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Climate Change in Mainstream TV and Film: Don’t Be Preachy, Preach Entertainment-Industry Insiders
›November 20, 2008 // By Rachel WeisshaarAs U.S. governors and international climate representatives met at the Beverly Hills Hilton for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s climate change summit on November 18, a group of Hollywood writers and producers—plus a few climate change experts—gathered on the other side of Los Angeles at the Skirball Cultural Center for “Changing Climate…Changing People: Connecting to the Biggest Story of Our Time,” a unique conference sponsored by the Population Media Center on how to incorporate climate change into mainstream TV and film.
Entertainment industry insiders like Sonny Fox emphasized that “earnest isn’t enough and won’t cut it”—that a show or film’s entertainment value cannot be compromised by its addressing serious issues like climate change impacts. Yet Chris Alexander, senior vice president of corporate communications for 20th Century Fox, showed that this is possible, with examples of how “The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill,” and “Boston Legal” have seamlessly incorporated environmental issues into jokes, dialogue, and storylines.
David Rambo, a writer and supervising producer for “CSI,” described how “CSI” has addressed climate change impacts in two separate shows: one that examined the surprisingly large effect of a degree or two difference in temperature; and another that explored the high concentration of pharmaceuticals in water that has been recycled due to water shortages. According to Rambo, after that episode aired, “CSI” received grateful letters from public officials and educators from around the country, who said that the fact that “CSI” had addressed water reuse had made it acceptable for them to broach this once-taboo topic.
The conference was also anchored by some heavy-hitters—Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (Ret.). Frumkin discussed the potential health impacts of climate change, which include increased levels of air pollution; higher incidence of allergies; geographic spread of vector-borne and waterborne diseases; severe disruptions to water and food supplies; and mental health problems, often resulting from exposure to natural disasters. McGinn explained that because climate change is a threat multiplier for instability, it could increase the risk of humanitarian disasters, failed states, civil conflict, extremism, competition over scarce natural resources, and mass migration.
In addition to panels, the conference also featured a one-act play, “Shuddering to Think,” about the challenges of incorporating serious issues into mainstream entertainment. It sounds dull—but was actually funny and incisive, thanks to sharp writing by Jon Robin Baird and adept acting by Bruce Davison, Scott Wolf, and Bradley Whitford, whom you may remember as Josh Lyman from The West Wing. Speaking after the performance about media’s power to convince the public to get serious about climate change, Whitford observed, “The press failed, the government failed, science failed—but Al Gore’s movie [An Inconvenient Truth] worked.” -
PODCAST – Jean-Yves Pirot on PHE Integration and Environmental Management
›November 17, 2008 // By Wilson Center Staff“Time is pressing, and we need all hands on deck,” says Jean-Yves Pirot, an ecologist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), on the urgent need for conservationists to look outside their sector for help in improving sustainable environmental management in developing countries. In a podcast with ECSP’s Gib Clarke, Pirot, who coordinated the “Healthy People, Healthy Environment” stream at the recent World Conservation Congress, discusses the challenges of integrating population and health into environment programs. He urges conservationists to forge synergies with health and development specialists in order to scale-up small, short-term projects and provide long-term health and environmental benefits to the poor. -
Deeper Pockets or Smarter Spending? Reforming U.S. Foreign Assistance
›November 16, 2008 // By Karen Bencala
There are two things we know for sure in Washington these days: First, the incoming Obama administration is likely to bring change on a wide variety of topics; and second, U.S. foreign assistance is in dire need of a change. You are probably already aware of the plethora of policy papers on how the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of State should be reorganized to increase their effectiveness. There are also multiple initiatives striving to boost the prominence of neglected issues like water. What is lacking is an integrated strategy addressing both our domestic and international goals that would in turn suggest organizational reforms for the federal government.
As you read this, the Obama transition team is planning how to tackle major international challenges, including the financial crisis, energy supply, climate change, food security, global health threats, institution-building and governance, and global poverty. International development, as part of an integrated strategic plan, is an important part of the solution to all of these issues. Unfortunately, the current system is dysfunctional. Existing development capacities are spread throughout the executive branch—across 12 government departments, 25 government agencies, and almost 60 government offices—and, in some cases, are outsourced to the private sector. No one person or office is charged with priority-setting, planning, budgeting, implementation, or evaluation.
Wilson Center Senior Scholar John Sewell and I spent this past spring meeting with a group of experts with a wide range of expertise to develop a memo that sets out how such a strategy should be developed and implemented. In A Memo to the Next President: Promoting American Interests Through Smarter, More Strategic Global Policies, we recommend the appointment of a high-level individual on the president’s staff to develop, implement, and monitor—in consultation with key members of Congress—a government-wide strategy to promote U.S. interests abroad. At some point, larger organizational questions will need to be addressed, but the first step toward effectively tackling these challenges is creating an overall strategy to meet the country’s goals and priorities.
