‘the worst loup-garous that one can meet’:  

Reading the werewolf in the Canadian “wilderness”

Kaja Franck
Ginger Snaps (2000) has been recognised as an exemplary example of feminist horror, yet the sequels have received little attention. The final film in the trilogy, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004), answers the concerns regarding the ending of the first film – Brigitte kills her sister Ginger, the werewolf of the title − whilst drawing on earlier Gothic traditions. Set in the nineteenth century, the two sisters are trapped in an isolated fort surrounded by frozen forest and attacked by werewolves. This setting echoes another Canadian werewolf narrative, Henry Beaugrand’s ‘The Werwolves' (1898). Beaugrand’s story opens with a group of hunters, woodsmen and militia spending the Christmas period in Fort Richelieu, Quebec. Surrounded by forests, the fort acts a point of civilisation for these frontiersmen. This location evokes North American fears, and the representation of the wooded wilderness within American Gothic literature as full of wild beasts and wild men that surrounded European-American settlements. Beaugrand collapse the ‘wild beasts’ and ‘wild men’ into one hybrid monster: his werewolves are indigenous people. ‘The Werwolves’ reflects racist and colonial attitudes towards the indigenous population. Moreover, the central werewolf of Beaugrand’s narrative is also female.
Using an ecoGothic approach, this paper argues that Ginger Snaps Back challenges the racist and sexist elements of Beaugrand’s earlier text and, in doing so, reacts to the idea that the wilderness is a threatening space. Though the gender of the werewolf remains the same in the film, the werewolf is white. This, and the depiction of the white inhabitants of the fort, uncovers the truth that, rather than being a symbol of civilisation battling against barbarism, the fort symbolises the fear and hatred towards the people and natural world that European settlers believed they found in North America.

WE ARE ALL BETA TESTERS FOR BIG PHARMA

New study explores prevalence of drug promotions in primary care practices

by The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Steve Woloshin, MD. Credit: The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

According to a new Dartmouth study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, pharmaceutical companies' promotional access to outpatient practices that deliver primary care in the U.S. is substantial, especially in smaller practices, those outside of healthcare systems, and those without academic affiliation, possibly impacting prescribing quality and cost.

While direct-to-consumer advertising has been the fastest growing segment of pharmaceutical marketing in the U.S. in recent years, drug companies actually spend more (a total of $18.5 billion in 2016) on promoting their products directly to physicians—through clinician office visits known as "detailing" and free drug samples known as "sample closets."

Detailing and free samples have been shown to affect prescribing quality and costs, often by promoting new and expensive brand name drugs over equally effective, older, and less expensive options.

To help determine the widespread prevalence of detailing and sample closets, the researchers surveyed a national sample of U.S. outpatient practices delivering primary care services and with at least three physicians between June 2017 and August 2108. They compared visit frequency and the presence of sample closets overall (across 2,190 practices), and by ownership, practice size, geographic location, and academic affiliation.

Ownership characteristics were organized into the following categories: independent multi-physician practices (with at least three primary care physicians), medical groups (with at least one multi-physician practice), simple systems (those with at least one multi-physician practice and at least one hospital), and complex systems (those with multiple simple systems).

The researchers found that weekly detailing was more common in independent multi-physician practices than in those who were part of complex systems (60 percent versus 39 percent), smaller practices with less than 10 doctors vs. those with more than 20 physicians (55 vs. 27 percent), non-academic-affiliated practices vs. those with academic affiliations (56 percent vs. 32 percent), and in those practices located in the Southern region of the country. A very similar pattern was seen for the presence of free sample closets.

"These findings are consistent with a study of broader physician populations from 2007 and likely reflect limited infrastructure in these practices to impose access restrictions or to provide independent drug information," explains lead author Steven Woloshin, MD, MS, a general internist and a professor of medicine and community and family medicine at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, and of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

"Although our findings are insufficient to fully explain the higher level of promotional access in the South, it's noteworthy that healthcare spending is also higher in the South than in other regions of the U.S.," he says.

While factors such as industry consolidation and stricter policies among hospitals and medical centers have limited some of the promotional access previously afforded to pharmaceutical companies, these activities still have a substantial effect on prescribing quality and expenditures.

"If reducing industry influence on prescribing is a priority, our findings indicate that further measures are needed, at least in practices delivering primary care, and particularly in smaller practices and those outside of health systems or academic settings," says Woloshin.

