The cosmopolitan ecologist

Each person in Washington this Inauguration weekend had their own singular moment, when one fully realized how historic the event was. For many people it may have been the moment where Barack Obama stood on the west steps of the Capitol and took the oath. For me, for personal reasons the moment was during Sunday’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial, when some musicians covered Sam Cooke’s famous song, “A Change is Gonna Come”.

I suspect the organizers of the event meant this as a not-so-subtle play on one of Barack Obama’s campaign slogans, as well as symbolically linking Barack Obama’s achievement with the broader civil rights struggle. Martin Luther King Jr., of course, gave his famous speech from the very same steps where the musicians were performing. For me, though, there was another more personal relationship with the song, perhaps less important than the implications for African-Americans but for me more resonant. The first song at my wife and I’s wedding was another cover of the same song, by Otis Redding. We picked the song because for us we knew personal change was coming- marriage and adulthood and perhaps children. But there also was apolitical meaning, for we met at a protest against the Iraq War, and we hoped change would come politically to America as well.

And so there was something personally fulfilling about hearing that song played. We are older now, and were at the concert with our son. We have recently moved to DC, and suddenly the political tone of the place has changed. And possibly the Iraq War, which has hovered over our relationship since its inception, will begin to draw to a close. Hearing the song made me realize how interesting it is to be alive right now. It’s been a long time coming.

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Umberto Eco’s new collection of essays, entitled “Turning back the clock: hot wars and media populism,” is a mixed bag. Some of the essays are so specific to particular moments in Italian politics that they are hard for Americans to understand. Some are fun and amusing but aren’t of much lasting interest. Some, however, are masterpieces of the genre.

One of the best essays is called “The wolf and the lamb: The rhetoric of oppression.” The centerpiece of the essay is the fable of the wolf and the lamb who happened to approach a river at the same time, looking for a drink. The wolf accuses the lamb of various offences, including muddying the water of the stream, all of which the lamb rhetorically refutes (the lamb is actually downstream of the wolf, for example). Having lost the rhetorical battle, the wolf goes ahead and devours the lamb anyway. Eco then goes on to discuss the various types of political discourse that is the political equivalent, including the United States’ series of arguments justifying an Iraq war that had already been decided on.

I thought about this as I read Dana Milbank’s excellent piece in the Washington Post this AM. Milbank describes the absurd series of arguments used by a set of Republicans to argue that: 1.) Barack Obama is not born in the United States (there’s a claim his Hawaiian birth certificate is fake, which pisses me off as it looks just as real as my Hawaiian birth certificate!), 2.) if he were born in the United States he still isn’t eligible for presidency (a murky vague claim that because he could have technically claimed dual US-Kenyan citizenship, that invalidates his citizen rights as a natural born US citizens), and 3.) if he were eligible he’s too morally corrupt for the job. This seems to me the same rhetorical trick of the wolf, or at least a similar one: the outcome (vehement opposition to Obama) is determined prior to the rhetorical argument. Maybe lawyers and PR men are comfortable with this state of affairs, but scientists are not- if debate is not between two sides who are willing to honestly consider that they are wrong, it’s not scientific, and it’s not much of a debate.

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For the first time in my life, I saw strangers spontaneously hugging, and it brought to mind old photographs of Times Square after the end of the Second World War, sailors kissing unknown women in the street. It was that kind of feeling in Bethesda this morning, except it was all African-Americans, greeting each other with cheers and hugs. I flashed a thumbs-up sign to one young supporter of Obama and got a big smile. My Congressman was at the escalator to the metro, shaking hands and celebrating his recent victory. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting in its patriotism, but diverse, an urban spectacle.

I had some writing to do for work this morning, so I stopped midway through my subway commute and came to Lafayette Park, with a view from a bench out on to the White House. It is quiet here, and the view is obscured chain link fences and construction materials, as the city prepares for the inauguration. A massive flock of starlings swirl around my feet, begging for food.

I know enough of politics to know that now comes the hard part for Mr. Obama, for the realities of governing often shatter the best-intentioned rhetoric. I know I will probably disagree about lots of issues with Mr. Obama over the next 4 years. And yet, from my perspective from this bench, as a new father myself, and as a citizen with a new president, Washington looks a bit different.

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David Frum’s recent piece in the New York Times Magazine is fascinating and worth reading. His central contention is that wealth and income inequality cause voters to be, on average, more likely to be Democrats. The only problem with this elegant thesis is that the data suggest it is statistically meaningless. I had meant to write a letter to the NY Times Magazine outlining the flaws in Frum’s argument, but the birth of my son intervened and kept me busy! I post these thoughts here in hopes of starting an online conversation about the issue.

The first flaw of Frum’s analysis is simply that the relationship between wealth and party affiliation is rather weak. Frum mentioned wealthy zip codes as being “a roll call of Democratic strongholds.” I couldn’t find data on voting patterns by zip code, so instead I analyzed data at the county-level. Out of the twenty richest counties in the US, the majority (13) voted for Bush more than Kerry. This is another kind of roll call Douglas County (CO), Loudon County (VA), and Hunterdon County (NJ) all were very wealthy and solidly Republican. It is true, on average that wealthier countries vote more Democratic, but just barely: each $10000 increase in median family income increased the vote to Kerry by 0.8%. What’s more, this relationship only explains 0.3% of the total variation in voting pattern, making it essentially worthless for prediction.

The situation is similar for Frum’s assertion that places with great income inequality tend to vote Democratic. Out of the 20 countries with the greatest income inequality, Bush won 7, places like Greene County (GA), Summit County (UT), and Lake County (IL). For each 10% increase in the share of income controlled by the rich, the vote for Kerry increased on average by the 5%. While I recognize that in politics this is perhaps a significant trend, more than 90% of the total variation in voting patterns remains unexplained.

Most grave is Frum’s assertion that inequality somehow causes people to vote Democratic, making Republican policies that tend to increase income inequality rather damaging to Republican Party interests. There simply is little support for this assertion. Correlation is not causation. Bigger cities have both more churches and more bars than small cities, but that does not mean churches drive people to drink! Similarly, cities may on average have greater income inequality than rural areas, simply because the very rich and the very poor move there in search of opportunity, and cities may vote Democratic more, but that does not necessarily mean the two are related. By the same logic, one could argue that since less education is correlated with voting Republican, a lack of schooling causes people to vote Republican, an argument I’m sure Mr. Frum finds repugnant.

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The remnants of Hurricane Noel are blowing through Cambridge, shaking the last of the leaves from the trees. Right now the rain feels cold and hard, and I can’t wait until after the Hurricane comes through and the warm tropical air takes over.

I’m deeply sorry for not having written a blog post for so long. It’s not that I haven’t been writing; I’ve actually been editing several scientific manuscripts I’m quite excited about. The problem of course, is that most of my friends won’t ever read my scientific writing, so it’s like it sort of doesn’t exist outside academia. Also, science writing is by definition incremental and limited, so different from a well-crafted essay.

Speaking of hurricanes, it felt like one hit the city, with all the excitement over the Red Sox. I kind of found the excitement fun and sweet, and ended up arguing with some leftist intellectuals at Harvard who seem to feel that if a lot of people like something it must be suspect. I can’t say I’m a huge baseball fan, but I like how it unifies people. I watched part of the games from in front of Cardullo’s, a store in Harvard Square that leaves a TV on in their window. The sidewalk become a cool mix of homeless folks, local Bostonians, cops, and Harvard profs, all hanging out and watching the game. It is, in truth, one of the more socioeconomically integrated spaces in Cambridge, a town that is often anything but integrated.

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I returned from visiting my wife at Stanford, and as I stepped off the plane it was raining in East Boston. This made me indescribably happy. After several weeks in the unchanging, beautiful Palo Alto summer- always sunny and 80F- I was frankly bored. Granted, seeing the oleander in bloom, smelling the hibiscus (my only memory from my natal state, Hawaii), hearing the hummingbirds buzzing around my head, I was happy. And I got a lot of thinking done, as I walked down long streets designed for cars. But perhaps because I didn’t have any job to stress me out, the days slipped by one by one, pleasantly. Even the fruit in the farmer’s market was ridiculously ripe, bursting with flavor. It was paradise. It was monotonous. In a way, isn’t this the dream of suburbia, a life smooth and cool?

I found myself missing weather. On our weekend trips up to San Francisco, I loved the cold fog rolling into Sunset, positively sublime, if I can use that discredited word from the 19th century Romantics. I even loved the crazy bums in the streets, the craziest in the United States. At least their were little moments, like when a homeless man came in this restaurant and screamed for no reason, that no one controlled or could have predicted.

This line of thinking is, course, clearly bobo (bohemian bourgeois), for I’ve never lived in a truly bad neighborhood. Maybe one can only fear the suburb when one can afford to live there, and indeed know all the responsibilities of raising a family might push you that way. People want predictability, until they get it.

