Showing 1 - 2 of 2 Items
Measuring the Relative Importance of Different Agricultural Inputs to Global and Regional Crop Yield Growth Since 1975
Date: 2016-09-01
Creator: Erik Nelson, Clare Bates Congdon
Access: Open access
- We identify the agricultural inputs that drove the growth in global and regional crop yields from 1975 to the mid-2000s. We find that improvements in agricultural technology, increased fertilizer use, and changes in crop mix around the world explained most of the gain in global crop yields, although impacts varied across the latitude gradient. Climate change over this time period caused yields to be only slightly lower than they would have been otherwise. In some cases cropland extensification had as much of a negative impact on global and regional yields as climate change. To maintain the momentum in yield growth across the globe 1) use of agricultural chemicals and investment in agricultural technology in the tropics must increase rapidly and 2) international trade in agricultural products must expand significantly.
Chambers of Reflection: Rousseau, Tocqueville, and Self-Government in the Digital Age
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: John Sweeney
Access: Open access
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Alexis de Tocqueville each warn that the dominant cultures of their days may hinder the project of self-government. Against the backdrop of advancing Enlightenment philosophy, Rousseau writes that as social visibility increases relative to intimate connection, the drive for recognition corrupts self-love. Following the American and French revolutions, Tocqueville explores the democratic erosion of social hierarchies. He writes that a rise in individualism may obscure “self-interest well-understood”—the perspective gained through collaboration with others, thoughtful reflection, and reverence for truths that lie beyond the dictates of cursory instincts. In this project, I apply these political theories to the Digital Age. I explain how the distinction between the physical world and the digital realm has actualized Rousseau’s depiction of double men, “always appearing to relate everything to others and never relating anything except to themselves alone.” In the era of social distancing, technological evolution threatens to induce regression in the sociability and reflective agency that promote our capacity for self-government. Accordingly, I argue that Rousseau’s theory of corrupted drive for recognition and Tocqueville’s theory of individualism inform a new danger to political freedom: digital tribalism.