Lists of banned books

Since there are books, there are fools who destroy them. And even fools who destroy authors so that they cannot write any more books or spread their works. The history of book destruction is long and shameful, and many scholars have studied these foolishness and atrocities. If you are interested in this subject, you can read A Universal History of the Destruction of Books, by the eccentric and ever curious historian Fernando Báez. This book comprises the destruction of libraries in Alexandria, Pergamon, Babylonia, Rome, Greece and China, as well as book destruction in Bagdad from Genguis Khan’s invasion to George Bush’s invasion, and also the massive burning of books (and authors) during the Counter-Reformation.
Besides destruction, there is another way (more subtle but equally efficient) to get rid of a book: forbidding it by including it in a list of banned books. Among all lists of banned books, the better known is the Index librorum prohibitorum –that is, the list of books banned by the Catholic Church. It is not a medieval list as many people may think. This list was first published in 1559, during the Council of Trent. It was not published before because it was not necessary: before the printing revolution, there were not many copies of books and not many people who could read them. Moreover, the original purpose of this list was restraining the Protestant Reformation spreading around Europe by that time (and urging that Council).
Many people also think that this index included all the books which should not be read, according to the Catholic Church, but this is not true either: it included only those books which readers may not realise to be contrary to catholic doctrines. Books by atheist authors or books contrary to Catholicism were immediately destroyed and it was not necessary to include them in this index. In 1948 the last edition of this index was published, containing 4,000 books. If you take a look at it (you can find a link below) you’ll realise that most of these books were great novels of the 19th century. The reason for their banning is simple: either explicit sex (or what was considered explicit sex by the church, although teenagers today would define it as cuddling and spooning), or non-Christian behaviour, or “wrong” political ideas… Up until 1961, some more books were added to this list but in 1966 it was left aside for good.
Therefore, it seems that having lists of banned books belongs to the past… but nothing further from the truth. An example: this website of former members of Opus Dei shows a list of banned books by this prelature, with a rating for readable books, books which can only be read with a special license by the diocese, books which can only be read with a license by the prelate and banned books. Also, there are reading comprehension worksheets for some hundred books (banned or readable) about doctrine and moral values. I don’t know if this reading comprehension material has any effects on target readers, but I had two wonderful sleepless nights.
Anyway, it is not a serious case because, after all, people can become a member or leave Opus Dei willingly. However, when censorship comes from public administrations, even in democratic countries, it gets serious. There are many examples, including this map of the US in which the American Library Association (ALA) spotted 348 cases of banned books by town councils, public libraries, schools, etc. Such banning is motivated for many reasons, including the representation of homosexual or atheist characters. Some other reasons seem to be more “reasonable”: books with racist or sexist comments. But if we follow these criteria, many great works of universal literature should be banned. It is nonsense: no book should be banned even if its contents are reprehensible. Therefore, in 1982 the ALA launched the Banned Books Week, which is held every year in the US with the objective to give voice and visibility to banned books. As the linguist Noam Chomsky says, "if we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all"

Sources:
Fernando BAEZ, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books:  http://www.fernandobaez.galeon.com/
Last edition of the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1948: http://www.cvm.qc.ca/gconti/905/BABEL/Index%20Librorum%20Prohibitorum-1948.htm
About the Council of Trent, in which the index and other counter-reform measures were taken: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent
The Protestant Reformation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation
List of books banned by Opus Dei (in Spanish): http://www.opus-info.org/index.php?title=%C3%8Dndice_de_libros_prohibidos
Map of banned books in the US: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&source=embed&t=h&msa=0&msid=112317617303679724608.00047051ed493efec0bb8&ll=38.68551,-96.503906&spn=32.757579,56.25&z=4
American Library Association website: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned
Banned Books Week: http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

   
    
     

