Author: admin

Categories
EcoArt in Qatar Uncategorized

The Natural, Wild, Unpredictable Museum

Oftentimes, with art pieces that are placed purposefully in nature, one has the question of why? Why place your (often very expensive) works in the unpredictable home of nature and the outdoor environment when you could place it in a controlled, pristine, state of the art museum? Surely museums would be easier for people to visit, rather than in possibly harsh terrains and conditions. It’s here where the similarities between Jason deCaires Taylor and Richard Serra’s art installations lie—actively choosing to use nature as the mantle and space that their art made a home in.

Jason deCaires Taylor arguably chose a space that serves as a direct opposite of Richard Serra, in that he chose water as the home of his underwater sculptures rather than the desert. These self described underwater art museums “…are essentially artificial reefs, formed of carefully manufactured sculptures installed at various locations around the world. Each sculpture is created using non-toxic, pH neutral marine grade cement, free from harmful pollutants, becoming an integral part of the local ecosystem.”[1] Richard Serra’s choice of the Brouq Nature Reserve in Qatar for his steel monuments is notably not as easily accessible as Taylor’s is, as Taylor chose the areas he did to draw tourists “…away from the delicate ecosystems and fragile corals of existing reefs, where divers may do more harm than good…”[2] Both artists, however, saw an opportunity to use natural materials to complement the natural environment rather than cause damage to it—in Serra’s case, he didn’t alter the topography of the desert at all to make sure his monuments were on the same even ground. He worked with the space he was given to give the illusion of the monuments being the same height, when in fact two are technically taller than the others.[3]

Back to the original question of why they, artists, would do this, I turn to Una Chaudhuri’s interspecies diplomacy thesis; though she uses human and animal interaction as the backdrop of her essay, I believe that Chaudhuri’s ideas surrounding humans viewing themselves on equal footing with nature rather than one being praised over the other.[4] I believe that this can be readily applied to natural space as well as animal species. People make meaning from art, so it stands to therefore reason that if nature (rather than a typical museum) lies as the space for which the art interacts with, then people will then be able to derive new meaning from nature that they hadn’t before.

The question then becomes will this new meaning create any form of conscious awareness of humanity’s almost parasitic relationship with nature, continuously taking and not giving, and inspire any form of further change? Does the artist intent matter as well? Serra did not really consider any social or political narratives to apply to his art; he simply shapes his art around the natural space, whereas Taylor is deeply concerned with the politics surrounding climate change and marine preservation[5]. Furthermore, while the art pieces themselves are made from materials that don’t damage the environment they’re in, the same cannot be said for the humans that visit them.

With Chaudhuri’s thesis in mind, arguably there would be no need for artists to use their work to somehow make or force humans to see the beauty of the natural landscape. However, with today’s current climate, it may be a necessity. If humans cannot bring themselves to stop seeing themselves as above nature, and that nature is there for us to take from with no thought as to how that might cause damage in the long run, then we’re doomed. Maybe using art as a medium to get humanity involved with their natural space and environment is a good way of forming some form of collective awareness that spreads and grows. Only time will tell if Serra’s piece, or Taylor’s, or any other natural artwork will truly impact the way humanity interacts with natural space.

Bibliography

Chaudhuri, Una. “Interspecies Diplomacy in Anthropocenic Waters: Performing an

ocean-oriented ontology.” In The Stage Lives of Animals, pp. 214-227. Routledge, 2016.

Niarchos, Nicolas. “Richard Serra in the Qatari Desert,” June 18, 2017.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/richard-serra-in-the-qatari-desert.

“Overview.” Underwater Sculpture by Jason deCaires Taylor. Accessed November 2020.

https://www.underwatersculpture.com/about/overview/.

[1] “Overview,” Underwater Sculpture by Jason deCaires Taylor, accessed November 2020, https://www.underwatersculpture.com/about/overview/.

[2] “Overview,” Underwater Sculpture.

[3] Nicolas Niarchos, “Richard Serra in the Qatari Desert,” June 18, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/richard-serra-in-the-qatari-desert.

[4] Una Chaudhuri, “Interspecies Diplomacy in Anthropocenic Waters: Performing an ocean-oriented ontology,” In The Stage Lives of Animals, Routledge, 2016. 214-227.

[5] Nicolas Niarchos, “Richard Serra in the Qatari Desert.”

Categories
Baladna: National Insecurity and the Politics of Petro-Agriculture

Petromodernity and Deconstruction

On a “fact sheet” presented to investors on their website, Baladna outlines its mission to “ensure healthy, natural food resources to contribute to the self-sufficiency of the State of Qatar” (“Fact Sheet”). But some important facts are elided or obscured by this presentation. The discourse of self-sufficiency, that this statement can be seen as playing into, glosses over the environmental impacts of its production. Transporting the livestock and creating the conditions for their survival has not been an easy task, and certainly has contributed substantially to Qatar’s carbon footprint. Shortly after the blockade, an Australian ship brought in thousands of sheep, and around 4,000 cows were brought in by plane (AlArabiya). According to the OECD, about 17% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by agriculture. One can assume that the emissions produced by cooling systems (Washington Post), massive desalination plants (Rahman and Zaidi), and other infrastructural projects that support Baladna’s operations are not trivial. And ultimately, most of these projects are only possible because of the country’s reliance on fossil fuels; Qatar was the world’s leading exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) in 2019 (Sönnichsen).

