Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable

     It’s all in our heads.

     That was an essential point that John Steinbruner, Amy Luers, Susanne Moser, and Kenneth M. Chomitz floated into the diffusive cloud of our collective consciousness regarding climate change. We have the technological capabilities, but we’re not doing much. We concern ourselves with specific costs that entail mitigation programs when it’s “not meaningful” to do so, as Dr. Chomitz said. So where does the true issue lie?

     Perhaps the roots of our problems are tangled within our culture of not taking effective action until we meet the dire consequences face to face. Mark Hertsgaard, the moderator of the “Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable”  discussion, raised an intriguing question about why parents, having faced the feat of guarding their children from World War II and terrorist attacks in previous decades, are not as quick to prepare for the increasingly immense scale at which environmental damage is affecting us. The effects of climate change are threatening us from all angles, and yet we fail to mobilize.

     I agree that we as a people need to shift our priorities. Only then can we move towards creating satellites specially designed for monitoring environmental changes and effectively call upon our government to cooperate with other countries to establish a global carbon price. Until we rid ourselves of this “attitude problem” about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and initiating climate change talks in our communities, we will be the ones to tell future generations that we just stood by and watched.


This is a re-post of an entry I wrote for the World Affairs Education Program Blog on "Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable," one of the many intriguing dialogues from this year's annual World Affairs Conference. See the link below.
http://wacsfschools.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/its-all-in-our-heads/

To watch and listen to John Steinbruner’s talk, visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/audio-video/2013/climate-change-1.html

Farewell, Hugo Chavez

Photo credits to the New York Times.

Before beginning his fourteen-year-long presidency in 1998, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez started off in the Venezuelan military, and later helped lead a coup d’etat in 1992 against former President Carlos Andrez Perez, whom was later removed from office.   Inspired by political figures Simon Bolivar and Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, Chavez hoped to unite the region around Venezuela, and wanted to rid of anything influenced by the United States. 

Yet, despite his resentment towards the United States, this past Wednesday marked a day of extreme sadness and loss in Venezuela, as Hugo Chavez died of pelvic cancer at the age of fifty-eight.  With Chavez now dead, there is one main question many in the world have begun to ask themselves: What is to happen to Venezuela?

Since his death, the streets of Venezuela have been filled with thousands of supporters, some to grieve and some to protest for a continuation of Chavez’s policies, and the government has called for seven days of mourning that include no school, no work, and no alcohol.  Many of Chavez’s followers have been waving red, blue, and yellow flags outside of the Fuerte Tiuna Military Academy, the current residency of Chavez’s body, for the last few days.  Meanwhile, elections for the next President are to be in thirty days, and Chavez’s successor, Vice President Maduro, seems to be the likely candidate for the United Socialist Party in Venezuela. 

Regarding Venezuela’s relations with foreign markets, oil prices are definitely subject to change.  With Venezuela being one of the world’s largest producers of oil, many nations now have to question how Chavez’s death and the new leadership will affect the rest of the global market.  Furthermore, how will the United States deal with such a loss, and will its policies towards Venezuela change in the weeks to come?

With the end of a fourteen-year term, Venezuela now faces the challenge as to what to do next.  However, the spirit of Hugo Chavez continues to live on as thousands mourn and grieve for their lost “Comandante.” 

Fighting the Future via the Past. Pt 2

First Generation

     The Battle of Lutzen, in 1632, is often considered to be the bloodiest battle in the 30-Years War. For some seven hours, 40,000 men from the Holy Roman Empire and the Swedish Empire fought, only stopping once night fell. In total, more than a quarter of the men were killed or wounded. 

      Two hundred years later, in 1812, Napoleon and his Grande Armee met the Russian Empire at the Battle of Borodino. Both armies suffered an estimated 80,000 casualties in that single day of fighting, out of the starting total of 250,000.

      So what happened in between these two wars that made armies so huge? 

      According to the ideas of the 4 Generations of warfare, the rise of the nation-state happened. The first paradigm shift came with the Peace of Westphalia at the end of the 30-Years War, which effectively gave states the exclusive rights to organize its own armies. No longer were armies owned by their captains, who were also owned by their feudal lords and their feudal lords. Under the nation-state, all of a state's military was subordinate to its ruler, who could now more effectively gather men for war.
      The Peace of Westphalia sought to end the wars that had ravaged Europe previously by creating a framework for a sovereign state and its affairs with the outside world. The most important tenet was that a sovereign state had exclusive control over its own people, military included. In Central Europe, the Holy Roman Empire was effectively broken into over 300 independent states and the feudal system collapsed. 

      Prior to this change, combat was typically irregular. The famous battles of the Medieval Ages and the Early Reformation were exceptions to the general idea of "war," which consisted mostly of raiding. Even the armies that took part in these battles were very often alliances very tenuously held together by shared circumstances. The change to centrally-controlled armies was the first attempt to bring order to the battlefield. The most visible of this new "order" is the idea of uniforms, saluting, and stratification of military ranks.

      But aside from more organization, strategy and tactics changed according to technology, not from the Peace of Westphalia. The changeovers of the next Generations will be less subtle, as a result of technology far outstripping the limits of the human body. A bow and arrow functions a lot like a musket on the battlefield. But a machine gun, what is a machine gun?

AIDS: Eradication at the end of the tunnel.

   
      Two and a half years ago a baby was born to an HIV-infected mother and tested positive for the virus. Within thirty hours, the attending doctor gave the baby a three-drug dose of antiviral medication.

