McGill history professors Jason Opal, Thomas Jundt, and Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert spoke at a public forum on Wednesday to address last April’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The aim, according to Opal, was to tackle “the legal, cultural and political dimensions of deep-water drilling in and near American waters and relate it to the American sphere.”

The speakers took a historical, rather than strictly environmental, approach to the subject. The idea for the forum, Studnicki-Gizbert said, began by discussing how the Deepwater Horizon disaster could be a turning point in the environmental and political consciousness of the United Sates.

“We said, ‘If we did some history on this, we could look at how environmental crises feed into environmental consciousness, environmental politics, and in particular issues of regulation,'” he said.

History Students Association VP Internal Marni Isaacson coordinated the forum and reached out to the professors.

“They were all very enthusiastic about coming together with the McGill community to both share their insight on the topic and hear what the public had to say,” she said.

The forum, though long after the initial oil well blowout, took place just 10 days after the U.S. government announced that the spill was officially over.  

The forum and discussion were  pertinent to the summer-long fiasco, and allowed academics, students, and the public to reflect on, as Opal said, “what we find to be most troubling, what we find to be most compelling, and above all perhaps where we are now and where we are going to head in terms of environmental disasters and the political response to them.”

On April 20, a fire erupted early in the morning on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon.  The failure of a “blowout preventer” resulted in a massive explosion, the death of eleven workers, and the release of a continuous stream of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Each professor approached the disaster differently. Opal, who studies early American history, compared aspects of the disaster to the 19th century American frontier.  

“British Petroleum had a reputation as ‘cowboys.’ The terminology of the frontier suffused this disaster and is everywhere if you look carefully,” he said. “A frontier, or horizon, relates to or describes a specific relation of peoples to the environment and the people living there.”

The notion of untouched tracts of wilderness, Opal said, gave people the sense that anything they conquered would be theirs, and the frontier was the future. Now, he said, we see the consequences of similar attitudes regarding oil, and “a sense of being impotent in the face of crisis.”

Studnicki-Gizbert, on the other hand, who researches mineral and resource extraction in Latin America and the involvement of Canadian mining companies in these activities, discussed the spill in the context of other environmental disasters. He linked the spill to similar ones in the last century, like the spills of the Exxon Valdez or the Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.  

“It was a highly mediagenic event, because of the kind of historical resonances with other disasters and other events,” he said. “We inherently relate images of today’s crises to those for which we already have an understanding. This in turn dictates our reactions to current disasters.”

Jundt, an environmental historian, took the most straightforward approach to the disaster.

“In the case of the BP spill, it speaks quite loudly in terms of being representative of issues that characterize 20th century United States history,” he said. “It reflects a long-standing tension between protecting the environment and promoting the economy.”

Jundt discussed the issue of responsibility, and where the blame should lie. While all of the presenters agreed there was no clear-cut answer, Jundt explored the complex relationship between excessive corporate power and governmental involvement.  

“The U.S. government, through tax exemptions and lackadaisical egulation, has helped big companies get a foothold in this deep-water drilling,” he said.

Over five months after the enviromental disaster took place, McGill faculty and students were able to analize the issue from a historical perspective rather than the traditional environmental view, by relating and comparing the oil spill to previous events of the same nature.

Blake Sifton, a McGill graduate, along with nine other University of British Columbia journalism students,  became the first group of students ever to win an Emmy Award last week.

The group produced the documentary: Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground as part of an international reporting class at UBC’s Graduate School of Journalism. The film picked up two nominations at this year’s news and documentary Emmys, and won the award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.

Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground aired on PBS’ Frontline/World, where it was described as “A global investigation into the dirty secret of the digital age—the dumping and dangerous recycling of hundreds of millions of pounds of electronic waste across the developing world.” It documents poor workers–often children–burning the European and American computers that recyclers ship to developing countries, and sifting through the toxic residue to salvage and sell tiny pieces of precious metals.

The film also documents another problem: functioning hard drives that contain Westerners’ personal documents and sensitive information. In a particularly memorable scene, one of the teams purchased a hard drive containing sensitive details about U.S. government contracts with one of the country’s largest military contractors, Northrop Grumman. Ghana is adjacent to Nigeria, which Sifton describes as “the epicentre of cyber-crime.”

But the real story is “that we’re poisoning the Third World, not that some African is going to steal your family photos,” said Sifton.

Socially conscious journalism is nothing new for Sifton, who first “got into journalism from activism” during his years at McGill.

Sifton, who graduated from McGill in 2007 with a joint honours degree in political science and international development studies, was involved with a group called Students Taking Action in Chiapas during his time at university, which “raised awareness of and money for the plight of indigenous population in southern Mexico.” He travelled with the group to Chiapas in 2004 and 2006 with donations and to volunteer in communities there.  

On his second trip, Mexico was caught in the middle of an election crisis, and Sifton eventually turned the trip into a feature for the McGill Daily. He managed to take a picture of one of the electoral candidates in the midst of an enormous throng of people, which the BBC later published on their website.  

“[That] was this really incredible experience that taught me that I could do that, that I wanted to watch history unfold like that and be a foreign correspondent,” Sifton said.

He later used the feature in his UBC application.  

This may be the first student-driven documentary to win anything as prestigious as an Emmy, but for project leader and multiple-Emmy-winner Professor Peter Klein, student involvement can add an important dimension to this kind of project.

Students, Klein said, bring a lot of fresh ideas and smart questions to such projects.

“Working journalists kind of get into certain patterns and certain ways of doing things, and you kind of just accept those norms,” he said. “Students question things in ways that experienced journalists don’t. And in that respect I think it actually improves the project. It improves the ethical approaches and the quality of the reporting.”  

