carrying a "bit of anachronism". Throughout the years he has had minor changes like loosing the ax and some hairstyle changes, but all in all his consistency has definitely made him a position in pop culture. He has even appeared on 'The Simpsons" as Marge's crush. (from http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~ag991198/esp/wsj.htm)

Press Release Source: Georgia-Pacific Corporation

NASCAR'S Kyle Petty Kicks Off Search For A Brawny Hero(TM) Thursday April 10, 6:01 am ET

Maker of Brawny Paper Towels Invites Consumers to Enter 'The Drive for Brawny Heroes(TM)' Contest MARTINSVILLE, Va., April 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at the Martinsville Speedway, a team of brand ambassadors known as the "Brawny Brigade(TM)" and NASCAR driver Kyle Petty will begin their search for men who have the drive to be a Brawny Hero. Brawny Heroes are men who display dedication to family and friends, perform charitable work and are community-minded. The maker of Brawny paper towels is recognizing everyday people who capture the spirit of the Brawny brand, and have the power to accomplish both big and small jobs with ease. Kyle Petty, a true Brawny Hero, will lead the charge with the Brawny Brigade to host a charity car wash at the Martinsville Speedway. Together, they will send a call-to-action for all people to help raise money for Petty's Charity Ride Across America, sponsored by G-P/Brawny.

The Emperor's Clothes

...seems to be a Hans Christian Andersen tale, one version of which is here, but there's a collection of tales of Aarne-Thompson type 1620 which says that "Andersen's source was a Spanish story recorded by Don Juan Manuel (1282-1348)" --part of D.L. Ashliman's Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts It would be very interesting to know who has studied the appearances and appropriations of the "new clothes" trope. The Emperor's New Clothes (Archer Taylor Modern Philology, Vol. 25, No. 1. (Aug., 1927), pp. 17-27) is one treatment.

"idiom of symbolic discourse"

The phrase appears in Mass-producing Traditions (Eric Hobsbawm), but I found it somewhere in The Invention of Tradition and now can't find it again. It seemed a powerful summary for the turn we made today into talking about culture and identity.

shibboleths are bits of cultural and linguistic code, which often have the function of identifying 'insiders' to one another. The term comes from Judges 12 (and I got one detail wrong in my retelling: both groups were Semitic speakers, so the phonological difference was a matter of dialectal variation):

1 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.
2 And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands.
3 And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?
.4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.
5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;
.6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

23 May
From this week's Science: Influence of Satellite Data Uncertainties on the Detection of Externally Forced Climate Change B. D. Santer et al.

In summary, we note two important points. First, claimed inconsistencies between satellite estimates of tropospheric temperature changes and either model results or surface temperature trends depend critically on which satellite data set is used. These inconsistencies are minimized with the RSS data. Second, our identification of a model-predicted stratospheric temperature fingerprint is robust to satellite data uncertainties. Taken together, these points strengthen the case for a pronounced human influence on global climate.

Large dams have created some spectacular modern-day land-bridge islands that can serve as natural ecological laboratories. By 2000, there were over 45,000 large dams in more than 150 countries, and each year 160 to 320 new ones are being built worldwide at the expense of wildlife habitat (11-14). The rapidly increasing geographic extent and high biodiversity of these altered ecosystems warrant substantial research efforts if global biodiversity and ecosystem services are to be sustained.

The world's largest dam, the Three-Gorges Dam (TGD), has been inserted in the middle of a biodiversity hot spot in south-central China. Labeled as the worst of the world's 20 most dangerous large dam projects (15), TGD is 2335 meters long and 185 meters high maximum (16). It is scheduled to start storing water and generating electric power in late 2003. The Three-Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) covers 58,000 km2, an area 16,710 km2 larger than Switzerland, and the reservoir surface area will reach 1080 km2 (16). Consequently, several dozen to more than 100 mountain tops may become modern land-bridge islands. We view TGD as an extraordinary opportunity for a grand-scale fragmentation experiment from which invaluable lessons can be learned.

