Earthship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship 

South and East view of an Earthship passive solar home

 

Typical floorplan

An Earthship is a type of passive solar earth shelter that is made of both natural and upcycled materials such as earth-packed tires, pioneered by architect Michael Reynolds.

Earthships are predicated upon the idea that there are six human needs which can be addressed through environmentally sustainable building design:

1. Energy: Thermal and/or solar heating and cooling, solar and wind electricity
2. Garbage management: Reuse and recycling built into construction and daily living
3. Sewage treatment: Self-contained sewage treatment and water recycling
4. Shelter: Building with natural and recycled materials
5. Clean Water: Water harvesting and long term storage
6. Food: In-home organic food production capability

Earthship structures are intended to be "off-the-grid-ready" homes, with minimal reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels. They are constructed to use available natural resources, especially energy from the sun and rain water. They are designed with thermal mass construction and natural cross-ventilation to regulate indoor temperature, and the designs are intentionally uncomplicated and mainly single-story, so that people with little building knowledge can construct them.

History

Michael Reynolds' first building, the "Thumb House", was built in the early 1970s. It included features incorporated into later Earthship designs.

The Earthship architecture concept began to take shape in the 1970s.

The architect Michael Reynolds wanted to create a home that would do three things. First, it would utilize sustainable architecture, and material indigenous to the local area or recycled materials wherever possible. Second, it would rely on natural energy sources and be independent from the "grid". Third, it would be feasible for a person with no specialized construction skills to build. Eventually, Reynolds's vision was transformed into the common U-shaped earth-filled tire homes seen today.

The name is based on the idea of a ship or a space ship. Both of those structures need to provide everything for their inhabitants to survive: shelter, power, waste management, water, and food. The same idea is used for an Earthship: to be a sustainable structure to fulfill our needs.

Construction and design

Building with cans in the 1970s

The buildings are often horseshoe-shaped due to the difficulty of creating sharp 90 degree angles with rammed tires. In Reynolds's prototype at Taos, the opening of the horseshoe faces 10–15 degrees east of south to maximize natural light and solar-gain during the winter months, with windows on sun-facing walls admitting light and heat.

The book, Earthship I, describes how to find the best angle depending on the building's geographic location. The thick and dense walls provide thermal mass that naturally regulates the interior temperature during both cold and hot outside temperatures. The outer walls in the majority of Earthships are made of earth-rammed tires, but any dense material with a potential to store heat, such as concrete, adobe, earth bags, or stone, could in principle be used to create a building similar to an Earthship. The tire walls are staggered like traditional brick work, and often have "concrete half blocks" every other course, to equal the length of the staggered tire below. In an effort to cut down the use of concrete even further, they also use "squishies" - tires rammed in between a tight space to even out the course or to compensate for varying tire size.

Most earthship structures are earth-sheltered buildings with a large series of windows and used tires

The rammed earth tires of an Earthship are assembled by teams of two people. One person shovels dirt and places it into the tire one scoop at a time. The other person, who stands on the tire, uses a sledgehammer to pack the dirt in while moving in a circle around the tire to keep the dirt even and to avoid warping the tire. Rammed earth tires can weigh up to 300 pounds, so they are typically filled in place. Because the tire is full of soil, it does not burn when exposed to fire. In colder climates, extra insulation is added on the outside of the tire walls. It uses modern technologies such as solar cells, solar collectors and water filtering systems.

Tires rammed with earth and stacked

On top of the tire walls are either "can and concrete bond beams" made of recycled cans joined by concrete, or wooden bond beams with wooden shoes. These are attached to the tire walls using concrete anchors, poured blocks of concrete inside the top tires. Wooden shimming blocks placed on top of the wooden bond beam make up the wooden shoes. The wooden bond beam consists of two layers of lumber bolted on to the concrete anchors. Re-bar is used to "nail" the wooden shoes to the wooden bond beam.

Internal, non-load-bearing walls are often made of a honeycomb of recycled cans joined by concrete; these are nicknamed tin can walls. These walls are usually thickly plastered with adobe, and resemble traditional adobe walls when finished.

The roof is made using trusses, or wooden support beams called vigas, that rest on the wooden shoes or the tin can walls placed on the bond beams. The roof as well as the north, east and west facing walls are heavily insulated to reduce heat loss.

Water

The water system with integrated flush toilet, as used in most earthships

 

A scupper for collecting rainwater

Earthships are designed to catch all the water they need from the local environment. Water used in an Earthship is harvested from rain, snow, and condensation. As water collects on the roof, it is channeled through a silt-catching device and into a cistern. The cisterns are positioned to gravity-feed a water organization module (WOM) that filters out bacteria and contaminants, making it suitable for drinking. The WOM consists of filters and a DC-pump. Water is then pushed into a conventional pressure tank to create common household water pressure.

Water collected in this fashion is used for every household activity except flushing toilets. The toilets are flushed with greywater which has been used at least once already. Typically it is filtered waste-water from sinks and showers.

An interior botanical cell; the plants function as water treatment for graywater

Greywater, recycled water unsuitable for drinking, is used within the Earthship primarily for flushing toilets. Before the greywater can be reused, it is channeled through a grease and particle filter/digester and into a 30–60" deep rubber-lined botanical cell, a miniature living machine, within the Earthship. Here the water is oxygenated and filtered using bacteria and plants to reduce the nutrient load. Water from the low end of the botanical cell is directed through a peat moss filter and collected in a reservoir or well. The reclaimed water is passed once more through a greywater board and used to flush conventional toilets.

Black water is water that has been used in a toilet. Earthships utilize anaerobic digestion in their septic tanks, which naturally separate solid waste. The black water is used in concrete cells containing plants, separate from the grey water plants in the greenhouse; it may also be used in exterior planters. Studies on the safety of growing food plants in a black water system show low levels of E. coli bacteria. It is not recommended to plant edibles in black water; building permits may be refused for plans indicating such usage of black water.

Where it is not possible to use flush-toilets operating on water, dry solar toilets are recommended.

Power

Solar panels on an Earthship

Earthships are designed to collect and store their own energy. The majority of electrical energy is harvested from the sun and wind. Photovoltaic panels and wind turbines on or near the Earthship generate DC electricity that is stored in deep-cycle batteries. The batteries are housed in a purpose-built room on the roof. Additional energy can be obtained from gasoline-powered generators or by integrating with the city grid. For Canadian winters the solar cell exposed surface areas needs to be increased by over three times.

In an Earthship, a Power Organizing Module (POM) takes a proportion of stored energy from batteries and invert it for AC use. The Power Organizing Module is a prefabricated system provided by Earthship Biotecture that is simply attached to a wall on the interior of the Earthship and wired in a conventional manner. It includes the necessary equipment such as circuit breakers and converters. The energy run through the Power Organizing Module can be used to run any household appliance including washing machines, computers, kitchen appliances, print machines, and vacuums. Ideally, none of the electrical energy in an Earthship is used for heating or cooling.