Clearly, the sort of integrated planning we are recommending has great relevance for many of the topics discussed here on the New Security Beat. Whether we are talking about climate change as a national security threat or the relationship between conservation efforts and population, there is a need for a broader understanding of how these issues—and their potential solutions—affect one another. With dramatic changes in the White House and Congress and with a broad consensus that U.S. foreign policy efforts are insufficient, the time is ripe for an overhaul in our strategies.
To read more about reforming U.S. foreign assistance, check out these blogs: -
Can Haiti Change Course Before the Next Storm?
›November 14, 2008 // By Will RogersThough the floodwaters have finally receded, Gonaives—Haiti’s third-largest city—remains buried in 2.5 million cubic meters of mud, one in a long list of miseries plaguing those desperate for relief. Four major storms have ravaged Haiti since August, and recovery and reconstruction are projected to span several years and cost upwards of $400 million. While the international community has committed $145 million in disaster relief—nearly $32 million from the United States alone—the price tag for long-term development assistance could well exceed these early estimates as the extent of the damage becomes clearer. But reconstruction efforts could be moot if Haiti fails to adopt environmentally sustainable development practices. -
PODCAST – Lester Brown on Climate Change and Energy Security
›November 13, 2008 // By Wilson Center Staff“When looking at what we need to do, I think stabilizing climate, stabilizing population are the two big ones. If we fail at either of those…civilization is in serious trouble,” warns Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC, in the latest podcast from the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). Following a recent event, “Thinking Outside the Grid: An Aggressive Approach to Climate and Energy,” co-sponsored by Wilson Center on the Hill and ECSP, Brown elaborated on the themes of his latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, and addressed climate change’s impact on natural resources, food security, and energy independence. He argues that the United States must critically re-examine its energy infrastructure and invest heavily in alternative energy technologies. -
Caroline Thomas: Environmental, Human Security Pioneer
›November 12, 2008 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoI never met Caroline Thomas. But I certainly benefited from her human security insights.
The Southampton University professor passed away last month at 49, leaving behind notable contributions to the field of environment and human security. In her 1987 volume In Search of Security: The Third World in International Relations, Thomas was one of the first to enunciate the insufficiency of traditional security approaches. She explained that statist security perspectives said little about the immediate environment, development, and health threats facing the majority of the world’s population—residents of the so-called Third World.
Thomas’ call for a broader definition of security was rooted in her focus on pressing threats to human well-being in developing countries. In an obituary of Thomas in The Guardian, Tony Evans describes the book’s contributions:While today the term is used in a variety of contexts – environmental security, food security, fresh water security, health security and so on – this was not the case until the 1980s. Security previously meant only the military security of the state. In proposing to broaden the agenda beyond its narrow focus on war and arms control, Caroline sought to include issues that confront the people of the developing nations, rather than their states….Caroline argued that questions of security and insecurity were qualitatively different for people in developing nations because the imperial powers had withdrawn, having paid little regard for their future. The people of decolonised states were left in conditions of economic, political, social and military turmoil, with fewer resources for avoiding future misery.
Reflecting a common British academic perspective, Thomas highlighted power inequities between the global North and South in the post-colonial era. At the same time, she did not undercut the utility of her arguments by descending into over-the-top caricatures or creating straw-man arguments, blunders that other British critics of environmental and human security research have not always managed to avoid.
Thomas’ focus on power extended to inequities in market relationships. Much of the early environment and conflict work spent too little time considering international trade in natural resources between developing and developed countries and consumer behavior in industrialized nations. Too often, early environment and conflict research focused narrowly on the local dynamics of natural resource extraction or environmental scarcity and what roles they played in contributing to violent conflict.
Thomas’s work should place her permanently on the short list of key early contributors responsible for broadening security’s definitions. -
Weekly Reading
›Military leaders and climate experts gathered in Paris for a November 3-5 conference on the role of the military in combating climate change. A conference report will include “proven strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving military effectiveness.”
The 2008 Africa Population Data Sheet, a joint project of the Population Reference Bureau and the African Population and Health Research Center, reveals significant differences between northern and sub-Saharan Africa. Also from PRB, “Reproductive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa” examines family planning use, family size, maternal mortality, and HIV/AIDS in major subregions of sub-Saharan Africa.
In the October 2008 issue of Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, Alexander Tyler of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for Somalia argues that longer-term livelihoods projects must be incorporated into emergency humanitarian relief efforts. The authors of the Center for American Progress report The Cost of Reaction: The Long-Term Costs of Short-Term Cures (reviewed on the New Security Beat) would likely agree; they argue that although emergency aid is necessary, “what is true in our own lives is true on the international stage—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
The Dining & Wine section of the New York Times profiles a Quichua community in the Ecuadorian Amazon that has formed a successful chocolate cooperative with the help of a volunteer for a biodiversity foundation. “They wanted to find a way to survive and thrive as they faced pressure from companies that sought to log their hardwood trees, drill on their land for oil and mine for gold,” reports the Times. -
Fertile Fringes: Population Growth Near Protected Areas
›November 7, 2008 // By Rachel Weisshaar“Protected areas are the backbone of biodiversity conservation strategies,” so it is critical to examine how population growth is affecting them, said Justin Brashares of the University of California, Berkeley, at “Fertile Fringes: Population Growth at Protected-Area Edges,” an October 22, 2008, meeting sponsored by the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). “Biodiversity conservation objectives are being impacted by higher deforestation rates, [natural resource] offtake rates, [and] increasing pressure on the protected area” due to high local population growth, explained George Wittemyer of Colorado State University. Brashares and Wittemyer, who recently co-authored an article on population and protected areas in Science, were joined by Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau.
To Stay or To Go?
“Many of the protected areas that we have today in sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America are carryovers of areas set aside by colonial governments,” said Brashares, “and for many researchers and for many communities, the creation of parks is seen to come at the cost of local communities.” Yet certain features can encourage people to move near protected areas, including:- Services made available by foreign assistance, such as health care, education, and livelihoods programs;
- Employment opportunities as park staff or in the tourism industry;
- Better ecosystem services, including food, water, wood, and traditional medicine;
- Easier access to markets, due to roads built to attract tourism; and
- Improved security provided by park guards and government staff.
Other features of protected areas deter migrants, including:
- Land-use restrictions;
- Conflict with wildlife (e.g., attacks on livestock and crops);
- Disadvantages associated with tourism, including higher cost of living and potential loss of cultural heritage;
- Isolation from urban centers; and
- Conflict with park staff, government representatives, or rural militias.
Higher Population Growth Near Protected Areas
Brashares and Wittemyer examined IUCN Category I and II protected areas in Africa and Latin America—which limit human activity within their boundaries—and excluded potentially confounding urban, marine, and new parks. Using UN Environment Programme population data from 1960-2000, they compared population growth in a 10-kilometer “buffer zone” surrounding each protected area with average rural population growth for that country. In 245 of the 306 parks they examined—and 38 of the 45 countries—population growth at protected-area edges was significantly higher than average national rural population growth.
Brashares and Wittemyer found three factors correlated with higher levels of population growth: more money for parks (as measured by protected-area funds from the Global Environment Facility); more park employees; and more deforestation on the edges of protected areas. Brashares emphasized, however, that there could be equally relevant correlations between population growth and employment in extractive industries, but that “the timber industry won’t give us their data and the mining industry and the oil industries aren’t so happy to share.” Thus, the study might inadvertently penalize NGOs and international organizations for their transparency.
Some researchers hypothesized that because protected areas are usually located in ecologically dynamic areas, this ecological wealth might be attracting new residents, rather than the protected areas themselves. But Brashares and Wittemyer found that proximity to a protected area, not general ecological abundance, was driving the trend. Others suspected that population grows at protected-area edges because the people who have been displaced by the creation of a park move to the park’s border. But population growth rates within the parks have been mostly stable or positive, so Brashares and Wittemyer doubt this is driving the trend.
Implications for Conservation
Brashares and Wittemyer outlined several policy implications of their research:- Emerging infectious diseases are a serious risk in areas with high human density close to wildlife populations, so governments and international organizations should try to limit potential outbreaks near protected areas.
- If the effectiveness of a protected area is measured by its ability to preserve biodiversity for generations, then community development programs must be executed carefully. For instance, roads and schools should not be built in an ecologically fragile corridor between two parks.
- Multi-use buffer zones that make core areas less accessible can allow individuals to continue to benefit from their proximity to nature while protecting biodiversity. “Some of the best protection of biodiversity is through isolation,” said Brashares.
Bremner took issue with some of Brashares’ and Wittemyer’s methods and conclusions; his full critique is available on the New Security Beat. Although Bremner agreed that migration—not natural increase—is likely driving higher population growth around protected areas, he believed the authors did not provide adequate evidence to demonstrate that this migration is driven by investments in conservation. “I hope that publishing this conclusion here in Science doesn’t provide our detractors, those who don’t want us to be spending on conservation, with the means to limit future spending for international conservation,” said Bremner.
Photo: Justin Brashares. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.
For more information, including a webcast of this event, visit ECSP’s website. To receive invitations to future events, e-mail ecsp@wilsoncenter.org.
There are two things we know for sure in Washington these days: First, the incoming Obama administration is likely to bring change on a wide variety of topics; and second, U.S. foreign assistance is in dire need of a change. You are probably already aware of the plethora of policy papers on how the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of State should be reorganized to increase their effectiveness. There are also multiple initiatives striving to 
Though the floodwaters have finally receded, Gonaives—Haiti’s third-largest city—remains buried in 
“Protected areas are the backbone of biodiversity conservation strategies,” so it is critical to examine how population growth is affecting them, said Justin Brashares of the University of California, Berkeley, at “Fertile Fringes: Population Growth at Protected-Area Edges,” an October 22, 2008, meeting sponsored by the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). “Biodiversity conservation objectives are being impacted by higher deforestation rates, [natural resource] offtake rates, [and] increasing pressure on the protected area” due to high local population growth, explained George Wittemyer of Colorado State University. 