In “Fossil Freedoms: The Politics of Emancipation and the End of Oil,” Hannes Bergthaller argues that modern understandings of freedom, indeed our understandings of modernity itself, are built on fossil fuels. He argues that in order for us to transition away from petromodernity (the kind of modernity enabled by fossil fuels), as we must to survive, we should interrogate and rearticulate our notions of what freedom means. The self-sufficiency discourse surrounding Baladna ignores the fact that Qatar is put at risk by its activities that contribute to climate change. The way such a discourse understands freedom is what is of interest to me in this post. By presenting self-sufficiency as “freedom”–rather than a more comprehensive freedom articulated alongside an awareness of environmental consequences–this discourse is paradoxical. It perpetuates a notion of “freedom” that eventually undoes itself, as environmental catastrophes destroy the “freedoms” it enables. As such, it is emblematic of petromodernity; it’s an understanding of freedom that, according to Bergthaller, needs to be deconstructed and reformulated in order to transition away from our suicidal dependence on fossil fuels.

However, this case study also raises a number of questions about Bergthaller’s argument. For one, the deconstruction that he argues will help us change our idea of freedom, and thus move away from fossil fuels, is itself largely enabled by fossil fuels. Given the material conditions that enable these practices (deconstruction), there is an ideological tension between the argument that it is important and should continue and the argument that we must extricate ourselves and our ideas from fossil fuels. As a student at Georgetown Qatar, my education is financed in large part by fossil fuels. Arguably, I would not be writing this without Qatar’s LNG production. If deconstruction as an academic practice is so dependent on the socio-economic base of fossil fuels (at least to continue at the same scale), how can it lead us meaningfully past them? While I agree with Bergthaller that deconstruction can help change how we view freedom, I don’t think this gives enough importance to the material conditions that constrain and give rise to our practices (and thus our ideas). Moving past fossil fuels might also require admitting that, after a certain point of usefulness, deconstruction and academia as currently understood might also be unsustainable.

Works Cited

AlArabiya, “Cow Farm in Qatari Desert Struggles Amid Boycott,” https://english.alarabiya.net

/en/business/economy/2017/06/18/Cow-farm-in-Qatari-desert-struggles-amid-Arab-boycott. Accessed November 2, 2020.

Bergthaller, Hannes. “Fossil Freedoms: The Politics of Emancipation and the End of Oil.” The

Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, 1st edition, edited by Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, Michelle Niemann, Routledge, 2017, pp. 424-432.

“Fact Sheet.” Baladna, https://baladna.com/investor_relations/fact-sheet/. Accessed November 2,

2020.

Mufson, Steven. “How Qatar’s Cows Show the Growing Resistance to a Saudi Led Boycott,”

The Washington Post Online, July 21, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ middle _east/how-qatars-cows-show-the-growing-resistance-to-a-saudi-led-boycott /2019/07/19/78880256-a4b2-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html. Accessed November 6, 2020.

OECD. (2016) “Agriculture and Climate Change: Towards Sustainable, Productive and

Climate-Friendly Agricultural Systems.” https://www.oecd.org/agriculture/ministerial/

background /notes/4_background_note.pdf. Accessed November 2, 2020.

Sönnichsen, N. (2019) “Liquefied natural gas: major exporting countries.” July 1, 2020.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/274528/major-exporting-countries-of-lng/. Accessed November 4, 2020.

Zaidi, Javaid & Siddiqui, Hammadur. (2018). “Desalination in Qatar: Present Status and Future

Prospects. Civil Engineering Research Journal, 6. 10.19080/CERJ.2018.06.555700.

Categories
Qatar’s Mangrove Forests: Why They Matter for Environmental Conservation

More than 35% of the world’s mangrove forests have been destroyed over the last few decades. Mangroves are some of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world and provide a unique habitat opportunity for many species and key services and goods for humanity. However, the continued regression of mangrove habitats can be attributed to anthropogenic causes, along with global warming. The most significant of these impacts is shrimp farming, one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. Qatar, in a bid to achieve its objectives of self-sustenance and food production, announced plans to construct a shrimp farm, which would ultimately become one of the largest of its kind in the world. However, shrimp farming has been associated with many negative consequences in mangrove ecosystems, and shrimp farming in would potentially pose a threat to the country’s mangrove ecosystems, which are already considerably endangered. In this regard, Qatar is bound to follow the same route if it does not take the necessary precautions.