Thermal performance

Solar water heater on an Earthship

Earthships rely on a balance between the solar heat gain and the ability of the tire walls and subsoil to transport and store heat. They are designed to use the properties of thermal mass and with the intent that the exterior earth-rammed tire walls provide thermal mass that will soak up heat during the day and radiate heat during the night, keeping the interior climate relatively comfortable all day. In addition to the exterior tire walls, some Earthships are sunk into the earth to take advantage of earth-sheltering to reduce temperature fluctuations.

Some earthship structures have suffered from heat loss into the ground during the heating season. This may be due to climatic differences between New Mexico where earthships were first built and cloudier, cooler, and wetter climates. Thermal performance problems may also have occurred due to thermal mass being erroneously equated to R-value. The imperial R-value of soil is about 1 per foot. Malcolm Wells, an architect and authority on earth-sheltered design, recommends an imperial R-value 10 insulation between deep soils and heated spaces. Wells's insulation recommendations increase as the depth of the soil decreases (a negative correlation).

In addition to thermal mass, Earthships use passive solar heating and cooling. Large front windows with integrated shades, trombe walls and other technologies such as skylights or Steve Baer's "Track Rack" solar trackers are used for heat regulation. Earthships are positioned so that its principal wall, which is nonstructural and made mostly of glass sheets, faces directly towards the equator. This positioning allows for optimum solar exposure. To allow the sun to heat the mass of the Earthship, the solar-oriented wall is angled so that it is perpendicular to light from the winter sun. This allows for maximum exposure in the winter, when heat is wanted, and lesser exposure in the summer, when heat is to be avoided. Some Earthships, especially those built in colder climates, use insulated shading on the solar-orientated wall to reduce heat loss during the night.

Current Earthship designs like the global module have a "double greenhouse" where the outside glass is angled towards the equator, and an internal glass wall forms a walk way or hallway as you step into the Earthship. This greenhouse is primarily used to grow food; it also creates a barrier for the 'comfort zone' inside the house.

Ventilation

Natural convection cooling an Earthship

Earthships structures have a natural ventilation system based on convection. A 30 ft pipe extends from the interior of the house under the berm, cooling the air by the time it gets to the comfort zone. As the hot air rises, the system creates a steady airflow - of cooler air coming in, and warmer air blowing out though a smaller vented window in the greenhouse.

Around the world

Africa

Earthship built by Angel and Yvonne Kamp in South Africa

The first earthship in South Africa was built by Angel and Yvonne Kamp between 1996 and 1998. They rammed a total of 1,500 tires for the walls. The Earthship, near Hermanus, is located in a 60 hectare private nature reserve which is part of a 500 hectare area enclosed in a game fence and borders the Walker Bay Nature Reserve.

The second earthship in South Africa is a recycling centre in Khayelitsha run as a swop shop concept. The centre was finished in December 2010. Another low cost house built with tires is in development in Bloemfontein.

A project nearing completion in South Africa is a combined living quarters and the Sonskip / Aardskip open air museum in Orania. This earthship is based on the global earthship model and is built with a foundation of tires, has roof bearing walls built with earthbags, and interior walls built with cob, cans and plastic bottles. This earthship adheres to all six principles of an earthship. This is the largest earthbag earthship in the world.

A residential house was in the planning phase for Swaziland in 2013.

In 2011, construction began on the Goderich Waldorf School of Sierra Leone. The school was the first educational institution to use earthship architecture. Although Mike Reynolds and a team of interns helped complete the first two classrooms, the majority of the building was built by community members who had been trained in Reynolds' building techniques.

A new project was scheduled to commence in Malawi in October 2013.

Australia

Earthship Ironbank was built by Martin and Zoe Freney south-east of Adelaide in South Australia and is the first earthship constructed with council permission in Australia.

Europe

Earthship Brighton, England

In 2000, Michael Reynolds and his team came to build the first residential earthship in Boingt (Belgium). While water, power module, solar panels and the team were on their way to Europe, the mayor of Boingt put his veto on the building permit. Josephine Overeem, the woman who wanted to build the earthship, and Michael Reynolds decided to do a demonstration model in her back yard at her residence in Strombeek (Belgium). CLEVEL invited Reynolds from Belgium to Brighton in the UK, and orchestrated plans for the earthship in Brighton, started in 2003. This was the beginning of a series of trips made by Reynolds and the construction of earthships in the UK, France and the Netherlands.

In 2004, the very first Earthship in the UK was opened at Kinghorn Loch in Fife, Scotland. It was built by volunteers of the SCI charity. In 2005, the first earthship in England was established in Stanmer Park, Brighton with the Low Carbon Trust. In 2007, CLEVEL and Earthship Biotecture obtained planning permission to build on a development site overlooking the Brighton Marina in the UK. The application followed a six-month feasibility study, orchestrated by Daren Howarth, Kevan Trott and Michael Reynolds and funded by the UK Environment Agency and the Energy Savings Trust. The successful application was for sixteen one, two, and three-bedroom earthship homes on this site, expected to have a sale price of 250 - 400,000 pounds. The homes are all designed according to basic earthship principles developed in the United States and adapted to the UK. 15,000 tires will be recycled to construct these homes (the UK burns approximately 40 million tires each year). The plans include the enhancement of habitats on the site for lizards that already live there, which is the reasoning behind entitling the project "The Lizard". This would have been the first development of its kind in Europe.

The first official Earthship home in mainland Europe with official planning permission approval was built in a small French village called Ger. The home, which was owned by Kevan and Gillian Trott, was built in April 2007 by Kevan, Mike Reynolds and an Earthship Crew from Taos, it was sold to a family in 2014. The design was modified for a European climate and is seen as the first of many for the European arena. It is currently used as a holiday home for eco-tourists.

Further adaptation to the European context was undertaken by Daren Howarth and Adrianne Nortje in Brittany, France. They obtained full planning permission in 2007 and finished the Brittany Groundhouse as their own home during 2009. The build experience and learning is documented in the UK Grand Designs series and in their book.

Earthships have been built or are being built in Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Estonia and Czech Republic.

The first official earthship district (23 earthships) in Europe was developed in Olst (the Netherlands). Building started in Spring 2012 and completed in December, 2014. In Belgium, 1 earthship hybrid is also being built, intended as demonstration buildings. Since it is illegal to use tires in Belgium (for risk of leaking toxic metals like lead and zinc), the project uses earthbags instead.

The Earthships built in Europe by Michael Reynolds have to be adapted to perform as intended. Some showed problems with moisture and mould. Some research into thermal performance was done by the University of Brighton on the Brighton Earthship. The first successful construction of an Earthship in Germany (Tempelhof/Kreßberg, 2015/16) used fewer thermal bridges but increased insulation in cooperation with a Fraunhofer Institute to prevent any mould problems.