...The world's largest dam is not only a demonstration of the mighty power of humanity; it can and should become a unique and rich source of information for understanding and conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services. To take advantage of this opportunity, international funding and long-term collaborations are needed.

and So Many People, So Little Water A review by A. Scott Henderson of Fuel for Growth Water and Arizona's Urban Environment (Douglas E. Kupel University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2003)

The author brackets his discussion of Arizona's water management with three additional arguments, each of which revises prevailing assumptions. He contends that water projects in Arizona have not been dominated by municipal or business elites. He emphasizes the limitations of using California as a case study for understanding the politics of water production. And he maintains that the settlement of the arid West did not require the development of new technology.

and A Surprise La Niña Richard A. Kerr

Government climate experts announced this week that El Niño's opposite number, La Niña, seems to be emerging in the tropical Pacific Ocean. La Niña's unusually cool waters signal weather extremes around the world, although these are less troublesome than those brought on by El Niño's warmth. Perhaps the hardest hit are the forecasters: Neither they nor their computers saw La Niña coming. "We can't get away from the fact that we didn't predict it," says meteorologist Anthony Barnston of Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) in Palisades, New York. "Collectively, these models aren't handling the situation as well as humans can," and this time humans seem to have blown the forecast too.

and KAZAKHSTAN: Plutonium Fields Forever Richard Stone

A decade after inheriting the Soviet Union's vast nuclear testing range in Central Asia, authorities in Kazakhstan are only now discovering the extent of a dangerous legacy underfoot: plutonium hot spots that pose a serious proliferation threat

KURCHATOV, KAZAKHSTAN--At an undisclosed location in northeastern Kazakhstan, workers clad in white suits and respiratory masks are paving an area the size of a football field with a 2-meter-thick slab of steel-reinforced concrete. This covert operation, in the middle of desolate, shrubby steppe that once formed part of the Soviet Union's Semipalatinsk Test Site, might never have been contemplated before the 11 September terror attacks. But it has taken on a new sense of urgency. The reason: The soil is laced with plutonium.

If inhaled, the plutonium dust, a Cold War leftover, would pose a cancer risk. But that's not the concern that is driving "Operation Groundhog," which Kazakh officials described to Science. The nightmare is that terrorists could cart away the fissile material and fashion it into a "dirty bomb," a device to disperse the plutonium using conventional explosives. Sophisticated atom thieves could even extract enough plutonium to construct "a small nuclear device," asserts Timur Zhantikin, chair of the Atomic Energy Committee, Kazakhstan's nuclear regulatory body. Adding to the fears, says Kairat Kadyrzhanov, director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Almaty, is that "today you have essentially uncontrolled and unrestricted access to the test site."

...and KAZAKHSTAN: For a Long-Suffering Population, Uncertainty Reigns Richard Stone

SEMEY, KAZAKHSTAN--In the depths of the Cold War, a medical clinic in this city (formerly Semipalatinsk) in northeastern Kazakhstan had the ostensible purpose of caring for people with brucellosis, a bacterial disease picked up from livestock. Only after the Soviet Union unraveled did the real mission of Antibrucellosis Clinic No. 4 become clear: to observe the population near the Semipalatinsk Test Site for radiation illness and monitor radioactive contamination in the region.

In Heaven There is No Beer?

One of Blank's first loves is music, and over half his films cover that stompin' ground. His first major film tackled Dizzy Gillespie; others profile blues, Cajun, and Norteño musicians. In Heaven There Is No Beer? is Blank's visit to the red-hot polka circuit, featuring footage of such regional luminaries as Eddie Blazonczyk's Versa-Tones and Henry Jasiewicz and the Versa-Js. Flaco Jimenez gets a nod, and things get downright religious with a waltz-and-polka Mass presided over by chaplain Walter Szczypula. Throughout, there is a sense of the pure gusto poured into this European folkdancing import. Low on analysis and thankfully lacking an ironic smirk, Heaven is what you might call good clean fun ó and daring enough to anticipate the rehabilitation of polka music from punchline to cultural treasure. (One cavil: There are decidedly more shots of female derrieres than seem necessary for a film about polka. Why, Les? To what, ahem, end?) --from http://weeklywire.com/ww/05-26-98/austin_screens_scanlines.html

and more about Les Blank, and still more.