Doctor replacement ratios higher in largest, hospital-owned practices

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More information: Ashleigh C. King et al, A National Survey of the Frequency of Drug Company Detailing Visits and Free Sample Closets in Practices Delivering Primary Care, JAMA Internal Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.6770

Journal information: JAMA Internal Medicine 

INFLUENZA

Something far deadlier than the Wuhan virus lurks near you

THE FLU KILLS MORE NORTH AMERICANS EVERY YEAR THAN ANY OTHER PANDEMIC

by Liz Szabo

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

There's a deadly virus spreading from state to state. It preys on the most vulnerable, striking the sick and the old without mercy. In just the past few months, it has claimed the lives of at least 39 children.

The virus is influenza, and it poses a far greater threat to Americans than the coronavirus from China that has made headlines around the world.

"When we think about the relative danger of this new coronavirus and influenza, there's just no comparison," said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "Coronavirus will be a blip on the horizon in comparison. The risk is trivial."

To be sure, the coronavirus outbreak, which originated last month in the Chinese city of Wuhan, should be taken seriously. The virus can cause pneumonia and is blamed for more than 800 illnesses and 26 deaths. British researchers estimate the virus has infected 4,000 people.

A second person in the U.S. who visited China has been diagnosed with the Wuhan virus, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Public health workers are monitoring 63 additional patients from 22 states.

Influenza rarely gets this sort of attention, even though it kills more Americans each year than any other virus, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics, molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Influenza has already sickened at least 13 million Americans this winter, hospitalizing 120,000 and killing 6,600, according to the CDC. And flu season hasn't even peaked. In a bad year, the flu kills up to 61,000 Americans.

Worldwide, the flu causes up to 5 million cases of severe illness worldwide and kills up to 650,000 people every year, according to the World Health Organization.

And yet, Americans aren't particularly concerned.

Less than half of adults got a flu shot last season, according to the CDC. Even among children, who can be especially vulnerable to respiratory illnesses, only 62% received the vaccine.

If Americans aren't afraid of the flu, perhaps that's because they are inured to yearly warnings. For them, the flu is old news. Yet viruses named after foreign places—such as Ebola, Zika and Wuhan—inspire terror.

"Familiarity breeds indifference," Schaffner said. "Because it's new, it's mysterious and comes from an exotic place, the coronavirus creates anxiety."

Some doctors joke that the flu needs to be rebranded.

"We should rename influenza; call it XZ-47 virus, or something scarier," said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 5,000 people in the past year—more than twice as many as Ebola. Yet UNICEF officials have noted that the measles, which many Americans no longer fear, has gotten little attention. Nearly all the measles victims were children under 5.

Some people may worry less about the flu because there's a vaccine, whose protection has ranged from 19% to 60% in recent years. Simply having the choice about whether or not to receive a flu shot can give people an illusion of control, Schaffner said.

But people often feel powerless to fight novel viruses. The fact that an airplane passenger spread SARS to other passengers and flight crew made people feel especially vulnerable.

Because the Wuhan virus is new, humans have no antibodies against it. Doctors haven't had time to develop treatments or vaccines.

The big question, so far unknown, is just how easily the virus is transmitted from an infected person to others. The WHO this week opted not to declare the Wuhan outbreak an international health emergency. But officials warn the outbreak hasn't peaked. Each patient with the new coronavirus appears to be infecting about two other people.

By comparison, patients with SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, spread the infection to an average of two to four others. Each patient with measles—one of the most contagious viruses known to science—infects 12 to 18 unvaccinated people.

Health officials worry that the new coronavirus could resemble SARS—which appeared suddenly in China in 2002 and spread to 26 countries, sickening 8,000 people and killing 774, according to the WHO.

The U.S. dodged a bullet with SARS, Schaffner said. Only eight Americans became infected, and none died, according to the CDC. Yet SARS caused a global panic, leading people to shutter hotels, cancel flights and close businesses.

Coronaviruses can be unpredictable, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. While some patients never infect anyone else, people who are "super spreaders" can infect dozens of others.

At Seoul's Samsung Medical Center in 2015, a single emergency room patient infected 82 people—including patients, visitors and staff—with a coronavirus called MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. The hospital partly shut down to control the virus.

"This is one of the finest medical centers in the world, on par with the Cleveland Clinic, and they were brought to their knees," Osterholm said.

Yet MERS has never posed much a threat to the U.S.

