In violent times, you shouldn't have to sell your soul

The Heart of Texas in Need of Environmental Protection

The Texas Hill Country is known as the heart of Texas to locals. It is home to 31,000 square miles of wild natural beauty, prosperous biodiversity, and unique ecological systems. Bordering the rapidly growing metropolitan city of cultural San Antonio and trendy Austin, our urban sprawl further encroaches on portions of the Hill Country, where pastures of pecan, fields of bluebonnet, and roaming wild cats compete for landscape. The unique federal, state, and local regulatory challenges, are changing the natural habitats and systems and redefining the iconic territory of the beloved Hill Country. 

Projections merge Austin and San Antonio cities towards a single mega-metro area in the next 50 years (Chapa 2015), and its development drives through the Hill Country. The latest data analysis from National Land Coverage Database (NLCD) highlights 828,066 acres or 7%, have been developed as of 2016 (USGS 2018), making the Hill Country one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation (Census 2020). Urbanizing has been advantageous to humans in various ways; however, it changes the natural landscape (Li et al. 2018), and our evolutionary and inherent human inclination to affiliate with natural systems and environmental processes, which impact people's physical and mental well-being(Wilson 1984). Furthermore, landscape change endangers complete systems, species, habitat loss, water use and quality, and the loss of our cultural connection to the ecology. Conservation biologists have suggested that 30% of an ecosystem should remain intact to maintain essential functions (HCA Report 2022). The challenge is protecting sensitive landscapes and reducing urban sprawl development outside San Antonio city limits, also known as unincorporated areas. Unincorporated areas grew 103% in the past 30 years (Hill Country Alliance 2022). Incentives contributing towards the urban sprawl in unincorporated areas are lower land prices, light regulation for developers to navigate, lower taxes, and the lure of rural living.

When Environmental Laws and Property Rights Collide

In the words of Aldo Leopold (1938) "the oldest task in human history is to live on a piece of land without spoiling it." (Flader and Callicott 1991). The rise of urban development in Hill Country is the main driving force for habitat destruction; on one side, the constituents of that trend, the customers and developers, must be understood, and on the other, the larger dominant entities see federal environmental laws impede private property rights and their use of the commons. However, the power of ordinary citizens, which is yet to be heard, says no one should have a private property right to ruin them (Salzman and Thompson 2019, 22). Nevertheless, data and experience find that urban sprawl involves clearing natural habitats and systems to make room for houses and roads. The loss of those habitats will disrupt the unique ecosystem services provided we think of as free and limitless today, ultimately cascading into long-term irreversible impacts on people and wildlife. It is the dissecting and addressing of an environmental issue like urban sprawl, with the overlap of a myriad of industries and navigating the complex federal laws with state and local rules that genuinely make existing laws and rules inadequate and exhausting to achieve an environmental change.

Reference

Hill Country Alliance. 2016. “Toward a Regional Plan for the Texas Hill Country.” Hill Country Alliance. 1–120. https://www.hillcountryalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Toward-a-Regional-Plan-for-the-Texas-Hill-Country.pdf.

Hill Country Alliance. 2022. “State of the Hill Country.” Hill Country Alliance. 1–120. https://hillcountryalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/State_of_the_Hill_Country-Network_REPORT_2022.pdf. 

Salzman, J. and Thompson, B. 2019. Environmental Law and Policy. 5th ed. St. Paul, MN: Foundation Press. 

StatsAmerica. n.d. “San Antonio.” Accessed November 8, 2022. https://www.statsamerica.org/radius/big.aspx.

United States Census Bureau. 2020. “The 15 Fastest-Growing Large Cities -Bu Percent Change: 2010-2019.” Accessed February 10, 2022. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2020/demo/fastest-growing-cities-2010-2019.html.

USGS. 2018. “National Land Cover Database.” Accessed March 8, 2022. https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/national-land-cover-database.

"Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum." - Ansligner

It was a rainy, gloomy day in 1930 at age 38 when a young man named Harry Anslinger was appointed the founding commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics—officially commencing the drug war. 

A bit fanatical with malicious and racist tendencies, Anslinger, a determined young man, propelled his political career with his Anti-Marijuana Campaign. Without getting too entangled in how he rose to prominence, Anslinger began his government career through the Prohibition Unit Department of Treasury, enforcing the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 (Libby 2004). However, he quickly found that opium and coca were small markets, and he needed revenue. He garnered public and politicians ' support with a successful mix of fear tactics and misinformation through mass media. With help from William Randolph Hearst, who controlled a journalism empire unheard of at the time (Solomon 2020), Anslinger's successful fearmongering campaign moved marijuana criminalization from the state level to a national movement. In 1937 The Marihuana Tax Act (MTA) was passed. This act highly regulated and taxed the importation, cultivation, possession, and/or distribution of marijuana (Department of Homeland Security 2019). 