​In “Golden Spiles and Dubious Origins,” Kathryn Yusoff argues that,

This attempt to absolve the positionality of Western colonial knowledge and extraction practices, while simultaneously reinforcing and resettling them in a new territory—a Western frontier of pioneers armed with eco-optimism and geoengineering—indicates a desire to overcome coloniality without a corresponding relinquishing of the power it continues to generate in terms of who gets to formulate, implement, and speak to/of the future (3).

Many opponents of global environmental initiatives have argued that legislation and policies such as the Paris Agreement and the Green new deal are not necessarily an end-goal for the problems inherent of Anthropocene. Rather, many have suggested that degrowth and decapitalization could potentially solve many of these issues. Shrimp farming has many advantages in terms of land use, utilization, and improvements, particularly in terms of export earnings and relatively sustainable protein production. Qatar’s shrimp farm, which is projected to produce 300 metric tons of shrimp annually, will be situated in the Al Khor region, which also houses the Al Thakira Mangroves, one of the largest and oldest mangrove ecosystems in the world.

​Coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, are exceedingly important in the Gulf region, where only a few plants can withstand the hard desert conditions. Firstly, they are uniquely adapted to withstand saline seas, high winds, and infrequent rainfall, which are common in the Gulf region. They are also at the interface of the marine and terrestrial worlds, making them important in mitigating threats originating from the coastline, such as tsunamis, marine erosion, and hurricanes. While shrimp farming can be beneficial, Yusoff’s framework suggests that capitalism increasingly pervades Anthropocene, such that people ignore the negative impacts of human activities on the environment. Global warming is already a serious issue, as evidenced by Europe’s move to control carbon gas emissions with the Paris Agreement, and the more recent Green New Deal in the U.S. Seemingly, humans are more concerned about profits and economic progress without necessarily considering the environmental impacts of their actions.

Work Cited

Yusoff, Kathryn. “Golden Spikes and Dubious Origins.” A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. University of Minnesota Press, 2018.

Categories
A Sustainable World Cup: Two Perspectives

Qatar’s environmental position

Qatar, a country facing immense ecological pressures due to its limited resources of water, high dependency on fossil fuels, air pollution, has in recent years begun to demonstrate an increased environmental consciousness by working for solutions for the ecological challenges it is facing. Qatar’s efforts to hold a sustainable Fifa World Cup and the promise of leaving behind ‘a sustainable legacy’ reflect this environmental consciousness. Before we explore this promise of sustainable legacy in the context of WC, let us take a step back and first better understand Qatar’s approach to comprehending and resolving its environmental struggles. Understanding this approach will allow us to better evaluate Qatar’s progress and efforts in hosting a sustainable WC which will be analyzed in the coming blog posts.

Greg Garrad, a sustainability expert and one of the most prominent voices in the area of environmental criticism, in his book Ecocriticism, identifies different environmental ‘positions’ that have a distinct understanding of environmental crisis and differ in their approach to devise solutions. Among the contrasting positions he emphasizes, I argue that aspects of Qatar’s attitude towards its environmental strains best fit the position Garrad (2012) describes as ‘social ecologist’. This position rejects the notion of limits of natural resources and holds the view that these limits are “a function of the will and means of capital: the purposes that guide production, and the technologies that facilitate it” (pg.31). Hence, the approach of this position to overcome resource scarcity is to use the power of technological innovations to replace harmful industrial processes and to change the aim of production from ‘accumulation of wealth’ to meet needs of the people. This position stresses that “ecological problem of limits is produced by capital’s structural need for perpetual growth…” (pg.31). While Qatar does understand the scarcity of its water resources, it has long tried to combat this scarcity with innovative technology, the latest being ‘Multi Effect distillation’ (MED) to desalinate water as desalination is the main source of Qatar’s water. A research director at Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) which is working to implement this technology comments, “Our work focuses on water resources as well as new materials and methods to make it more sustainable and more efficient to produce the water we need”. She describes innovative thinking coupled with advanced technology is required to achieve the goal of water security (Huda Al Sulati). QEERI is also working to implement technology like membrane bioreactors to process water at gas and oil fields, produced during gas/oil extraction. This demonstrates that Qatar does not take ecological limits of fossil fuels into consideration and rather manipulates an already strained resource to overcome water scarcity. Furthermore, Qatar Petroleum, which is the largest state-owned energy company, also depends heavily on technologies and improvements instead of recognizing the limits of fossil fuels as an energy resource. I argue that this dependence of Qatar on advanced technological solutions to reshape the scarcity of resources prevents implementation of policies that limit the use of these resources both by the state and public and demand change in habits of people. This reliance of Qatar on capital and technology to manage the limits of its resources strongly reflects a social ecologist stance to environmental difficulties.

