[az-leader] Shiva at NAU/India/Hot and Bothered...
- From: "Roland W James" <roland.james@xxxxxxx>
- To: "audubon" <az-leader@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 18:32:29 -0700
...In the midst of this crushing summer heat, politicians promise the moon.
But few talk about what global warming means to the poor." from Sept. '03
New Internationalist
"...Welcome to Delhi, the capital city of India where we've seen temperatures
well about 45 degrees (113 F) this year. Such heat was once a rarity--it has
now become a regular feature of our hottest months. This summer more than
1400 people in India died of heatstroke....When the earth is parched and the
sky will not give it's the poor who suffer most. The well-off, like me live
with airconditioners [which become part of a spiral of more carbon-producing
power plants (2 CO2AL plants in Az, e.g.) and higher yet heat] bottled water
and manage to escape the heat as much as possible [sounds like Phoenix].
Of course summer in India has always been hot: 40 degrees (104 F) is not
unusual...Now our average temperatures all over the country are some five
degrees higher. Accompanying the heat is an acute shortage of water....
Heat, like everything else, is relative: the rich feel it less, the poor feel
it more. No, let me rephrase that: the rich feel it more. They can't bear to
step into it even for a minute, so they cushion themselves with the comforts
money can buy, and protected thus, they don't die of it. The poor feel it less
because they have no choice. They don't have fans, airconditioners or cooler,
nor any protective covering....
Dealing with the heat doesn't only mean trying to stay cool. It also means
being without electricity....There are frequent outages....it should come as no
surprise to anyone that it is not the wealthy areas that have to do without
electricity for eight hours at a stretch....
...The world is getting hotter--and human actions are to blame..." Urvashi
Butalia, Indian writer/publisher
A few years ago, in a pre-vote on the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. Senate voted
against Kyoto, 95-0. Some Senators said the Indians weren't required to do
as much--U.S greenhouse gas emissions are 50X per capita India's.
"...Global warming, not of their {poor and disenfranchised living marginal
existences in equatorial climates} making but originating with the wealthy few,
will affect their ecologies most. Their situation will be desperate and
manifestly unjust and cannot await the beneficence of the rich." 100 Nobel
Laureates at Centennial of Nobel Prize, 2001.
***********
----forwarded msg-----
Vandana Shiva Lecture
Vandana Shiva, physicist, ecologist and activist, will be NAU's 20th Cline
Lecturer in the Humanities. Shiva will be on the NAU campus Nov. 18-19.
Best known as an environmental activist and thinker on a global scale, Shiva is
founder of both the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, an
independent public industry research group, and Navdanya, a grassroots
conservation movement in India.
As an activist and writer, Shiva's particular concerns include biodiversity
conservation and the preservation of indigenous peoples' rights. For her
research in ecological feminism (the connections between women and the
environment), Shiva was awarded the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, known
as the "alternative Nobel Prize," in 1993.
Her most recent writings deal with globalization and the patenting of plants,
seeds and natural resources.
Shiva holds a master's degree in particle physics and a doctorate in the
philosophy of science. She is the author of 11 books, most notably "Biopiracy:
The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge" (1997), "Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of
the Global Food Supply" (1999), and "Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and
Profit" (2002).
The Cline Lecture Series is endowed by the late journalist, philanthropist and
historian, Platt Cline. Its purpose is to provide the community an opportunity
to hear major figures from a variety of humanistic disciplines.
Cline envisioned an event that would demonstrate the social usefulness of the
humanities.
The exact date and location of Shiva's address will be announced soon. Please
visit http://www4.nau.edu/womensstudies/ for more information.
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