People talk about the tendency of contemporary America to be anti-intellectual. But what is perhaps more frightening is an anti-science tendency. Never mind that only 36% of Americans believe in climate change right about now. There is another whole subset of the population that believes in it even less–23% of white evangelical Protestants believe that there is “solid evidence” that the climate is changing.

Initially proponents of teaching creationism and intelligent design instead of evolutionary theory, the “fair representation of all theories” crew, now has climate change listed under its ranks as questionable science, that should not be taught in schools.

These are excerpts on the subject from an article in the NY Times.

In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

In Louisiana, a law passed in 2008 says the state board of education may assist teachers in promoting “critical thinking” on all of those subjects.

Last year, the Texas Board of Education adopted language requiring that teachers present all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming.

Oklahoma introduced a bill with similar goals in 2009, although it was not enacted.

In South Dakota, a resolution calling for the “balanced teaching of global warming in public schools” passed the Legislature this week. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” the resolution said, “but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.”

We made it through February. Hooray! And while March can still be a month to savor and simultaneously curse the last days of winter, it is certainly time to start thinking about gardens. 

And we have some very ambitious friends who are imagining putting a small patch of concrete near NYC City Hall to good use.  DC’s most important lawn–perhaps the nations most important lawn– is gearing up to carry its 2nd season of fresh produce. This is the first time The White House has had a productive yard since Eleanor Roosevelt’s WWII victory garden graced the premises. At that time, 40% of America’s produce was grown on small plots that made up the victory garden movement. I can’t quite think of a parallel in today’s patriotism. But New Yorkers! Pay attention to this and sign yourself onto the movement.

From the NY Times Diner’s Journal:

But today, “The hope is that a vegetable garden can be planted in front of City Hall in time for a nice tomato harvest this summer,” said Daniel Bowman Simon, who is organizing a petition drive to hand over to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

So don’t deny it of that, please.

More and more research is leading scientists to believe (and engage in further research) that we humans function much better when there is some piece of nature around us. Even if it is just a small patch of grass or a glimpse of a tree, we seem to be able to concentrate better, heal quicker from injury, make better decisions, even live longer, when we have some exposure to natural elements, in our urban world. 

I personally am fascinated by this and it is truly my engine for wanting to be involved in the movement to approach the city as an ecosystem and habitat for humans. Better humans = better cities. As Plato said, “This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.”

This is a budding field, with plenty more to question, but it is an exciting time for us urban habitat explorers. While I do love to hug trees–and most things actually–the benefits and value of doing so seems to be coming away from the fringes and into more common discussions about what we really can gain when we look at the city from an urban ecology perspective. I love it. It excites me. I could talk about this for hours on end.

And tomorrow night I will talk about it for 6 minutes at Green Home NYC’s Women of Green event. It is Pecha Kucha format, so there are 12 of us speaking, with 20 slides each, and 20 seconds on each one of those slides. Come join us! Should be a good night. And if you can’t make it, stay tuned for more discussions on urban habitats.

Clearly, it wasn’t coincidence that the distant moon of the Na’vi tribe, of the film Avatar, is named after the 1st lady of Greek mythology. She was the giver of all, “the endowed one,” the beauty that represented temptation. Pandora, the moon habitat of the Na’vi, is also a provider of gifts and temptation.  But here, gifts are the temptation for some species. The resources of Pandora are extremely valuable, so the imperial humans dominate, extract, and damage the enchanting gifts of the forest to satisfy their profits and the  “needs” of the other humans on their “dying planet.” Enter a love story between native girl and white man (complete with snarls and disapproval from native man) an angry military man, a twerpy business man, and some scientists who want to save trees. 

Beyond the mesmerizing visual effects, (and they really were beautiful beyond belief at times) what is new here? The conservative business community and the military are mad because it is anti-capitalist and anti-military.  The Vatican‘ doesn’t like its animalistic worship messages.  Been there, heard that. There are a few folks talking about the environmental message of Avatar, but for the most part it is praise for Cameron’s ability to bring these issues into an action packed entertaining 2.5 hour movie rather than a “pedantic,” threatening documentary.