Correlation is not Causation
In 1933, a twenty-one-year-old Victor Licata murdered his family with an ax inside their home. Licata's claim was that his family was trying to tear his limbs off and replace them with wooden ones. Doctors diagnosed Licata with dementia praecox, now referred to as schizophrenia, and the most reasonable explanation for his actions. Years later, Anslinger fixated on information that Licata had been smoking “marijuana cigarettes” for six months before murdering his family (Tarricone 2020). This example, with various other false stories, was the fundamental science Anslinger clung to throughout his campaign. 
Before the enactment of MTA, the interference, misrepresentation, and manipulation of science were clear. Anslinger enlisted 30 doctors and scientists from the American Medical Association to determine whether marijuana was the cause of murder in the Licata case. Only one of the 30 alleged the connection between murder and marijuana use (Tarricone 2020). He had enough fuel to further spew more propaganda on the findings of this one lone doctor, even in films with his "Marijuana, Assassin of Youth" and "Reefer Madness" (DEA Museum 2021). However, it was not without pushback from the medical and scientific community, who called out his absurd claims. A brave Doctor, Walter Bromberg, pointed out that none from a study of 2,216 criminal convictions he had examined connected marijuana as an influence on criminal behavior.

 
Politics interfering with science? 
Anslinger served 30 years as head of the Bureau of Narcotics (DEA Museum 2021). Moreover, the social construct of marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs was realized in 1970. Officially a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning a substance with no redeeming medical value and a high potential for abuse.

Pre-Anslinger, marijuana's social and legal status was considered valuable to industrial and medical communities (Ransom 1999). The Customs Agency Service compiled a Narcotics Manual that reported: "Marihuana may be cultivated or grown wild in almost any locality." (Department of Homeland Security 2019). Before Anslinger's Marihuana Tax Act, most Americans seemed unaware of pot's presence, let alone its exploitation as a drug (Department of Homeland Security 2019). 

In principle, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 stopped only the use of the plant as a recreational drug, but in practice, the impacts were much more. Emerging therapeutic uses of pot in the early 20th century being explored virtually disappeared. Furthermore, the decades lost from potential scientific research and medical testing (Holified 2013). Economic loss from growing American industries in commercial applications of hemp fiber, seeds, and oil also suffered. Our generation will never know the impact that an environmentally friendly renewable resource like marijuana would have achieved on society.

Reference

DEA Museum. 2021. “Narcotics Enforcement in the 1930s.” Accessed April 12, 2022. https://museum.dea.gov/exhibits/online-exhibits/anslinger/narcotics-enforcement-1930s.

Department of Homeland Security. 2019. "Did You Know.....Marijuana Was Once a Legal Cross-Border Import?" Accessed April 12, 2022. https://www.cbp.gov/about/history/did-you-know/marijuana.

(Links to an external site (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)Holifield, Michael C. 2013. "Blowing smoke: Harry J. Anslinger and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937." Ph.D. diss., Arkansas State University. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. 

Libby, Ronald T. 2004. "The DEA’s War on Doctors: A Surrogate for the War on Drugs." University of North Florida. https://www.aapsonline.org/painman/paindocs2/libbystatement.pdf

ProCon. 2016. "Peer-Reviewed Studies on Medical Marijuana." Accessed April 12, 2022. https://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/peer-reviewed-studies-on-medical-marijuana/. 

Ransom, Jessie. 2004. "Anslingerian" Politics: The History of Anti-Marijuana Sentiment in Federal Law and How Harry Anslinger's Anti-Marijuana Politics Continue to Prevent the FDA and other Medical Experts from Studying Marijuana's Medical Utility." Digital Access to Scholarship to Harvard. https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/8965561. 

Solomon, Robert. 2020. "Racism and Its Effect on Cannabis Research.", Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research 5, no. 1 (Winter): 2–5. https://doi.org/10.1089/can.2019.0063. 

Tarricone, Jackson. 2020. "Harry J. Anslinger and the Origins of the War on Drugs." Boston Political Review (United States), Sep 4, 2020. https://www.bostonpoliticalreview.org/post/harry-j-anslinger-and-the-origins-of-the-war-on-drugs.

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There's Water in the Flowers Let's Grow

Everyone's emerging 🐝 somewhere in the Texas Hill Country

"Where are you going, can I come too? 

The whole world is open, a playground for me and you. 

I know, we try. And the days they, go by. Until we get old. There's water in the flowers, let's grow." - Mac Miller

Hidden between the major metropolitan areas of trendy Austin and cultural San Antonio, you'll find the heart of Texas. Population and economic growth is increasing urban land expansion outwards to native undeveloped Texas Hill Country. 

Land is a resource already under growing human pressure (IPCC 2019), with cumulative effects on the extent and quality of wildlife habitats and human health (EPA 2022). Extensive research supports that conserving undeveloped areas for their ecological services can provide economic, psychological, and physical benefits for all (Meidenbauer et al. 2019; van den Berg, Hartig, and Staats 2007; Wilson 1984). 

