A short video we made about the challenges of life in Khevsureti, taken from footage shot this past summer.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Life in Modern Day Khevsureti
A short video we made about the challenges of life in Khevsureti, taken from footage shot this past summer.
Monday, November 6, 2017
Confessions of a Climate Change Denier
By Artur Gorokh & Ryan Sherman
It was in southern Utah in 2003 that Aron Ralston amputated his own arm to escape the boulder that had crushed him against the wall of a slot canyon. The only implement on hand was a small multi-tool, and in vain he poked, jabbed, and sawed at his arm, and hacked at the canyon wall and dug at the boulder. Five days later, delirious and severely dehydrated, he realized it had been his preoccupation with the useless tool all along that prevented him from seeing what had to be done.
Last week, Prof. Jon Schuldt of the Department of Communication, spoke at a Cornell Amnesty International discussion about the perception of climate change in the American population. Effective communication, he explained to us, is key in raising awareness and bridging partisanship. “Doomsday” rhetoric does not help, he said, but only serves to limit action and discourage engagement. If he is right, this column will be of no help at all.
You have no doubt been informed that the coming decades will see a world of increasing crop failure, flooding, wildfires, infrastructure failures, droughts and exacerbated inequality. This much we’ve all heard before. Much less talked of is a colossal humanitarian crisis of displaced peoples, the so-called climate refugees. Dire though all this may be, few of us have trouble falling asleep with worry for our fellow humans, or terrified of horrific calamities to come. Climate change is slow, it happens quietly in the interim and, by God, does it make for boring television. This non-urgency itself is a deathly feature. It allows us to distract ourselves with less unpleasant solutions and fall into the same mental trap into which Aron Ralston found himself.
Let me illustrate. After Prof. Jon Schuldt talk, a student stood up and to berate non-present Republicans for their sins and ignorance. The line between the right and wrong was demarcated by the aisle between them. Building solar panels, the student said, will replace coal, create jobs and stimulate the economy. Everyone wins. How incomprehensible anyone would refuse to do something so straightforwardly good!
This Teletubby worldview of win-win-win solutions was also the crux of President Obama’s environmental policy and is a denialism of its own kind. As the former administration’s website boasts, our solar output grew 30-fold and thousands of jobs were created along the way. Impressive, to be sure, but let’s fiddle with phrasing a bit put it this way: $160 billion was spent on subsidies, and as a result solar energy now makes up for a mere 0.6 percent of total supply. This infusion of cash rendered other clean sources of energy less competitive, and even forced several nuclear power plants to shut down.
The reality is that, if we are to replace coal and do it fast (say, by 2050), sunshine alone won’t do the job. It won’t even come close. An invasive energy plan, full of government overreach and deals struck with devils should be forthcoming. We might have to get over our nuclear phobia and invest into a new generation of reactors. Natural gas is not renewable nor all that clean, and fracking is controversial, but it makes for a cheap and abundant resource that could be decisive in temporarily replacing coal. Carbon tax very well may hurt the economy, but it also is a powerful incentive for corporations to reduce their emissions. (Stagnating economies also are much more environmentally friendly, by the way.) These strategies would require us to compromise our values, be they wealth, safety or even freedom, to help manage an impending crisis. But any truly effective action is likely to entail such compromise.
Distracting ourselves with impotent solutions might just prove to be more dangerous in the long run than the outright detachment from reality on the right. What these well-meaning talking points engender are a sense of fighting the good fight by creating an illusion of actionable items. This is evident in the emerging tribal culture based in sustainable garden living, anti-plastic-bag bags and targeted dietary changes. While meritorious on some level to be sure, these are activities that don’t meet climate change in reality, and the good feelings they bring are examples a temporary placebo effect.
Aron Ralston spent days in his own denial before accepting what he had to do to achieve liberation from the boulder that had crushed his arm. Even when faced with the spectre of death, perhaps the truth was just too unpleasant. But severely dehydrated and delirious, he finally abandoned the useless tool and then leveraged his own weight to snap the arm in two, freeing bone from boulder, and allowing himself to escape the canyon (almost) in one piece. But before he was able to do what had to be done, he had to recognize the situation for what it was, and take action that met the problem in reality. Climate does not care from which side of the aisle our political rhetoric derives. It isn’t interested in soothing communication strategies. It doesn't take notice of the scattering of hybrid cars or solar panels. Until our conversations describe facts, and our solutions target reality, we are all climate change deniers.
You have no doubt been informed that the coming decades will see a world of increasing crop failure, flooding, wildfires, infrastructure failures, droughts and exacerbated inequality. This much we’ve all heard before. Much less talked of is a colossal humanitarian crisis of displaced peoples, the so-called climate refugees. Dire though all this may be, few of us have trouble falling asleep with worry for our fellow humans, or terrified of horrific calamities to come. Climate change is slow, it happens quietly in the interim and, by God, does it make for boring television. This non-urgency itself is a deathly feature. It allows us to distract ourselves with less unpleasant solutions and fall into the same mental trap into which Aron Ralston found himself.
Let me illustrate. After Prof. Jon Schuldt talk, a student stood up and to berate non-present Republicans for their sins and ignorance. The line between the right and wrong was demarcated by the aisle between them. Building solar panels, the student said, will replace coal, create jobs and stimulate the economy. Everyone wins. How incomprehensible anyone would refuse to do something so straightforwardly good!
This Teletubby worldview of win-win-win solutions was also the crux of President Obama’s environmental policy and is a denialism of its own kind. As the former administration’s website boasts, our solar output grew 30-fold and thousands of jobs were created along the way. Impressive, to be sure, but let’s fiddle with phrasing a bit put it this way: $160 billion was spent on subsidies, and as a result solar energy now makes up for a mere 0.6 percent of total supply. This infusion of cash rendered other clean sources of energy less competitive, and even forced several nuclear power plants to shut down.