Only two patients in the U.S. - health care providers who had worked in Saudi Arabia—have ever tested positive for the virus, according to the CDC. Both patients survived.

Hotez, who is working to develop vaccines against neglected diseases, said he worries about unvaccinated children. Most kids who die from the flu haven't been immunized against it, he said. And many were previously healthy.

"If you're worried about your health, get your flu vaccination," Hotez said. "It's not too late."

Are you in danger of catching the coronavirus? 5 questions answered

USA! USA! USA!

Rural kids carrying handguns is 'not uncommon' and starts as early as sixth grade

by Jake Ellison, University of Washington

Handgun carrying by rural children as young as 12 indicates that firearm violence and injury-related prevention programs may need to be introduced early in a child’s life, researchers say. Credit: Pixabay

Roughly one-third of young males and 1 in 10 females in rural communities have carried a handgun, reports a new University of Washington study. And, the study found, many of those rural kids started carrying as early as the sixth grade.

"This is one of the first longitudinal studies of rural adolescent handgun carrying across multiple states in the U.S. It provides evidence that youth handgun carrying in these settings is not uncommon," said lead author Dr. Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, a UW associate professor of epidemiology and Co-Director of Firearm Injury & Policy Research Program at Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center.

The study of rural communities across the country, published Jan. 24 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, also found the practice was associated with pro-handgun attitudes and with having friends who carry handguns.

Knowing that some kids as young as 12 report carrying a handgun indicates that firearm violence and injury-related prevention programs may need to be introduced early in a child's life, researchers say.

"Youth handgun carrying and firearm violence are often presented as an exclusively inner-city problem," said Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar, who is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence in the UW School of Public Health. "However, that focus should not come at the cost of ignoring non-urban settings. Indeed, youth in some rural areas experience similar or even higher rates of handgun carrying and certain forms of interpersonal violence—for example, being attacked or threatened with a weapon—than their counterparts in urban areas."

Specifically, the researchers found:

• In sixth grade, 11.5% of males and 2.8% of females had carried a handgun within the past year.
• From the sixth grade to age 19, 33.7% of males and 9.6% of females reported carrying at least once during that time.
• Of those who carried, 34% of males and 29.3% of females had carried a handgun for the first time in the sixth grade. However, of those who carried, a majority of both sexes carried a handgun only once over the seven years.
• More kids who carried had friends who did the same. For instance, in the 10th grade, 63% of males who carried had a friend who carried. And of those young males who had not carried a handgun, only 6% had a friend who did. The same pattern was apparent for females.
• A far higher percentage of kids who carried also endorsed pro-handgun norms. For instance, they were much more likely to view taking a handgun to school or work as "not very wrong" than their non-carrying peers.

The study of handgun carrying among rural youth is based on 2,002 kids who started answering survey questionnaires in the sixth grade when they lived in 12 rural communities in seven states. Participants took annual surveys over a seven-year period, 2005 to 2012, as part of the UW's Community Youth Development Study. That larger study is designed to evaluate the university's Communities That Care program, which helps communities take a broad approach to preventing youth problem behaviors.

The 12 communities included in the new study had been randomly selected to not implement the Communities That Care prevention program, which has been found to reduce a variety of risky behaviors among youth, including carrying a handgun.

"We looked at handgun questions only in the control communities, those that did not receive the risk prevention program," Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar explained. "This is because we did not want to measure the effect of the Communities That Care intervention in this study. We wanted to characterize the age at initiation, prevalence and patterns of handgun carrying in the absence of the intervention."

The dangers of young people's exposure to guns are well-documented—firearm injury is second only to vehicle crashes as a leading cause of death among U.S. kids, with 65% of those deaths resulting from a conflict with another young person. Carrying firearms is associated with adolescent bullying, physical fighting and assault. The researchers also point out that federal law prohibits people under age 18 from possessing a handgun.

This is just the first step toward studying health effects, Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar said. A lack of foundational information about youth handgun carrying in rural settings means studies of the causes and consequences of this behavior have also been missing. The team now plans to study these factors—risk of violence or injury among rural youth who carry a handgun compared to those who do not, for instance—in the near future.

