Free Flowing Rivers
Free Flowing Rivers
Rioslibres.org
Last week Rodolfo spoke to the class about his non-profit organization Rios Libres. The aim of the group is to evolve into a student run not for profit raising awareness around the consequences of damming rivers by engaging local youth in nature. So far they’ve done several awareness raising road trips with Laura the car. Laura runs on veggie oil that is being thrown out by restaurants. The group intercepts the oil, puts it through a simple screen, and Laura takes them where they need to go. Along the way they stop in communities to run a river race or teach about recycling and caring for the environment. When things go really well an outdoor community center gets set up. What’s really important in these road trips is the connections being made by everyday activities like finding veggie oil or places to stay. Out of these interactions spring new ideas and local capacities. Some challenges that came up in class were:
-What are the costs of building a hydroelectric dam on rural communities? What benefit do they recieve?
-How do you fund this kind of project?
-How could this road trip function as a school on wheels?
and, Rodolfo’s challenge to the class:
What would you do if you had free fuel?
To watch a YouTube video created by Rioslibres on their proposed trips, click on the video link.
Hey! Apologies for shirking my note-taker duties.
I don’ recall us really hitting on anything big regarding particular energy projects, so here’s my recollection of some of the broader moral questions we touched on:
(1) Boom & Bust with energy projects: Do politicians over-sell the benefits of large energy/dam projects to the communities affected? (e.g. Just yell “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” without the community realizing how transient the jobs may be)
(2) Should we even be that concerned that the community nearby an energy project doesn’t particularly benefit? The strongest argument in favor of a clean energy project is that it’s cleaner energy than alternative production methods.
(3) How do we compare a big cost to a small number of people against a small benefit to a whole lot of people? Are our moral intuitions set up to deal with sorts of issues?
Comments following the Flowing Rivers presentation
I agree with the sentiments behind this project, generating awareness around the consequences of damming rivers and engaging local youth in nature. I think that refocusing and “rebranding” this program as a school/educaion program would be more beneficial for their non profit and possibly help attract more funding. I see more potential for this project if it were more focused as a “school on wheels”.
However after the presentation, I wasn’t sold on the project nor was I very supportive of it. Why is that? I know that they are really attempting to educate people about the issues but my first impressions of the project were uninspiring and my general feeling was that it’s just a fun opportunity for college students to take time off and travel.
I was also disheartned by the lack of interest in using bikes for this program. I know Rodolfo saw bikes as a slower, more limiting mode of transportation, and one that’s a lot less flashy or exciting than Laura the car. However I have a hard time supporting a program where people drive around the Americas as many times as possible, funding dependant, in order to provide accessible environmental education. Would it not be possible to incorporate bike transportation and move away from a (semi)reliance on fossil fuels? Yes bikes are slower, but perhaps that would be beneficial for the program, forcing them to slow down, and spend more time in each community. This may result in a more long lasting impact, providing more educational programing and field training.
I agree with Mandy. I wasn’t very suportive for the project as well. Laura the car runs by veggie oil that was dumped as trash, and it seems environmentally friendly that they are using the resource (trash) efficiently. The idea of reusing something that were once considered trash is very inspiring, but I’m not very supportive about using cars as a matter of transportation. This project can give a false idea of environmental education that driving cars cam be good for the environment (which can be true on other point of view), and can encourage driving cars. From my point of view, to be environmentally friendly, using bikes would be more beneficial to the program. Using bikes can make people move away from reliance on cars, and I think that moving away from car dependent society is more important for this kind of project.
I would echo Mandy and Shoko’s that although Free Flowing Rivers has very positive underlying ethics and intentions, its structure and delivery seem to have some major weaknesses. Overall, I would be nervous donating to an organization that seemed somewhat unprofessional, and I was particularly surprised by a statement that Rodolfo made along the lines of “it would be worth $20,000 (I think this was the figure he quoted) just to see the smile on that one child’s face from having received the kayak.” While not diminishing the value of creating such wonderful experiences for children, I think it’s important to respect donors by using their funds as effectively as possible.
I would be interested in hearing from others as well: if you were a potential funding organization, would you consider donating to this initiative? If not, what would you need from Free Flowing Rivers in order to feel confident that your organization’s funds were being well spent?
Also, from a pollution perspective, biodiesel is far from benign. Although it is far less ecologically destructive than petroleum diesel fuel in general, biodiesel can generate more nitrogen oxides than the regular diesel. NOx contributes to smog. Naturally, the relative benefits and costs of biodiesel vary depending on the type of veggie oil used, and canola oil seems particularly useful in lowering GHG emissions relative to petroleum diesel or other biodiesels.
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/technologies_and_fuels/biofuels/biodiesel-basics.html
I think some of the previous comments posted opens up an important discussion about project funding.
I was thinking about the Free Flowing Rivers project and whether I would support it and what about funding?
I agree that the project has positive intentions that include generating attention and knowledge throughout the journey.I felt the goal of the project was to create awareness about rivers and engage children with their environment. However it was difficult to see what long-term outcomes and goals of the project. I think the presentation gave us an broad, informal look into the project. I sense hesitation towards the project due to the presentation method and responses.
From the discussion above, some members of the class were not convinced to donate. I agree with Anelyse that the project implementers need to provide more information to potential donors and as Shoko discussed be open to other methods of delivery. I think it’s important to discuss how the project would receive funding and who would be the donors would be. I think that the presentation and discussion can be adapted towards donors and funding organizations with more specific details. I think that if I was going to fund the project, I would like a detailed breakdown of project objectives/goals and how they would be achieved. As well, how changes to the project would be implemented during the project lifetime.