Summary:
Interview conducted by: Dr. Paul Hirt, Arizona State University and Jennifer Sweeney, Four East Historical Research, LLC. Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program Administrative History Project. Administered by Arizona State University Supported by a grant from the US Bureau of Reclamation.
Biography:
Aquatic biologist Bill Persons was involved in fisheries research during both phases of Glen Canyon Environmental Studies (GCES), the program that laid the groundwork for adaptive management in Grand Canyon. He has been an active participant in the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP) since it was implemented. Persons spent most of his professional life with Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD), representing that agency on the GCDAMP Technical Work Group (TWG). He retired from AZGFD in 2009, but continued his involvement in fisheries research at Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC) for six years. Persons is currently a TWG alternate, representing recreational anglers for Trout Unlimited.
Summary:
Interview conducted by: Dr. Paul Hirt, Arizona State University and Jennifer Sweeney, Four East Historical Research, LLC. Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program Administrative History Project. Administered by Arizona State University Supported by a grant from the US Bureau of Reclamation.
Biography:
Chris Harris' involvement with GCDAMP goes back the early 1990s. During Glen Canyon Environmental Studies (GCES), he monitored the Glen Canyon Dam Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process on behalf of the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR). Before his fifteen years with ADWR, he worked with the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Harris joined the Colorado River Board of California in 2000 and is currently Executive Director. He has represented ADWR and Colorado River Board of California on AMWG (Adaptive Management Work Group) and has worked closely with TWG (Technical Work Group).
But this isn’t a history of events—of names and dates and typical details. This is a history of words. In the twenty-first century, words used to discuss embryos and fetuses are split. Some people use humanizing language like “unborn children” and “human life.” Others use technical words like “embryos” and “fetuses.” I studied what words people used historically. I charted how words moved from science to the public to the law, and how they impacted court rulings on fetal personhood.
The use of certain words nudged courts to grant additional rights to embryos and fetuses. In the 1960s, writers began describing the science of development, using words like “unborn child” and humanizing descriptions to make embryos and fetuses seem like people already born. That helped build an idea of embryos and fetuses as having “life” before birth. When people began asking courts to legalize abortion care in the 1970s, attorneys on the opposite side argued that embryos and fetuses were “human life,” and that that “life” began at conception.
In those cases, “life” was biologically defined as when sperm fertilized egg, but it was on that biological definition “life” that judges improperly rested their legal rulings that embryos and fetuses were “potential human life” states had a duty to protect. It wasn’t legal personhood, but it was a legal status that let states pass laws restricting abortion care and punishing pregnant people for their behavior, trends that threaten people’s lives and autonomy in the twenty-first century.
This study applies spatial theory and an ethnohistorical approach to show how traditional values drove the Klamaths’ contemporary activism. From their perspective, healing the land would heal the people. The Klamaths’ history illuminates the active roles that tribes have had in the institutionalization of the federal self-determination policy as federal agencies resisted recognizing tribes and working with them in government-to-government relationships. Through their efforts to weave their interests into natural resource management with state, federal, and non-governmental stakeholders, the Klamaths took part in a much larger historical trend, the increased pluralization of American society.
This project uses the tools of speculative climate fiction to explore and imagine the future of the United Nations climate negotiations in each of the five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios. Climate fiction (cli-fi) proves a powerful but imperfect tool for envisioning future challenging and turning scientific models into meaningful narratives.