Global pollution and rubber ducklings

Original picture: Kim Steele

Which is the most contaminating country in the world? Just google this question and you will find dozens of more or less reliable rankings drawn by different organizations, and results are always different. The ranking is different when based on the number of inhabitants, or when based on the total pollution (the top ten are just the largest countries), or when based on CO2 emissions or other gas emissions. If we take into account solid waste, or the use of fertilisers and pesticides in agriculture, or the use of chemical products in the industry, or the amount nuclear waste in the few countries with working nuclear plants, then the top ten is absolutely different.
Therefore, we reach the following conclusion: even the most accurate rankings about pollution –for instance, CARMA (Carbon Monitoring for Action) ranking with the countries releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere—ignore the obvious: pollution is a global phenomenon, affecting the whole planet, and it should not be taken locally.
Curtis Ebbesmeyer’s story with some rubber ducks is a good way to understand how global pollution is. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is an oceanographer specialised in currents and, together with some colleagues, he set up a computer programme to better understand the paths of ocean currents. The problem is that drifting buoys used to monitor currents are very expensive (up to 1,650 € for each buoy) because they are equipped with satellite tracking devices to know their location at all times, so there are very few buoys drifting on the ocean and study data are not enough. However, the story changed for good in January 1992, when a container ship sailing from Hong Kong to the US lost part of its cargo in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in 29,000 bathtub toys drifting on the ocean. This picture shows the yellow ducks, red beavers, green frogs and blue turtles displayed by the oceanographer. Some months later, in November 1992, the first ducks were washed up in Alaska, drifted by North Pacific currents. This piece of news was on the media, and suddenly the oceanographer had an idea: flotsam was a cheap tool to gather data about ocean currents. He got in touch with coastguards all around the world and he gave some interviews to the mass media, waiting to get feedback about more rubber ducks washed ashore. And he did not have to wait long. These ducks have been found in many coasts of our planet and Ebbesmeyer has been able to gather data about their long trip. Yellow ducks and red beavers are now white due to solar radiation, but frogs and turtles are still green and blue.
Thanks to the feedback from coastguards, sailors, harbour staff and citizens who stroll along the beach, the sea voyage of these bathtub toys has been tracked down. It is known that, after the wreck, the group divided into two. One part followed the American shore towards the south, skirting around the huge plastic islands we told you about some weeks ago, and in 1994 they arrived in Australia and Indonesia. The other half drifted towards the north, the toys were trapped in the ice of the Artic Ocean for five years (from 1995 to 2000) and eventually drifted to the North Atlantic. In 2000 some bathtub toys were washed up in the northern Atlantic shores of the US (from Maine to Massachusetts) and in 2003 some others were found by the Hebrides, at the west shore of Scotland. In 2007, after a 15-year sea voyage, some ducks landed for the first time in British shores and some months later in Spanish shores. Today, in 2012, these bathtub toys (better known as Friendly Floatees) have been found everywhere around the world.
But bathtub toys are not the only objects to drift around our oceans. Oceanographers have used other flotsam to better understand marine currents. In 1997, five million Lego pieces were spilled in the ocean and they have been adrift ever since. The same happened to 80,000 and 33,000 Nike sport shoes in 1990 and 2002. And these are just some examples: every year, it is estimated that between 2,000 and 10,000 containers are dropped into the ocean, releasing their cargo. Also, chemical products and oil spilling are carried by currents and spread all around the world. Even inland pollution is filtered through rivers and aquifers to get to the sea: pesticides, industrial products, fluids from dumps...
Pollution is a global phenomenon and it should be treated globally. Otherwise, we can have a clean backyard, but we will suffer the same consequences.

Sources:
Ranking of countries per CO2 emissions drawn by Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA): http://carma.org/region
About Curtis Ebbesmeyer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Ebbesmeyer
An example of buoy sophistication:  http://www.link-quest.com/html/flowquest75.pdf
A picture of these plastic bathtub toys: http://oceanmotion.org/html/research/ebbesmeyer.htm
Post at Delivering Data about plastic islands in the Pacific Ocean: http://www.deliveringdata.com/2011/10/plastic-islands.html
Rubber ducks land British shores: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-464768/Thousands-rubber-ducks-land-British-shores-15-year-journey.html
     
     
     
     

Fair Trade in the Pyrenees: wool from Xisqueta sheep

When we talk about fair trade we immediately think about trading between Northern and Southern countries, between rich consumers and poor producers. To put it bluntly, fair trade is the search of better trading conditions for poor countries, paying decent salaries, not accepting children’s work or slavery, financially targeting local producers and not intermediary companies, making sure that environmental standards are complied with… At present, global trade is far from being fair –just notice that some of the poorest areas in the world where famine is widespread turn out to be agrarian areas, so they should be able to live out of their produce. International markets and large corporations buying this produce for a pittance are those blame, it’s true, but also consumers: when we go shopping, we look for the cheapest price and we do not care about the producers’ work conditions. We prefer buying a shirt for 5 or 10 € rather than 40 €. But this shirt is so cheap because wool, cotton or linen producers are paid a pittance, or because workers of textile industries live in dreadful conditions. Or usually both. Therefore, stockbreeders who try to sell wool to a fair-trade company realise that their wool is not in demand because people from rich countries do not want to pay for it.
However, this problem is not exclusive to producers in developing countries. There are many sectors in developed countries which cannot compete with such ridiculously cheap prices found in international markets, so they are bound to disappear. A clear example is the European textile industry: it’s been in crisis for over a century and now, with the introduction of Chinese textile products, it’s almost disappeared. And it involves not only factories, but also producers of raw material: wool, cotton, linen or hemp.
In the Catalan Pyrenees, an obvious case is xisqueta sheep, an indigenous breed which can easily survive in cold, harsh conditions of the Pyrinees, producing top-quality meat and wool. For the past decades, xisqueta sheep colonies were reduced drastically because this wool cannot compete in international markets. Since 1980, shepherds only take profit of meat (lamb or mutton) because wool does not sell well.  Such a loss of value for xisqueta sheep affects the whole sector: despite being hard work, shepherds used to earn a living out of it, whereas now shepherds have no future prospects. Last generation of shepherds decided to take better-paid jobs, so in 1995 xisqueta breed was considered an endangered species.
However, this unstoppable process may be solved in the case of xisqueta sheep. The solution lies in applying the concept of fair trade to xisqueta wool and making consumers aware of the real cost of this product. In other words: making this product attractive for its social and environmental value, despite being more expensive than others. Buying products made of this wool sustains stockbreeding in the Pyrenees, saves xisqueta sheep from extinction, protects the landscape (sheep are the best forest rangers ever because they preserve undergrowth and Alpine meadows), promotes local trade instead of importing wool from the other side of the world, reduces the environmental impact of transport, avoids high-mountain depopulation… With this idea in mind, some associations working to improve the primary sector in the Pyrenees created Obrador Xisqueta, a network of 21 sheep breeders in the Pyrenees and some craftsmen and craftswomen working with wool. They are all located in the Pyrenees and they manage to cover all the links in the chain: from the shepherd who gets a fair price for wool, to the virtual store where products are sold (you can also buy xisqueta products in some shops), to the professional training of craftsmen and craftswomen and to the education workshops. In order to preserve shepherdy, they also promote other initiatives like the shepherd’s school, which in four series managed to train more than 40 people for this sector. 
Preserving stockbreeding in the Pyrenees is not just a question of nostalgia. Livestock is the linking backbone for people and landscape, and the best option to avoid high-mountain depopulation and the loss of traditions dating back to Neolithic times. Is there any other cultural expression several thousand years old?

Sources:
Some sources are just in Catalan language because it is a local project located in the Catalan Pyrenees and websites are not translated to other languages yet.

1. About fair trade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade
2. Xisqueta sheep (in Catalan): http://xisqueta.bigcartel.com/caracteristiques-de-la-llana
3. Obrador Xisqueta website (in English): http://www.obradorxisqueta.cat/index.php/en
4. Virtual store of xisqueta wool produce (in Catalan): http://xisqueta.bigcartel.com/
5. Shepherd’s school by Grípia Project (in Catalan): http://www.projectegripia.cat/

   
    
    
    

A car-free world

Not long ago, if you were walking down the street and you heard “gardez loo!” (a misspelling of the French gardez l'eau: beware, water!), you should better run –otherwise you would be watered with the toilet waste (pee or even worse) hurled by residents through their windows on to the streets. In some Spanish villages and neighbourhoods, “gardez loo!” could be heard even at the end of the 50s (our sewer system is rather recent). Needless to say, if the toilet waste did not reach any passer-by, it would be left there, on the street, together with dog and horse pooh, until it got dry and someone would pick it up to be used as fertilizer or fuel or until rainfall would drag it down the streets. By that time, streets would literally stink. However, historical novels would often describe old towns in terms of the smell of species, markets, flowers in the balconies… Let’s face facts: old towns stank of shit, pee, stagnant water and animal excrements. It is not very romantic, but it is more realistic than novels.

Therefore, and apparently, we are lucky to be living this present time because we have spared such smelling and stuffy atmosphere. Apparently! Nothing could be further from the truth: in fact, we are breathing the dirtiest air ever since we live in towns, and it is mainly due to the flood of cars flowing along the streets. We replaced floods of mud and shit for floods of smoke, noise and cars in our streets, which only leave a narrow sidewalk for pedestrians. We have given up our streets to cars, without being fully aware of it.

My mistake: some people are aware of it. Some years ago the Carfree Movement was launched by a bunch of people and organisations who consider that cars are too dominant in our towns, advocating for a reduction or even suppression of car use, so that streets and squares can be left to people. They publish a magazine, organise conferences and talks, promote the use of public transport and bicycles, defend pedestrians, offer alternatives to architects and town planners… In short, they try to image a world without the invasion of cars.

It may be an overreaction, but let’s take a look at some figures. In some cities, 60% of the surface is meant for cars. In OECD countries, transport stands for 60% of fuel consumption (up to 68% in the US). In 1950, there were 70 million cars, in 1994 there were 630 million cars and, at this rate, in 2025 there will be more than one thousand million cars.

Perhaps, in the not too distant future, Earth inhabitants may pull a face when thinking that, at the beginning of the 21st century, streets were crowded with cars releasing smoke, passers-by could barely breathe, cars invaded streets, squares and sidewalks, and people had to cope with it without complaint. Maybe our future descendants will pull the same face as we do when we think of “gardez loo!” and maybe they will not understand how we could live in such a dirty world and do nothing about it.

Sources:

1. About air pollution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution
2. World Carfree Network website: http://www.worldcarfree.net
3. Carbusters.org, the magazine of the carfree movement: http://carbusters.org/
4. About the OECD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_for_Economic_Co-operation_and_Development