Central America

An earthship was constructed in 2015 by the Atkinson family in southern Belize. It featured on the June 2015 UK Channel 4 TV programme Escape to the Wild, season 1, episode 3.

Guatemala also hosts two earthships.

South America

The first Earthship in South America was built in January 2014 in the town of Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Today this building functions as a visitor center and example of self-sustainable living.

In March 2016, an Earthship school was built in Jaureguiberry, Uruguay.

In popular culture

The film Garbage Warrior is about Earthships and Reynolds' struggle with obtaining permits to build out of unconventional material and off the grid. The average cost in 2019 including labour and land is about $500,000.

 

Selective breeding

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding 

 

Evolutionary biology
Darwin's finches by John Gould

A Belgian Blue cow. The defect in the breed's myostatin gene is maintained through linebreeding and is responsible for its accelerated lean muscle growth.

 

This Chihuahua mix and Great Dane shows the wide range of dog breed sizes created using selective breeding.

 

Selective breeding transformed teosinte's few fruitcases (left) into modern maize's rows of exposed kernels (right).

Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together. Domesticated animals are known as breeds, normally bred by a professional breeder, while domesticated plants are known as varieties, cultigens, cultivars, or breeds. Two purebred animals of different breeds produce a crossbreed, and crossbred plants are called hybrids. Flowers, vegetables and fruit-trees may be bred by amateurs and commercial or non-commercial professionals: major crops are usually the provenance of the professionals.

In animal breeding, techniques such as inbreeding, linebreeding, and outcrossing are utilized. In plant breeding, similar methods are used. Charles Darwin discussed how selective breeding had been successful in producing change over time in his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species. Its first chapter discusses selective breeding and domestication of such animals as pigeons, cats, cattle, and dogs. Darwin used artificial selection as a springboard to introduce and support the theory of natural selection.

The deliberate exploitation of selective breeding to produce desired results has become very common in agriculture and experimental biology.

Selective breeding can be unintentional, e.g., resulting from the process of human cultivation; and it may also produce unintended – desirable or undesirable – results. For example, in some grains, an increase in seed size may have resulted from certain ploughing practices rather than from the intentional selection of larger seeds. Most likely, there has been an interdependence between natural and artificial factors that have resulted in plant domestication.

History

Selective breeding of both plants and animals has been practiced since early prehistory; key species such as wheat, rice, and dogs have been significantly different from their wild ancestors for millennia, and maize, which required especially large changes from teosinte, its wild form, was selectively bred in Mesoamerica. Selective breeding was practiced by the Romans. Treatises as much as 2,000 years old give advice on selecting animals for different purposes, and these ancient works cite still older authorities, such as Mago the Carthaginian. The notion of selective breeding was later expressed by the Persian Muslim polymath Abu Rayhan Biruni in the 11th century. He noted the idea in his book titled India, which included various examples.

The agriculturist selects his corn, letting grow as much as he requires, and tearing out the remainder. The forester leaves those branches which he perceives to be excellent, whilst he cuts away all others. The bees kill those of their kind who only eat, but do not work in their beehive.

— Abu Rayhan Biruni, India

Selective breeding was established as a scientific practice by Robert Bakewell during the British Agricultural Revolution in the 18th century. Arguably, his most important breeding program was with sheep. Using native stock, he was able to quickly select for large, yet fine-boned sheep, with long, lustrous wool. The Lincoln Longwool was improved by Bakewell, and in turn the Lincoln was used to develop the subsequent breed, named the New (or Dishley) Leicester. It was hornless and had a square, meaty body with straight top lines.

These sheep were exported widely, including to Australia and North America, and have contributed to numerous modern breeds, despite the fact that they fell quickly out of favor as market preferences in meat and textiles changed. Bloodlines of these original New Leicesters survive today as the English Leicester (or Leicester Longwool), which is primarily kept for wool production.

Bakewell was also the first to breed cattle to be used primarily for beef. Previously, cattle were first and foremost kept for pulling ploughs as oxen, but he crossed long-horned heifers and a Westmoreland bull to eventually create the Dishley Longhorn. As more and more farmers followed his lead, farm animals increased dramatically in size and quality. In 1700, the average weight of a bull sold for slaughter was 370 pounds (168 kg). By 1786, that weight had more than doubled to 840 pounds (381 kg). However, after his death, the Dishley Longhorn was replaced with short-horn versions.

He also bred the Improved Black Cart horse, which later became the Shire horse.

Charles Darwin coined the term 'selective breeding'; he was interested in the process as an illustration of his proposed wider process of natural selection. Darwin noted that many domesticated animals and plants had special properties that were developed by intentional animal and plant breeding from individuals that showed desirable characteristics, and discouraging the breeding of individuals with less desirable characteristics.

Darwin used the term "artificial selection" twice in the 1859 first edition of his work On the Origin of Species, in Chapter IV: Natural Selection, and in Chapter VI: Difficulties on Theory:

Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by his powers of artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and infinite complexity of the co-adaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in the long course of time by nature's power of selection.

— Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

We are profoundly ignorant of the causes producing slight and unimportant variations; and we are immediately made conscious of this by reflecting on the differences in the breeds of our domesticated animals in different countries,—more especially in the less civilized countries where there has been but little artificial selection.

— Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

Animal breeding

Animals with homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics are known as particular breeds or pure breeds, and they are bred through culling animals with particular traits and selecting for further breeding those with other traits. Purebred animals have a single, recognizable breed, and purebreds with recorded lineage are called pedigreed. Crossbreeds are a mix of two purebreds, whereas mixed breeds are a mix of several breeds, often unknown. Animal breeding begins with breeding stock, a group of animals used for the purpose of planned breeding. When individuals are looking to breed animals, they look for certain valuable traits in purebred stock for a certain purpose, or may intend to use some type of crossbreeding to produce a new type of stock with different, and, it is presumed, superior abilities in a given area of endeavor. For example, to breed chickens, a breeder typically intends to receive eggs, meat, and new, young birds for further reproduction. Thus, the breeder has to study different breeds and types of chickens and analyze what can be expected from a certain set of characteristics before he or she starts breeding them. Therefore, when purchasing initial breeding stock, the breeder seeks a group of birds that will most closely fit the purpose intended.

Purebred breeding aims to establish and maintain stable traits, that animals will pass to the next generation. By "breeding the best to the best," employing a certain degree of inbreeding, considerable culling, and selection for "superior" qualities, one could develop a bloodline superior in certain respects to the original base stock. Such animals can be recorded with a breed registry, the organization that maintains pedigrees and/or stud books. However, single-trait breeding, breeding for only one trait over all others, can be problematic. In one case mentioned by animal behaviorist Temple Grandin, roosters bred for fast growth or heavy muscles did not know how to perform typical rooster courtship dances, which alienated the roosters from hens and led the roosters to kill the hens after mating with them. A Soviet attempt to breed lab rats with higher intelligence led to cases of neurosis severe enough to make the animals incapable of any problem solving unless drugs like phenazepam were used.