But the passive ecological message I walked away with was, “Only native people can learn how to view their home, their planet, as an interconnected system.  We modern people have so much to learn from them, but we never will. Instead, we use their indigenous knowledge for our own gains. We laugh at the idea of a whole systems approach to understanding our place in the world.  And in the end, we can set fire to trees, cause a lot of problems but mother nature and her children will always win. ” And I say this skeptically of course. But the messages are there.

Cameron’s attempt at getting people to think about ecological demise exists within the status quo and cliche depictions that existed during the decade long making of the film. The romanticizing of indigenous peoples’ lives as a tree running, bird flying existence is another problem in entirety. But what I would really like to ask of James Cameron, since he started the discussion of avatar as an “environmental warning”, why not make the fantasy more about personal responsibility or the need to change the way we think about the environment? What if more than one person was “converted” during the course of the movie to understand the system of the forest? And what if instead of sending the intruding people back to a dying planet, they were all taken in by the Na’vi to be retrained in how to live in a more ecologically friendly way and then they went home to fix their planet?

It would have been a different kind of happy ending, one that requires a reversal of bad ecological behavior.  Because, in reality, while worshiping Mother Nature is a good idea–a great idea in fact–at this point, humans have altered the operating system of the planet to the extent that she only responds, but can no longer correct the damage that has been done. We can’t go to other moons, only to eventually be defeated and sent away to our broken home.

So, in my imagination, Avatar 2: Pandora to Earth brings us back to the home planet of the humans and shows them getting to work to save it, once they have realized that they only have one.  Humans are delighted and inspired by the cities, the mountains, and the seas–the systems and all the magic that their planet is home to.  They see themselves as part of it, not only dominating it. They become intricately connected to the past that has created the present.

Now that would be an environmental message, Mr. Cameron. Avatar 1 is certainly beautiful. I was intrigued and delighted by the living tree. But I am also quite curious about the street tree outside my doorstep. And that is the real challenge that we face right now: Getting people to think differently about the environments that surround them, their place within them, and the gifts that our planet offers us each and every day.

In 1609, New York’s future waterfront was an arcadian shore of forests, wetlands, beaches, and sand bars, according to Eric Sanderson’s book Mannahatta. That landscape is lost forever, but visions of a post-industrial, neo-natural waterfront are longstanding. In 1944, futurists Paul and Percival Goodman proposed that Manhattan “open out toward the water,” lining its gritty waterfront with new parks. They were prescient: today the water’s edge of Manhattan is evolving from a “no-man’s-land” into a “highly desirable zone of parks,” in the words of writer Phillip Lopate.

This spring, CISC will be co-hosting a colloquium series on the newly designated “Manhattan Waterfront Greenway.” Make sure to save the dates below so that you can come and learn about this conglomeration of green spaces that have been cobbled together from many bits and pieces like Battery Park City, Hudson River Park, Riverside Park South, restored Harlem River parks, and tiny Stuyvesant Cove Park––each with its own chronicle of past and present struggles among property owners, community groups, developers, politicians, planners, lawyers, and other stakeholders. Elsewhere in the city, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, Governors Island, the South Bronx Greenway, Pelham Bay South Waterfront Park, and Gateway National Recreation Area are among many waterfront works in progress. The colloquium series will address selected topics and issues relating to what has been achieved and what remains to be done to continue the transformation of New York’s waterfronts.

Schedule of Sessions

• Wed. Feb. 24:  “Opening Out Toward the Water”– The Big Picture
• Wed. Mar. 17:   Waterfront Parks: Old, New, Green, Blue
• Wed. April 7:   Seizing Opportunities: Waterfront Works in Progress
• Wed. April 28:  Reviving the Estuary: Science and Education

Location
Roosevelt House, 47-49 E. 65th Street (Map)

Time
5:30 – 7:30 P.M.

For more information
Contact Carina Molnar carina.molnar@hunter.cuny.edu This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; (212) 650-3456 or Dr. Rutherford H. Platt platt@geo.umass.edu This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , (413) 575-0685.