Klein helps his students by bringing expertise and connections to the media world. For the students, many of whom are employed at major news organizations, winning an Emmy at such a young age is a promising career start. In a few weeks, Sifton will be joining Al-Jazeera as a deputy news editor in Doha, Qatar.  

As for Ghana and other e-waste recipients, Klein said the situation has not changed significantly since the program aired last year. Regarding what students can do, Sifton advises researching the recyclers you use to dispose of your computer products to ensure they are being as responsible as they claim so that they don’t “destroy your hard drive.”

Jessica Batalitzky

Last Tuesday night, another Green Drinks Montreal Chapter  event took place at Thomson House. Bano Mehdi, a PhD candidate in the department of geography, presented a talk titled “Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture in Canada.”

Mehdi addressed the small but attentive crowd and attempted to dispell the common belief that climate change is negative. Instead, she argued that “climate change vis-à-vis agriculture is seen as good.”

Focusing on three main points—how the climate has changed in Canada over the past century,  future climate predictions for the country, and the possible impacts of climate change on Canadian agriculture—Mehdi presented statistics that revealed clear evidence of temperature changes, but also possibilities for adaptation.

According to her presentation, there was  an overall increase in temperature of 0.9 degrees C across Canada over the past century. The change came with variation, though, and the temperature decreased at times.

Mehdi also said that Canada has had a 12 per cent increase in precipitation over the past eight years.

“Expect Canada to be warmer and wetter with occasional variations,” she said. “This changing climate will be more welcoming to high-value crops, such as grapes, which need specific temperatures at which to grow.”

Along the mid-latitude regions of the northern hemisphere, where Canada is located, there is the most potential for longer planting and harvesting seasons and new crop types. In the coming century, Mehsi said, most of these areas will be able to maintain a climate that will allow for optimal planting and harvesting.

The same cannot be said for mid-latitude southern regions. Only a minority of the world’s climatic regions, Mehdi said, will experience changes in their climates that will give them beneficial conditions.

But even for countries like Canada, the changes in temperature and precipitation have variability and cannot be predicted accurately enough to prevent natural disasters. Mehdi warned that no systems are currently in place to deal with such events, which could destroy crops.

Mehdi argued that it is up to farmers to adapt their methods to the climate. “They must have good soil and a ready water supply,” she said.

She also said that to ensure food security, the government will have to step in to help farmers with these burdens through access to knowledge, technology, and funds.

 “The agriculture sector is very adaptable” Mehdi said. “But if not enough attention is paid to these changes, Canada would not be able to keep up and therefore have a very difficult time feeding itself.”

Chris Wrobel, a Master’s student in plant science, is a member of the Post Graduate Students’ Society Environment Committee and a co-founder of Green Drinks Montreal, an informal organization that seeks to promote discussion on environmental issues. He explained that issues like the one addressed in this talk are what Green Drinks tries to promote.

“[The organization aims to] provide a forum for environmentalists with different views,” he said, asserting that “sustainability is a binding force” and that through them common projects amongst many groups can be undertaken.

Notesolution, a newly released online points-based service allows students to electronically exchange notes with each other. Students earn virtual “credits” for posting their class notes which they can use to purchase others’ notes.

 The service, founded in December 2009 by University of Toronto alumnus Kevin Wu and released at the start of this academic year, has  gained popularity among U of T undergraduates. The site currently boasts over 1,000 registered users and has received positive feedback.

 The University of Toronto Student Union (UTSU), intrigued by the concept and wanting to support the ideas of alumni, formed a partnership with Wu over the summer.

 “I think that there is a clear need for students to have access to as much information as possible for their courses,” said Adam Awas, president of the UTSU. “Given the shortened academic year, it is often difficult to keep up with a full course load, working, and commuting.”

 Wu also cited the difficult transition to university classes as motivation for starting the company.   “Adapting to a new way of life takes its toll,” he said. “I felt there was not enough out-of-classroom course assistance for additional guidance to reach every student.”

  As with McGill’s note-taking clubs (NTCs), there is concern that students will see these services as an alternative to  lecture attendance, and use others’ lecture notes as their only class resource. But Wu said that his service “is not meant to be used as a substitute for regular lecture attendance.” Some students aren’t eager to use others’ notes, though, and instead prefer to rely on what they  picked up from a lecture.

 Victoria Bonar, a U0 Arts student, finds it difficult to imagine depending solely on her peers’ notes.

“During lectures, I just have to write what I’m thinking. It’s immensely valuable to go back and see what ideas I had during lecture, especially when it comes to essay time,” she said. “[However], there are times when the professor is just talking so fast and it’s very easy to miss a point.”  

Students have different learning styles. For some, the physical act of putting pencil to paper helps engrain material into memory and aids comprehension. For others, taking fewer notes during class and sharing notes with classmates later allows for better participation and concentration in class. Notesolution aims to provide a service for the latter group allowing students to collaborate with each other and gain access to supplementary material at exam time.  However, the anonymity associated with posting information online may lead some to doubt the quality of content posted.

 “Some students may be worried that the notes on Notesolution are not the best quality, or written by students who you would not ask if you knew them,” said Gavin Nowlan, president of the University of Toronto Arts and Sciences Student Union. “This could be one of the reasons why students may be wary to join up.”

 Notesolution uses a ratings system, and users rank a poster’s notes upon downloading. These ratings are averaged and displayed alongside a user’s profile and uploads.  Membership to the site is steadily increasing, and the company hopes to expand to universities across Canada in the near future.