Three million Americans carry loaded handguns daily, study finds

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More information: Ali Rowhani-Rahbar et al, Initiation Age, Cumulative Prevalence, and Longitudinal Patterns of Handgun Carrying Among Rural Adolescents: A Multistate Study, Journal of Adolescent Health (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.11.313

Macedonia imposes urgent measures due to severe pollution

North Macedonia's government on Monday said it was imposing urgent measures in the country's capital, Skopje, and the western city of Tetovo in order to protect people from severely high levels of air pollution.

Authorities said the levels of toxic particles in the air were about 11 times higher than the safe levels on two consecutive days, creating a health hazard.

The government has recommended companies allow pregnant women and persons over the age of 60 to not work, for construction companies to reduce outdoor work and for sport and other outdoor activities to be banned on days of high pollution.

The government said it would reduce the use of its official vehicles by half, and ordered the health and welfare ministries to provide shelter for homeless people and to increase emergency services and home visits to people with chronic illnesses.

The measures will take effect from Tuesday.

North Macedonia has been one of Europe's most polluted countries for years. Health authorities estimate that more than 3,000 people die each year as result of air pollution, which is mostly a result of the heavy use of household wood-burning stoves during cold winters, an old fleet of cars and the practice in some areas of garbage disposal by incineration.

Dozens of environmental groups have held protests in recent weeks demanding government action to reduce heavy air pollution. The country's president, Stevo Pendarovski, warned in his annual address before lawmakers last month that air pollution "seriously undermines our nation's potential."

Balkans suffering 'very high' air pollution

CLIMATE CHANGE

Brazil region swept by floods and record rains faces muddy desolation

by Valeria Pacheco

A flooded house in the Brazilian town of Sabara, near Belo Horizonte, in January 2020

Elaine Almeida looked at her aunt's ruined house in Sabara, a town in a southeastern region of Brazil where at least 45 people have died in floods that followed record rainfall.

"The water rose more than two meters, she lost everything," Almeida said.

She and her aunt tried pushing the door of the house open, but the mud inside was so deep they had to give up.

In Sabara, a town of some 130,000 residents on the edge of Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, homes built on the banks of the Rio das Velhas river were completely submerged by mud and water, their roofs either ripped off by the surging current or caved in under the weight of the mud.

The football pitch in front of the aunt's house has completely disappeared under a thick brown layer of mud.

"The water rose very quickly and she couldn't leave by the front door, she had to climb over three walls to escape," said Elaine, 36, who is putting her aunt up while she looks for a new place to live.

Elaine's own house was spared the worst because she lives in a hillier part of Sabara.

Like her aunt, 15,000 people had to leave their homes across Minas Gerais, where more than 100 towns have been put on a state of alert.

At least 45 people have been killed in the floods, with the death toll expected to rise

 still further

Most of those who died in the wake of the violent storms that swept the southeast of Brazil perished in landslides or when their homes collapsed in the floods and unprecedented rains.

The authorities reported 44 dead late Sunday but a 45th fatality was reported Monday and the toll is expected to rise further, with another 18 people still listed as missing.

'Critical situation'

Gilvan Jesus Amorim, 43, only just escaped the worst. "I didn't managed to save anything except my own life," he said, looking crushed.

"There's nothing to salvage, I'll have to throw everything away," said Amorim, who has been living for three days with his wife and daughter at a neighbor's house, with no running water or electricity.

"When it started raining, I told my wife we had to sleep upstairs and we took a mattress up there. But a few hours later the water started to rise really fast and we had to leave," he said.

Map showing areas most affected by deadly rainstorms in Brazil.

His street is strewn with household items all coated in mud: refrigerators, remote controls, mattresses, scattered clothes.

"It's one of the worst floods I've ever seen, the situation is critical," said Lucimara Soares, a 42-year-old cleaner.

"Lots of my friends have lost everything, they have nothing left," she said.

Firefighters and the Red Cross have launched a campaign to gather donations to help the flood victims.

Most of the buildings that were destroyed had been built without permits and in areas considered to be at risk. The National Meteorological Institute said the rainfall was the heaviest ever recorded in Minas Gerais since records began 110 years ago.

Icelandic volcano swell signals potential eruption

For nearly a week, a series of earthquakes have been shaking the area around Grindavik, not far from the steaming waters of the "Blue Lagoon," a popular geothermal spa in southwestern Iceland on the Reykjanes Peninsula

Small earthquakes and a so-called "inflation" of the mountain, signalling a potential volcanic eruption, have been reported near Iceland's famous "Blue Lagoon," local authorities said Monday.

The Icelandic Met Office declared a state of uncertainty over the weekend, following days of several smaller earthquakes and a swelling of the mountain.