24 May
Music, politics, stewardship...

Berber Politics and World Music

Aesthetics and style aside, it is important to understand that the whole subject of Berber music and culture is inevitably colored by Berber people's longstanding struggle to achieve basic language rights in modern North African societies. In Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya--where most of today's Berber live--the Berber language, Tamazight, is not an official language. Tamazight language broadcasts are limited or non-existent in these countries, and their governments commit no funds to educating children in the language. Some Berbers see this as part of a long-standing objective by Arab-descended North Africans to eradicate Berber culture. The theory is: if nobody speaks Tamazight, the culture will pretty much go away. Obviously, this is unacceptable to Berbers in general, so for those who believe this is the objective of contemporary governments, this is a life-and-death matter.

In Algeria, where the Berber language rights movement is most overt and powerful, there have been periodic mass demonstrations since 1980 when the so-called Berber Spring uprising forced this issue into public view. That movement continues today. In June of 2001, over 1-million Berber demonstrated in Algiers, and in May of 2002, Berber in the Tamazight-speaking region of Kabylia boycotted the country's parliamentary elections because they feel that the country's entire political system is rigged against them. A number of people have died in this struggle in Algeria in recent years, and no sign of a lasting resolution is in sight.

Cheb Hasni

The tragic murder of vocalist Cheb Hasni (born Hasni Chakroun ) by members of a national terrorist unit had a profound effect on the evolution of rai, Algeria's popular dance music. According to Algerian writer Aziz Chouki, "(Hasni's) murder changed the texts. It transformed the rai scene into a protest movement." Strongly opposed by Algeria's oppressive military regime during the civil war that swept through the Middle Eastern country, Hasni's songs, which advocated open expression of love, had been previously banned by Algeria's national censorship board. A native of the northeastern Oran village of Gambetta, Hasni initially dreamed of stardom as a soccer player. He left school in hope of playing with Oran's soccer team. When he had difficulty making the team, he turned to music, singing at weddings and festivals with a group, Si Kada Nui. Performing at a wedding, Hasni was heard by the Naoui brothers, who hired him to ding at their cabaret, Guingette. A duet recorded with Cheba Zahounia, "Baraka," became a major hit in the summer of 1987. Hasni's subsequent hits included "You Are the Healer," "You Ask for Separation," "My Suffering Was Long," and "May God Help Me." Despite his problems with the Algerian government, Hasni achieved remarkable success. His debut album, Madenitch Net Ferkou, sold nearly a million copies in Paris and surrounding suburbs. Affectionately known as"the Julio Iglesias of Rai," Hasni is remembered for his ultra-light voice; sentimental lyrics; and affinity for lush, orchestrated, arrangements. He was returning home from a recording session when he was shot twice by someone he thought was a fan. ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide

Algerian Rap

But what really makes them different is their political agenda. The group uses its songs to denounce the civil war that has ravaged Algeria and left over 100,000 people dead since it began a decade ago. President Abdelaziz Boutlefika was elected for his promise to end the carnage, yet after a year in power, peace looks no nearer. “We are singing for hope,” says rapper Yousef, 24, the group’s spokesman, “for the youths of Algeria.”

Intik has been inspired by a variety of musical genres. “We identify with the old school of American rap, like Public Enemy,” says Yousef, who like all the group’s members goes by just one name. “They used rap to talk about real issues.” “But,” he explains, “Rai and Reggae are our main influences.”

