Tuesday, March 31, 2015

In the name of Cultural Understanding

There are some classes that can make you emotionally wasted. Like, really, it makes you eat raw vegetables like monster or typing your stubborn subjectivity into blog post while feeling so mixed up you badly need somebody to hug or something to punch.

Last year the trophy went to Animal Law. And as much as I hate it, as much as I thought about it -- wrote about it. It became a complicated love-hate relationship between me and the subject. Or the cases. Or... whatever. And to Environmental Justice, as it triggered more questions in my troubling mind and brought so much ethical contradictions to my early twenty head. I was fucked, emotionally.

Now, International Environmental Law fucked me up. That developed-developing countries distinction, and all the framing and sharp clash of values, sometimes made me lose my lawyering objectivity to be neutral, heartless, in my legal argument. But, can it be really, really neutral?

Why is it hypocritical for environmentalists from a country without CAFO problem to choose to eat meat, BUT it is NOT hypocritical to enact a statute as strong as CERCLA and RCRA to protect public health while exporting the waste to other countries like India and let people inhale asbestos everyday without any safe equipment?

I really envy Prof. Johnston everytime he said "The beauty of CERCLA..." or Prof. Ostar when he promoted transit justice for people in Portland. Maybe I've got too bitter that Indonesia might not ever be there, because our own inability. Or, I used my heart too much over my head. Or, all I need is my debating mate giving me more and more rebuttal until it kills my emotion. Maybe.

But that's why I love this subject anyway... because it hurts.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Sweetness Level: Godzilla!!

Again, about American food. If you start hating me, fine, shut this window down. I know I've been talking too much about food when I'm here.

When I can talk for hours about Portland's great local coffee and cool microbreweries, I can't resist to raise a concern about some intolerably unhealthy sweetness level in some of the beverages. Everytime I forgot to say "LESS SUGAR," the rest of my day will be a bad turbulence in my tummy - yes, that kind of sweetness that you think gonna give you instant diabetes.

First, let's examine this jar of coffee. I swear it's huge! At least you can drink 5 *NORMAL* cup of coffee and it's still sweet enough if you add ice as much as 20% of the volume you have in your cup. And where is it come from?

A grande Starbucks Java Chips Frappucino. More precisely, 3/4 of the grande frappe.


So in a beautiful grey day of Portland, I ordered my coffee, chatted with the server, and made the most fatal mistake of that day: forgetting to say "LESS SUGAR" for my order. Voila, what I got is a *NORMAL* sweetness level according to that server (or maybe any other server in particular places in particular country). So what happened next was I almost thrown up, and after couple of sips I gave up drinking it and bought a cup of regular Stumptown instead. But... I brought my frappe home.

And to satisfy my curiosity about my normal sweetness level, I made another coffee and added it to the grande frappe. It was 5 spoons of coffee with 16 ounces (yes, a full medium cup) of water. And I mix them. The result: it's still too sweet. But it's tolerable enough because I can add ice blocks as I drink that later. So, moral of the story: Even though I have added amount of water DOUBLE the original volume, American Starbucks is still too sweet (for me).

And today, I made the same mistake again. But, this time, with bottled juice. (How am I supposed to say "less sugar" to something bottled??). Anyway, this is a really healthy juice: 4 fruits blend, no GMO, not from concentrate, gluten free. So it's supposed to be awesome!!

But again, I got an instant "ding" in my head as I started sipping. Disaster!


As I flipped the bottle and see the sugar level, and it's well explained why the sweetness level is crazy: this 450ml juice contains 44 grams of sugar. In other words: 11 teaspoons*) of granulated white sugar!! While, according to AHA (American Heart Association), the maximum intake of sugar for woman is only 25 grams per day, and for man 37.5 grams per day.

Anyway, just a random statistic based on this page:

"According to data from the U.S. in 2008, people are consuming over 60 pounds (28 kg) of added sugar per year and this does not include fruit juices (1). In 2008 the average intake was 76.7 grams per day, which equals 19 teaspoons or 306 calories. According to this study, sugar consumption went down by 23% between the years 2000 and 2008, mainly because people drank less sugar-sweetened beverages"

Meanwhile, a *not so* recent opinion in Jakarta Post raised a concern about the opposite trend growing in Indonesia: more sugar! You can see the opinion here, written by the vulnerability assessment officer for the UN World Food Program (WFP) in Indonesia and East Timor in 1998-2002.

So, think your own sweetness level, and have a good day, sugar!

*) one teaspoon of white granulated sugar equals to 4 grams of sugar

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Lost and Damage Climate Compensation

DISCLAIMER: It's not a legal argument, at all. In one of the International Environmental Law class, my Professor raised a question about the CC's lost and damage climate compensation -- somewhat in a way discrediting developing countries' position in demanding that. For a quick reference about loss and damage climate compensation, see Saleemul Huq's writing in UNEP's CC website. So when I worked on my paper I couldn't stop thinking about that, and before I realized I already start writing this in the class' forum, wasting my precious 1 hr to write this non-legal response. Here it is, copied verbatim:

So I was curious about the lost and damage and I researched more about this since I couldn't believe something as non-sense as our discussion in the class could go as far as reaching an agreement to be considered. It makes more sense to me after reading more sources.

I think there's a big difference between (a) "any kind of damage that adaptation won't be able to answer" with (b) "unavoidable damage that already occurred and no matter what we do, adaptation is too late".

Lost and damage sounds more like (b) for me, if I understand it correctly. It might be easier for developed countries to be technology optimistic, but for the poorest parts of the world where electricity & fridge not even accessible for some of its citizen? Not so -- it should be predictable that adaptation tends to come too late for them, leave them with no option but to losing more and sacrificing their chances to improve their already-screwed life (see: Guardian, Climate Change, the Poor Will Suffer Most). At least from my limited knowledge, it doesn't sound like unimaginable scenes to lost too much before adaptation finally arrive. Sounds fair, especially for those country whose historical emissions are among the lowest, but forced to live with disaster for years before some foreign aid come and safe them with adaptation project. Does it sound fair for 39 millions of Bangladeshi citizen who live below $2/day to face constant flood that made their food security worse and cause more water-borne diseases, in addition to their already-low living standards? If you were Bangladeshi citizen, will you be patient enough to wait some 2 years being homeless or live in the disaster camp until your new adaptation house built without being compensated a single penny? If you're the government, how will you manage your low budget to ensure these people get just compensation? Or maybe it's their cross to suffer a bit, no compensation is needed since everyone's suffering in natural disaster, no? Sounds like natural disaster, but with some historical proof on who should bear the most responsibility.

My biggest concern, however, is that the state being the subject demanding the compensation, while that the people impacted with these kind of situation are usually the ones whose voice are the least heard by the state, especially in the developing world. These are the kind of people who don't trust government because they have been forgotten by government too many times. And suddenly developing countries' governments stand up for these people in the name of climate justice? Sounds fishy. Maybe, developing countries governments are predicting a big wave of angry citizen who will blame governments for their failure in promptly implementing the adaptation plan -- that's why this loss and damage compensation being advocated.

In addition to the (b) situation, as absurd it might sound, I also can imagine permanent loss situations in point (a). Culture and way of living is one of them -- when an indigenous tribe is separated from their subsistence way of living because of climate vulnerability, what is the right adaptation plan? When Pacific Islanders tribes have to be evacuated from their indigenous lands to the city, is it as easy as city people moving from one apartment to another? It might be really, really difficult for city people to understand, but indigenous people's connection with their lands can be as stubborn as 'better to stay and die in my land than living somewhere else'. As they flee somewhere else, an irreplaceable value that money can't ever cover have lost (I'm not romanticizing, these stubborn people have caused me some troubles in real life evacuation). It make sense that Pacific Island nations take a pretty strong position on this, since some of the proponents are small nations with strong cultural identity. If culture sounds too absurd, non-use value, as we have seen a lot in ESA litigation, might be more imaginable for us, although this will be more universal and not unique to developing countries. However, these non-use value loss can be really tricky in its threshold and limits, as I raised yesterday.

PS: Viv raised the issue that adaptation will be needed eventually. Loss and damage compensation does not come as substitute of adaptation, but in addition to that. This is what makes it so controversial, because anyway, every nations are impacted. 

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Public Interest Environmental Lawyer Conference 2015, Eugene, OR

So I skipped a class and dropped my Fulbright seminar opportunity in order to attend this conference. I've heard about this conference quite a lot, and since Lewis & Clark's biking squad has started their practice since months ago, I knew I must make my best effort to attend. And it turns out to be really worth it: they have 10 parallel panels, and each panel consisted of 16 different panels that you have to choose. Aside from that, they have amazing keynotes.

I really have no idea how grassroot activists will see this conference, but since I am not grassroot activist, all I can say is: PIELC is not for mediocre. It's serious, man. Not necessarily you must be lawyers, but you must be an environmental activists in order to fit within the crowds. My conclusion was not without some reasonable rationale. Look at these grandmothers.

Raging grannies and a Fransiscan eco-activist

Yep, as absurd as it sounds, it's the Corvallis and Eugene Raging Grannies who sang against XL Keystone, modifying the tone of Are You Sleeping into provoking but funny lyrics, bringing protest signs with them so bold and provocative. And those grannies really know what's at stake! I spoke to some oldies, and how they know so much about the XL Keystone advocacy makes me feel like a baby.

We also chanted a lot during keynote speeches, as you can see in one of the picture above (top left) - that's Gary Nabhan, a Fransiscan brother who happen to be an ethnobotanist and agricultural ecologist. He asked us to chant a line (that sounds like prayer) stating a totally demanding commitment in environmental advocacy, basically avoiding adversarial tactics when we can compromise, avoiding harm to the least-powerful community.

Another funny greeting came from Bill McKibben, who joked around with his "see you in jail". Even with this subtle kind of greeting, we know that true activists do not say "see you in other conference" and instead picking a place like street and organizing efforts - even jail. Also, these activists throw jokes around without trying to be politically correct, like when Antonio Oposa from Philippines bragging about how bad the western world is in front of a white majority who attended the conference.

The other interesting stuff is the combination of nature and session. We went hiking at McGowan Grove, a pretty off-trail hike (and that's why they suggest 'moderately experienced hikers') with a Congressman and a Senator as our guide. And yeah, they're badass either as a guide and as a field speakers. I don't think Indonesia's congressman would ever do that.

Congressman DeFazio and Senator Wyden lead the walk in the grove

Eugene's awesome McGowan Grove

Another funny speaker was this 14 years old climate justice public speaker, a cute indigo kid named Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez who sang some awesome environmental justice hip-hop songs and spoke about public trust doctrine like it's he knows all about it. Here's one of his song with his kiddo gang: Take You to Court. Okay, kid.


I guess that would be sufficient since it's impossible for me to tell you all about each and every panels. Just if you're in the US and want to network with real activists, learn great strategy about stuffs and really implement it back home, know some people who keep doing great without funding, this conference is definitely your place.

See you somewhere on the earth! (Hopefully not in a boring conference room)