The observable phenomenon of hybrid vigor stands in contrast to the notion of breed purity. However, on the other hand, indiscriminate breeding of crossbred or hybrid animals may also result in degradation of quality. Studies in evolutionary physiology, behavioral genetics, and other areas of organismal biology have also made use of deliberate selective breeding, though longer generation times and greater difficulty in breeding can make these projects challenging in such vertebrates as house mice.

Plant breeding

Researchers at the USDA have selectively bred carrots with a variety of colors.

Plant breeding has been used for thousands of years, and began with the domestication of wild plants into uniform and predictable agricultural cultigens. High-yielding varieties have been particularly important in agriculture.

Selective plant breeding is also used in research to produce transgenic animals that breed "true" (i.e., are homozygous) for artificially inserted or deleted genes.

Selective breeding in aquaculture

Selective breeding in aquaculture holds high potential for the genetic improvement of fish and shellfish. Unlike terrestrial livestock, the potential benefits of selective breeding in aquaculture were not realized until recently. This is because high mortality led to the selection of only a few broodstock, causing inbreeding depression, which then forced the use of wild broodstock. This was evident in selective breeding programs for growth rate, which resulted in slow growth and high mortality.

Control of the reproduction cycle was one of the main reasons as it is a requisite for selective breeding programs. Artificial reproduction was not achieved because of the difficulties in hatching or feeding some farmed species such as eel and yellowtail farming. A suspected reason associated with the late realisation of success in selective breeding programs in aquaculture was the education of the concerned people – researchers, advisory personnel and fish farmers. The education of fish biologists paid less attention to quantitative genetics and breeding plans.

Another was the failure of documentation of the genetic gains in successive generations. This in turn led to failure in quantifying economic benefits that successful selective breeding programs produce. Documentation of the genetic changes was considered important as they help in fine tuning further selection schemes.

Quality traits in aquaculture

Aquaculture species are reared for particular traits such as growth rate, survival rate, meat quality, resistance to diseases, age at sexual maturation, fecundity, shell traits like shell size, shell colour, etc.

• Growth rate – growth rate is normally measured as either body weight or body length. This trait is of great economic importance for all aquaculture species as faster growth rate speeds up the turnover of production. Improved growth rates show that farmed animals utilize their feed more efficiently through a positive correlated response.
• Survival rate – survival rate may take into account the degrees of resistance to diseases. This may also see the stress response as fish under stress are highly vulnerable to diseases. The stress fish experience could be of biological, chemical or environmental influence.
• Meat quality – the quality of fish is of great economic importance in the market. Fish quality usually takes into account size, meatiness, and percentage of fat, colour of flesh, taste, shape of the body, ideal oil and omega-3 content.
• Age at sexual maturation – The age of maturity in aquaculture species is another very important attribute for farmers as during early maturation the species divert all their energy to gonad production affecting growth and meat production and are more susceptible to health problems (Gjerde 1986).
• Fecundity – As the fecundity in fish and shellfish is usually high it is not considered as a major trait for improvement. However, selective breeding practices may consider the size of the egg and correlate it with survival and early growth rate.

Finfish response to selection

Salmonids

Gjedrem (1979) showed that selection of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) led to an increase in body weight by 30% per generation. A comparative study on the performance of select Atlantic salmon with wild fish was conducted by AKVAFORSK Genetics Centre in Norway. The traits, for which the selection was done included growth rate, feed consumption, protein retention, energy retention, and feed conversion efficiency. Selected fish had a twice better growth rate, a 40% higher feed intake, and an increased protein and energy retention. This led to an overall 20% better Fed Conversion Efficiency as compared to the wild stock. Atlantic salmon have also been selected for resistance to bacterial and viral diseases. Selection was done to check resistance to Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus (IPNV). The results showed 66.6% mortality for low-resistant species whereas the high-resistant species showed 29.3% mortality compared to wild species.

Rainbow trout (S. gairdneri) was reported to show large improvements in growth rate after 7–10 generations of selection. Kincaid et al. (1977) showed that growth gains by 30% could be achieved by selectively breeding rainbow trout for three generations. A 7% increase in growth was recorded per generation for rainbow trout by Kause et al. (2005).

In Japan, high resistance to IPNV in rainbow trout has been achieved by selectively breeding the stock. Resistant strains were found to have an average mortality of 4.3% whereas 96.1% mortality was observed in a highly sensitive strain.

Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) increase in weight was found to be more than 60% after four generations of selective breeding. In Chile, Neira et al. (2006) conducted experiments on early spawning dates in coho salmon. After selectively breeding the fish for four generations, spawning dates were 13–15 days earlier.

Cyprinids

Selective breeding programs for the Common carp (Cyprinus carpio) include improvement in growth, shape and resistance to disease. Experiments carried out in the USSR used crossings of broodstocks to increase genetic diversity and then selected the species for traits like growth rate, exterior traits and viability, and/or adaptation to environmental conditions like variations in temperature. Kirpichnikov et al. (1974) and Babouchkine (1987) selected carp for fast growth and tolerance to cold, the Ropsha carp. The results showed a 30–40% to 77.4% improvement of cold tolerance but did not provide any data for growth rate. An increase in growth rate was observed in the second generation in Vietnam. Moav and Wohlfarth (1976) showed positive results when selecting for slower growth for three generations compared to selecting for faster growth. Schaperclaus (1962) showed resistance to the dropsy disease wherein selected lines suffered low mortality (11.5%) compared to unselected (57%).

Channel Catfish

Growth was seen to increase by 12–20% in selectively bred Iictalurus punctatus. More recently, the response of the Channel Catfish to selection for improved growth rate was found to be approximately 80%, i.e., an average of 13% per generation.

Shellfish response to selection

Oysters

Selection for live weight of Pacific oysters showed improvements ranging from 0.4% to 25.6% compared to the wild stock. Sydney-rock oysters (Saccostrea commercialis) showed a 4% increase after one generation and a 15% increase after two generations. Chilean oysters (Ostrea chilensis), selected for improvement in live weight and shell length showed a 10–13% gain in one generation. Bonamia ostrea is a protistan parasite that causes catastrophic losses (nearly 98%) in European flat oyster Ostrea edulis L. This protistan parasite is endemic to three oyster-regions in Europe. Selective breeding programs show that O. edulis susceptibility to the infection differs across oyster strains in Europe. A study carried out by Culloty et al. showed that ‘Rossmore' oysters in Cork harbour, Ireland had better resistance compared to other Irish strains. A selective breeding program at Cork harbour uses broodstock from 3– to 4-year-old survivors and is further controlled until a viable percentage reaches market size.