Rachid Taha

Being proudly North African on the one hand and truly rebellious on the other has always meant struggle on many fronts and Rachid Taha has spent his whole career lobbing musical molotovs at the latent and, as recent event have proved, not so latent racism of the French in the form of classic songs like 'Voile Voile’ and 'Douce France' whilst berating his fellow North Africans for lack of ambition, obsession with tradition, cabaret complacency and enslavement to rai.

my notes accompanying some lyrics of protest, identity, etc. (Rhorhomanie, Oppskrift, Nothing but the same old story)

25 May
Always more bits that connect with things that have been said or shown. This one connects to a Hong Kong New Territories farm landscape image with a cesspit in the midst of orderly fields of vegetables: SARS: HUMAN FECAL ANIMAL FERTILIZER/FEED AS A SOURCE OF CORONAVIRUS INFECTION OF ANIMALS

In re: identity, which we see can be a life-or-death matter, this from 26 May New Yorker:

The BJP and the Shiv Sena are often referred to as Hindu fundamentalist, but the term doesn't quite fit because Hinduism has no fundament. Unlike Islam or Christianity, it has no one holy book, no central pontiff. There are as many rituals as there are villages. The caste system is common to all Hindus, but even it tends to undermine unity, since people are inclined to identify themselves as members of a local caste group (of which there are thousands) rather than as Hindus. A Hindu may be a monotheist, a polytheist, or an atheist. Anyone who calls himself a Hindu is a Hindu, and even those who disavow the religion may also be considered Hindus. (Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism all arose as rejections of Hindu's Brahmanical domination, but now they are regarded by the right as versions of Hinduism, and are classed as such in the Indian constitution.) There is, in short, no Hindu orthodoxy of any kind --of doctrine, of practice, or of faith. And it is Hinduism's variegated quality that allows the Hindu right to make the argument that Hinduism is a kind of secularism, and that, therefore, Indian Muslims' adherence to their exclusive monotheism amounts to a refusal of secular order...

Twenty years ago, the [Bharatiya Janata Party] B.J.P. was a marginal party of the Hindu upper castes and, as such, was seen as a perpetuator of historical exclusions and Brahman privilege. Twenty years ago, it was obvious to lower castes and Dalits (untouchables) that their political adversaries were the upper castes, who had for centuries barred them from temples and forced them into unclean, polluting jobs like latrine-cleaning and leatherwork. Now millions in those same lower castes, and even Dalits, have been persuaded that their true enemies are Muslims, who are, with few exceptions, even pooer, worse educated, and more frequently unmeployed than they are... (pp 53-54, 56)
Larissa MacFarquhar "The Strongman: where is Hindu-nationalist violence leading?"

Stacey contributed this link to a recent National Geographic article on 'Untouchables'

And a bit on Gypsy/Gitano/Rom identity: The Rom Road Films (William Washabaugh)

...the claim, explicit in Latcho Drom and implicit in the flamenco style, that Gypsies do not tolerate the dominant world because it reeks of moralism and for-display-only virtue. Gypsies, it is suggested, may be wily, but they are also brutally honest. They call a spade a spade, and they'll not brook the hypocrisy from those who lack the guts to face life as it is. Better to just pull up stakes and move on down the road.

Our films imply that this fabled honesty, this Rom candor, this Gitano penchant for wearing hearts on sleeves is a born-and-bred Gypsy trait. However, an increasing amount of historical research makes it seem more likely that nineteenth-century Gypsies exploited and co-opted a "cult of sincerity" that was then sweeping across all of Europe, turning people towards matters of the heart and away from the fatuous airs of the prior epoch...conceits displayed so disturbingly in feature films such as Dangerous Liasons (1988) and Ridicule (1996). From 1825 onward, Gypsies, travelers, and bohemians - the lumpen cast-offs of the increasingly bourgeois society - found ways to survive by playing honest and by riding the bandwagon of sincerity through social doorways and economic portals that had been previously closed to them. They played and sang and danced with excessive joy and exaggerated sorrow, and went on to become kings of hearts, the Gypsy kings. Their music may have lacked the mathematical rigor of Bach's and Mozart's, but it offered something that that elite music couldn't touch, namely, soul.