Another significant feature of the social ecologist position as highlighted by Garrad is the view that environmental problems result from social complexities and as such it is difficult to separate environmental problems from social problems (p. 32). This connects to the concept of environmental justice which refers to the just and equal distribution of resources for people independent of their socioeconomic status and extending to future generations as well. This concept is firmly embedded in Qatar’s environmental consciousness in its 2030 National Vision and is also one of the goals of the sustainable WC as Qatar aims to manage its environmental problems and use resources to provide for current generations in a way that does not comprise the needs of the future generations and decreases negative environmental impact.  To achieve QNV 2030, the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS) has put forth 17 Sustainable Development Goals, one of which is “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” (SDGs Report, p.) This demonstrates the social ecologist position of tackling the social problem of lack of food and proper nutrition by improving local agricultural and livestock production practices to provide food security for current people as well as future generations. Qatar has achieved much in this area through Hassad company which invests in livestock across the globe and through Global Project Development Company which works to implement more efficient local agriculture techniques.  MDPS saying, “sustainable development can only be achieved when there is social progress, economic growth and environmental change…” emphasizes Qatar’s social ecologist stance as it ties together all the significant views of this position. Qatar trusts that social progress is important to resolve environmental crisis and advanced technologies help to manipulate the ecological limits of resources and bring economic gain.   All of these together make way for sustainable development, which will decrease environmental degradation and provide intergenerational resource justice, according to Qatar’s approach to its environment.

Now that we have understood Qatar’s ecological position, it raises the question of how effective this social ecologist approach to the environment is and will it allow Qatar to achieve the sustainable legacy it has promised? In the coming blog posts, I will explore Qatar’s efforts towards a sustainable WC, the cultural significance of a ‘green’ WC and will use Qatar’s social ecologist position along with additional environmental humanities literature to offer new insight into Qatar’s promise of sustainable legacy in the context of the WC.

Categories
A Sustainable World Cup: Two Perspectives

Commitment to Sustainability: Petromodernity

Hannes Bergthaller argues in Fossil Freedoms; The politics of emancipation and the end of oil, how petroleum has become integral to our way of life. Bergthaller suggests that we should instead work on finding new modes of development for us to stop exploiting the environment by using fossil fuels for modernity. Petromodernity is a way to describe a society reliant on cheap energy, which is made possible by fossil fuels. Bergthaller defines petromodernity as a phase within the fossil fuel regime, which is the mass consumption of fossil fuels from industrial sites to day-to-day life. In a way, our addiction to advancement has enslaved us to a life centered around the “liberal dissipation of energy”.[1] Our freedoms are certainly bound by oil, the same way the sovereignty of earlier humans were bound by their limited ways of life. This blog post will argue that it is paradoxical of human freedom; oil allows us to feel different forms of freedom by cheap means but is it freedom because we are not acting independently in the world? If we move away from dependency on oil, we will lose certain perks from society. To connect this to Qatar, we can see a system of reliance on petroleum that Qatar’s government has been trying to minimize. Still it has been a challenge to adopt an environmentally friendly lifestyle because of the state’s nature.

The domination of petroculture in Qatar is prevalent as it is a rentier state. A rentier state is one that is paid for with the money accumulated through oil or gas rent to the rest of the world. A rentier state’s innate nature harms development because it is a system of domination with no democracy. Bergthaller states that democracy is the right candidate for post-petromodernity, and due to Qatar’s authoritarian regime with an absolute monarchy, it is not a suitable candidate for post-petromodernity. Bergthaller states, “…democracy did not begin with fossil fuels, there is no reason to believe that it will end with them.” he defends it only because it predated the fossil fuel regime.[2] Fossil fuels are necessary for the state to stay afloat; a sudden shift to post-petromodernity will destroy Qatar’s economy. “When the oil runs out… the entire elaborate artifice of modern society will collapse like a house of cards”.[3] The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy is trying to make a difference in Qatar. They are doing that by creating stadiums for the World Cup 2022 that are less reliant on fossil fuels and focus on more sustainable construction. The stadiums will be the first prototype-like beginning for Qatar’s environmentally friendly venture.

            All of the SC’s stadiums are on track to achieving at least four stars on their certificate from the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS).[4] The GSAS is a system in the Middle East and North African region developed by the Gulf Organization for Research and Development (GORD) for rating eco-friendly infrastructures.[5] They are judged against incredibly meticulous criteria with a perfect score of six stars. The assessment system includes various categories for both design and build, such as; Urban Connectivity, Site, Energy, Water, Materials, Indoor Environment, Culture and Economic Value, and Management and Operations.[6] The Khalifa International Stadium and Al Janoub Stadium have received four stars on their GSAS certification in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The Education City Stadium and Al Bayt Stadium have received five stars on their GSAS certification in 2020[7]. They have only been increasing their ability to rate higher with time due to their commitment to sustainability.

