Norgaard, Kari

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/18938

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Open Access
"We Don't Really Want To Know” Environmental Justice and Socially Organized Denial of Global Warming in Norway
(Organization and Environment, 2006-09) Norgaard, Kari
Global warming is the most serious environmental problem of our time and a major issue of environmental justice. Yet meager public response in the form of social movement activity, behavioral changes, or public pressure on governments is noteworthy in all Western nations. Existing research emphasizes lack of information as a limiting factor for failed public response. This explanation cannot account for the significant population who know about and express concern for global warming. Ethnographic and interview data from a rural Norwegian community indicate that nonresponse is at least partially a matter of socially organized denial. Because Norwegian economic prosperity is tied to oil production, collectively ignoring climate change maintains Norwegian economic interests. Most environmental justice research focuses on people facing disproportionate exposure to environmental problems. This project examines wealthy citizens who perpetuate global warming as they turn a blind eye. Environmental justice implications of socially organized denial are discussed for global warming and beyond.
Open Access
The Politics of Fire and the Social Impacts of Fire Exclusion on the Klamath
(Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 2014) Norgaard, Kari
The exceptional biological diversity of the mid-Klamath River region of northern California has emerged in conjunction with sophisticated Karuk land management practices, including the regulation of the forest and fisheries through ceremony and the use of fire. Over three quarters of Karuk traditional food and cultural use species are enhanced by fire. Fire is also central to cultural and spiritual practices. Land management techniques since the 1900s have emphasized fire suppression and the “exclusion” of wildfire from the landscape. This paper uses data from interviews, surveys and other documents to describe the social impacts of fire exclusion for Karuk tribal members. The exclusion of fire from the ecosystem has a host of interrelated ecological and social impacts including impacts to cultural practice, political sovereignty, social relations, subsistence activities, and the mental and physical health of individual tribal members. In addition, Karuk tribal members are negatively impacted by the effects of catastrophic fires and intensive firefighting activities that in turn result from fire exclusion. Whereas existing literature has addressed ecological and social impacts of changing ecosystems as separate categories, the social, ecological and economic impacts of fire exclusion are here understood to be intrinsically linked.
Open Access
Trace Metal Analysis of Karuk Traditional Foods in the Klamath River
(Scientific Research Publishing, 2013) Norgaard, Kari Marie; Meeks, Spenser; Crayne, Brice; Dunnivant, Frank
This study evaluates the presence of trace metals in Klamath River water and three important Karuk traditional foods: freshwater mussels (Gonidea angulata), Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and Rainbow Trout (On- corhynchus mykiss). Samples of these traditional foods together with water samples were collected from the Klamath River and measured for the total chromium (Chromium), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), tin (Sn), and lead (Pb) by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). We found that cultural-use species in the Klamath and its tributaries are accumulating higher levels of lead, cadmium and tin downstream of a known Superfund site. Neither water, fish, nor mussel samples exceeded maximum intake levels of metal doses mandated by state or federal agencies for consumption intakes of 1.4 L per day of water, 0.5 kg per meal per day for fish, and 0.043 kg per meal for 30 meals per year.
Open Access
A Continuing Legacy: Institutional Racism, Hunger, and Nutritional Justice on the Klamath
(MIT Press, 2011) Norgaard, Karie Marie; Reed, Ron; Van Horn, Carolina
Open Access
Salmon Feeds Our People: Challenging Dams on the Klamath River
(Conservation International, 2010) Norgaard, Kari Marie; Reed, Ron
This is a story of how an impoverished northern California tribe challenged a massive Goliath — a huge private utility corporation. It is about one piece in the current struggle of the Karuk People in the Klamath River Basin to retain cultural traditions and restore their river ecosystem. Here we describe how a study was conducted that articulated a formerly unseen connection between human and environmental health, and which became an important piece in legal proceedings underway that may result in the largest dam removal effort in history.
Open Access
Distribution and Abundance of Freshwater Mussels in the mid Klamath Subbasin, California
(Northwest Scientific Association, 2013) Davis, Emily A.; David, Aaron T.; Norgaard, Karie Marie; Parker, Timothy H.; McKay, Kara; Tennant, Christine; Soto, Toz; Rowe, Kate; Reed, Ron
Freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionoida) are an integral component of freshwater ecosystems. Historically, they were an important part of the diet and material culture of indigenous peoples, including until recently the Karuk Tribe of California. This study represents the ﬁrst systematic survey of freshwater mussels in the Klamath River Basin of northwestern California, where little is known about mussel distribution, abundance, habitat associations, or conservation status. We snorkel surveyed 82 sites on the mid Klamath River and sections of nine major tributaries to assess abundance, distribution, and habitat use of mussels at three different spatial scales. We identiﬁed all three western North American mussel genera (Margaritifera, Gonidea, and Anodonta) in the Klamath River, with Gonidea abundant and widely distributed within the mainstem, and Anodonta and Margaritifera present in low numbers and restricted in distribution. At the landscape scale we observed a negative relationship between mussel abundance and measures of hydrological variability. At the mesohabitat scale, bank type, channel unit type, and their interaction were important predictors of mussel distribution. At the microhabitat scale, bank type, substrate type, and ﬂow refuge presence were important predictors of mussel distribution. Together, our results suggest the common inﬂuence of hydraulics and substrate stability as drivers of mussel distribution in the Klamath, which agrees with the ﬁndings of other recent studies of mussel distribution. Our results also illuminate where habitat protection and restoration efforts should be directed within the mid Klamath subbasin to aid in mussel conservation.
Open Access
Moon Phases, Menstrual Cycles, and Mother Earth: The Construction of A Special Relationship Between Women and Nature
(Elsevier Science Inc., 2000) Norgaard, Kari M.
This paper will explore a number of contradictions to the theme of a special relationship between women and nature by examining associations between men and nature and ways that women may be considered distant from nature. I will suggest a variety of reasons why literature in women and environment, ecofeminism, and feminist political ecology has chosen this particular story about a special connection between women and nature (and thus failed to include other stories), and I will ask whether ecofeminist constructions of gender inadvertently reinforce the very social and ecological relations so many of us critique. Although much of my discussion will be directed towards ecofeminism, the fields of women and environment and feminist political ecology share the emphasis on women and nature to which I refer. I recognize that whether theorists see relationships between women and nature as biological or social has been the subject of much writing and criticism between theorists who consider themselves to be in different fields. But at this point, the fact that there is now such a large body of literature focusing on relationships between women and nature (or environment) sets up a cultural story that is present across fields. I will use the term special relationship to refer to the full range of ways that women and nature have been connected.
Open Access
Bring the Salmon Home! Karuk Challenges to Capitalist Incorporation
(Sage Publications, 2009) Norgaard, Kari M.; Hormel, Leontina M.
With capitalism’s introduction, Karuk people have experienced radical declines in the productivity of Klamath River salmon fisheries, dire impoverishment, and a new order of threats in the form of hunger and diet related diseases. We use interview, survey, medical and archival data to describe how capitalism has been an unsustainable system in the case of the Karuk because it is organized around market extraction and destroys cultural knowledge and behaviors that served to keep fish harvests sustainable. Using world-systems theory, we propose a fifth frontier exists, that of health. Despite the impacts of 150 years of direct genocide, Karuk people continue to survive and are revitalizing culture and community, which supports the idea that capitalist incorporation is not fully complete but partial. Karuk resistance and revitalization is epitomized in the campaign to remove four dams on the Klamath River and thereby ‘Bring the Salmon Home’ to the upper basin.

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