Over the years ‘Rossmore' oysters have shown to develop lower prevalence of B. ostreae infection and percentage mortality. Ragone Calvo et al. (2003) selectively bred the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, for resistance against co-occurring parasites Haplosporidium nelson (MSX) and Perkinsus marinus (Dermo). They achieved dual resistance to the disease in four generations of selective breeding. The oysters showed higher growth and survival rates and low susceptibility to the infections. At the end of the experiment, artificially selected C. virginica showed a 34–48% higher survival rate.

Penaeid shrimps

Selection for growth in Penaeid shrimps yielded successful results. A selective breeding program for Litopenaeus stylirostris saw an 18% increase in growth after the fourth generation and 21% growth after the fifth generation. Marsupenaeus japonicas showed a 10.7% increase in growth after the first generation. Argue et al. (2002) conducted a selective breeding program on the Pacific White Shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei at The Oceanic Institute, Waimanalo, USA from 1995 to 1998. They reported significant responses to selection compared to the unselected control shrimps. After one generation, a 21% increase was observed in growth and 18.4% increase in survival to TSV. The Taura Syndrome Virus (TSV) causes mortalities of 70% or more in shrimps. C.I. Oceanos S.A. in Colombia selected the survivors of the disease from infected ponds and used them as parents for the next generation. They achieved satisfying results in two or three generations wherein survival rates approached levels before the outbreak of the disease. The resulting heavy losses (up to 90%) caused by Infectious hypodermal and haematopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV) caused a number of shrimp farming industries started to selectively breed shrimps resistant to this disease. Successful outcomes led to development of Super Shrimp, a selected line of L. stylirostris that is resistant to IHHNV infection. Tang et al. (2000) confirmed this by showing no mortalities in IHHNV- challenged Super Shrimp post larvae and juveniles.

Aquatic species versus terrestrial livestock

Selective breeding programs for aquatic species provide better outcomes compared to terrestrial livestock. This higher response to selection of aquatic farmed species can be attributed to the following:

• High fecundity in both sexes fish and shellfish enabling higher selection intensity.
• Large phenotypic and genetic variation in the selected traits.

Selective breeding in aquaculture provide remarkable economic benefits to the industry, the primary one being that it reduces production costs due to faster turnover rates. This is because of faster growth rates, decreased maintenance rates, increased energy and protein retention, and better feed efficiency. Applying such genetic improvement program to aquaculture species will increase productivity to meet the increasing demands of growing populations.

Advantages and disadvantages

Selective breeding is a direct way to determine if a specific trait can evolve in response to selection. A single-generation method of breeding is not as accurate or direct. The process is also more practical and easier to understand than sibling analysis. Selective breeding is better for traits such as physiology and behavior that are hard to measure because it requires fewer individuals to test than single-generation testing.

However, there are disadvantages to this process. Because a single experiment done in selective breeding cannot be used to assess an entire group of genetic variances, individual experiments must be done for every individual trait. Also, because of the necessity of selective breeding experiments to require maintaining the organisms tested in a lab or greenhouse, it is impractical to use this breeding method on many organisms. Controlled mating instances are difficult to carry out in this case and this is a necessary component of selective breeding.

Population bottleneck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Population bottleneck followed by recovery or extinction

A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts or human activities such as specicide and human population planning. Such events can reduce the variation in the gene pool of a population; thereafter, a smaller population, with a smaller genetic diversity, remains to pass on genes to future generations of offspring through sexual reproduction. Genetic diversity remains lower, increasing only when gene flow from another population occurs or very slowly increasing with time as random mutations occur. This results in a reduction in the robustness of the population and in its ability to adapt to and survive selecting environmental changes, such as climate change or a shift in available resources. Alternatively, if survivors of the bottleneck are the individuals with the greatest genetic fitness, the frequency of the fitter genes within the gene pool is increased, while the pool itself is reduced.

The genetic drift caused by a population bottleneck can change the proportional random distribution of alleles and even lead to loss of alleles. The chances of inbreeding and genetic homogeneity can increase, possibly leading to inbreeding depression. Smaller population size can also cause deleterious mutations to accumulate.

Population bottlenecks play an important role in conservation biology (see minimum viable population size) and in the context of agriculture (biological and pest control).

Scientists have witnessed population bottlenecks in American bison, greater prairie chickens, northern elephant seals, golden hamsters, and cheetahs. The New Zealand black robins experienced a bottleneck of five individuals, all descendants of a single female. Geneticists have found evidence for past bottlenecks in pandas, golden snub-nosed monkeys, and humans.

Minimum viable population size

In conservation biology, minimum viable population (MVP) size helps to determine the effective population size when a population is at risk for extinction. The effects of a population bottleneck often depend on the number of individuals remaining after the bottleneck and how that compares to the minimum viable population size.

Founder effects

A slightly different form of bottleneck can occur if a small group becomes reproductively (e.g. geographically) separated from the main population, such as through a founder event, e.g. if a few members of a species successfully colonize a new isolated island, or from small captive breeding programs such as animals at a zoo. Alternatively, invasive species can undergo population bottlenecks through founder events when introduced into their invaded range.

Examples

Humans

According to a 1999 model, a severe population bottleneck, or more specifically a full-fledged speciation, occurred among a group of Australopithecina as they transitioned into the species known as Homo erectus two million years ago. It is believed that additional bottlenecks must have occurred since Homo erectus started walking the Earth, but current archaeological, paleontological, and genetic data are inadequate to give much reliable information about such conjectured bottlenecks. That said, the possibility of a severe recent species-wide bottleneck cannot be ruled out.

A 2005 study from Rutgers University theorized that the pre-1492 native populations of the Americas are the descendants of only 70 individuals who crossed the land bridge between Asia and North America.

Toba catastrophe theory

The controversial Toba catastrophe theory, presented in the late 1990s to early 2000s, suggested that a bottleneck of the human population occurred approximately 75,000 years ago, proposing that the human population was reduced to perhaps 10,000–30,000 individuals when the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia erupted and triggered a major environmental change. Parallel bottlenecks were proposed to exist among chimpanzees, gorillas, rhesus macaques, orangutans and tigers. The hypothesis was based on geological evidence of sudden climate change and on coalescence evidence of some genes (including mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome DNA and some nuclear genes) and the relatively low level of genetic variation in humans.

However, subsequent research, especially in the 2010s, appeared to refute both the climate argument and the genetic argument. Recent research shows the extent of climate change was much smaller than believed by proponents of the theory. Genetic material inherited exclusively from either father or mother can be traced back in time via either matrilineal or patrilineal ancestry.