I chatted with a friend of a friend while sitting in a fantastic coffeeshop, Ritual. She makes her living designing spaces in Second Life. I always wonder whether these online virtual spaces will be more like Palo Alto- predictable and pleasant- or full of the electronic equivalent of the homeless man screaming. Online, people can choose between designing a paradise, or something just a bit more quirky and gritty and unstable. Who knows which will in the end predominate?

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Sixty years ago this June, General George Marshall stepped into Harvard Yard and delivered what may be the most famous commencement speech of all time, proposing what came to be called the Marshall Plan. On the anniversary of Marshall’s speech, I’ve been reflecting on what has changed since 1947. The developing countries are in the midst of a massive urbanization that makes the redevelopment of Europe after WWII look puny, and yet American leadership on the international stage is nowhere to be found, making John Edwards comments at the end of the last debate so important.

Marshall’s plan involved massive transfers of funds from America to the rebuilding countries in Western Europe, totaling some $170 billion in today’s dollars. Yet as Marshall made clear, it was a bargain, for by investing in Europe’s redevelopment America was insuring its own security. As he put it, it was only “logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.” Marshall’s key insight was that aid, properly conceived, is not charity but an essential part of national security.

After WWII, the clear link between Europe and the U.S. was direct military conflict. Marshall essentially argued that if America did not aid Europe it would have to deal eventually with another world war started in that region. Today the link is not a direct threat of interstate violence, but the growing web of transboundary issues. The increasingly globalized nature of the world economy and environment make what happens over there, in the developing world, central to what happens here in America.

And there is a lot happening over there. This year, for the first time in the history of Homo sapiens, a majority of our species live in cities. This process of urbanization will continue, driven by the greater number of deaths than births among urban dwellers, as well as rural-to-urban migration. By 2030 the United Nations Population Division estimates there will be 1.75 billion new urban residents, the equivalent of building a city the size of Vancouver every single week. More new dwellings will be built in the next 25 years than currently exist in all of Europe. If you were to push all this new urban area together, a good guess is that it will cover an area the size of California.

I spend most of my professional time thinking about one potent link between urbanization in the developing world and America’s well-being, the environment. The billions of new urban dwellers will increasingly demand more and more oil to drive their cars, as they begin to approach American standards of living. How much oil they end up using depends on the form of the coming urbanization, and whether safe and efficient mass transit is available. That in turn will affect whether over the long-term, the number of potential consumers of oil will grow faster than oil supply, resulting in much higher prices at the pump.

Additionally, there is now broad consensus in the scientific literature of the serious potential effects of global warming. Some of these effects, such as the flooding of low-lying areas and climate-change induced famines, may create large movements of refugees. One recent study by the British NGO Christian Aid predicts 250 million refugees will flee global warming’s effects, a figure several times larger than the number of displaced people during all of WWII. Just how bad global warming will be depends, in no small part, on how the poorer countries of the world grow and urbanize.

Yet American leadership during this crucial period in history is mostly absent, or at least distracted by other issues. We have engaged in a war of choice in Iraq that in one year costs us almost as much as the entire Marshall Plan. At the same time, we remain stingy with our foreign aid, giving only 17 cents in aid for every $100 our economy produces. How far we have come since Marshall’s vision of enlightened investment in a better world! If America continues to shirk its responsibilities, we will be abdicating a leadership role in the globalized world of the 21st century, to our own detriment.

And that’s why I found John Edwards comments at the end of his last debate so heartening. When asked what he highest priority would be when he got into office, he said it would be to “re-establish America's moral authority in the world”, saying that in comparison other issues “become less important and subservient.” It was a subtle answer, and perhaps one not well suited to the quick sound bite. However, it reflects exactly the kind of positive reengagement with the world that American needs.

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I managed, quite by accident, to read two books recently that covered the same theme in different ways. Both discussed the sphere of public debate in the United States, and its relative decline in recent decades as media sources have become more celebrity-driven. One leaves you feeling righteous, but with no practical outlet for that emotion. The other is eminently practical and useful for a politician, but leaves me feeling a little queasy.

I picked up Al Gore’s Assault on Reason at the Harvard Coop. I’ll confess to not having bought it, but instead spent a pleasant hour sitting in a chair in a bookstore, reading most of the text. Gore argues that reasoned discourse in American democracy has all but disappeared, replaced by entertainment of the basest kind. This has led, moreover, to a loss of faith in reason itself, in democratic decisions made by an informed electorate. I believe in the righteousness of Gore’s call, and its something I’ve felt myself for a long time. But I don’t believe that a hortatory call to return to reason will do much good, just as it generally has not done the environmental movement much good.

I actually listened to Mark Halperin and John Harris’s book The Way to Win during a long drive down to Millbrook, NY. The central point of the book is that the modern media freak show exists, and politicians better learn how to tame it, or at least live with it. They outline two basic paths a politicians can take: the Clinton path (play to the center) or the Rove path (play to the base). I loved the book in a Machiavellian way (although the pro-Hillary bias was strong enough that I sometimes wondered if Halpern was also moonlighting for her campaign), but what scared me was the implication that what matters in the public debate is the sincerity and vehemence of a politician’s ideas, rather than a reasoned examination of politician’s ideas.

I want to believe in another route, some path for our society that lies between these two books. It would have to be more than an elegy for our (slightly more) reasoned past. It would have to be more than a moral call to return to the values of the Enlightenment. It must somehow be consistent with the brave new media world we live in. Sadly, I don’t know what the other route is. Even Mr.Gore’s admirable book just barely beings to point the way toward a Modernism for the 21st century.

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Last Thursday, Bright Eyes played at the old Metropolitan Theatre, the insanely ornate and baroque opera hall in Boston. It was thoroughly surreal, starting with the beautiful set by Gillian Welch. What followed after couldn’t have been more of a contrast. The Bright Eyes band entered wearing white suits, white cowboy hats, and white boots, while various psychedelic visuals played on a screen behind them. The bad was followed by several cellist, a flutist, and two drummers. They then briskly played through some extremely loud, complex, and angry arrangements of their songs, each more bizarre than the next. It was a failure musically, in that most of the songs sounded horrible, but it was perhaps the most interesting failure I’ve ever seen on stage. Conor Oberst has adopted a new narrative onstage, trying to look like some cinema version of the Doors playing The End to rioting crowds.

In a way, it’s a shame Conor felt the need to play the bacchanalian rock-star. He could probably sound a whole lot better if he was comfortable with a different narrative. He’s a damn good songwriter and poet, and should just be comfortable (like Gillian) in that role. I guess, however, people tend to adopt the narrative we expect from them. Rock has a way of making its stars implode in colorful supernovas, for the audience’s amusement.

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It’s finally spring here in Cambridge, in a chilly New England kind of way. There’s a nor’easter blowing through now, bringing a cold, hard rain, making the future marathoners miserable in anticipation of tomorrow. The real sign of the coming season was the delicate pink blossoms of the ornamental magnolia on my street. They are a grateful reminder that I’ve survived another winter, and a chance to muse on all that has passed since the last time these flowers bloomed.

Through the whole last year, the Iraq War continued. The build up to the war and its aftermath have now gone on longer than the entire process of falling in love, getting engaged, getting married, and celebrating my second wedding anniversary. Food for thought, that is. The war doesn’t seem likely to end until after January 2009, when a new president is sworn in.

I’ve been reading recently Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, and it seems to have special relevance now. All historical analogies are inexact and dangerous, but I think the American body politic could learn something from the ancient Athenians. If the theatrical speeches of Thucydides are to be believed, at least Athenian politicians would talk openly of the paradox between their internal democracy, at the time one of the most open in the world, and their empire. One quote in particular stood out, describing how the wars in defense of their empire subverted democratic discourse:

“To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action.”

These meditations have left me in a melancholy mood. The magnolia tree, it now appears, will have to bloom twice more before our troops are withdrawn from Iraq. And then, if history is any guide, there will be another war somewhere else rather soon.

I hold out hope though that someday a set of institutions will make outright was between nations as unthinkable as an attack between Maryland and Virginia within the United States, or indeed as an attack between France and Germany within the European Union. This dream was the subject of a sparsely attend seminar this week at the Sheraton Commander hotel, entitled “Democracy and the Future.” George Soros gave a rambling keynote address, which was nicely summarized in Amartya Sen’s response. If democracy is participation in power, in the discussion within a society of what should be and shall be, then while Athens was democratic internally it ended significant democracy for many of the citizens of other states. The same is of course true, although Dr. Sen was too polite to mention it, for the United States today: unless we strive for something greater, history will also remember us for our grand democratic experiment at home and our profound failure of imagination abroad.

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On Friday, I got the chance to see the Prime Minister of France, Dominique de Villepin, give a speech in the Forum at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Outside, the snow was coming down in white swirls, making the streets slushy in Cambridge and slowing the traffic down to walking speed. Nevertheless, he entered into the building on time, wearing the standard politician uniform of a black business suit with tie. After a somewhat fulsome introduction by a Harvard professor, he took the podium and gave a decent speech.