Alert levels for aviation were also raised from "green" to "yellow," defined as when a volcano "is experiencing signs of elevated unrest above known background levels."

For nearly a week, a series of earthquakes have been shaking the area around Grindavik, not far from the steaming waters of the "Blue Lagoon," a popular geothermal spa in southwestern Iceland on the Reykjanes Peninsula.

The largest recorded quake had a magnitude of 3.7.

Swarms of earthquakes are not unusual in the area, but the fact that they were occurring alongside an "unusually fast" inflation of Mount Thorbjorn, a few kilometres (miles) from Grindavik, was "a cause for concern and closer monitoring," according to the Icelandic Met Office.

A rise of about 3.0-4.0 millimetres a day has been detected, totalling 2.0 centimetres on Sunday, and is suspected to be from magma accumulation a few kilometres under ground.

Depending on the cause, a few scenarios are being considered.

If the rise is due to accumulation of magma in the volcano, it could either simply cease or continue to build up, potentially leading to an eruption.

But if the rise is due to tectonic activity, it could signal more powerful earthquakes in store.

The peninsula is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates diverge.

"It's too soon to try to distinguish which (scenario) is the most likely," Pall Einarsson, professor of geophysics at the Faculty of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland, told AFP.

Einarsson said that in the event of an eruption it would be "the most peaceful kind you can think of."

"We always have to plan for the worst, so we are planning for an eruption, but the most likely scenario is that this event will just stop," said Rognvaldur Olafsson, chief inspector at the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management.

New measuring instruments were due to be installed on Monday to monitor the activity more closely.

In 2010, eruptions at Eyjafjallajokull sent a huge cloud of smoke and ash over Europe, resulting in the cancellation of more than 100,000 flights, stranding some eight million passengers.

The last known eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula was nearly 800 years ago.

However, according to Einarsson, eruptions in this region of Iceland are "effusive" with a narrow flow of lava and a small amount of ash, meaning they are not likely to cause harm to people.

Earthquakes over 5 magnitude shake Iceland volcano

Sexual violence is a driver of women's political mobilization

 by Göteborgs universitet

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Sexual violence in armed conflict does not necessarily silence women. On the contrary, sexual violence can be a driver of women's political mobilization for peace and women's rights, a dissertation from the University of Gothenburg shows.

"The findings are encouraging for Sweden's feminist foreign policy, which emphasizes gender-sensitive approaches to armed conflict and women's empowerment," says the author of the thesis Anne-Kathrin Kreft.

As the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad reminds us, sexual violence in armed conflict remains a global threat to peace and security, especially for women and girls. It spreads fear and causes unthinkable physical and emotional harms to its victims.

For these reasons, previous research has generally assumed that sexual violence in conflict inhibits women's political participation. But this paints a misleading picture. A new dissertation reveals a previously unexamined link between gendered conflict violence and gains in women's agency.

"My analyses reveal that women mobilize in civil society at higher levels during conflicts with widespread sexual violence compared to conflicts with no or few reports of sexual violence," says Anne-Kathrin Kreft, Ph.D. student in political science.

To examine the implications for women´s agency, she carried out four months of fieldwork in Colombia, a priority country in Swedish development cooperation. Colombia has been in a state of internal armed conflict since the 1960s, and sexual violence perpetrated by the military, different rebel groups and paramilitary forces has been widespread. At its highest, 2,500 cases were reported for the year 2003 alone, most of them against women.

Anne-Kathrin Kreft interviewed 33 activists representing 24 women's organizations and victims' associations in different parts of the country. Several of these operate with financial or technical support provided by the Swedish government.

"The activists saw sexual violence perpetrated by armed actors as deeply gendered. For them, sexual violence is closely linked to, and an expression of, patriarchal norms that devalue, oppress and disadvantage women in society. This is why they are convinced that wide-ranging transformations in gender norms and relations are necessary to make Colombia safer for women, including from conflict-related sexual violence," says Anne-Kathrin Kreft.

Some women's organizations and victims' associations formed specifically in response to this violence, while many existing organizations took on conflict-related sexual violence as a priority issue.

"Reflecting the gendered threat sexual violence poses, much of the civil society activism also extends to a broader fight for women's rights and gender equality."