In 2000, a Molecular Biology and Evolution paper suggested a transplanting model or a 'long bottleneck' to account for the limited genetic variation, rather than a catastrophic environmental change. This would be consistent with suggestions that in sub-Saharan Africa numbers could have dropped at times as low as 2,000, for perhaps as long as 100,000 years, before numbers began to expand again in the Late Stone Age.

Other animals

Year	American bison (est)
Before 1492	60,000,000
1890	750
2000	360,000

European bison, also called wisent (Bison bonasus), faced extinction in the early 20th century. The animals living today are all descended from 12 individuals and they have extremely low genetic variation, which may be beginning to affect the reproductive ability of bulls.

The population of American bison (Bison bison) fell due to overhunting, nearly leading to extinction around the year 1890, though it has since begun to recover (see table).

Overhunting pushed the northern elephant seal to the brink of extinction by the late 19th century. Though they have made a comeback, the genetic variation within the population remains very low.

A classic example of a population bottleneck is that of the northern elephant seal, whose population fell to about 30 in the 1890s. Although it now numbers in the hundreds of thousands, the potential for bottlenecks within colonies remains. Dominant bulls are able to mate with the largest number of females — sometimes as many as 100. With so much of a colony's offspring descended from just one dominant male, genetic diversity is limited, making the species more vulnerable to diseases and genetic mutations. The golden hamster is a similarly bottlenecked species, with the vast majority of domesticated hamsters descended from a single litter found in the Syrian desert around 1930, and very few wild golden hamsters remaining.

An extreme example of a population bottleneck is the New Zealand Black Robin, of which every specimen today is a descendant of a single female, called Old Blue. The Black Robin population is still recovering from its low point of only five individuals in 1980.

The genome of the giant panda shows evidence of a severe bottleneck about 43,000 years ago. There is also evidence of at least one primate species, the golden snub-nosed monkey, that also suffered from a bottleneck around this time. An unknown environmental event is suspected to have caused the bottlenecks observed in both of these species. The bottlenecks likely caused the low genetic diversity observed in both species.

Other facts can sometimes be inferred from an observed population bottleneck. Among the Galápagos Islands giant tortoises — themselves a prime example of a bottleneck — the comparatively large population on the slopes of the Alcedo volcano is significantly less diverse than four other tortoise populations on the same island. DNA analyses date the bottleneck to around 88,000 years before present (YBP). About 100,000 YBP the volcano erupted violently, deeply burying much of the tortoise habitat in pumice and ash.

Before Europeans arrived in North America, prairies served as habitats to greater prairie chickens. In Illinois alone, the number of greater prairie chickens plummeted from over 100 million in 1900 to about 50 in 1990. These declines in population were the result of hunting and habitat destruction, but the random consequences have also caused a great loss in species diversity. DNA analysis comparing the birds from 1990 and mid-century shows a steep genetic decline in recent decades. The greater prairie chicken is currently experiencing low reproductive success.

Population bottlenecking poses a major threat to the stability of species populations as well. Papilio homerus is the largest butterfly in the Americas and is endangered according to the IUCN. The disappearance of a central population poses a major threat of population bottleneck. The remaining two populations are now geographically isolated and the populations face an unstable future with limited remaining opportunity for gene flow.

Genetic bottlenecks exist in cheetahs.

Selective breeding

Bottlenecks also exist among pure-bred animals (e.g., dogs and cats: pugs, Persian) because breeders limit their gene pools by a few (show-winning) individuals for their looks and behaviors. The extensive use of desirable individual animals at the exclusion of others can result in a popular sire effect.

Selective breeding for dog breeds caused constricting breed-specific bottlenecks. These bottlenecks have led to dogs having an average of 2–3% more genetic loading than gray wolves. The strict breeding programs and population bottlenecks have led to the prevalence of diseases such as heart disease, blindness, cancers, hip dysplasia, cataracts, and more.

Selective breeding to produce high-yielding crops has caused genetic bottlenecks in these crops and has led to genetic homogeneity. This reduced genetic diversity in many crops could lead to broader susceptibility to new diseases or pests, which threatens global food security.

Plants

Research showed that there is incredibly low, nearly undetectable amounts of genetic diversity in the genome of the Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis). The IUCN found a population count of 80 mature individuals and about 300 seedlings and juveniles in 2011, and previously, the Wollemi pine had fewer than 50 individuals in the wild. The low population size and low genetic diversity indicates that the Wollemi pine went through a severe population bottleneck.

A population bottleneck was created in the 1970s through the conservation efforts of the endangered Mauna Kea silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense ssp. sandwicense). The small natural population of silversword was augmented through the 1970s with outplanted individuals. All of the outplanted silversword plants were found to be first or subsequent generation offspring of just two maternal founders. The low amount of polymorphic loci in the outplanted individuals led to the population bottleneck, causing the loss of the marker allele at eight of the loci.

Global citizenship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizenship

Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but that such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community. Extended, the idea leads to questions about the state of global society in the age of globalization.

In general usage, the term may have much the same meaning as "world citizen" or cosmopolitan, but it also has additional, specialized meanings in differing contexts. Various organizations, such as the World Service Authority, have advocated global citizenship.

Usage

Education

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Global Citizenship youth work project in Wales, 2016

In education, the term is most often used to describe a worldview or a set of values toward which education is oriented (see, for example, the priorities of the Global Education First Initiative led by the Secretary-General of the United Nations). The term "global society" is sometimes used to indicate a global studies set of learning objectives for students to prepare them for global citizenship (see, for example, the Global Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh).

Global citizenship education

Within the educational system, the concept of global citizenship education (GCED) is beginning to supersede or overarch movements such as multicultural education, peace education, human rights education, Education for Sustainable Development, and international education. Additionally, GCED rapidly incorporates references to the aforementioned movements. The concept of global citizenship has been linked with awards offered for helping humanity. Teachers are being given the responsibility of being social change agents. Audrey Osler, director of the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education, the University of Leeds, affirms that "Education for living together in an interdependent world is not an optional extra, but an essential foundation".

With GCED gaining attention, scholars are investigating the field and developing perspectives. The following are a few of the more common perspectives:

• Critical and transformative perspective. Citizenship is defined by being a member with rights and responsibilities. Therefore, GCED must encourage active involvement. GCED can be taught from a critical and transformative perspective, whereby students are thinking, feeling, and doing. In this approach, GCED requires students to be politically critical and personally transformative. Teachers provide social issues in a neutral and grade-appropriate way for students to understand, grapple with, and do something about.
• Worldmindedness. Graham Pike and David Selby view GCED as having two strands. Worldmindedness, the first strand, refers to understanding the world as one unified system and a responsibility to view the interests of individual nations with the overall needs of the planet in mind. The second strand, Child-centeredness, is a pedagogical approach that encourages students to explore and discover on their own and addresses each learner as an individual with inimitable beliefs, experiences, and talents.
• Holistic Understanding. The Holistic Understanding perspective was founded by Merry Merryfield, focusing on understanding the self in relation to a global community. This perspective follows a curriculum that attends to human values and beliefs, global systems, issues, history, cross-cultural understandings, and the development of analytical and evaluative skills.