I was there, primarily, because I remember with fondness M. de Villepin’s speech at United Nations, opposing the US-led invasion of Iraq. He revisited the Iraq issue during his Harvard speech, making the general point that no country, even the United States, is powerful enough to be a global hegemon by itself. Therefore, international institutions must be strengthened.

I agree with this thesis, and it was generally well received at the Kennedy School, which is always internationalist in its character due to its diverse make-up. However, the specific programs he proposed seemed rather uninspiring: expansion of the UN Security Council to include Germany, Japan, and a representative of Africa; an international conference to solve the Iraq problem; another international conference to solve the Palestinian problem; and increased foreign development aid. No real news was made during the speech.

Most interesting was what lines drew applause. The fiscally-conservative elements in the crowd gave him applause for his promise to continue slowly modernizing and opening France’s economy. The libertarian elements (in the original sense of that term) clapped loudly when he said no country should torture its prisoners. Disturbingly, there was almost no overlap between these two groups, leading me to wonder what ever happened to the traditional conservative position of support for free trade and respect for the rule of law

To his credit, M. de Villepin was brave enough to take 30 minutes of unscripted questions from the audience. This is more than can be said for several American politicians, including our current President. In fact, M. de Villepin was noticeably more relaxed during this question period than during his speech. He displayed the great rhetorical skill of subtly changing a question to one he wanted to answer, and then responding to the latter. At times this meant he skipped the substance of a question, as when he dodged a question about poverty among North African immigrants by discussing unemployment in France among the general population. Still, I’m willing to forgive this rhetorical evasion, for one in such a political position as he must avoid making news accidentally.

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I spent last Friday, to my total surprise, sitting on an aircraft carrier in Boston Harbor. I arrived at 8am at a nondescript parking deck in the waterfront. All I knew was that I was the guest of my wife, who was to be sworn in as a U.S. citizen. We were forced to wait in an endless, but well ordered, line that snaked through multiple “staging areas,” finally passing through what may have been the most efficient security checkpoint I have ever seen. We then walked up a steep metal mesh gangplank, dangling over the waters and being buffeted by the winds. The women’s high heels all got stuck in the mesh. Once inside the relatively warm hanger bay of the USS John Kennedy, our long wait for the ceremony began.

More than 2 hours later, Edward Kennedy arrived and gave an admittedly excellent and moving speech. The symbolism, of the Senator who has worked so much for immigration reform speaking on a soon-to-be decommissioned ship named after his dead brother, was powerful. The rest of the ceremony was good, if a bit too cheesy for my tastes- the video montage accompanying the song “Proud to be an American” was over the top. Nevertheless, it was a happy and joyous day for all involved. I was certainly happy my wife could finally participate as a citizen in U.S. politics.

What stands out most about Friday was how well ordered the whole event was, in a way that civilian life never is. There was, however, one apparent oversight: bathrooms. Given that there were 600 civilians on the carrier, forgetting to think about how they will find the bathroom in the bowels of the ship seems a rather big oversight. To their credit, the Navy admirably and quickly came up with a solution: given each person a military escort to the bathroom.

Somehow this small oversight reminded me of an excellent book I am reading now, Dean Acheson’s Present at the Creation. What is fascinating about the work is the feeling of actually being inside history, of seeing the messy process by which decisions are made. Stupid oversight and mistakes got made during Acheson’s tenure in the government, of far more import that some missing bathrooms on a boat. More importantly, the book makes you realize that history is not some process drive by impersonal forces like fate or destiny. Nor is it the story of single men leading movements. Rather, it is the complex outcome of a set of men and their personalities. To read Acheson is to realize that things could very well have turned out differently, if a different set of men had been there. And when history’s inevitable surprises happen, competence and a sharp comprehension of reality, trumps ideology everytime.

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There’s been much grumbling among the anti-war protestors who attended the January 27^th march that the press got the numbers wrong. The Associated Press report stated “tens of thousands,” apparently because an unnamed police source suggested he thought (without having done any sort of systematic estimate) there were less than 100,000 people. United for Peace and Justice didn’t help things by claiming to have 500,000, which (having been there) was simply not credible.

As I scientist, this deeply frustrates me. This is an easy problem to solve. UFPJ needs to negotiate for a digital camera to be placed at a high location with a view of the rally site (the Washington Monument would have been perfect in this case). The camera would take a photo every 30 minutes or so, and the picture would be uploaded to the Internet. From there, someone (and I’d be happy to help) would download the picture, geometrically rectify it (this accounts for the slant of the picture, the fact that it’s not straight up and down), and then make an estimate of the crowd size (one typically counts the density of the crowd in two or three specific 100 m2 sections of the photo, then multiplies by the area of the crowd). The estimate, as well as the picture (archival and geometrically rectified) it’s based on, could then be placed on a website, in near real time. Journalists would be likely to report the estimate, as long as it was clear that the group doing the estimate was not directly affiliated with the march, and as long as they could double-check the calculation with the photos. The whole thing could probably be done for a couple thousand dollars worth of fees, rental equipment, etc., and would provide credible estimates to the press.

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I sit on the edge of the tidal basin. There is not a hint of ice on the water, and its surface is so smooth it mirrors the low-lying jets passing overhead. Other than their rumble all is quiet, save for the honks of geese and the occasional chatter of a nearby game of touch football. On moments when the wind blows right, I can smell the stables of the Park Service, a refreshing odor after the cleanness of the rest of the district. Across the water tourists swarm up the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, and many of them with anti-war placards are turned away, for of course one can’t protest without the proper authorization.

It is colder on the white marble of Jefferson’s memorial. Here, thin shards of ice swirl in the water. On rare moments a shorebird tries to stand on one of these icebergs, only to quickly topple off. On my walk here I was struck by how brutal the new WWII memorial looks, naked granite, filling part of the National Mall. If humanity has a 21st century as bloody as the one we just left, perhaps the Mall will be filled with war memorials, and they will have to cut down the cherry trees to make space. As Jefferson said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

I’m on the fringes now of the rally. The protestors haven’t yet filled up their designated area, even though it’s already 11pm. This doesn’t bode well for a massive turnout, but there are perhaps 50,000 people here, with more arriving every second. What fascinates me is the intricate ecology of these marches. The socialist and communist papers are hawked aggressively near the entrance- they are the bottom feeders of the march, the carrion eaters. Everywhere, college kids swarming, playing football, filling up the kid’s merry-go-round. Near the front is the stage, full of speakers and media types, who are mostly ignored by everybody. The exception is some of the preacher-types, like Jesse Jackson, that can still spur the crowd. Even Jesse’s speech was a little bizarre, coinciding as it did with a nearby tribal drumming rendition of “Give Peace a Chance,” complete with a sax being played in a decidedly Dixieland style. Bizarreness is the order of the day. There was a man pushing a grocery cart around selling cold pretzels. There were a group of folks with a sign that said “Arms are for hugging,” and they thus went around hugging people. Numerous cute babies walked around in activist costumes. A man wore a classic Minuteman colonial costume, except for 1980’s vintage running shoes.

I’m now happily sitting in Teaism in Penn Quarter, digesting my meal. The place has been taken over by activists, and has a hip bohemian vibe because of it. The march after the rally was exhausting, a slow-motion slog around the Capitol. It was pleasing to see us all stretched out, surrounding the building. Interestingly, the staffers in many of the Senate office buildings had put anti-war placards up in the windows, and a few staffers even greeted the crowd on behalf of their senator!

It’s nighttime now, and I’m looking out a plate glass window onto Connecticut Avenue. I marveled as I walked here how many contradictions float around the city. It is modern and clean, but there’s a homeless person over practically every street vent. One can sense the power that resides in the city when a black town car drives by, the man in the back wearing a tuxedo. And yet the city seems shockingly unsure of itself. To Americans, the land inside the Beltway has ceased to be a place where good happens, at least consistently (I still hold out hope), and instead is just a place of necessary secrets. You see this in some of the government servants who jog by on the Mall- they are proud of themselves for being in DC in a position of power, rather than for the good things they did with their power.

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I will be in Washington on January 27, for United for Peace and Justice’s legal, permitted demonstration against the escalation of the war in Iraq. The time seems ripe now, and an effective protest may make a huge difference. The new Democratic Congress has to listen to the anti-war movement, at least to some extent, for we are part of their constituency. Moreover, the growing consensus opinion that the troop escalation is wrong (70% in a recent AP poll) adds political clout to the protest. I am also happy, frankly, that UFPJ has decided not to work with ANSWER, a more militant coalition. This will make the message of the march more focused and clear.

Who knows if the march will really be effective, or change any Congressman’s mind about how to vote? My opinion is that every person should have a set of bedrock moral beliefs that are not cast aside when they are inefficient. One should, or course, try to make one’s actions in support of these beliefs as politically effective as possible. A decent argument could be made that protest events are less effective as a political tool in the US than they once were. But history is mysterious, and sometimes one has to act without knowing the full consequences of one’s action. Vaclav Havel writes eloquently about this with regards to the Charter 77. At the time it was a mostly symbolic manifesto calling for more civil freedoms within the Czech communist system. In the end, the Charter ended up starting a chain of events that profoundly changed the Czech system, but no one knew in advance it would turn out that way. At some point a man has to commit to concrete actions that are consistent with his beliefs and improve the world a bit, and leave the writing of future history to the historians.