Unfortunately, most films on the subject say nothing about this Gypsy co-optation of sincerity, and leave us - even lead us - to believe that the candor and passion of Gitanos is timeless, having been carried down the long Gypsy road, and having been preserved in pure form time immemorial, "pure as the lemon" and "pure as the olive" as La Fernanda and El Chocolate say in An Andalusian Journey. This Gypsy candor is said to be a blood thing, rather than a class thing or a money thing. To its credit, Ciertos Reflejos: La Chunga sidesteps this linkage of blood and sincerity, and instead acknowledges some hard economic realities of Gypsies and music without flinching or apologizing. That is, song and dance was, and is, one of the few avenues that poor Gitanos could pursue if they wanted shoes on their feet and food in their bellies.

One final word about all three films taken together. They treat "Gitano" as if it simply meant a distinct ethnic group. This interpretation makes good sense in the post-WWII era, but not in the decades that preceded. When Antonio Machado y Alvarez wrote in the 1880s and when Federico García Lorca wrote in the 1920s, Gitanos were understood to be Andalusians - wrongfully disparaged and musically adept, but Andalusian nonetheless. They were "Gitanos-Andaluces". During the Franco years, however, this term was prized apart - with Antonio Mairena's hand wielding the lever - so that suddenly the term "Gitano" stood for its own separate thing, for a distinct Gitano identity. As a result, "flamenco Gitano" emerged as a term for distinguishing a Gitano style from an Andalusian style. This development, however much it helped to advance social justice for contemporary Gitanos, had a double downside. It masked the historical class struggles described above, and, worse, it left us with an image of Gitanos as timeless people living an immutable way of life. While such an image may seem respectful from one angle, it demeans Gitanos from another by making Gitano culture seem exceptional and exotic, if not freaky. Every other cultural system changes with time. Life is flux. Why should Gitanos to be any different? ...[in Latcho Drom] The section of flamenco consists of about fifteeen minutes of street-danced tangos and camaronista bulerías sung by La Caita and Remedios Amaya and accompanied by David Silva Santos. Their explicitly political lyrics add a new wrinkle to the flamenco tradition: "From Isabella the Catholic...from Hitler to Franco...we have been victims of their wars." But here, with its distinctly modern focus on Gitano ethnicity, such lyrics seem not only appropriate, but necessary.

26 May
Larry Summers, President of Harvard: ‘I think the logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.’ here's the text of the memo, from 1991

Whistleblowers revisited:

Power Failure: the inside story of the collapse of Enron (Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins) --see the results of a google search for "sherron watkins" whistleblower (1400+ hits)

Qui Tam Infocenter for more on whistleblowing laws (sez the OED: "...the first words of the clause qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso sequitur `who as well for the lord the king as for himself sues'. An action brought on a penal statute by an informer, who sues for the penalty both on his own behalf and on that of the crown.")

Whistleblowers say exposing an employer can deal a career-crushing blow (T. Shawn Taylor)

Recognizing Retaliation: The Risks and Costs Of Whistleblowing from Government Accountability Project Whistleblowers in Environmental Science (Elihu Richter eyt al.)