A sweet Honeybee pollinating away!   

By further developing land in the Hill Country, we are willingly and consciously disrupting ecological processes. Habitat loss is the significant driving factor in bee decline (native or non-native).

We can thank the Greeks for the wisdom philosophy has provided our species. Many philosophers who have influenced our culture, like Aristotle, Kant, and Aquinas, have failed to recognize our environment as a fundamental reason for existence. However, not all philosophers have discarded the intrinsic value of nature. Known as the founder of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham had a clear opposed view to previous philosophers on environmental and animal ethics. In his introduction to the principles of morals and legislation, he states, "The question is not can they reason? nor, can they talk? but, can they suffer?."

  

We find reasons to separate humans as the ultimate species, and it is fast leading us to our destruction, if not physically, ethically. To quote economist E.F. Schumacher (1973), "Modern man does not experience himself as part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it." Improving sustainability demands action in conservation and protection of nature. The growing consensus of our generations is speaking loud, and as Bentham (1823) declares, "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." 

Reference

Bentham, Jeremy. 1823. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bentham1780.pdf.

 

Environmental Protection Agency. 2022. “Land Use.” Accessed April 8, 2022. https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/land-use.

IPCC. 2019. “Land is a Critical Resource, IPCC Report Says.” Accessed February 10, 2022. https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/08/08/land-is-a-critical-resource_srccl/.

Meidenbauer, Kimberly L, Cecilia U.D Stenfors, Jaime Young, Elliot A Layden, Kathryn E Schertz, Omid Kardan, Jean Decety, and Marc G Berman. “The Gradual Development of the Preference for Natural Environments.” Journal of environmental psychology 65 (2019): 101328–

Schumacher, E F. 1973. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered. London: Harper & Row Publishing Inc.

Van Den Berg, Agnes E, Terry Hartig, and Henk Staats. “Preference for Nature in Urbanized Societies: Stress, Restoration, and the Pursuit of Sustainability.” Journal of social issues 63, no. 1 (2007): 79–96.

Warriner, Michael. 2012. “Native Bees in Texas.” Native Plant Society of Texas (United States), June 10, 2012. https://npsot.org/wp/story/2012/2422/.

Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1984

Modern US Environmentalism In A Nutshell.

The rise of the modern US environmental movement can be traced to the 1960s when researcher Rachel Carson courageously denounced the chemical industry for its harmful impacts on the environment. Environmentalism is the philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection, and there is nothing modern about it. However, the environmental movement is and encompasses diverse scientific, social, and political reasonings. The environmental movement (not yet considered a movement) gained public attention and was primarily endorsed by the children of the 60s, the hippies. Those tree-hugging, long-haired, peace-loving citizens began demanding attention to various social causes, like pollution and anti-war (Pruitt 2021). This social concern led to government involvement; as Rosenbaum states, "the government recognized the enormous political capital to be gained by riding the crest of the upwelling public concern for environmental protection." (2020, 7). 

The 1970s government enacted regulations and policies to prioritize legal statutes for the productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment (Rosenbaum 2020). The evolution of modern environmentalism in a national agreement began with pollution policies, continuing with species protections. 

Data, science, and reliability continue to be a challenge and limited despite the progress towards clean and safe environmental values. Quantifying nature and natural resources has been lax since considered free (Tarditi and Hodgson 2021); however, as Rosenbaum (2020) describes, the scope and scale of ecological degradation are gravely underestimated, and today's social and economic costs may be slim compared for future generations. 

Reference

Pruitt, Sarah. 2021. “How the First Earth Day Was Born From 1960's Counterculture.” History (United States), April 21, 2021. https://www.history.com/news/first-earth-day-1960s-counterculture.

Rosenbaum, Walter A. 2020. Environmental Politics and Policy. 11th Ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, a division of SAGE Publications.

Tarditi, Alison and Tim Hodgson. 2021. “Want Investors to Care About Natural Resouces? Put a Price on Them.” World Economic Forum (United States), May 12, 2021. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/want-investors-to-care-about-natural-resources-put-a-price-on-them/.

If You're A Walrus....Im A Walrus

 

A Brief History of Humans

Human Timeline

As an environmental economist, it is essential to understand life on this planet. I created this guide to help me analyze life from an ecocentric perspective. The cycles of life which have developed and disappeared on this planet we call home since approximately 14 billion years ago. The information gathered on this timeline is based on the Yuval Noah Harari book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2015). 

The time stamp on our existence is a blip compared to the evolution of Earth. However, as the emotional humans we are, it raises questions about our importance, drive, function, and motivations. Hope you find this guide helpful in your journey of understanding life, as I have. 

Reference 

Harrari, Yuval Noah. 2015. Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.