There is a poisonous, hip irony out there on the web that is deeply cynical about the UFPJ march. Wonkette gives probably the most egregious example, when she says “It won’t make a bit of difference, but you might get lucky with a hippie!” While I’m sure there will be a few members of the hippie species at the march, the vast majority of folks will be quite normal middle-class liberals. Wonkette’s comments reveal a deep smugness. The entire blogosphere seems to me a bit like the salons of aristocrats in Paris in the 19^th century, supportive of the Enlightenment but fearful of the rabble.

There’s also a darker insinuation in Wonkette’s remarks, that this march is just protest for protest’s sake. Milan Kundera summarized this as kitsch:

“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.”

Bloggers hate this second tear, and well they should- the most important function of the blogosphere is as a BS detector. However, our hip, poisonous irony has also banished the first tear. I reject that. In a democracy, I want people to react emotionally (but legally) when their government invades a foreign country, displacing hundreds of thousands and killing an almost equal number. I want people to shed that first tear. And if that makes me un-ironic and subject to Wonkette’s well-crafted satire, then so be it.

Posted by ecologist at 01:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This short piece is in response to NPR's conversation on Morning Edition on 12/11/2006, where some of the diplomatic fury at the UN over the Iraq war was blamed on Kofi Annan's strong-willed nature. You can find the piece at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6607693 

Thank you for the excellent conversation (12/11/06) between James Traub and Steve Inskeep about Kofi Annan’s tenure at the United Nations. It provided a detailed look into the geopolitics of the UN that is sadly often lacking in the news media. However, your focus on the strong-willed personality of Mr. Annan may have given your listeners the mistaken impression that it was his pure stubbornness that caused his second term, in the run-up to the Iraq war, to be so difficult. The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq was a clear violation of the UN Charter, and in that situation any Secretary-General, even one as polite as Ban Ki-Moon, will protest mightily.

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Today, in the spirit of summer and the World Cup, I thought I'd write about something that has nothing to do with ecology and sustainable development, my usual topics. I've been catching the occassional football match, and got into a debate with a friend about whether or not World Cup games were lower scoring than they were in previous years. I'm sure someone else has looked at this, but I thought it'd be fun to check out the facts myself.

So, there's a big difference between the first several decades of the World Cup and the modern World Cup. The average number of total goals scored (by either team) has declined:

1930 4.0
1934 4.1
1938 4.7
1950 4.0
1954 5.4
1958 3.6
1962 2.8
1966 2.8
1970 3.0
1974 2.6
1978 2.7
1982 2.9
1986 2.5
1990 2.2
1994 2.7
1998 2.7
2002 2.6

 The same trend is evident if one looks at the average difference in scores between teams, which was higher before 1954 and lower afterward (anyone know why this is?):

1930 2.6
1934 1.5
1938 2.1
1950 2.3
1954 3.0
1958 1.5
1962 1.5
1966 1.5
1970 1.5
1974 1.7
1978 1.5
1982 1.4
1986 1.4
1990 1.2
1994 1.2
1998 1.3
2002 1.4

While the average number of total goals scored doesn't change much since 1958, there does seem to be a trend in the distribution over time. Interestingly, the number of null-null matches has decreased over time, as has the number of mathces with 5 or more total goals scored.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE GRAPH

A similar change in distribution occurs for the average difference in match scores. The number of tie games increases over time, as do the number of matches decided by one match. In contrast, the number of matches decided by 2 or more goals sharply declines over time.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE GRAPH

Posted by ecologist at 05:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives a nice presentation of all the unusual events that happened on Election Day 2004. His discussion of all the efforts undertaken to suppress the Democratic turnout in Ohio (misallocation of voting machines, making voter registration difficult, disqualification of provisional ballots, etc.) is well-written, and certainly makes the case for unethical (and possibly illegal) behavior on the part of Kenneth Blackwell. However, I wanted to clarify one issue for people. Kennedy writes at length about the difference between the exit polls (which showed Kerry winning) and the vote tally (which Bush won), and he repeatedly says things like “The statistical odds against such a variance are just shy of one in 3 billion”.

This is the probability of what statisticians call the null hypothesis. In this case, it is that “any difference in the proportion of votes for a candidate in the exit poll and the proportion of votes for a candidate in the precinct tally is due solely to the random nature of sampling voters as they exited the polls.” This hypothesis is vanishingly small, as has been known for more than a year, so it can be safely rejected. But this probability says NOTHING about the truth/validity of either of the following two alternative hypotheses being true:

1. The exit polls are biased, and did not accurately measure what voters did in the ballot box.

AND/OR

2. The votes cast in the ballot box were manipulated to give Bush a victory.

These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, and it’s possible that in a few precincts there was vote fraud, while the exit polls were systematically wrong in many states due to bias in the methodology. What does not seem plausible to me, given the decentralized nature of the American voting system, is the implication that only hypothesis 2 is correct- there’s just no way that vote fraud could be conducted in dozens of states, involving hundreds of people, and have it remain quiet. Pollsters may not have figured out the source of the bias, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In any event, showing people huge numbers like “one in 3 billion” only serves to rhetorically confuse people into thinking that’s the odds of vote fraud having occurred. If I’d reviewed this paper for a scientific journal I would’ve edited all such sentences out, as they aren’t germane to the main rhetorical thrust of the piece.

Posted by ecologist at 04:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There’s been much flack recently from the press about John McCain’s chilly reception at the New School in Manhattan. Howard Kurtz compiles this assault, and generally supports it. It’s a common critique, one that was trotted out in the press here in Boston when Dr. Rice gave an address at Boston College: incivilities by students and faculty toward the speaker are an attack on free speech. While I can see a grain of truth in this argument, I’ve come to believe it’s fundamentally wrong.

Everyone’s stated ideal is for open, vigorous two-way dialogue on the campuses of academia. I happen to believe that this can happen even for politicians. I once saw Representative David Price bravely defend his stance on the Iraq War in front of an audience at UNC, who got to ask questions of him for an hour and a half. All too often, however, an open debate is the last thing on a politician’s mind. The goal is a clean, crisp photo-op, with an impressive backdrop that allows the politician to borrow from the prestige of the university. Questions are rarely allowed, and if they are they are prescreened to be safe and polite to the speaker. There should certainly be no boos or catcalls or signs that might distract from the preordained message of the event. It’s important to recognize that this photo-op bears no resemblance to an open, two-way dialogue. Its purpose is in fact the exact opposite.

There’s something a bit thin-skinned about the American dislike of heckling. It’s in sharp contrast with the British system that allows for more open hostility during public discussion. Tony Blair faces more heckling in one of his weekly sessions in front of Parliament than Bush has faced in his entire presidency. I sometimes fanaticize about watching Bush wither in front of weekly pointed questions from Congress…

Something deeper is going on that causes these incivilities than mere impoliteness. They are a calculated way to puncture the media bubble that increasingly surrounds every single event of every politician. If a student body deeply resents being used as a backdrop for a photo-op, then why in the world shouldn’t they make that know by moderate incivilities? After all, McCain will still have plenty of chances to exercise his free speech rights- what’s wrong with the students squeezing in a bit of their message while they fleetingly have a chance. As a media strategy, this detournement works: we can be quite sure that Mr. Kurtz wouldn’t have discussed how the students felt about McCain’s speech if they hadn’t acted out. In a way, by being so deferential to authority the media has created the need for incivility, to puncture the media bubble.

There’s also a historical irony here, for many of those who critiqued the actions of the New School were, I suspect, supporters of moderate incivilities toward those who perpetuated the Vietnam War. I would bet, although I’m not certain, that Mr. Kurtz is in this category. I’m sure incivility to the establishment is more threatening when you’re part of it. Interestingly, Mr. Kurtz didn’t raise free speech issues when people heckled the leaders of China, or those who opposed Israeli policy in the occupied territories. The clear message to the universities is: be a useful backdrop, and stop asserting  your opinions so much.

Posted by ecologist at 10:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

News broke this week of the National Security Agency’s seizure of essentially every Americans’ calling history that they could get their hands on. I feel shocked and saddened, but not particularly surprised, given the track records of the principles involved. Interestingly, the press coverage has focused on the scope of the program (some have defended that they aren’t listening to the content of the conversations) or its effectiveness (statistically, a database of all Americans’ phone call seems likely to generate so many false positives as to be useless for law enforcement). To me, this focus seems to miss the point. The Administration has clearly intentionally violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the FISA law. It has clearly intentionally violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the 4th Amendment. What is dangerous about the Bush Administration then is not this or that action and whether it is effective, but their direct assault on the principle of constitutionalism. I mean this in the broad sense, where constitutionalism is simply the limitation of government by a set of publicly-defined, transparent laws. The reason every English-speaking schoolchild studies the Magna Carta is that it was one of the first documents of constitutionalism; the actual specifics of the rules in the Magna Carta are quite unimportant to modern men.

Whatever your political party, you have to admit that constitutionalism is central to what made the United States the great democracy that it is: we are a country of laws, not of men. What does it mean then, that some of our men of letters argue that it doesn’t matter that the president knowingly and willingly violated the law, because it was effective? When any columnist or reporter makes this argument, they are becoming, in the terminology of Milan Kundera, “the ally of their own gravediggers.” If there is no constitutionalism, if there are no rules within which democracy functions, then there are no political writers, only polemicists. Honest political writing is an effort to influence public opinion so as to democratically shape policy. If there no laws for the powerful, then writers become little more than Mark Anthony to a Caesar: skilled orators, perhaps, but not free men.

Posted by ecologist at 08:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There has been much buzz in the media this past week about the relatively sharp spike in oil prices. I’ve been frustrated by how the majority of coverage has focused on the (very real) possibility of oil company manipulation, as if we’re searching for a convenient villain in the process. The Bush Administration’s policy response to the price spike has been storyline #2, even though truthfully there’s little a president can do to affect oil prices over the short-term. Sadly, there’s been little coverage of how U.S. oil prices compare to the other G7 counties (they are much lower), except for a brief fact check I saw on CNN International (and even that focused on other countries’ high taxes, without explaining the good policy reasons for them). Even worse, there’s been no coverage of the likely long-term trend in oil prices over the next decade or two. Global supply will remain relatively constant, or at best slightly increase; this is not because of technological limitations like a lack of refinery capacity, but simply because there’s a finite supply of the stuff and what’s left is harder to extract. Global demand, on the other hand, will continue to grow rapidly, as nations like China and India industrialize.

The clear implication is that oil prices will continue to rise over the long-term. In this context, the current U.S. government policy of seeking to maintain steady, low prices seems quixotic. It would be far more honest if the U.S. committed itself to expecting steady 5% annual increases in oil prices. The U.S. economy could absorb that sort of gradual annual increase in prices, as we all slowly adapted, whereas a rapid huge price spike could be very damaging.

Yet the press mentions none of these weighty issues. This seems to be a general problem: the media focus on particulars, not on the underlying trend. Global warming is another great example. There is much discussion of whether this or that hurricane was caused by global warming, an attribution that’s almost scientifically impossible to make. In contrast, the long-term, gradual trends (e.g., glacial melt and sea level rise) that keeps us scientists literally up at night, get little press (Andy Revkin being a notable exception).

Maybe this is just human psychology. We focus on what is nearby in space and time, and forget what is distant. It may also be the failure of environmental scientists like myself to find a good, compelling narrative. It’s just challenging with such a grand process: we’re recreating Noah’s flood by burning fossilized sunlight! Perhaps the best summary was what was once said by Herbert Stein, a conservative economist who served under Nixon and Ford: “What can’t go on forever, won’t.”

Posted by ecologist at 07:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There’s an odd thing about being around Harvard, particularly places like the Kennedy School of Government: All sorts of rather well known and experienced people are constantly hanging around. There are half a dozen lecturers around campus who are just passing time, now that their jobs in the Clinton Administration have ended. They teach occasionally, but seem to spend more time writing pithy books. A parade of seminar speakers like James Carville comes through, earning their speaking fee. In a sense, even our university president, Larry Summers, is a Clinton-era exile now just biding his time.

This palpable sense of exile expresses itself differently in different people. For some, it’s just a temporary state, which will end with a new Democratic Administration. For some, the exile seems a bit more profound, a feeling that one’s country has drifted away from one’s values.

And now I, a somewhat liberal in the bluest of blue states, find the feeling contagious: I feel a bit of an exile in my own country. I know this feeling is arrogant; many others in the world would love to be a citizen of America, for the opportunities it brings. I know this feeling is dangerous, for the self-imposed exile of many liberal leads us to give up on politics, as a hopeless cause, as we stop trying to connect with most Americans. I only hold out hope because a few exiles, the wiser ones, know that this too shall pass, and keep steadily fighting. Would that I had their deep optimism!

Posted by ecologist at 07:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

James Kunstler’s new book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st century, is bold, important, and flawed. His central premise is that the world does not have enough oil to meet demand in the next several decades. This fact, combined with other ecological and economic problems, means that a fairly radical change in how society functions will have to occur. I wholeheartedly agree with this central premise, and I think Kunstler has made a big contribution just by creating such an evocative title, which captures the essence of the monumental challenge of sustainable development. Still, the devil is in the details, and many of them seem problematic.

Kunstler falls into the same trap that other famous ecological writers such as Paul Ehrlich have fallen into: jumping from short-term trends to long-term scenarios too quickly. Generally, short-term predictions are pretty easy to make, as so many drivers can be treated as constants; there are dozens of studies conducted in the last several years, all of which point to demand for oil outstripping supply, and thus to predictably higher prices. From this solid base, Kunstler leaps into an airy discussion of a totally transformed society. As an imaginative exercise, this has merit, but many of the predictions that Kunstler presents as certain are far from it. He also lapses into an apocalyptic tone that will be repellent to those not already in the environmentalist camp. Kunstler may well be right in his pessimism, but it is perhaps dangerous: from Malthus to Ehrlich to the Club of Rome, our predictions of gloom have often been off.

Kunstler’s analysis is also fundamentally conservative, in that he believes that humanity will mostly deal with expensive oil by reverting to technologies common in the 19th century, like electric streetcars and more compact cities. While I agree that some of these technologies will be crucial, I think Kunstler vastly underestimates the degree of hysteresis in socioeconomic systems, in the sense Steve Carpenter uses the term. The future will not look much like the past, even if the suite of energy sources is similar, just because so much has changed. Beautiful historical case studies, such as Jared Diamond pursues in Collapse, can never be any more than loose analogies to our very unique present.

So, what then can we say about the middle ground, before the long emergency? Ecologists must being to study this no-man’s land, for it’s where the best policy-making takes place. For example, I’ve begun trying to study how patterns of urban growth in the developing world will commit those countries to different per capita oil use rates, with global implications. There’s also a lot of room for an enlightened government here, to conduct what in the Pentagon would be called a war game. Get in the same room an oil trader, a global change scientist, a utility company executive, a factory owner, and an urban planner, and ask how they would respond to different scenarios of oil scarcity. The collective impressions that emerge are likely to be far more accurate than the visions of any one man, no matter how wise.

Posted by ecologist at 11:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Major protects continued this week in Paris, as students and some unions agitated against a new labor law that makes it easier to higher and fire young workers. In the Anglo-American press, the protests have generally been portrayed as a bunch of unruly kids, causing trouble. Let’s leave aside the very real policy dilemma this law tried to solve, and look instead at this characterization of French students as unruly or, even darker, “ungovernable.” This characterization is actually common whenever we discuss France, and I believe its overtones are ominous signs of our lack of respect for democracy.

Larry Summers’ ouster from his post as Harvard is another example of this canard. In the media, it is often describe as a coup by a small cabal of liberal faculty out to get Dr. Summers since he wasn’t politically correct enough. Forget for a second whether you agree with Dr. Summers’ policies or not: couldn’t one just as correctly say “a large plurality of the faculty had no confidence in his leadership, and voted to remove him”? But no, instead Harvard is now the “ungovernable university.”

I believe this particular concept of “ungovernability” is a covert attack on democracy. Democracy is participation in power, as Cicero once famously wrote. Interest groups within a democracy must have enough freedom to reflect on what is in their political interest, and then have appropriate power to agitate for what they want. Granted, the process of reflection must be reasoned and measured, not a mob mentality; granted, the amount of power an interest group can wield should not be disproportionate with their support among the general populace nor inconsistent with fundamental rights (I believe it is this caveat being violated that led New York City to be called the “ungovernable city”). However, if both these caveats obtain,, then we must view protest and agitation as an integral part of democracy.

The students in France have thought deeply about what is good for them, and are fighting for it. While we might argue that their position is not ideal for France as a whole, we must admit that the students know their own interests better than we do! Similarly, the faculty thought deeply about the Summers regime, and realized they wanted him gon. Within his constituency, therefore, it was rational that he was forced out, even if many outside Harvard were not pleased. In short, when the Anglo-American press calls a group “ungovernable” it is usually because they have the temerity to govern themselves! Behind this conception of “ungovernability” is a deep elitism, an idea that a certain elite group knows better than “they” what is best for them, and since the result desired is not occurring, the system must be flawed. Nothing could be further from the idea of democracy; vigorous and strident political debate is not inimical to democracy, but essential to it.