Environmental Justice

It is historically recognized that the environmental justice movement took off in Warren County, N.C., when residents demonstrated against another landfill in their county. In a moving show of civil disobedience, activists from both the civil rights and environmental movements laid down in front of trucks carrying PCB-contaminated soil into the largely African-American Warren County. The Warren County demonstrations did not stop the new landfill, but they thrust the issue of environmental racism into the national spotlight and onto the political agenda - though African-American communities were less than a fifth of the population, they hosted 75% of the landfills for the region. The environmental justice movement began as a focused debate over the connections between race and environmental burden, and we do our best to stay true to those roots. (http://www.copeen.org/environmental_racism.html)

UVa summary

EPA Compliance and Enforcement and Environmental Justice summary

Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people, including a racial, ethnic, or a socioeconomic group, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies. Meaningful involvement means that: (1) potentially affected community residents have an appropriate opportunity to participate in decisions about a proposed activity that will affect their environment and/or health; (2) the public's contribution can influence the regulatory agency's decision; (3) the concerns of all participants involved will be considered in the decision making process; and (4) the decision makers seek out and facilitate the involvement of those potentially affected.

In sum, environmental justice is the goal to be achieved for all communities and persons across this Nation. Environmental justice is achieved when everyone, regardless of race, culture, or income, enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work

Environmental Justice GIS Mapping Tools from EPA

Mapping the Future: With GIS Environmental Software, the Proof is in the Plotting By Kellyn S. Betts

South Central Oklahoma Environmental Justice Resource Center: Environmental Justice Links on the World Wide Web

Is There Environmental Racism? The Demographics of Hazardous Waste in Los Angeles County [hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs)] J.Tom Boer et al.

GIS APPLICATONS & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY By Elizabeth Holland

GIS Methods for Screening Potential Environmental Justice Areas in New England By Chitra M. Kumar (MIT Masters Thesis, 2002)

Cui Bono?

Cui Bono? A Stakeholder Approach to CSCW Evaluation Magnus Ramage and Fides Matzdorf [Computer-Supported Cooperative Work]

Scorecard from Environmental Defense

Texas Superfund Sites, A-Z (Superfund: "A site which is so polluted that only the federal government can bear the cost of a clean-up operation, which in this case is called a Superfund Emergency Response" (WikiPedia)

R:\global\texas\superfund.mxd

27 May
Our problem is how to stop, how to end the joys of finding and linking all sorts of things, at least for purposes of the Institute, and how to make some sort of summary of where we've been. We decided to drop back and punt: to continue the Juggernaut, talking about December 12th, when all over Mexico (and beyond) there are celebrations of the Virgin of Guadalupe:

"virgin of guadalupe" google search gets more than 13K hits... and Tonantzin gets more than 4K, the first being a page on The Aztec Goddess Tonantzin and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Virgin of Juquila has 1500+... and so it goes. syncretism has nearly 44K... The Virgin Of Guadalupe And The U.S. National Question is just one interesting track to follow...

A question from Rosine: "information on the status and reasons for African immigration abroad" is a good opportunity to consider some strategies

"african emigration" gets 546 google hits... but is it the right question? Just as Rosine has noted that her identity as "African" is realized in the US (whereas "Cameroonian" or an even more focused and localized identity is primary in "Africa"), it may be that the real gold is buried via searches that specify the origin of the emigrants, and/or the circumstances of emigration. Thus, "nigerian emigrants" gets only 19 hits, but some are just the sort of thing one might want to find. "sierra leone" emigrants gets 1800+ in google. I'm not sure exactly how to construct the best search, but a hunt for material on West Africans in Paris would be interesting.

Here's one that I happened on via a not-very-well-constructed mali paris emigrant google search, just what she's after: Africa's Brain Drain Slows Development

It's becoming a familiar scenario across the African continent: a bright student is accepted for study at a university in Europe, the United States, or maybe Australia. Delighted at the opportunity, the student leaves for what was intended to be an educational experience lasting several years. Instead, the temporary absence from home often turns into a lifetime spent working in the west.

Wouldn't it be nice to find institutions like Finland's Institute of Migration? But take a look at Centre for European Migration and Ethnic Studies and AnthroGlobe on ethnicity, which led me to Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies at University of Amsterdam...

