Above the desk in my room is a very large picture,“Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains,“ painted by Albert Bierstadt in1868.Bierstadt is perhaps my favorite artist,known for his treatment of the mountainous landscapes of the American West.Sunlight streaming through the clouds often takes center stage in his paintings,which always seemed to me a credible depiction of God coming down to earth.The beauty of Bierstadt‘s nature can almost put me in a trance.

“Wait a minute,Rob,” you might interrupt. “Shouldn’t you have a painting of oil wells surrounded by dead Iraqi children over your desk,or maybe a rich man tap dancing on the backs of the poor with an IRS refund in one hand and a bag of money in the other? It can’t be anything natural.We all know conservatives hate nature.“

We do have that reputation.Most liberals think that conservatives only care about nature when it makes them money,or that as God‘s children they believe nature is here for the use of man,and to hell with conservation.There are segments of the ideology that hold these beliefs.But that stereotype is far from the truth.

With the arrival of spring,and the Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis in a couple ofweeks,the environment returns to the public consciousness.Once again people debate the proper relationship between humans and nature.Once again it strikes me howlonely it can be in the middle.

College students do not need to be told of the excesses of the right when it comes to the environment,though most conservatives are actually at least distant admirers of nature.But most environmentalists seem to have a curious aversion for everything human,which underlies everything they do.

They hate to see population growth or the spread of civilization into nature.In any conflict over resources they desperately defend the wild,the original state of things.Anything manmade,they try to make more natural in design,appearance and sustainability.Even animals that areassociated with humans,such as cows,pigs and rats,can become villains to environmentalists,as they destroy native species and habitats with the seeming mundanity of their human masters.

The immutable goal of environmentalists is restriction – restriction of energy use,restriction of reproduction,restriction of resources,restriction of travel,restriction of consumption.Any way to limit mankind is sought and celebrated.To me,a lover of nature is defined by his or her respect and affinity for all things natural.An environmentalist shares that love,but adds an almost pathological disgust for humanity.

I am absolutely a lover of nature,and innumerable conservatives are too.This means that we seek out wildlife preserves,plant trees,take in cats and dogs and do our best to share the planet with the countless other species in it.But we do not have an obsession with undermining civilization,wistfully looking back10,000years to a world unsullied by intelligent man.

Oddly enough,for all their love of nature,environmentalists fail to see its power.Nature was here for a very long time before us,and it will be for a very long time after.Nature kills far more of its own than we do,in the short term as predators and prey,in the long term as species adapt and evolve,to compete and succeed or to compete and die.

Creatures of large size and great beauty,like bears,wolves and caribou,are vulnerable to extinction,and should be aided and protected.Butthevast majority of the wild is the myriad other species that are less photographic,and less threatened.Ultimately,to Mother Nature,we are nothing.

It is possible to love nature without despising humans.It is possible to advocate moderationin the conflictbetween man and nature,while periodically gazing at the painting above your desk to take in the gorgeous lakes and forests that we are all so blessed to enjoy.

Disturb ROB OLSON from his trance at rwolson@ucdavis.edu.

Triumphing inPennsylvania,a state oftenassociatedwith the birth of many American narratives,SenatorHillaryClinton proclaimed that “the tide is turning.“ Shemight haveenvisioned the aptness of her candidacy’s rebirth.But it wasn’t a rebirth.It was the prolonging ofafutile process,the Democrats‘ proportionate delegatesystemrendering her catching-upin the pledged delegate count impossible.

Yet by choosing to continue,she is damaging her fellow Democrat’s reputation and amplifying her own negatives,allwhile increasing Senator John McCain’selectoral chances.Should these factorsultimatelycoalesce toelect McCain to office,liberalism would have lost a monumental opportunity to redefineand reassertitself.

Butfirstlet’s examine liberalism’s fall from grace.

Liberalism’s downturn,in many ways,is testament to the Republican Party’s political acumen and their messages‘ coherence.Through superior organization and unrelenting discipline,a Republican nominee has occupied the White House for all but12out of the last40years.Thisstatisticisn’t trivial.It demonstrates the Republican’s uncannyability to win elections.

