I think he implied, though was too good-mannered to say, that he felt that academics exist with a more culpable complacency, as once American academic folks espoused an intellectual and civil leadership, which has vanished in the constant waves of economic and political intimidation. (Perhaps I exceed Aaron's voice here.)
Urgency? Here's one popular account, with which the Conservation Biology Reading group started their semester, Bill McKibben's Global Warming's Terrifying New Math . This article suggests that if we simply do the math, looking at fossil fuel resources scheduled to be developed, and the amounts of atmospheric carbon that will be released, we won't limit climate change to 2 degrees C (already in the realm of cheesy sci-fi movies), but may push all the way to a disastrously close, this century 6 degree C shift. (McKibben suggests that would be a scenario out of eco-horror films, but doesn't picture for us what that would mean. I think that would be an interesting project in futuring.)
The biology professor sponsering the CB group just now says he actually believes we have closed the window where any public/community action will make any difference.
A sidetrack. I like the Conservation Biology people. The grad students introduce themselves and append the lab they work for, as an aspect of their identity. When they talk science, including climate change, they get it. They look at the numbers, they know the science, and yep, we're screwed. They don't see why everyone doesn't get it. They much believe in scientific truth, singular Truth, more Allah than the ambiguous Christian trinity. Truth. No post-structural turn. No Donna Haraway. I mentioned "indigenous science" last year, and that became a brief silence, a bump on the tape before they went on. "Place" has less resonance for them, because they believe in universals. Yet, they do get the science.
Geography? Well, I don't know. Joe H. does still bring in those population charts, the ones layered from the bottom up, showing Nigeria and Egypt and here and there all resting on the explosive stacks of youth, the sort of thing anathema to political ecology. (I don't trust political ecology, which seems like it could be used in matters of environmental justice and food security, but whose belligerence and internal ideology prevents any serious long-term vision.) Mike U. would know the science of climate. And then? Wish I could channel Aaron here, but I guess I'll just say in my own voice that I don't find in Geography much familiarity with any of the radical ecologies/ethics, which all insist on a reconfiguring of living human relations and economies, not simply a hope that "better education" or "rational" investigations, nor technological fixes will make a difference. (Radical ecologies: Deep Ecology, ecofeminisms, bioregionalism, social ecology... I much like Carolyn Merchant's book on this.) Nor familiarity with the imaginative literature that extrapolates, tests, exposes. Even Leslie Silko's Gardens in the Dunes portrays environmental fault lines in our culture, from the perspective of native "outsiders."
The old complaint--that we/universities/globalized-imperial civilization talk about the globe, structure knowledge globally, but apply very little to changing local conditions nor understanding local knowledges. Wendell Berry, (in an essay on the top shelf in my office where I am not) says that rural peoples and states are colonized by this mindset.
And so we gaze out the window of Stewart 102...fascinated by the storm.
later, bob
As you well know, I came to the same conclusion about political ecology in last semester's seminar, though I still will teach PE to undergrads next semester: a paycheck has to be made. The Academy is by definition conservative, an instituion: Aaaron in that sense is correct. But my misgivings with his polemic, and that of the CB coordinator who confirmed our "death sentence," is that it does little to incite action - it in fact discourages it in the form of political reactionism. I feel that we (academics) need to engage others in our shared fascination at the storm, and let our discussions emerge from that place. 'Cause the more you force it via head-on argument (as in political ecology, climate science, etc.), the greater the counter-reaction will be. We need more tricksters in the academy (cf. Bird Rose).
ReplyDeleteHmm...that's intriguing. "Tricksters in the academy." What would go into that? What would be possible, or still, perhaps, be credible? (What boundary-crossing can show us something useful?)
ReplyDeletebob