Posted by ecologist at 02:49 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This list goes out to all my friends and colleagues in Europe. I may share many progressive viewpoints with them, but I get occasionally frustrated by how they talk about the United States and its politics. The scope of the problem became more apparent after the chilly reception that Bernard Henri-Levy’s new book received in the United State, even among folks who are its natural ideological allies (see Garrison Keiler’s excellent review of the book for more). Here then are 10 facts European progressives should keep in mind when writing if they want Americans to be at all receptive to their argument:

1. America is a big country, which if overlaid on Europe would stretch from Lisbon to Baghdad. I say this not to be chauvinistic (although there are plenty of Americans who would be), but just to point out that there’s an enormous amount of terrain for a visitor like Mr. Henry-Levi to cover, ranging from swampy lowlands to vast deserts to tall sierras.
2. America is very diverse ethnically, with arguably more ethnic variation than Europe. Certainly, the percentage of Americans who are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants (10.4%) is far higher here than in the EU. These waves of immigrants have come in complex, spatially heterogeneous patterns, creating odd political outliers like the vehemently anti-Castro Cubans of Miami.
3. While perhaps not as culturally differentiated as Europe, where one switches languages every couple hundred miles, there is significant cultural variation in the US. The Southeastern States, with their legacy of slavery, are very different in culture and norms than the industrial Northeast. In the Western US it gets even more complicated: you have Nevada, where prostitution and gambling and just about everything else is legal, right next to conservative Mormon Utah! Most importantly, the United States has a pronounced cultural split between its urban and rural cultures. In many senses, these two groups are now fighting for power.
4. It is rather pointless to talk about “American culture” or “American politics” as a single unitary entity, any more than one can talk about a “European culture” without sounding a bit naïve to a European about the complexity and diversity of that continent.
5. There are of course some unifying traits for Americans, but they are rather few and far between, truthfully. Moreover, they tend to be of an almost philosophic nature, concerning our general temperament, rather than specific things like baseball or peanut butter (both of which substantial minorities of Americans hate). Alexis de Tocqueville does as good a job as anybody in sketching these things out, and I personally feel like no one’s really improved on his work.
6. Even the few unifying traits that exist have significant subpopulations in the US that counteract the general rule. Like all generalizations I as an American could make about Europeans, they would become harmful if they’re used to prejudge.
7. Politics in America is not some simple function of a unitary “American” character. In fact the federal system of state autonomy makes each state its own political world, to a degree many foreigners from countries with centralized governments often don’t understand.
8. Political parties in the US serve as broad coalitions, rather than as the strident unified political parties one sees in parliamentary systems. For constitutional and historical reasons (that I often bemoan) Americans are stuck with this system, which transfers all the public compromises among parties in a parliamentary system when they form a governing coalition into the back room, behind the scenes. Therefore, statements about the view of “the Republicans” strike most Americans as facile- it’s not even really worth talking politics about them until you recognize at least their 3 or 4 major constituents.
9. The current religious right-wing ascendancy at the Federal level really the political victory of a relatively small percentage of people who have control of one of our two parties, and so far haven’t shattered the rest of the party’s coalition. It doesn’t reflect anything near the majority of its own party.
10. All the electoral rules at a Federal level in the US have a consistent and intentional bias toward rural areas and away from urban areas, and toward “battleground states” (where neither party is dominant) and away from certain states (like California). This tends to make the Federal government in the US lag substantially behind urban areas in adopting progressive, cosmopolitan ideas. Don’t read too much into American culture by the politics in Washington.

Posted by ecologist at 09:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just finished reading Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, and I must admit to being pleasantly surprised. I went into the work with a dislike of the book absorbed from dozens of leftist writers, who often described it as an unapologetic celebration of the victory of unbridled capitalism. I was amused to see it for sale, therefore, at an airport book kiosk (the selection of philosophy books in airports is truly bizarre), and flabbergasted to find that I agreed with Fukuyama’s main points. There has been an empirical trend over the last two centuries, and both Fukuyama and I are quite happy about it, although I disagree with his characterization of the process of democratization as inevitable in a Hegelian sense (as opposed to just highly probable and highly desirable). We both agree that what drives most people to overthrow authoritarian regimes and install democratic regimes is the desire for recognition, or thymos. We both believe that to some extent the appearance of civil liberties is correlated with economic liberties, although we might disagree about the arrow of causality. And we both fundamentally feel that De Tocqueville was right: there is sometimes a tradeoff between equality and liberty.

However, Fukuyama’s work reminds me of a general malady in philosophy: any sufficiently abstract philosophy can be made to support an author’s political and class interests. He sees the particular form of economic development known as the Washington Consensus as a positive thing, even though it is far from pure economic liberty. He sees military adventures to spread democracy at the barrel of a gun as a good thing, presaging the current Bush Doctrine. Most oddly, he sees efforts to reform and strengthen the United Nations as an evil effort: democracy within nation-states is good, but apparently democracy between nation-states is bad!

Still, fundamentally Fukuyama and I agree about what should be the United States’ goal in foreign policy, to help make the world more democratic, even if we disagree about the means to get there. How sad then that (it appears) the Democratic party establishment has abandoned this noble goal and seems to offer only “realism” as an alternative to Bush’s crusades. We are the party of true democracy at home, as we push to make sure every eligible voter can have their vote accurately counted. We are the party of true democracy abroad, as we push Bush to work through the United Nations Security Council to peacefully restrain Iran’s nuclear program. Why then have we ceded this ideological ground? What is the Democratic party, if we are not the champions of democracy?!

Posted by ecologist at 09:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Usually, I avoid writing on the political issues of the moment, as whatever words I can supply are swamped by the flood of words on the blogosphere. Nevertheless, some issues piss me off so much that I feel compelled to write. Below is a letter I sent to my state's senior Senator regarding the nomination of Samuel Alito. If you feel as strong as I do, please consider taking action.

Dear Senator Kennedy,

I am writing to urge you, in the strongest possible language, to vote against Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court. I have been following the Judiciary Committee hearings closely, and I am profoundly troubled by his answers. At every step, Judge Alito seems to support unlimited executive power. The current Bush Administration has tended to obliterate constitutional checks and balances wherever possible: by ordering warrantless searches in clear violation of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, by ignoring the writ of habeas corpus, and by instituting “signing statements” that vitiate Congress’ will. Given that tendency, it is extremely unwise to place anyone on the Supreme Court who would support further Presidential usurpation of power. Indeed, my wife and I are considering having children, and I truthfully fear for the life that they might have if this country drifts further down this path, which seems to lead to nothing less than despotism. There is nothing in Judge Alito’s judicial philosophy to assuage such fears, but instead proudly proclaims his allegiance with the “unitary executive” theory.

Please vote against Judge Alito in the Judiciary Committee. Moreover, should Judge Alito make it to the Senate floor for a vote, I urge you to lead a filibuster by Senate Democrats to block this dangerous nominee. I understand that the political reality of the Senate’s composition, especially the possibility of the Republican majority using the so-called Nuclear Option, makes a filibuster a risk. Nevertheless, certain moments in history are so crucial that one must simply stand up for what is right, regardless of what our fallible foresights suggests the consequences might be. Now is such a moment.

Your humble constintuent

Posted by ecologist at 09:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In a moment of post-modern horror and giddy shock, I discovered yesterday that a friend of mine has a page in Wikipiedia, all about her. Indeed, Wikipedia seems to be everywhere now on the web. Almost every Google search returns some kind of Wikipedia page, and the project claims some 500,000 people have contributed material. There’s even a rather arcane set of neologisms that have cropped up in the set of people involved in the project, which I can’t pretend to understand- my favorite is “inclusionist” versus “deletionist”, which mirrors plant taxonomy’s “lumpers” and “splitters”.

It struck me this morning that this beautiful, quixotic project is a lot like the project of the French Encylopedists. The goal of their Encyclopedia was something larger than today’s encyclopedias: they wanted to contain all essential human knowledge about the arts and sciences, which was interpreted so broadly to mean just about everything. While the information was presented in a relatively objective fashion, the very concept of the Encyclopedia was a statement of Enlightment belief that knowledge and rationality would conquer most problems.

Maybe the creation of every new communication media breeds something like the French Encylopedists, for there’s a strong desire to systematize all the new content that multiples so rapidly. Wikipedia, like the French Encylopedists, both try to categorize knowledge into a logical hierarchy. And both efforts, while in theory “neutral,” imply a certain set of political beliefs, the belief that something like objective fact is possible. Ultimately, the French Encylopedists failed to categorize all knowledge, but they did breed a durable set of encyclopedias that served millions of students well. Similarly, Wikipedia is bound to fail, particularly as the subjects in some of its pages get even more arcane and contemporary, for the subject may change faster than the page can. Still, the Wikipedia has managed to make itself a largely decentralized system, and it is possible the set of pages created by these hundred of thousand of authors will persist over quite a long time. Oh, how Diderot would have been proud!