The media,asinitiators ofdiscourse,furthermorebought into theRepublican’s stereotypical construct.Byadhering to the contours of “gotcha” journalism,wheresound bitesproliferate,Republicans‘ effectively succeeded intarringliberals as elitist snobs,caricaturing them as unpatriotic wimps and branding them as coastal-dwellers out of touch withAmerica’s heartland values.

Finally,Clintonism was supposed to usher in a new era of Democratic progressive policies.But it didn’ttranspirethat way.Instead,asNew York Times contributorMatt Bai,in his article “The Clinton Referendum,” suggests, “[Bush’s policies] was less a victim of Bush‘s radicalism than [Clinton] was its enabler.” In other words,triangulation – the practice of selecting the middle point of you and your opponent’s arguments – dispirited liberals into accepting the credo of the right rather than standing up for their own principles.

Suchasubmissionis fine,even indicative of a healthy democracy,if theultimateresult is concerned solely with winning politicalwarfare.But conservatism’s practitioners,utilizingthe dark art of denigration,haveessentiallytorn theelectorate.Consequent of the Republicansmeartactics is anation so dividedthatwe can’t summonanational consciousness during times of unparalleled crisis.While external and internal threats continue to manifest,the government is impaired,burdened by ideological adherence.

As such,until the Republican Party reinvents itself anddismisses thedivisionarytactics,the only option for all liberals is tounite andtoascend.Liberalsneed to re-embrace their identity andnot be afraid tochampion their virtues.Today’s moment demands not triangulation; it mandates the elevation of liberalism.It isn’t the time to yield to right-wingpummeling.It is the time to battle back,and battle hard.

But here’s what makes Obama’s candidacy so ironic and fascinating.He’s conducting a liberal revolution not byaiming topolarize theredstates andbluestates further,but by attemptingto unite both.He’s not merelyinspiring new voters everywhere,he’s incorporating disenchanted crossover conservatives.Despite being the senator with the most liberal voting record,he works well with Republicans.All these virtues indicatethe possibility of an era of sustained liberalism.

Tomake this possible,tofinally move past the past,Obama first needs to defeat theforces of the past.He needs to bury Rove-style politics ofblatant distortion and character assassination – a testSenator Clinton is now administering to him.He needs tostand up tothe lunacy of Swiftboating and “who would you rather have a beer with?” Should he triumph,it will deliver the message that the era of Rovism is finally over.

The liberal ideals of social justice and equality have to bere-foughtandre-litigated.Clintonism of the yore,of finding common ground,has to be dispensed.Liberals,and liberalism,need to regain their pride.

Liberals need to fight against the kitchen sink and the Republican attack machine.Throw ZACH HAN one at zklhan@ucdavis.edu.

In the Apr.22 edition of The California Aggie,the editorial titled “4/20at UCSC” stated that “While the university has outwardly condoned the event,they do not deny its existence.” The correct statement should have read, “While the university does not condone the event,they do not deny its existence.” The Aggie regrets the error.

So apparently there’s a food crisis. The increased prices of staple foods such as corn (up 49 percent globally over 12 months), rice (up 75 percent) and wheat (up 130 percent)are wreaking havoc across the globe.

But, being a rich American capable of offsetting those increases, they don’t scare me. What does scare me is the global system of food production which underlies them.

The fact that this issue is being framed as a “food” crisis indicates the depth of the cultural problem we face: Biblical Dominionism. Dominionism is rarely invoked outright, but our culture’s resource gathering methods are rooted deep in that whole “subdue the earth,” “be fruitful and multiply” thing. What comes out of this is the notion that man and the environment are at odds with one another, and that the environment stifles human progress

One consequence of this paradigm is that it has long been assumed that the human population increases on its own, and that we need to produce more food to feed this growing population. Not quite.

Without food, people simply don’t exist; we literally are what we eat. So in our quest to produce ever more food to keep up with population growth, we have actually caused that population growth by increasing global food availability.

This is a problem. It’s a problem because our current system of agriculture runs a caloric deficit. That is, the energy used to fertilize, maintain, harvest, process, transport and sell food is more than the energy contained in the food itself. Two experts on the topic, DoctorsPimentel and Giampietro, have concluded that for every calorie we consume, ten calories were used to produce it. And the energy input per food calorie has been growing steadily since the ’40s, indicating a reduction in efficiency despite advances in technology.