The reality is that, if we are to replace coal and do it fast (say, by 2050), sunshine alone won’t do the job. It won’t even come close. An invasive energy plan, full of government overreach and deals struck with devils should be forthcoming. We might have to get over our nuclear phobia and invest into a new generation of reactors. Natural gas is not renewable nor all that clean, and fracking is controversial, but it makes for a cheap and abundant resource that could be decisive in temporarily replacing coal. Carbon tax very well may hurt the economy, but it also is a powerful incentive for corporations to reduce their emissions. (Stagnating economies also are much more environmentally friendly, by the way.) These strategies would require us to compromise our values, be they wealth, safety or even freedom, to help manage an impending crisis. But any truly effective action is likely to entail such compromise.
Distracting ourselves with impotent solutions might just prove to be more dangerous in the long run than the outright detachment from reality on the right. What these well-meaning talking points engender are a sense of fighting the good fight by creating an illusion of actionable items. This is evident in the emerging tribal culture based in sustainable garden living, anti-plastic-bag bags and targeted dietary changes. While meritorious on some level to be sure, these are activities that don’t meet climate change in reality, and the good feelings they bring are examples a temporary placebo effect.
Aron Ralston spent days in his own denial before accepting what he had to do to achieve liberation from the boulder that had crushed his arm. Even when faced with the spectre of death, perhaps the truth was just too unpleasant. But severely dehydrated and delirious, he finally abandoned the useless tool and then leveraged his own weight to snap the arm in two, freeing bone from boulder, and allowing himself to escape the canyon (almost) in one piece. But before he was able to do what had to be done, he had to recognize the situation for what it was, and take action that met the problem in reality. Climate does not care from which side of the aisle our political rhetoric derives. It isn’t interested in soothing communication strategies. It doesn't take notice of the scattering of hybrid cars or solar panels. Until our conversations describe facts, and our solutions target reality, we are all climate change deniers.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Is it Possible to Escape Cornell’s 2.5k Student Health Plan?
If you are living on loans, every time you buy a coffee, a fricassee, or tip the pizza guy, you take out a small loan to do so. That transaction leaves you a few more notches in the red. It is debt you will one day get notices about, defer to the future, and eventually pay back with significant interest.
So it is with Cornell’s student health insurance plan. Ask a car rental agency if you need that extra insurance, and you’ll find they aren't all that motivated to help you figure it out and minimize your costs. Fair enough. Yet, if they intentionally obscure relevant details to sell you something you don’t need, I would submit that is quite a different ethical category. Is that what's happening here?
The rub’s as follows: you may have already discovered you are about to be automatically signed up and charged 2.5k a semester for student health insurance. Several emails have no doubt appeared in your inbox informing you of this action and directing you to information on how this service might be waved. Following the blue bread trail takes us to the disheartening language of the Cornell Health Policy: “...requests to waive may be granted with demonstration of alternative insurance that meet [this intimidating list of complicated requirements.]”
Take that with the fact many of us have not arrived, are not yet residents, and so are not yet eligible for alternatives, are incredibly busy, are inclined to give the policies the benefit of the doubt, and you’ll end up with a group of potential customers with very predictable behaviors.
Not only that, but a sizable disincentive is also tacked right after, a $150 fee for anyone who chooses to waive their insurance after the Aug. 16 deadline. Effectively a built in sunk cost factor --- every time a student pauses, wonders, is it worth it?, there’s a $150 floating there, threatening to vanish like a Bernie Sanders afterworld.
We therefore may never discover that for many, many a Cornellian, a much more affordable option is very definitely available. For example, if you are a US citizen, paying your expenses with loans, chances are almost certain you qualify for a state-subsidized health insurance plan. A short phone call or online survey is enough to find out (nystateofhealth.ny.gov). That can turn out to be over 2k/semester that you don’t have to borrow, don’t have to be followed around by, don’t have to pay interest on long into the the unforeseeable future.
All that said, it turns out international students are not allowed the the option of seeking or securing another health insurance, even if they can demonstrate they have a health insurance that meets all of the Office of Student Health Benefits’ conditions. For the arbitrary reason of not being a US citizen, an entirely different standard is applied with large financial implications that could very well end up being prohibitive. As you may know, international scholarships often don’t cover health insurance, and 2.5k is greater than a year’s salary in more countries than it isn't (143/176!).
But this is not a J’accuse!. I’m not railing against an imaginary Big Cornell. Institutions naturally make decisions that facilitates their mandates. And don’t we all went to attend a well-run university? Cornell is itself a complicated institution made up of many entities, the student body included, each with its own raison d'être and occasionally conflicting interests.
As for me, I submit the most equitable solution would involve creating reasonable deadlines that do not preempt and disincentivize other options. Student Health Services should also be compelled to inform students that alternatives exist. What might do the trick is something like, “Students are advised to explore all their health insurance options in the state of New York at nysateofhealth.ny.gov and make the decision that is best for them.” In fact, all those waiver emails could be a good spot for the message.
Cornell Health Services are not swindling us. My graduate assistantship covers my SHP now, and it is great. At worst, Cornell Health Services are taking advantage of an unlevel playing field to charge us for something that might not be our best option. The good news is you may still be able to find a subsidized plan (nystateofhealth.ny.gov). If it all works out and you qualify, you will then waive your SHP, cough up the $150 cancellation fee, receive a bursar refund, reflect on the nature of institutions for a few moments, and then go on about your goddamn business.
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