Posted by ecologist at 08:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Is it just me, or does all of Anglophone culture seem to be overdosing on Bob Dylan nostalgia? Most of this media saturation is due, of course, to Martin Scorsese’ new biography of Dylan, in what must surely be one of the better run PR campaigns of the new millennium. Oddly, most of the media discussion has followed faithfully Scorsese’ narrative of Dylan’s life: from obscurity to his peak moment of fame, culminating in an act of rebellion (Dylan’s famous interaction with the “Judas” heckler), and ignoring many of Dylan’s later (more complex) artistic works. To me, having grown up in the perpetual political and cultural shadow of the baby-boom generation, all this seems a bit hedonistic and self-congratulatory. It’s part of a general 1960’s obsession that both the right and the left share.

This obsession is particularly dangerous with Iraq. The central metaphor driving all discussion is “Iraq = Vietnam.” Liberals are happy to drive home this metaphor to increase public opposition to the war in Iraq. Conservatives reify the metaphor by so insistently denying it. Everyone in the U.S. seems to base their arguments on it. While this is understandable, given the psychic scars to Americans from the Vietnam debacle, it seems ludicrously odd to those in other countries. The domino theory of communism has given rise to the reverse domino theory of democracy, and while this argument may make sense in America because of the Vietnam experience, it seems bizarre elsewhere.

There are substantial differences between Vietnam and Iraq, in the geopolitical realities, in the mode of combat, and in the terrain. I worry that Americans are so caught up with the Vietnam metaphor that we are blind to ways in which it is untrue. And by tying into the metaphor, the anti-war movement has reignited some of the cultural issues of the 1960’s that simply don’t apply now, when the movement is more age-diverse than in the 1960’s. Truthfully, there is no way the protests against the war will achieve the chaos of those against Vietnam- nor should we aspire to that. I don’t have a solution for this mismatch, except to suggest we put forth other metaphors. Let’s talk about Britain’s experiences in Iraq during their colonial occupation- those experiences are far more relevant to what is going on today in Iraq than anything that happened a generation ago in Vietnam.

Posted by ecologist at 08:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The announcement by New York Governor Pataki that he will not seek reelection has occasioned much reflection on his legacy. One consistent theme in the media coverage has been how much of an “environmentalist” Pataki has been. It’s interesting to contrast this coverage with what Massachusetts Governor Romney, another presidential hopeful, will receive soon. Both men have chosen profoundly different strategies regarding conservation. Pataki has chosen to play the environmentalist, and least in terms of protecting openspace upstate. He has consistently mentioned his land protection program in press releases and briefings, and made it a central point of his announcement on Tuesday. His strategy appears to be to use the conservation issue to appeal to a broad section of Democrats and Republicans, knowing only a few hardcore member of the Republican base will disapprove. Romney, in contrast, has greatly reduced land conservation activities in the Commonwealth, compared with his predecessors. He has instead focused much of his political attention on the “traditional” hot button issues for Republicans: the death penalty, abortion (although his waffling backfired), and opposition to gay marriage. His strategy seems to be to appeal to the Republican base, and not worry too much about mainstream voters, who by a large margin care about conservation issues.

Which strategy will be more effective in a presidential race? Well, Romney will have less trouble in the primaries, simply because Pataki will have to justify his environmental tendencies. Pataki, in contrast, would have a useful asset in any general election: a major Democratic trump card, environmentalism.

Posted by ecologist at 08:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There’s been much grumbling recently about the Supreme Court decision in the case of Kelo versus New London, from both sides of the political spectrum. Libertarians worry about the increase in state power, and dream about the horrible abuses of eminent domain that a crooked government might invent. Progressives, because of our natural distrust of large corporations, are afraid this law will simply be used to enhance corporate power over society. It is indeed an odd state of affairs to have both groups mad about the same decision. Progressives, I argue, might take this as a sign that they should reevaluate their interpretation of the case.

Let’s remember the facts of the case: The elected representatives of the people of New London decided it would be in the best of the citizens of New London to redevelop a portion of the city. They hoped to buy out the current residents using the power of eminent domain, paying fair market value for the houses, and begin a development project that would include both public and private organizations. The Supreme Court simply ruled that the mere fact that there was a private component to the development could not prevent the city from using its power of eminent domain.

It’s important for progressives to realize that this legal challenge was part of a much larger attack by business interests on the entire legal basis for land-use regulation. This court case was merely a convenient step in that larger journey, as far as these interests are concerned. These forces are trying to define all regulation as a “taking,” which would require compensation by the government. If this general principle were to ever gain legal standing, which is a distinct possibility now that President Bush can appoint a few new justices, the environmental and social consequences would be horrendous. We progressives should thus be glad that the Supreme Court has turned back this challenge to common sense, and that elected representatives remain free to carry out the greater good, consistent with the Constitution and common law. We should also take it as a lesson that not everything that is good for a corporation is bad for the broader progressive agenda.

Posted by ecologist at 08:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

More and more, I hear people whispering the word now in mainstream American political discourse, sometimes even saying it aloud: “Empire.” It’s still a shock for me to hear it, for it strikes me as discordant, horrible, wrong. Even during my brief time working in DC, when I got a whiff of how rarified the air is inside the beltway, it puzzled me. I still remember my surprise when I heard that Vaclav Havel, whose writing and political philosophy I greatly admire, was co-sponsor of a debate at the American Enterprise Institute entitled “American is now and should be an Empire.” I believe Paul Wolfowitz attended.

I think to most Americans, the E-word remains a taboo, however much it has penetrated the discussions of the political class. We honestly cannot fathom the existence of an entity within ourselves so contrary to our essence. Imagine: the President of the United States stands up in the Rose Garden and announces our intention invade country Y “to strengthen our military position and further expand our Empire.” All hell would break loose among the Washington press corp.

Still, perhaps I overstate the innocence of Americans in this regard. Maybe every nation always can find a way to rationalize anything. Perhaps the Brits really thought they were spreading civilization. Perhaps the Romans really thought the Pax Romana was in everyone’s interest. Perhaps, too, future civilizations will laugh at our conception of an “Accidental Empire.”

Ironically enough, the founders of the United States, and most especially Madison and Jefferson, openly discussed America’s imperial ambitions after her independence. The interior of the country seemed open for expansion, save for a few Native Americans who were powerless to stop it. Indeed, the central debate was not about whether American would gain an Empire, but whether in the process she would lose her revolutionary soul. The answer generally, tentatively, was yes, the historical record often shows that Empire corrupts democracy. And that answer should give us pause, as politicians ponder ways to expand United States hegemony.

Or more to the point, given America’s financial weakness and our difficulty maintaining our military: when our Empire declines, will we go like the Brits, who managed to maintain their democracy and stability during their loss, or like the Romans, who degenerated into a military dictatorship?

Posted by ecologist at 08:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The French voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reject the EU constitution, and I’ve spent the morning pondering this strange event from my perspective as an American. I feel strangely saddened by the rejection, for I worry that an important opportunity, for Europe and the world, may be missed. One can conceive of the putative EU constitution as a compromise- some would say a bastard child- of two ideologies. The businessmen are obsessed with free trade, and with opening up continental Europe to the type of privatization that has already occurred to a lesser extent in places like the United Kingdom. Those in civil society, in contrast, want to create a unified and peaceful Europe with a democratic governance system. Truth be told, I can understand why some progressives were upset with the current draft of the constitution: the free-traders managed to slip in some provisions that have no business being in a constitution, but would best be decided by the EU Parliament.

Maybe, as an American, I should just shrug it off as part of the inherent and healthy unpredictability of a democracy: the people have spoken, yadda yadda. And it is possible that a better, less neo-liberal (in the economic sense) constitution will be resurrected from the ashes of this one. Still, I worry that the French rejection is symptomatic of a universal human tendency toward protecting one’s “own” people and culture first, a tendency that is becoming much more problematic in the 21st century. Many of the world’s major problems, whether environmental, economic, or social, are global in scale. Power too, both economic and political (in the broad sense of that word) has become global in scale, although there are still few hands holding the reins of power. However, the majority of people remain deeply suspicious about any attempt to make the global governance system more democratic. And for good reason, I might add, as there are plenty of cases where a country embarks on “democratic” reforms that are anything but democratic in effect.

The main response of progressives to this globalization of power has been to advocate localism, the devolution of power downward. While this is an appealing ideal, it’s usually not a useful response. French voters can reject as many drafts of the EU constitution as they want, but the economy of Europe will continue to integrate- there just won’t be any citizen oversight of the process. I want to suggest to all progressives a simple test, to make sure our ideologies aren’t getting ahead of the real political event of the world: if your political enemies are celebrating a decision you made, then that decision is probably a bad one. And to all the left in France who strongly critique the United States (for good reason, on some occasions), and who spearheaded the “Non” vote, I hope you realize that they were pulling out the champagne in the White House last night.

Posted by ecologist at 08:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Spring is back with a vengence in Boston, and the first buds from the red maples are starting to unfurl. The city seems transformed, a groggy bear waking up from hibernation. It's that blissful time of year too, before the summer haze waters down the sunlight, and the brick buildings along the Boston Common glow orange at sunset. The people seem transformed too; women wear skirts for the first time in months; the man behind the counter actually smiles when he gives you the change.