Philosophy

Global citizenship, in some contexts, may refer to a brand of ethics or political philosophy in which it is proposed that the core social, political, economic, and environmental realities of the world today should be addressed at all levels—by individuals, civil society organizations, communities, and nation states—through a global lens. It refers to a broad, culturally and environmentally inclusive worldview that accepts the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Political, geographic borders become irrelevant and solutions to today's challenges are seen to be beyond the narrow vision of national interests. Proponents of this philosophy often point to Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C.) as an example, given his reported declaration that "I am a citizen of the world (κοσμοπολίτης, cosmopolites)" in response to a question about his place of origin. A Tamil term, Yadhum oore yaavarum kelir, has the meaning of "the world is one family". The statement is not just about peace and harmony among the societies in the world, but also about a truth that somehow the whole world has to live together like a family.

Psychological studies

Global pollsters and psychologists have studied individual differences in the sense of global citizenship. Beginning in 2005, the World Values Survey (WVS), administered across almost 100 countries, included the statement, "I see myself as a world citizen". In the WVS Wave 6, conducted from 2010 to 2014, across the globe 29.5% "strongly agreed" and another 41% "agreed" with this statement. However, there were wide national variations, as 71% of citizens of Qatar, 21% of U.S. citizens, 16% of Chinese, and just 11% of Palestinians "strongly agreed." Interpreting these differences is difficult, however, as survey methods varied for different countries, and the connotations of "world citizen" differ in different languages and cultures.

For smaller studies, several multi-item scales have been developed, including Sam McFarland and colleagues' Identification with All Humanity scale (e.g., "How much do you identify with (that is, feel a part of, feel love toward, have concern for) . . . all humans everywhere?”), Anna Malsch and Alan Omoto's Psychological Sense of Global Community (e.g., "I feel a sense of connection to people all over the world, even if I don’t know them personally"), Gerhard Reese and colleagues' Global Social Identity scale (e.g. "I feel strongly connected to the world community as a whole"), and Stephen Reysen and Katzarska-Miller's global citizenship identification scale (e.g., "I strongly identify with global citizens"). These measures are strongly related to one another, but they are not fully identical.

Studies of the psychological roots of global citizenship have found that persons high in global citizenship are also high on the personality traits of openness to experience and agreeableness from the Big Five personality traits and high in empathy and caring. Oppositely, the authoritarian personality, the social dominance orientation, and psychopathy are all associated with less global human identification. Some of these traits are influenced by heredity as well as by early experiences, which, in turn, likely influence individuals' receptiveness to global human identification.

Research has found that those who are high in global human identification are less prejudiced toward many groups, care more about international human rights, worldwide inequality, global poverty and human suffering. They attend more actively to global concerns, value the lives of all human beings more equally, and give more in time and money to international humanitarian causes. They tend to be more politically liberal on both domestic and international issues. They want their countries to do more to alleviate global suffering.

Following a social identity approach, Reysen and Katzarska-Miller tested a model showing the antecedents and outcomes of global citizenship identification (i.e., degree of psychological connection with global citizens). Individuals' normative environment (the cultural environment in which one is embedded contains people, artifacts, cultural patterns that promote viewing the self as a global citizen) and global awareness (perceiving oneself as aware, knowledgeable, and connected to others in the world) predict global citizenship identification. Global citizenship identification then predicts six broad categories of prosocial behaviors and values, including: intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping, and a felt responsibility to act. Subsequent research has examined variables that influence the model such as: participation in a college course with global components, perception of one's global knowledge, college professors' attitudes toward global citizenship, belief in an intentional worlds view of culture, participation in a fan group that promotes the identity, use of global citizen related words when describing one's values, possible self as a global citizen, religiosity and religious orientation, threat to one's nation, interdependent self-construal prime, perception of the university environment, and social media usage.

In 2019, a review of all studies of the psychology of global human identification and citizenship through 2018 was published.

Aspects

Geography, sovereignty, and citizenship

At the same time that globalization is reducing the importance of nation-states, the idea of global citizenship may require a redefinition of ties between civic engagement and geography. Face-to-face town hall meetings seem increasingly supplanted by electronic "town halls" not limited by space and time. Absentee ballots opened the way for expatriates to vote while living in another country; the Internet may carry this several steps further. Another interpretation given by several scholars of the changing configurations of citizenship due to globalization is the possibility that citizenship becomes a changed institution; even if situated within territorial boundaries that are national, if the meaning of the national itself has changed, then the meaning of being a citizen of that nation changes.

Human rights

The lack of a universally recognized world body can put the initiative upon global citizens themselves to create rights and obligations. Rights and obligations as they arose at the formation of nation-states (e.g. the right to vote and obligation to serve in time of war) are being expanded. Thus, new concepts that accord certain "human rights" which arose in the 20th century are increasingly being universalized across nations and governments. This is the result of many factors, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948, the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust and growing sentiments towards legitimizing marginalized peoples (e.g., pre-industrialized peoples found in the jungles of Brazil and Borneo). Couple this with growing awareness of our impact on the environment, and there is the rising feeling that citizen rights may extend to include the right to dignity and self-determination. If national citizenship does not foster these new rights, then global citizenship may seem more accessible.

Global citizenship advocates may confer specific rights and obligations of human beings trapped in conflicts, those incarcerated as part of ethnic cleansing, and pre-industrialized tribes newly discovered by scientists living in the depths of dense jungle. 

UN General Assembly

On 10 December 1948, the UN General Assembly Adopted Resolution 217A (III), also known as "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Article 1 states that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Article 2 states that "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."

Article 13(2) states that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

As evidence in today's modern world, events such as the Trial of Saddam Hussein have proven what British jurist A. V. Dicey said in 1885, when he popularized the phrase "rule of law" in 1885. Dicey emphasized three aspects of the rule of law:

1. No one can be punished or made to suffer except for a breach of law proved in an ordinary court.
2. No one is above the law and everyone is equal before the law regardless of social, economic, or political status.
3. The rule of law includes the results of judicial decisions determining the rights of private persons.

US Declaration of Independence

The opening of the United States Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, states as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

"Global citizenship in the United States" was a term used by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008 in a speech in Berlin.