      It has been over a year since the baby stopped receiving antiviral medication. She is still HIV free.

      The news was announced last Sunday in the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta, which marks the second known case of a person being freed from HIV. The first patient, Timothy Brown of San Francisco, underwent a bone marrow transplant to replace his defensive cells with an immune version from a donor. Such a treatment is highly costly, as well as being unsuitable for a widespread cure for large a number of issues.
      However, the child was treated using common medications, with no prior planning save routine tests and the attending doctor's quick action. Dr. Hannah Gay is credited with the cure and it is believed that the speed and intensity of the treatment helped to destroy the virus before it can form hidden reservoirs in the child's immune cells. After the formation of reservoirs - virus DNA hidden in the genetic code of a patient's infected cells - conventional treatment can take up to seventy years of steady treatment to remove HIV completely.
      While Dr. Gay's treatment does not work on longtime patients or those who have been infected through other means aside from in-utero, it does present a very possible way to stop mother-child transmission, of which almost a thousand cases happen daily, most of them in the developing world.
      Research is now underway to see if this method can be applied to other newborns.

Counter Aid to Syria from Extremist: Good/Bad?

         As Syria’s calamity of political transition continues, United States and several other nations want to increase the supports to Syrian rebels. One of the big reasons is to counter the political and military aid offer by extremist. This aid will includes military equipments and training, humanitarian assistance  and political advisory, said by Secretary of State John F. Kerry.

         It is not surprising that extremists would make expansion in Syria under the turmoil and bloodsheds that left cities devastated into piles of rubble. However, that is one issue. If we look at Syria in a bigger picture, the biggest problem remains: Assad is still in power. The Syrian oppositions have no choice but fight to remove due to Ba’ath government’s violent actions implemented toward mass protests that resulted deaths of many protestors, then escalated, which led what is now Syria today.

          Regardless of the past, Syria is now facing terrorist expansion, endless gun fights, and homeless children. More importantly, Assad is still in power of the Ba'ath government. Although the aid that will be used for counter aid offered by terrorists, however will it ensure a safe political transition in Syria in the mean time? Or Syria will continue its civil war? 

The History of India and Pakistan's Not-So-Friendly Relationship

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The India-Pakistan rivalry is a conflict as old as the two nations themselves—dating back to the era of British colonialism. In 1947, the British Empire, exhausted and suffering economic stresses from the aftermath of World War II, retreated from South Asia with the decision to partition the territories into states. The Indian National Congress, supporter of Indian-nationalism, and the Muslim League, supporter of Muslim-nationalism, were instructed to establish a constitutional framework for post-colonial India by the full withdrawal of British forces in 1947.

When an agreement was not reached by the deadline, British Viceroy Louis Mountbat-ten devised a plan that would establish territory based on population: areas with a Muslim-majority would be Pakistan and areas with Hindu-majority would be India. The 565 princely states in South Asia were also involved in the partition, and the rulers were given the power to decide which country they wanted to join.

The plan sparked immediate outcry. Violence and bloodshed erupted between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims, resulting in 500,000 to 1 million casualties. Conflict also centered around Kashmir and Hyderabad, a Hindu-led princely state with a Muslim majority. Pakistani tribal forces, fearful that Prince Maharajah of Kashmir and Hyderabad would accede the state to India, attacked and occupied the princely state in what became known as the First Kashmir War. In response, Maharajah effectively handed Kashmir over to India by signing the Instrument of Accession.

The United Nations was forced to mitigate the tensions between India and Pakistan following the event. In 1948, the Line of Control divided Kashmir into territories controlled by Pakistan and India.

Since then, India and Pakistan have engaged in three other wars--the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1965, 1971, and 1999. Kashmir remains an area of contention with frequent skirmishes resulting in the deaths of Pakistani and Indian soldiers that have only fueled the animosity. The nuclear arms race between the two states is a major cause for concern in the international community, which will forever be kept on its toes by the volatile and increasingly serious relationship between India and Pakistan.  

Two Afghan boys killed in NATO accident

On February 28, two Afghan boys under seven years old were mistaken as insurgents and killed by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Although Brigadier General Gunter Katz apologized for the accident on behalf of the forces that fired upon them, his statement does not change the fact that such operational incidents continue to worm their way into civilians' minds as examples of how foreign forces might be ineffective or, worse, "killers" of innocents, as insurgents call them.

As Dawood Azami from the BBC Afghan service pointed out, insurgents have been able to exploit these frequent mistaken killings as ways to make civilians believe that they're at risk. There are foreign forces out there creating huge numbers of civilian deaths; they're occupiers of our land and murderers of our innocent people. That's what they want the population to believe, and such stirrings have led to anti-American protests over the past decade. The accidental killings have decreased in frequency over the years---civilian casualties dropped 12% in 2012, the first time that the figure has fallen since 2006---but they continue to be an issue.

The boys were tending cattle in the Uruzgan province of southern Afghanistan when Australian troops, after an attack from the Taliban in that region, fired at them from a helicopter. The 1,500 Australian troops stationed in this region are focused on training and mentoring Afghan soldiers. The Australian military and ISAF are now investigating the accident.

By the end of 2014, the NATO-led troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Afghanistan will then expect to hold national security in their own hands and be handed the baton of responsibility for their own affairs. But meanwhile, what can be done to reduce civilian casualties whenever foreign forces become involved? In the future, what can we take from these experiences in current conflicts to better protect the innocents?