The SC has proved that it is deconstructing that reliance on oil and gas and reformulating our petroculture into a sustainable and environmentally friendly culture. Bergthaller’s argument is that modernity will not occur without fossil fuels because modernity stands on the use of fossil fuels. To move past that regime, we will have to reformulate our understanding of freedom. Freedom is defined as the ability to have power over one’s own body and circumstances. Petromodernity created that freedom in which an individual had the authority to live autonomously, fabricating a sort of faux self-reliance. As Bergthaller concluded, “Freedom is a mansion with many rooms. With proper precautions, some of them will remain habitable even after fossil fuels are gone”.[8]

Works Cited:

“Environmental Sustainability.” See You In 2022. Accessed October 28, 2020. https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/about/sustainability/environmental.

“GSAS Overview.” GORD. Accessed October 29, 2020. https://www.gord.qa/trust-gsas-resource-center-overview.

“GSAS Scoring Sheet.” GSAS. GORD . Accessed October 29, 2020. https://gordqa-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/info_gord_qa/EaPfpY2waWVBks_LLTP2RPIBY0V2kpSZgEHApuLwqVke5g?e=U7gPuz.

Hannes Bergthaller. “Fossil Freedoms.” Essay. In The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, 424–30. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor et Francis Group, 2017.

[1] Hannes Bergthaller. “Fossil Freedoms.” Essay. In The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, 424–30. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor et Francis Group, 2017. Page 430

[2] Ibid Page 430

[3] Ibid Page 426

[4] “Environmental Sustainability.” See You In 2022. Accessed October 28, 2020. https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/about/sustainability/environmental.

[5] “GSAS Overview.” GORD. Accessed October 29, 2020. https://www.gord.qa/trust-gsas-resource-center-overview.

[6] “GSAS Scoring Sheet.” GSAS. GORD . Accessed October 29, 2020. https://gordqa-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/info_gord_qa/EaPfpY2waWVBks_LLTP2RPIBY0V2kpSZgEHApuLwqVke5g?e=U7gPuz.

[7] “Environmental Sustainability.” See You In 2022. Accessed October 28, 2020. https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/about/sustainability/environmental.

[8] Hannes Bergthaller. “Fossil Freedoms.” Essay. In The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, 424–30. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor et Francis Group, 2017. Page 430

Categories
A Sustainable World Cup: Two Perspectives

Mega Event with Mega Environmental Impact

During the tremendous excitement of the Fifa World Cup, its nail-biting and edge-of-the-seats moments, the glory and vibrance associated with each match, the impact of this event on our already strained environment is hardly on anyone’s mind. For most of us, Sports Mega Events (SME) and sustainability do not go together. This view is strengthened by the past Fifa World Cups, whose magnificence came at the expense of the environment of the host country with a significant increase in carbon emissions among other negative effects. However, SME organizers and the host country have recently started to make an effort to include sustainable development in terms of energy, water, carbon emissions, waste management in the long planning and organization that undergoes these events. Along the way, small victories have been achieved and Germany’s efforts during the Fifa World Cup of 2006 are especially commendable. It aimed to be a role model for the environment during the World Cup and started a ‘Green Goal’ initiative to manage water, energy and transportation effectively without environmental degradation during the WC. An amount of €300,000 was invested in this initiative and successful results were obtained during the WC regarding resource management.

The next WC host, Qatar is a nation heavily dependent on fossil fuels, owing its transformation from a barren peninsula to one of the richest countries to fossil fuels. Qatar brought global surprise by announcing the first ever ‘carbon neutral’ WC and giving preservation of the environment a high place in WC planning. The organizing platform, Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) has declared sustainability as ‘the heart of preparation for the tournament’ and in collaboration with Fifa has laid out the first ever report of ‘Sustainable Strategies’ to be implemented to reduce environmental damage and set a high standard for future SMEs. These proposed strategies consist of solar-powered stadiums with low energy cooling systems, energy efficient LEDs, dismountable stadiums made from recycling structures of old stadiums, donation of stadium furniture to countries developing sports and an overall compact WC taking place in one city. Many consider the early development of the Doha Metro system a showcase of Qatar’s progress in its sustainability goals. It has been argued that Qatar’s devotion to hold the biggest event of the world without negative environmental impact is proof of its aim to catalyze sustainable and lasting legacy and reflects environmental consciousness of both Qatar and Fifa. On the other hand, some major environmental researchers have strongly criticised sponsors of Fifa, declaring they ‘tear the world apart under the guise of bringing people together’ (Jesse Bag) and accuse them of ‘greenwashing’ and being ‘responsible for the climate catastrophe’ we are facing.