At the base of this whole system is the Haber-process, which basically turnsnitrogengas into fertilizer. This fertilizer supports 40 percent of the world’s population. It’s also highly energy intensive, consuming four percent of the world’s natural gas production. And the price of fertilizer, which increased 200 percent in 2007, is tied inextricably to the cost of that gas.

Funny thing is, 64 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves are in the Middle East and Russia; Europe and North America hold only 8 percent. But Europe and especially North America feed most of the world, which means that the most unstable and unfriendly regions on earth control the basis of world food supplies. Awesome.

That said, we could get by on this kind of inefficiency and conflict of interest if the world population wasn’t so huge. But because we’ve applied industrialized capitalism to agriculture, we’ve fucked ourselves five ways from Sunday. The eternal expansion necessary for capitalism’s self-perpetuation will inevitably result in the complete resource depletion; in terms of raw materials, this really is a zero sum game.

Because of this, the profit motive in agriculture is the single most destructive force in the world today. It leads to ever increasing food supplies, which in turn create ever increasing demand, which creates ever increasing supplies, and so on. Each cycle in this positive feedback loop further degrades the environment and will eventually destroy earth’s ability to support civilization. That we have combined capitalism’s expansionist zeal with the one process that has the power to drive the human population to the point of complete resource exhaustion is suicidal.

The planet simply cannot support 6.6 billion people indefinitely, and at some point, we’re going to start running out of stuff. That’s already happening with oil, timber, fish, metals and other minerals. We need to remove the profit motive from agriculture as a means of decreasing the global population over the next few generations. Otherwise, we’re going to continue to see increasing commodity prices and resource scarcity fuel violent tribalism in poor countries, increasingly devastating resource wars between nations and global attrition on an apocalyptic scale.

If this scares you, it should.

And I haven’t even started talking about water.

K.C. CODY really, truly believes that a world population of 300 million (reached in six generations of single child families or one generation of continuous Bush foreign policy) would be about right. Disagree with him at kccody@ucdavis.edu.

The Sodexho food-service worker controversy hasbeen present on the campus foryears.Those in favor of UC Davis employing food service workers argued that workers deserved health care and improved benefits and that the university was underhanded in contracting out their employment.Those in favor of the status quo argued that a minority of workers were dissatisfied andthatthe cost of employing workers was prohibitive.Both sides had valid points,and it would have been easy for the campusofficials to declare a stalemate.However,the UCD administration took this issue seriously and embarked on a lengthy study of its options to address the problem.

Throughout the process, UC Davis officials have been guided by twoworthyprinciples:making decisions based on factual research,and improving the situation to both student and worker satisfaction.While not everyone may becompletelysatisfied by the outcome,the compromisingsolution the university has reached ishighlysensible and ethical.Food-service workers will become university employees while Sodexho will continue to manage operations.

The decision to employ workersnaturally comes with downsides,the most notable being the$2million cost to the school.The UC system already faces substantial budget cuts,and UC Davis anticipates a7percent student fee increasefor next year.It is unfortunate that incoming students will have to pay increased housing fees to fund the worker employment in addition to an overall tuitionfee increase.

However,the decision to employ the food-service workers is moving UC Davis in a direction more compatible with its progressive and egalitarian culture.It is a worthwhile sacrifice in consideration of the hardship many workersfaced ingetting health care coverage for family members and a safety net for retirement.

Hopefully the university’splan tolighten the burden on any one generation of UCD students – improving profits from retail outlets,dipping into reserves and getting some of the money from Sodexho – will be successful.Students should not have to forego thefullcollege experienceof on-campus livingbecause of a rise in student housing fees.

The Sodexho problem is far from over.The university still has to consider a wealth of complications in transferring worker employment,and not all workers will benefitor get rehired.In addition,the Sodexho contract expires in about two years,andUC Davis will have to decide what direction to take at that time.Undoubtedly,many hope that the school will phase out Sodexho completely when it can.It remains to be seen how well this new system of management will work,and hopefully the university will use its transition period wisely,continuing to basedecisions on research and a variety of perspectives.