An interesting question posed on a World-Systems listserv I'm following, just the sort of thing we might have addressed more directly, one of the many:

Greetings,

Lately I've become interested in the topic of the politics of modernity. Europeans, nationalists, settlers, and social scientists of all flavors have used this concept so often that we can state the obvious: "being modern" is the dominant self-image of those who rule, accumulate, and produce knowledge. The social science community is becoming more aware of this and excellent work is now being produced on this topic. These have asked "how modernity might not be what it purports to be or tells itself" (Lila Abu-Lughod). That is, the discourse around "being modern" is a political project that rather than emancipating and ushering in an age of progress is in fact implanted by European colonialists and local elites to enhance their social control over the multitude.

But what I do not see much of is the question of why "being modern" may attract the attention of some lower but emerging sectors of our world: white working classes in the US, Zionist settlers in Palestine, some western feminists ...

Partha Chaterjee, for instance, does an excellent job demonstrating how Indian nationalist elites used the discourse of modernity to rule and appropriate the technologies and science of the west while preserving the interior, domestic, spiritual realm. But what about other nationalist elites like Kemal Attaturk of Turkey or David Ben-Gurion of Israel who reached into the interior in an effort to purify the state from its "medieval" and "backward" past? More importantly, why do large sectors of such communities grap hold of this discourse, like Jewish European settlers? Does anyone know of any readings that deal with this topic? It doesn't have to be on Israel or Turkey. It could be global or micro.

Thanks,
Khaldoun

> But what I do not see much of is the question of why
> "being modern" may attract the attention of some lower
> but emerging sectors of our world: white working
> classes in the US, Zionist settlers in Palestine, some
> western feminists ...
This is true, but I think it greatly understates the appeal of 'being modern', which is not limited to various elites plus various groups we might see negatively (settlers, 'western feminists', etc (in any case, I'm not sure the settlers see themselves as 'modern'--many see themselves as on a bible-inspired mission)). There are plenty of people near the bottom of the world system by any definition who also find the idea appealing (do black workers, or immigrant workers in the US have notably less 'modern' aspirations than white workers?). The 'modern' contempt for the traditional is played out on a micro-level in a million villages and urban neighborhoods world wide. I am not thinking so much of the arrogance of agents of the state but frequently of a generational gap, with the young perceiving themselves as 'modern'. The most appealing thing about being modern, not emphasized nearly enough in the literature, is the promise of autonomy, particularly the right to not have your life-partner (or even one-night partner) chosen by some cabal of elders or by some fixed set of rules. This has been the theme of mass-appeal modernist texts going back at least to Clarissa and continuing in numerous popular films to the present, which present love triumphing over 'traditional' obstacles like religious or racial differences, and now even gender conventions. It is the promise of autonomy that has made the modern so alluring, and most of us who 'critique modernity' have no desire whatsoever to give up our own. As a text recommendation on this point, I'd mention Gewertz and Errington's Twisted Histories, which discusses this aspect of modernity, and how it plays out among the Chambri, in several chapters. Also take a look at Marshall Berman's response to Perry Anderson.
Steven Sherman

Totoro

The genius behind Totoro is the anime creator Miyazaki Hayao: see a general page, and Wikipedia's take.

The Cat Bus (NekoBasu): about, image, with suction cups

See also Totoro FAQ, a useful review, another from RottenTomatoes.com, one from Cornell Japanese Animation Society, and a caveat emptor site... [Parental Advisory, but it also has this passage: " 'My Neighbor Totoro' stands apart from all other animes in depth, humor, and animation/music quality. It gives a perfect perspective of Japanese rural life (I lived in Japan for 2 years), detailed and realistic in the characters' interactions with each other. Whether it is between daughter and father, girl and teacher, or boy and his crush, any viewer can get a true view of Japanese culture from this anime.
Second and most importantly, it is the funniest anime ever, period. It makes me cry it is so funny. All other animes pale in comparison because usually one is either laughing at how bad it is, or it is too blatant and zealous.
The characters are all memorable, emotional, and tangible..."]... and 101 Things to Do with a Dead Totoro, and Mulder and Scully... when will it ever end?