Women's widespread inequality and rape as a weapon of war

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More information: Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: Threat, Mobilization and Gender Norms. An abstract is digitally published: gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/59909

Victims of mass atrocities often portrayed as disempowered in international law

by Pekka Rautio, University of Helsinki

Doctoral Student Nadia Valentina Tapia Navarro, Faculty of Law,

 University of Helsinki. Credit: University of Helsinki.

According to a doctoral thesis completed by Nadia Valentina Tapia Navarro, victims of mass atrocities are often portrayed as disempowered, passive, defenceless and docile in discourses pertaining to international law.

"This prevents parties active in international law from assessing the potential of domestic practices that emphasise the agency of victims," the doctoral candidate summarises.

The study indicates that victims who use the language of international law not only adopt it as such. In addition, they also affect, through their actions, the formation of an identity associated with the category of victim in international law.

"A stereotypical image of the disempowerment of victims is also often highlighted by the fact that instead of representing themselves, they are represented by others," Tapia Navarro says.

In her thesis, Tapia Navarro examines both the judicial practice of the International Criminal Court related to victims of international crimes and domestic examples of victims's groups using the language of the law from Colombia.

"For example, the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, which I investigated, identifies itself as a group of victims of widespread atrocities without behaving as traditionally expected of victims. The community is composed of peasants living in the Urabá region of Colombia.

"In place of passivity and docility, they have at times oppose governmental measures aimed at alleviating their suffering. For instance, the peace community has turned down compensation paid to individuals, as they consider them to be against their communal way of life and community projects," Tapia Navarro adds.

Another group investigated by Tapia Navarro has named itself the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE). The group wishes to highlight the origin of the crimes targeted at them: in Colombia, the state employs violent means not only against guerrilla groups, but also against the civilian population as a form of political persecution.

"The victims of state crimes are pointing out the connection between the state and paramilitary violence, a notion not widely accepted, in Colombia" Tapia Navarro describes.

According to the doctoral candidate, the groups above are apt examples of victims whose alternative narratives challenge the stereotypical portrayal of passively docile victims prevalent in international law.

"The groups have adopted the category of victim found in the language of law. However, through precisely this kind of action, they are taking advantage of that status in their politically motivated activities. In doing so, they are imprinting specific meanings to the categories of international law.

"Better consideration of such actions could allow us to understand how victims' actions promote the development of international law," Tapia Navarro assesses.

Does restorative justice help or harm victims?

Economic growth and environmental sustainability

by Steve Cohen, Earth Institute, Columbia University
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

There are political and business leaders who do not care if economic growth causes environmental damage, and there are environmental advocates who do not believe you can have economic growth without causing environmental damage. In a New York Times piece on the climate and economics discussions at Davos, Mark Landler and Somini Sengupta reported that:

"Critics pointed to a contradiction that they said the corporate world had been unable to resolve: how to assuage the appetite for economic growth, based on gross domestic product, with the urgent need to check carbon emissions. 'It's truly a contradiction,' said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. 'It's difficult to see if the current G.D.P.-based model of economic growth can go hand-in-hand with rapid cutting of emissions,' he said."

I find this dialog a little amazing since it completely ignores the history of America's success in decoupling the growth of GDP and the growth of environmental pollution. This fact of American environmental and economic life began around 1980, a decade after the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and continues today. It's really quite simple- with public policies ranging from command-and-control regulations to direct and indirect government subsidies, businesses and governments developed and applied technologies that reduced pollution while allowing continued economic growth. This is not a fantasy, it is history. In the 1960s you could not see the mountains from downtown Los Angeles, today you can. In the 1960s you could not ride a bike on a path next to the Hudson River, today you can. Until 1985, we New Yorkers dumped raw sewage into the Hudson River. Today, with rare exceptions, we treat our sewage waste. And both Los Angeles and New York City have larger economies in 2020 than they had in 1980. In case you believe this progress was due to deindustrialization, the two largest sources of air pollution are power plants and motor vehicles and we have many more of them today than we had in 1980. Both utilize pollution control technology required by regulation under the law.

Environmental protection itself contributes to economic growth. Somebody makes and sells the air pollution control technologies we put on power plants and motor vehicles. Somebody builds the sewage and water treatment facilities. Just as someone makes money off of solar cells and windmills and whoever invents the 1,000-mile high capacity battery that will power electric cars someday will become very, very rich. And environmental amenities are worth money. The cleaner Hudson made the waterfront more suitable for housing development. And the building boom on New York's west side followed the clean-up of the Hudson River. An apartment across the street from a park will bring a higher price than the same apartment a block away. The revival of New York's Central Park raised the value of the already high-end real estate bordering the park. Clean air and water, healthy food and preserved nature all benefit human health and result in far more economic benefit than economic cost.