Fifa World Cup 2022 and Qatar’s objective of sustainable legacy have a complex place in the framework of environmental humanities. Living in the Anthropocene and the loss of agency that comes with it, many ecocritics call for new thinking and intervention in environmental practices. Do Qatar’s sustainability strategies meet this criteria of new thinking or will they lead to the same environmental havoc they are trying to prevent? While Qatar’s environmentalist position has been clearly established by Qatar National Vision 2030 as well as its approach to WC, can this position be identified as ‘social ecology and eco-Marxism’ approach? This position holds the belief that scarcity of natural resources is shaped (and solved) by the power of capitalism and technological innovations and that humans are neither part of nature (monism) nor separate from it (dualism). An important aspect of this view which has been explored deeply in ecoliterature, is the concept of environmental justice, the just and equal distribution of resources for all people regardless of socio-economic status, as well as for future generations. The official report of Sustainable Strategies by SC states its mission of leaving a positive legacy through which the future generations find the environment greener with a long lasting future. This connects to the rhetoric of environmental justice by reducing environmental degradation impact for the coming generations. However, after the deaths of immigrants working on the construction of stadiums, due to unbearable heat, critics of Qatar’s policies raised the question whether Qatar extends environmental justice to the immigrants working to make its sustainability strategies a success.

A final aspect to be considered is that everything we have come to consider ‘modern’ as well as a good standard of living and the cultural productions we take pride in, all depend on petroleum. In the field of environmental humanities, this concept is referred to as ‘petroculture’ or ‘petromordernity’. These terms have a special place in environmental humanities and also connect strongly to Qatar, as it is one of the most dominant producers of fossil fuels. Qatar, itself, heavily associates its transformation into a ‘modern’ country with the discovery of its oil reserves. Qatar continually depends on fossil fuels for its energy and economy so the implications of these terms- petromodernity and petroculture-surrounding WC and sustainability rhetoric must be considered.

Hence, the case of WC 2022 and Qatar’s sustainability stance is heavily tangled with the sphere of environmental humanities. In my future blog posts, I will explore this case in detail and show how environmental humanities can give us new insight into the questions and issues raised by Qatar’s promise and effort of sustainable legacy.

Resources:

https://www.qatar2022.qa/sites/default/files/docs/FWC-2022_Sustainability-Strategy.pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/22/6407/htm

https://www.gulf-times.com/story/616949/Qatar-promises-the-first-carbon-neutral-World-Cup-in-2022

Categories
A Sustainable World Cup: Two Perspectives

A Sustainable World Cup

For a long time, Qatar had been one of the most toxic countries globally because of the pollution and lack of environmental safety and sustainability. To combat this, the Qatari government has been taking steps towards protecting and sustaining the region’s natural resources. On December 2nd, 2010, Qatar was announced to be the country in charge of hosting the 2022 World Cup. This led to the investment and implementation of more sustainable modes of construction. The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) is the company responsible for organizing the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. They have been a pillar in providing cutting edge technologies that promote sustainability. This emphasis on caring for the environment is evident in stadiums’ sustainable development through recycling and their approaches to lowering Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.

The SC aims to create stadiums in a sustainable way to decrease their carbon footprint. The SC intends to deliver “a fully carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup 2022… by implementing leading sustainable building standards, waste and water management practices and low-emission solutions”.[1] This is interesting when it comes to the environmental humanities because the carbon footprint is significantly reduced for such a large event and the lasting impact these stadiums will have. The stadiums can be reused for different venues, and parts of the stadium will be taken apart and sent to other countries for their football ventures. They plan on increasing the percentage of waste recycled in Qatar by 2022. All the stadiums have been constructed in a way to maintain waste management. They are promoting a new eco-friendly lifestyle entirely, a lifestyle focused on recycling and living in a way that is considered environmentally friendly.

The SC will lower GHG emissions by measuring and mitigating the emissions through low-carbon solutions. They have partnered up with organizations to create public transportations like the Doha Metro and Lusail Tram, which all have exits near the stadiums to ensure cars’ carbon footprint are minimized. They have also created a large scale solar power plant for Qatar instead of relying on gas. Another project they have honed in on is the Green Car initiative with the government to promote electric cars for a less polluted environment. They have also partnered up with local carbon reduction projects alongside their own SC Tree Nursery. The SC’s Tree Nursery was created to absorb any remaining GHGs in the atmosphere. The trees are planted near the stadiums, watered with treated wastewater to recycle and maintain sustainability.

Concerning literature on the Environmental Humanities (EH), I believe the way the SC has presented its ideas relates to a specific position posed by Greg Garrard in his book Ecocriticism. In his chapter “Positions”, Garrard discusses a variety of different sub-schools in EH. I will mainly focus on Environmentalism as that is the position that fits the SC’s stance the best. He describes Environmentalists as people concerned with environmental issues but wish to continue progressing and improving their living standards. With that being said, the traditional route of Environmentalism is a position critiqued by Garrard that it does not work. It is the path most developed nations have been following for decades, yet we are still facing an environmentally charged apocalyptic crisis. His critique is that it is widespread and mainstream, and thus, in terms of ethos, it is often deemed shallow. The government and the SC are taking their time developing technological solutions to the environmental crisis, thus combatting a shallow ethos’s ideas. The SC works on training its employees and the workers they have for constructing the stadium infrastructure on sustainability. The green stadiums that Qatar is creating will change Qatar’s label of being a polluted country with little to no understanding of sustainability to an environmentally friendly country.

The country will continue to develop and improve the standard of living, all while taking care of the environment. However, this raises specific questions: What will happen to this environmentalist movement once the Qatar World Cup 2022 ends?

Bibliography:

“FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM Sustainability Strategy.” Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy. Accessed September 20, 2020. https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022tm-sustainability-strategy.pdf?cloudid=p2axokh26lzaafloutgs.

Garrard, Greg. “Positions.” Essay. In Ecocriticism. London: Routledge, 2012.

[1] “FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM Sustainability Strategy.” Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy. Accessed September 20, 2020. https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022tm-sustainability-strategy.pdf?cloudid=p2axokh26lzaafloutgs.

Categories
Qatar’s Mangrove Forests: Why They Matter for Environmental Conservation

Qatar unveiled plans to construct a shrimp farm in 2019, which could eventually become one of the world’s largest. The first phase of the multi-million-dollar project will comprise a hatchery and production modules to produce 3,000 metric tons of shrimp annually. The project increasingly reinforces the growing importance of aquaculture in the Middle East, with countries pursuing more independent food production approaches.

However, shrimp farming has been associated with many negative environmental and social impacts, which significantly harms the flourishing sector’s sustainable development. The project will be
located in the Al Khor region, which also houses the Al Thakira Mangroves — one of the largest and oldest mangroves in the country.

​Shrimp farming is associated with several environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity, saltwater intrusion, sedimentation, disease outbreaks, pollution, and, more importantly, mangrove forests’ degradation. However, it has significant socioeconomic benefits and high-profit agility, and in the case of Qatar, it is a welcome solution to its self-sufficiency policy. However, such a development should be backed by proper planning and management, as well as the implementation of appropriate regulations to
curb the social conflicts and environmental impacts it creates.

Despite their many environmental benefits, about 35% of the world’s mangrove forests have been destroyed — mainly due to shrimp farming. The Qatar government recently recognized the value of mangroves, with 40% of the country’s coastline under its protection (Evans). Coastal ecosystems —such as the Al Thakira Mangroves — are essential in the Gulf region, where only a few plants can withstand the harsh desert conditions. Mangroves and salt marshes are uniquely adapted to the high winds, saline seas, and infrequent rainfall, which characterize the region; they also provide a haven for various fish, birds, and animal species unique to the region. Additionally, they are at the interface between the terrestrial and marine worlds by acting as natural defense lines, particularly for threats originating along coastlines. In this sense, mangroves limit the impact of coastal storms, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Additionally, they mitigate soil erosion along coastlines, which helps maintain elevation for landmasses
that face the constant threat of rising sea levels.
​

Maintaining mangrove habitats is important for humans and environmental biodiversity. People stand to considerable benefit from reduced carbon emissions, which help to control climate in the region.
Although shrimp farming is a viable solution to Qatar’s self-sufficiency policy, it poses a considerable danger to the region’s mangrove ecosystems. The Al-Thakira Shrimp farm will create significant cultural complexities and political dilemmas, as the government endeavors to balance the socioeconomic benefits and a high profit agility associated with shrimp farming with the more pressing environmental concerns.

Works Cited


Evans, Kate. “Qatar’s Mangroves: Why They Matter to Climate Change.” Forest News, 08 Dec. 2020. http://www.forestsnews.cifor.org/13101/qatars-mangroves-why-they-matter-to-climate-change?fnl=. Accessed 24
October 2020.

Categories
Baladna: National Insecurity and the Politics of Petro-Agriculture

Baladna, which translates to “our country,” is perhaps a fitting name for a company that symbolizes Qatari self-sufficiency in the wake of the 2017 diplomatic crisis. Baladna has filled much of Qatar’s demand for dairy products after the interruption of the country’s former supply chains, which forced the state to either find alternative suppliers and trade partners or to self-produce. According to its website, Baladna supports “health food security … [and] implements a long term strategy, in collaboration with the Local Authorities, to provide the local market with healthy dairy product [sic]” (“Home,” Baladna). However, a complete understanding of national security and food security must take into account the threats of climate change and the costs, both immediate and long-term, of not moving away from a fossil fuel-based economy. The company’s statements are symptomatic of a discourse that privileges national security over environmental security. My aim in these posts is thus to draw out the paradox that exists between short-term national security and environmental security (often mistakenly conceived of as merely a long-term issue), the former of which is self-defeating if it ignores issues of water scarcity and rising atmospheric and oceanic temperatures. 

For Qatar in particular, climate change poses important threats. The country is already hotter than the IPCC would like to keep the rest of the planet, facing 5-year mean temperatures that are 2 degrees celsius higher than the country was in the 1800s, prior to industrialization (Mufson). Qatar is thus one of the places most implicated in the temperature changes wrought by climate change, and will continue to be so as it is “one of the fastest warming areas of the world, at least outside the arctic” (Mufson, quoting Zeke Hausfather). In this way, it is clear that environmental security is an issue of national security, to a greater degree for Qatar than for other countries. The question for us is then how a company and symbol of national self-reliance like Baladna can be understood in this context. 

In addition, to connect this to the environmental humanities, WwWhat discourses can be seen to lend credence to this hierarchy of “securities”? Ideas, often contradictory ones, are at work in the reproduction of a society so dependent on substances that put it at grave risk. Of interest to our considerations will be government statements, company materials provided to investors, and other materials adjacent to the company and the 2017 blockade. Hopefully, this will give us a better understanding of how a state so dependent on natural gas production conceives of itself and its relation to human security in the context of climate change, as well as which discourses are called into question to the greatest extent by this crisis. What historical and intellectual circumstances lead a country to raise cows in the desert, and what can this tell us about that country’s relationship to its own security, futurity, and environmental sustainability?

Works Cited

Mufson, Steven. “2°C Beyond the Limit: Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors.” The Washington Post Online, October 16, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/climate-change-qatar-air-conditioning-outdoors/. Accessed September 23, 2020. 

“Home.” Baladna/بلدنا . www.baladna.com. Accessed September 23, 2020. 

Categories
EcoArt in Qatar

Richard Serra is an American artist who primarily works with steel, creating large scale sculptures. In 2014, artist Serra’s sculpture titled, “East-West/West-East” was installed in the Brouq Nature Reserve near the Zekreet desert in Qatar. The sculpture is composed of four vertical plates of steel erected in the desert, spanning a kilometre. Talking about the sculptures Serra said, “Before, there was no way of discerning where anything was in relation to where you were, because you had no point of reference. What that piece does is give you a point of reference in relationship to a line, and your upstanding relationship to a vertical plane and infinity, and a perspectival relationship to a context – and pulls that context together. It makes it graspable. That’s actually a place out there now, and there certainly wasn’t one before. We did that simply by putting up four plates.”

Similarly, the giant monolithic structures amidst the vast desert offer what Nadia Mounajjed calls, “a demarcation of space in a place with no references, effectively making a place in what is considered non-place.” However, Serra’s sculptures do not merely serve to distinguish the place and non-place binary, instead the public nature of the sculptures and their situatedness in the nature reserve bring attention and closer human examination of the desert and its physical and topographical form. Furthermore, the sculptures are embedded in the ecological system of the region because of the region’s effect on the sculptures themselves, perhaps in the way the sculpture would develop rust given its proximity to the sea, or in the way that human interaction with the desert and the sculptures would change their forms. 

Arguments against the installation of Serra’s sculptures in the nature reserve have questioned their sustainability. Philip Cooke in his article distinguishes between the two dominant kinds of eco-artists, those that care about the potential harm that their artwork could cause to the environment, and those that do not. For Cooke, Serra falls into the latter due to the extravagantly expensive materials that Serra uses for his projects, the costs of transportation and sourcing of the materials, which display the artist’s ability to conquer nature. Furthermore, Cooke considers the inaccessibility of Serra’s artwork to anyone but affluent tourists problematic when compared to other ecoartists’ works like Olafur Eliasson’s in New York which was a not for profit project, unlike Serra’s. 

Serra’s sculptures in Qatar attract tourists and locals, partly because of their picturesque environment. However, what does the increased human interaction mean for the ecological space that those sculptures inhabit? Having been to the sculptures, there are tire tracks from cars on the ground that have circled the monoliths, the area around the sculptures is often littered due to the lack of proper waste disposal, and the sculptures themselves have been graffitied. The presence of the sculptures in the desert has brought into question the purpose of public art and its relationship with the nature it exists in. Additionally, it allows us to examine the efficacy of public art as a medium for inspiring awareness about the country’s natural landscape. Serra and Mounajjed both point to the sculptures’ ability to create a non-place- the desert, into a place, however, since this argument undermines the value of the desert as a place itself, we seek to understand the implications of public art in nature, and whether nature needs art. 

Works Cited

Byrnes, Sholto. “US Sculptor Plants 50ft Steel Towers in Qatari Desert.” The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, April 10, 2014. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/american-sculptor-richard-serra-has-planted-four-50ft-steel-towers-qatari-desert-latest-project-east-west-west-east-9249514.html.

Cooke, Philip. “The Resilience of Sustainability, Creativity and Social Justice from the Arts & Crafts Movement to Modern Day ‘Eco-Painting.’” City, Culture and Society 6, no. 3 (2015): 51–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2015.02.003.

Mounajjed, Nadia. “Reflections on Public Art in the Arabian Peninsula.” Journal of Arabian Studies 7, no. sup1 (2017): 84–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/21534764.2017.1357362.

Niarchos, Nicolas. “Richard Serra in the Qatari Desert,” June 18, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/richard-serra-in-the-qatari-desert.

Wainwright, Lisa S. “Richard Serra.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., October 29, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Serra. 

css.php