29 May
Another Miyazaki phenomenon and new discovery (which won an Oscar for 'Best Animated Feature'):

The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history (more than $234 million), Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi) is a dazzling film that reasserts the power of drawn animation to create fantasy worlds....

An interesting exchange on the World-Systems listserv, on 'modernity', included this comment that connects with things we might have talked more about:

The 'white' subaltern culture of country music and Christian fundamentalism is quite 'local' and nostalgic for the pre-modern compared to the 'black' culture of hip-hop, which provides a soundtrack to much of the transnational consuming class. (Steven Sherman)

Modernity holds a lot of appeal for a lot of people --not only people who want a new t-shirt or a car, but also people who want liberal divorce laws, modern medicine, the ability to sleep with who they want, the bright lights of the big cities... Yes, the promise of modernity often turns out to be a fraud??inaccessible to some, not what it seems to others. Yes, as well that 'traditional' cultures aren't uniformally stifling (although many are, in many ways). Yes as well some people are pushed into modern life because they're kicked off their land, not because they want to enter it. But if you want to develop an account of the spread of modern ideals that moves beyond colonial elites and western settlers, you'll have to take seriously some of the experienced drawbacks of people living in 'traditional' contexts and some of the experienced promises of modernity (and keep in mind that the romantization as well as denigration of 'pre-modern' life is a vital tradition of modernity/post-modernity). There's plenty of evidence that even in colonial contexts, people often sought out modern institutions that they thought could be turned to their benefit (see Ortner's critique of Spivak).

30 May
A Left Politics for an Age of Transition by Immanuel Wallerstein

Is Overcompetition the Problem? (response to Robert Brenner, The Economics of Global Turbulence: A Special Report on the World Economy, 1950-98 (Special issue of New Left Review, no. 229, May/June 1998), 262 pp.

Empire and the Capitalists (Immanuel Wallerstein, Commentary No. 113, May 15, 2003) by John Bellamy Foster

Assessing the Institute: a summary page for responses, still under construction.

3 June
Directory of contents of R:/global/

5 June
Some titles to keep in mind for the next iteration:

AUTHOR       Banks, Mary.
TITLE        The world encyclopedia of coffee 
IMPRINT      London : Lorenz, 1999.
CALL NO.     FOLIO TX415 .B36 1999.

AUTHOR       Groombridge, Brian.
TITLE        World atlas of biodiversity : Earth's living resources in               the 21st century / Brian Groombridge & Martin D. Jenkins.
IMPRINT      Berkeley, Calif. : London : University of California Press,
               c2002.
CALL NO.     SCI REF QH541.15.B56 G762 2002.

AUTHOR       Williams, Michael, 1935 June 24-
TITLE        Deforesting the earth : from prehistory to global crisis 
IMPRINT      Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2003.
CALL NO.     SD131 .W53 2003.

AUTHOR       Brookfield, H. C.
TITLE        In place of the forest : environmental and socio-economic 
               transformation in Borneo and the eastern Malay Peninsula
IMPRINT      Tokyo ; New York : United Nations University Press, c1995.
CALL NO.     SD418.3.B57 B76 1995.

TITLE        People and the environment : approaches for linking household and
               community surveys to remote sensing and GIS / edited by 
               Jefferson Fox ... [et al.]
IMPRINT      Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, c2003.
CALL NO.     HD108.15 .P46 2003.

TITLE        Planning support systems : integrating geographic information 
               systems, models, and visualization tools / Richard K. Brail and
               Richard E. Klosterman, editors.
IMPRINT      Redlands, Calif. : ESRI Press, c2001.
CALL NO.     HD108.15 .P574 2001.

We should be using Ambio a whole lot more... for example, Water Management for a Megacity: Mexico City Metropolitan Area (Cecilia Tortajada and Enrique Castelán) Volume 32, Number 2 March 2003