Part of me wishes I could live in a city like this, in a life like this, always on the cusp of spring. I think to myself- why the hell do I live this far north?! But truthfully I think the long dark winter was good for my soul, and good for my writing, at least the sheer quantity of it. There's plenty of time alone in the winter, time to stew and steep. Maybe too the bitterness of the winter makes me love the sweetness of the spring that much more. Or maybe not ;)

Posted by ecologist at 08:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The president was again holding photo-op's last week to push his ideas on social security privatization and reform. While I think his scheme is dangerous and ill-conceived, I'm nevertheless grateful to Mr. Bush for starting a national discussion on the topic, albeit not always the most honest one (for example, the stated goal of many key neo-cons to entirely remove social security is rarely discussed). The president is right that the demographic transition, from a fast-growing young population to a slow-growing old population, is a real problem for pay-as-you-go systems like social security.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Europe, where many countries are experiencing negative population growth- there are fewer births than deaths. It's strange then, that with all the attention paid to Social Security by the media over the past several weeks, there's been little mention of the one factor making the Social Security problem in the US relatively minor: immigration. Let's be honest, the only reason that the Democrats can even argue that this problem is not a "crisis" is because there are hundred of thousands of immigrants a year, both legal and illegal. Without thes many young new workers, there'd be far fewer taxes to support current and future retirees. It's ironic then that some of the Republican leadership in Congress that is vocally anti-immigrant also champion Social Security reform. In fact, I'd go so far as to make a humble proposal: all those who care about saving social security should push for more open borders, as one tactic among several that can narrow future slight deficits. The emphasis should be on decreasing illegal immigration, which poses security threats in a post 9-11 worl and raises less tax revenue, by allowing any persons with employable skills or a familial support network into the U.S. Support immigrant rights, help save social security!

Posted by ecologist at 08:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

President’s Bush’s visit to Brussels yesterday, the first leg of a European tour to repair America’s image on the continent, is noteworthy not for what was discussed but for what wasn’t. Predictably, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic hailed Bush for the effort, and journalists depicted the US and Europe as a feuding couple on the mend. Missing from the political discussion was any indication of the profound irony of the Bush administration’s thinly-disguised wariness at European unity, given the central role the US played in its creation. After the Second World War, the U.S. virtually forced Germany and France into the European Economic Community, starting a process of integration that eventually led to the EU. The referendum on the new EU Constitution, which just squeaked by in Spain, should thus properly be seen as a triumph of American diplomacy. Somehow, though, this victory has become dirty, forbidden, an affront to the U.S. neoconservative worldview.

Perhaps if in the postwar period, Dean Acheson could refer to his role in American diplomacy and proudly say he was “present at the creation,” Colin Powell can write in his memoirs that he was “present at the destruction.” There is not a single major international treaty, outside of those at the World Trade Organization, that the US now plays a leading role in. This is an embarrassment. There will be protestors following Bush around Europe, and while some of their actions can be attributed to a mean-spirited anti-Americanism, many more can be attributed to the pervasive sense in Europe that Americahas not just become irrelevant to the idea of an international community but openly hostile to it. Nowhere is this attitude more glaring than in our continued rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, even as it comes into force for most of the rest of the developed world, and even as reports on the possible effects of climate change grow more dire: a just-released study by researchers at Tufts and Boston University suggests that increases in sea level caused by global warming will flood much of downtown Boston. Here again, there is irony. The U.S.played a central role in pushing for the carbon trading scheme in the Kyoto Protocol, only to abandon the protocol later. A decade from now, when we look enviously at the carbon traders in Londonwho have made millions brokering this new industry, we should remember that those brokers could have been working on Wall Street instead. Without an honest discussion of the philosophical chasm between the leadership of the EU, who fashion themselves as a modern Athenian League, and the leadership of the U.S., who want to institute a new Pax Americana, all of Bush’s high-minded words in Brussels, are meaningless. His visit is but window-dressing on the shattered trans-Atlantic relationship.

Posted by ecologist at 08:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Zephyr Teachout's excellent piece on PDF, about what the Internet can accomplish with respect to progressive organizing, has certainly gotten a lot of attention recently. She's been barraged by commentary from all sides, and so I resisted the urge to post directly about it, especially as I am a scientist, not a political activist. Zephyr argues, quite persuasively, that the decline of local, neighborhood organizations- rotary clubs, bowling leagues, you name it- has depaupered American life and American democracy. The decline has also meant that national organizations like the ACLU, NOW, and even the DNC, have disconnected from the "grassroots", the sentiments and actions of everyday citizens. Zephyr stresses the role that the Internet could play in reconnecting the "grassroots" to the national organization. Her piece made me want to comment on two issues, that she addressed tangentially in her piece but which I'm in the mood to elaborate on.

First, Zephyr's article is very much written for those at the national headquarter's of organizations, helping them see what structural steps can be taken to reinvigorate and empower the grassroots. While that's an extremely important set of changes that need to take place, I think such a top-down focus misses some of the core issue. In many national organizations, particularly in the environmental sector where I work, there's considerable resistance to devolving power downward, because it entails a lack of full control of the message of the organization. Such devolution has only occured when there are active chapters demanding it- that is, the devolution was initiated at the grassroots, not at the national headquarters. Ideally, there can be a push from grassroots activists for devolution while national headquarters actively facilitates that transition.

Second, from my perspective as an environmentalist, Zephyr's piece echoes a general push toward "localization" in the progressive community. I've always been suspicious of such proposals unless they can also act on the global stage. There's a need not just for more involvement at a local level in national struggles, but more "horizontel" activity between organizations, especially across national boundaries. Here, too, the Internet has an important role, already facilitating such collaborations as the World Social Forums and the series of global protests against the Iraq war. I would humbly add to Zephyr's argument that if organizations like the ACLU and the DNC want to be more effective, there need to be strengthened links between them and like-minded organizations across borders. Such a linking has already begun to some extent, but in my opinion needs to be greatly strengthed to make these organizations more meaningful in a globalized world.

Posted by ecologist at 08:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For once, I want to write about something that's timely, given that it's Valentine's day: love. I just spent the better part of a weekend with my fiancee finalizing wedding plans, so it's a topic fresh on my mind. Specifically, we were talking about what marriage really means nowadays, when there are far fewer institutional reasons for getting married. Thankfully, the days are gone when there was a huge stigma on living with your lover before marriage. I'm not sure I'd ever want to have a child out of wedlock, as that stigma remains, but apart from that there are few solid, tangible things pushing us to tie the knot. Instead when we talk about marriage it's much more about an idea, the urge for something more committed and spiritual and deep than a relationship that's just for fun. These are scary words to say for my generation, born "after God," as Douglas Coupland once said. But that depth, that weight, is something we as a couple want to try for.

My fiancee asked me something else this weekend that surprised me. She wondered if her foreign nationality had somehow made her more attractive when we started courting one another. The answer I think is, honestly, no. I was attracted to her because she was a beautiful, politically active, smart woman. Her cultural background was, if anything, only attractive in the sense that it guaranteed she'd have tolerance for other cultures and religions and peoples, something that's really important to me. All the rest of her foreignness- the exotic foods, the bizarre music, her beautiful eyes- was not so much orginally something that drew me to her as it was just something fun to learn about. If anything, I went into our engagement perhaps not fully understanding how deep some of the cultural divisions between us are, as I viewed such differences as mere window dressing  on our more fundamental selves. Over the past year we've plumbed the depths of that chasm as we've planned for our wedding, and I think we're a stronger couple for it. But I can't say I fell in love with the otherness- I fell in love with her, all of her, including the otherness.

Posted by ecologist at 08:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I picked up a copy of Don Quixote recently in, of all places, a chain book store in the airport. I was really surprised to find any classic work in a place dedicated to helping travelers just pass the time, so I asked the clerk about it. Apparently it?s one of their bestsellers.

Somehow I think that Don Quixote is selling well to the airplane hordes not just because it's a hell of an entertaining read, which it is, but that the work somehow strikes a chord in post-modern folk?s heart. I could take this in a trivial direction, and make jokes about President Bush tilting at windmills, but truthfully I mean something a little more deep than that. Moreover, I find such analogies offensive, mere liberal whistling in the graveyard, given the uplifting success of the Iraq election. I can't really enjoy lefty jokes when the core of the progressive lexicon is being appropriate, and there are no major Democrats standing up to reclaim concepts like liberty.

No, I really think that Cervantes speaks to our current experience for another, more profound reason. His era, before the Enlightenment but after the Renaissance, and smack in the middle of the Inquisition in Spain, is a little like ours. The dominant political order, the dominant worldview, seems corrupt and ineffective. Traditional concepts of morality seem at best not quite adequate to the new world that?s emerging. And yet the old order is in no way weaker, if anything it seems at the pinnacle of its power. In this context, Cervantes seems to me immeasurably brave. He not only sense this fundamental disconnect and satirizes it, he heartily laughs at the absurdity of it all. This from a man who spent several years of his life held captive for ransom. May I find the strength to have the same courage to laugh.

Posted by ecologist at 08:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)