01) C.A.P.E. Lectures
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The Cornell Associate of Professors Emeriti (CAPE) provides services, events, and activities for the retired faculty of Cornell University, including a lecture series. The CAPE Lecture Series is free and open to CAPE members and to the public. Lectures are held at the Boyce Thompson Institute Auditorium (1st floor) unless otherwise noted. This is conveniently located at a TCAT bus stop opposite the Vet Tower. During the academic year, this monthly series covers wide-ranging, multidisciplinary topics and is intended for a general audience. The Lecture Series schedule is posted at CAPE website and in the newsletter
Many of these lectures will be posted here for broader, online access.
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Item How Birds Can Save the WorldFitzpatrick, John; Agassiz, Louis; Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (Internet-First University Press, 2016-02-18)Birds can save the World- so says John Fitzpatrick, the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. In this lecture to the Cornell Association of Professors Emeriti, Fitzpatrick explains how. As part of the Laboratory’s program called e-Bird, volunteers all over the world are reporting bird sightings. Based on this data, Federal and local agencies are setting aside land from development and making other changes to protect bird species and hence the environment.Item Achieving Food Security for All in the Foreseeable FuturePinstrup-Andersen, Per (Internet-First University Press, 2015-12-03)Large increases in cereal prices in 2007-08 raised questions about the ability of world agriculture to produce the food needed by future generation. Predictions about impending world famine and continued increases in food prices are plentiful but almost certain to be wrong. Today, the world is awash in cereals and prices have decreased rapidly during the last three years. Enlightened policies, appropriate investments in research and technological change and better utilization of the currently underutilized productive capacity, are likely to result in continued increases in global food production sufficient to sustain a long-term trend of falling but more volatile real food prices. Increasing food production is necessary but not sufficient for food security. To be food secure, households must have access to the quantity and kinds of food needed for a healthy and productive life. Very large stocks of food currently coexist with widespread food insecurity. Appropriate policies along with public and private investments are needed to enhance low-income people’s purchasing power or food production capacity. Considering both the supply and demand sides, this presentation will discuss what it will take to achieve food security for all in the foreseeable future.Item Foundations of Muslim Extremism and the Marginalization and Violence Against WomenBarazangi, Nimat; Research Fellow Feminist; Gender, & Sexuality Studies; Cornell University (2015-11-19)In this presentation I argue that Muslim women issues are symptoms of the widespread crisis in understanding Islam. I also argue that these issues, being the consequences of extremism on all fronts, are the active drive to understand the foundations of Muslim extremism. To better understand this crisis, we need a radical shift in discourse to be able to analyze the mind-set of these extremist Muslims, the majority of whom are males. They may claim to adhere to Islam, yet they are violating the basic principle of Islam by coercing people to follow their own rules under threat of force or rape. They call for the rule of shari’a, but the meaning of “shari’a” has been largely abused for many centuries. Their behavior is mainly based on few Islamic texts that are either taken out of context or fabricated to justify their violent acts. For example, Muslim extremists use some of the reported narratives (Hadith) on the authority of the Prophet Muhammad (also known as his tradition or sunnah) to enforce social structure that negatively affect Muslim women, like issues of modesty, leadership, and testimony. This abuse of the reported narratives, I argue, is the main cause of the crisis in understanding Islam because some of these narratives are not corroborated by the Qur`an. Muslim women, therefore, need to rethink the Hadith because it is still being used as a source for applying the Qur`an, or as the primary source before the Qur`an, even when the contents of some narratives are not corroborated by the Qur`an. Hadith narratives must be carefully evaluated and should not replace Qur`anic guidance, the only divine and binding text of Islam.Item The Risks and Benefits of Shale GasIngraffea, Anthony; Cathles, Lawrence; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (2015-10-22)In 2011, Howarth, Santoro, and Ingraffea published an estimated range of life-cycle methane emissions from development of natural gas, petroleum, and coal. They concluded that, even at the low end of their estimate, methane emissions from shale gas would make it the worst of the fossil fuels from a climate change point of view. They also concluded that their estimate was based on insufficient data and information because actual measurements of emissions on a national scale had never been done.Item Animal Navigation: An Enduring MysteryWalcott, Charles (Internet-First University Press, 2014)Many animals move thousands of miles over the surface of the earth. Monarch butterflies return to a small place in Mexico to overwinter, Arctic Terns fly some 24,000 miles per year and salmon return to the gravel beds in the streams where they themselves were hatched. Despite years of research, we still don’t know exactly what cues animals use to perform these feats!Item Glimpses of Cornell History, Vol 2, The Kendal at Ithaca ConnectionCooke, J. Robert; King, Kenneth M. (Internet-First University Press, 2014-06-25)Item The First Ten Years of the Internet-First University Press and CAPE's Histories and Biographies ProjectCooke, J. Robert (Speaker) (Internet-First University Press, 2014-03-20)An Internet-based experiment in scholarly publishing has reached its ten-year mark. The Histories and Biographies Project of the emeritus faculty is described.Item Local Women Go To War: Civil War Nurses 1861-1865Kammen, Carol; Knight, Christopher H. (videographer) (Internet-First University Press, 2013-11-14)Item The Arab Winter: Oil, Wealth, and Declining ScienceBarazangi, Muawia (Internet-First University Press, 2013-09-12)There is no Arab Spring, not now and not for decades, and really for centuries.Item Glimpses of Cornell History Vol 1Cooke, J. Robert; King, Kenneth M. (The Internet-First University Press, 2012-12-06)This C.A.P.E. lecture was presented on 06Dec12 at BTI. The lecture describes the usage of low-‐cost digital publishing to preserve and to make Cornell’s institutional history more accessible. The lecture outlines issues and principles that guided the creation of The Internet-‐First University Press and cites its popularity (with more than 1 million downloads of books and videos each year). An incomplete listing of its published content, including abstracts and URL links, is provided. Finally a collage of snippets from thirteen of the IFUP videos constitutes our first volume of “Glimpses of Cornell History.”