Social movements

World citizen

World Citizen flag by Garry Davis

 

World Citizen badge

In general, a world citizen is a person who places global citizenship above any nationalistic or local identities and relationships. An early expression of this value is found in Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C.; mentioned above), a Cynic philosopher in Ancient Greece. Of Diogenes it is said: "Asked where he came from, he answered: 'I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolitês)'". This was a ground-breaking concept because the broadest basis of social identity in Greece at that time was either the individual city-state or the Greeks (Hellenes) as a group. The Tamil poet Kaniyan Poongundran wrote in Purananuru, "To us all towns are one, all men our kin." In later years, political philosopher Thomas Paine would declare, "my country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Today, the increase in worldwide globalization has led to the formation of a "world citizen" social movement under a proposed world government. In a non-political definition, it has been suggested that a world citizen may provide value to society by using knowledge acquired across cultural contexts. Many people also consider themselves world citizens, as they feel at home wherever they may go.

Albert Einstein described himself as a world citizen and supported the idea throughout his life, famously saying "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." World citizenship has been promoted by distinguished people including Garry Davis, who lived for 60 years as a citizen of no nation, only the world. Davis founded the World Service Authority in Washington, DC, which sells World Passports, a fantasy passport to world citizens. In 1956 Hugh J. Schonfield founded the Commonwealth of World Citizens, later known by its Esperanto name "Mondcivitana Respubliko", which also issued a world passport; it declined after the 1980s.

The Baháʼí Faith promotes the concept through its founder's proclamation (in the late 19th century) that "The Earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." As a term defined by the Baháʼí International Community in a concept paper shared at the 1st session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, New York, U.S.A. on 14–25 June 1993. "World citizenship begins with an acceptance of the oneness of the human family and the interconnectedness of the nations of 'the earth, our home.' While it encourages a sane and legitimate patriotism, it also insists upon a wider loyalty, a love of humanity as a whole. It does not, however, imply abandonment of legitimate loyalties, the suppression of cultural diversity, the abolition of national autonomy, nor the imposition of uniformity. Its hallmark is 'unity in diversity.' World citizenship encompasses the principles of social and economic justice, both within and between nations; non-adversarial decision making at all levels of society; equality of the sexes; racial, ethnic, national and religious harmony; and the willingness to sacrifice for the common good. Other facets of world citizenship—including the promotion of human honour and dignity, understanding, amity, co-operation, trustworthiness, compassion and the desire to serve—can be deduced from those already mentioned."

Mundialization

Philosophically, mundialization (French, mondialisation) is seen as a response to globalization's "dehumanisation through [despatialised] planetarisation" (Teilhard de Chardin quoted in Capdepuy 2011). An early use of mondialisation was to refer to the act of a city or a local authority declaring itself a "world citizen" city, by voting a charter stating its awareness of global problems and its sense of shared responsibility. The concept was promoted by the self-declared World Citizen Garry Davis in 1949, as a logical extension of the idea of individuals declaring themselves world citizens, and promoted by Robert Sarrazac, a former leader of the French Resistance who created the Human Front of World Citizens in 1945.

The first city to be officially mundialised was the small French city of Cahors (only 20,000 in 2006), the capital city of the Département of Lot in central France, on 20 July 1949. Hundreds of cities mundialised themselves over a few years, most of them in France, and then it spread internationally, including to many German cities and to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In less than a year, 10 General Councils (the elected councils of the French "Départements"), and hundreds of cities in France covering 3.4 million inhabitants voted mundialisation charters. One of the goals was to elect one delegate per million inhabitants to a People's World Constitutional Convention given the already then historical failure of the United Nations in creating a global institution able to negotiate a final world peace. To date, more than 1000 cities and towns have declared themselves World cities, including Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Toronto, Hiroshima, Tokyo, Nivelles, and Königswinter.

As a social movement, mundialization expresses the solidarity of populations of the globe and aims to establish institutions and supranational laws of a federative structure common to them, while respecting the diversity of cultures and peoples. The movement advocates for a new political organization governing all humanity, involving the transfer of certain parts of national sovereignty to a Federal World Authority, Federal World Government and Federal World Court. Basing its authority on the will of the people, supporters hope it could develop new systems to draw on the highest and best wisdom of all humanity, and solve major planetary problems like hunger, access to water, war, peace-keeping, pollution and energy. The mundialization movement includes the declaration of specified territory – a city, town, or state, for example – as world territory, with responsibilities and rights on a world scale. Currently, the nation-state system and the United Nations offer no way for the people of the world to vote for world officials or participate in governing our world. International treaties or agreements lack the force of law. Mundialization seeks to address this lack by presenting a way to build, one city at a time, such a system of true World Law based upon the sovereignty of the whole.

Earth Anthem

Author Shashi Tharoor feels that an Earth Anthem sung by people across the world can inspire planetary consciousness and global citizenship among people.

Criticisms

Not all interpretations of global citizenship are positive. For example, Bhikhu Chotalal Parekh advocates what he calls globally oriented citizenship, and states, "If global citizenship means being a citizen of the world, it is neither practicable nor desirable." He argues that global citizenship, defined as an actual membership of a type of worldwide government system, is impractical and dislocated from one's immediate community. He also notes that such a world state would inevitably be "remote, bureaucratic, oppressive, and culturally bland." Parekh presents his alternative option with the statement: "Since the conditions of life of our fellow human beings in distant parts of the world should be a matter of deep moral and political concern to us, our citizenship has an inescapable global dimension, and we should aim to become what I might call a globally oriented citizen." Parekh's concept of globally oriented citizenship consists of identifying with and strengthening ties towards one's political regional community (whether in its current state or an improved, revised form), while recognizing and acting upon obligations towards others in the rest of the world.

Michael Byers, a professor in Political Science at the University of British Columbia, questions the assumption that there is one definition of global citizenship, and unpacks aspects of potential definitions. In the introduction to his public lecture, the UBC Internalization website states, "'Global citizenship' remains undefined. What, if anything, does it really mean? Is global citizenship just the latest buzzword?" Byers notes the existence of stateless persons, whom he remarks ought to be the primary candidates for global citizenship, yet continue to live without access to basic freedoms and citizenship rights. Byers does not oppose the concept of global citizenship, however, he criticizes potential implications of the term depending on one's definition of it, such as ones that provide support for the "ruthlessly capitalist economic system that now dominates the planet." Byers states that global citizenship is a "powerful term" because "people that invoke it do so to provoke and justify action," and encourages the attendees of his lecture to re-appropriate it in order for its meaning to have a positive purpose, based on idealistic values.

Neither criticism of global citizenship is anything new. Gouverneur Morris, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention (United States), criticized "citizens of the world" while he was on the floor of the convention; 9 August 1787. "As to those philosophical gentlemen, those Citizens of the World as they call themselves, He owned he did not wish to see any of them in our public Councils. He would not trust them. The men who can shake off their attachments to their own Country can never love any other. These attachments are the wholesome prejudices which uphold all Governments, Admit a Frenchman into your Senate, and he will study to increase the commerce of France: an Englishman, and he will feel an equal bias in favor of that of England."