The climate problem is not caused by economic growth, but by the absence of effective public policy designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is nothing incompatible with capitalism and environmental protection as long as rules are in place that control the environmental impacts of the products and services we make and use. With those rules in place, a concern for environmental sustainability can and will permeate everyday decision-making in the private, nonprofit and governmental organizations we all benefit from.

I've written often about the evolution of the field of management over the past century or so and that a concern for sustainability is the newest trend in the development of more sophisticated organizational management. In the 20th century, we saw the field of management absorb the development of mass production, social psychology, accounting, information management, satellite and cellular communications, globalization and now a concern for the physical dimensions of environmental sustainability. Sustainability managers continue to lead an organization's marketing, strategy, finance and work processes but they also seek to assess their use of energy, water and other materials and work to reduce waste and environmental impacts. Just as finance staff, reinforced by the Security and Exchange Commission rules learned to identify and reduce self-dealing, conflict of interest and fraud; sustainability staff reinforced by EPA rules look to identify and reduce organizational practices that damage the environment.

On the production side, organizational managers work to increase environmental sustainability, but on the consumption side, consumers are not only buying green but changing patterns of consumption that also help reduce environmental damage. Going to a gym, riding a bike or eating a salad are all activities that add to the GDP. But so does taking your private jet to your ski lodge, driving in your SUV to the ski slopes, and eating a steak. All consumption behaviors are not created equal and do not have the same impact on environmental sustainability. More sustainable lifestyles are emerging and they can be detected in consumption patterns. For example, young Americans seem less interested in owning cars than their older siblings and parents did. Ride-sharing, bike sharing and other transit options have become feasible due to the development of the smartphone. But sitting in an Uber or driving your own car are both economic activities that are counted in the GDP.

These consumption trends are more influenced by changing cultural norms than by public policy, and typically should not be subjects of policymaking. Exceptions might include consumption that has a direct negative impact on others such as driving while intoxicated or smoking in a public space. The environmental impact of consumption can also be reduced by new technologies. For example, streaming music and video has far less environmental impact than videos and discs that used to be manufactured, packaged and shipped before they were used.

It is ironic that some environmentalists along with some climate deniers share the belief that we must trade off economic growth and environmental protection. We can and must accomplish both. A reason that we cannot abandon economic development is that most people in the developed world like the way they live and will not give up their way of life. Asking them to do so dooms environmental advocates to political marginalization and failure. Due to the internet, even very poor people in the developing world see the way we live here, want it, and are demanding that their political regimes help them achieve their dreams. The absence of economic development leads to political instability and the potential for violence. Climate scientists often mention the impact of climate change on political instability and the phenomenon of climate refugees is well documented. But the path to climate mitigation is not through slower economic growth, but through economic growth that is steered toward environmental sustainability and away from gratuitous environmental destruction.

One of the first sustainability books I ever read was Ian McHarg's "Design with Nature." McHarg developed cluster development as an alternative to suburban sprawl. The idea was that rather than providing every home with a quarter acre of land and their own large yard, you would build the housing in the one area of the building site that would cause the least damage to natural drainage and ecosystems and preserve the rest of the land as a parkland for hiking and viewing. It turned out that most of the outdoor access people used in their homes was on their patios, and that suburban yards were not simply ecological disasters, but a burdensome waste for most homeowners. (This past June a wonderful piece summarizing McHarg's ideas and influence appeared on the City Lab website and it is well worth reading.) McHarg demonstrated that with care, humans could build urban developments that might minimize rather than maximize environmental damage.

Sloppy management, the hunger for easy money and short-term profits, and ideological rigidity lead some to believe the environment must be sacrificed for economic growth. The belief that capitalism is evil and inevitably causes environmental destruction leads others to believe that sustainable economic development is not feasible. My view is that with enlightened design, sustainability management and cutting-edge technology we can harness human ingenuity to the practical problems of environmentally sustainable economic development. We can build and live in sustainable cities and end the climate and ecological crises that seem so overwhelming today.

Climate change and economic consumption

Provided by Earth Institute, Columbia University

This story is republished courtesy of Earth Institute, Columbia University http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu.