Democracy, Volunteering, and Brewing with Dr. Tun Myint

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Tun Myint, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Carleton College about Democracy, Volunteering, and Home Brewing.   Read his full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form

Showtimes:
2:43  Nic & Laura talk about video games
8:56  Interview with Dr. Tun Myint starts
16:06  Democracy
29:46  Volunteering
41:59  Brewing
45:38  Field Notes

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Tun Myint at https://www.carleton.edu/directory/tmyint/

Guest Bio:
Tun Myint is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Carleton College, Northfield, MN.  He is the author of Governing International Rivers: Polycentric Politics in the Mekong and the Rhine.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Nic 
Hello and Welcome to Epi their favorite environmental enthusiast Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Laura and I talk about video games. We also talked to Dr. Toon mint, about democracy, volunteering and brewing. And finally, Super Mario is a much darker game than you think. Remember all those blokes who destroyed as a kid or maybe even as a young adult, or maybe even so just the Panadol Yeah, they were the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom turned into blocks by Koopas. If you want to feel slightly better, some say that it's actually all of the power ups are the toads and all the other blocks are empty. But the fact that is even slightly unclear, is deeply unsettling. So there you go. Now that everyone who childhoods let's go ahead and hit that music

[NAEP Event News]

Laura 
NAEP will be hosting the advanced NEPA training virtually on September 27 from 8am to 4:30pm. Alaska time. This workshop will benefit those professionals who work in related Natural Resources plans who work with federal land management or real estate transactions, federal agency projects or permitting and transportation or other infrastructure projects with a NEPA review component. Check it out@www.sap.org And we have no sponsor today. So that means you're up next 30 seconds.

Nic 
Oh, God. Oh, gosh. Okay. This is really, really off the top of my head. Let's see, um, you know, how we have, you know, you're out in the field and you want to just stay out in field forever. And, you know, maybe you don't have you know, if somebody's nearby nearby, you want to use the bathroom. It's super inconvenient. We're gonna have the pens in the woods and that is actually it looks like banana leaves because it is and you just put that on your bottom and you go out there you keep going. You never stop. You don't do anything except poop all over yourself. And then at the end of the day, you can throw it away biodegradable, Super Wonderful. Everyone loves it. It's the sort of the voice that depends on calm then don't forget to

Laura 
please for the love of God. Can somebody sponsor that?

Nic 
Oh my god

Laura 
because Nick is a comedian, so we're just pressing practicing those muscles for him.

Nic 
Yeah, oh, gosh. That's what I got. That's what depends. Yeah, I'm gonna see there's a more clever name out there. Depends in the words. Oh, my God.

[Nic & Laura talk about video games]

Nic
And finally, here's a segment.

Laura 
What do you want to talk about?

Nic 
I thought of movies, but we already talked about them. Because they're always on your mind. Yeah, kind of

Sam Bartleson 
about a video game segment. Part two, because I missed it

Nic 
so funny that you don't play video games to you.

Laura 
I play the classics like

Nic 
Tetris and Solitaire, which you're gonna tell me.

Laura 
You know, there was a period but not anymore. I was playing for a while. It's like a game on my phone. homescapes

Sam Bartleson 
nice. I know it. I know. I haven't played it.

Laura  
It's just repetitive and things flash a lot and whatever. But I haven't been playing that for a while but I did for a little bit that was like my go to for just sit around doing nothing. Yeah, as far as like game consoles and things no I don't have we have I think we have Xbox in house.

Nic 
Thank you. Thank you. I would expect I can even guess it. what they're called. Like, you know, it's x Xbox something. X. That's one I think a that's a that is one. An old one. But you know, honestly, I'm not even sure what the newest.

Laura 
I think my favorite was the Wii though.

Nic 
Yeah, that was pretty popular when really like that. I mean, we didn't have one.

Laura  
I was so good a week just to do the exercise things.

Nic 
Refit and like my skin scrawling I'm like, why would you do that when you could play the games? Because I was like, come on,

Laura  
has played. I don't Sam's planes do

Nic 
the same plays the same game.

Sam Bartleson  
Did you play the same game especially now? I like to say that we're in a bit of a gaming depression, even though there's so many games coming out, but they're not what I like to play.

Nic 
Yeah, there's a lot of like single player Apocalypse type games. Yeah, like a lot of that going on shooter looters. I

Sam Bartleson 
don't play that one

Nic 
of those. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I probably. So

Sam Bartleson 
I just don't see the I see the appeal, but I just doesn't do anything for me.

Nic 
Yeah, it's actually I mean, like the twilight of my gaming career is what I like to call it because I am now officially slower than I was when I was in my 20s And like, I can really tell I'm like, Well, isn't that neat? over dead you know, like, that's kind of what's happening to me. And same thing with fighting games. Like I used to love fighting games when I was I just cannot I'm not quick enough anymore to be good. And so it's it's weird. It's like it's like a sad little sad. Yeah. So now I just started playing like Monopoly go on my phone. It makes me feel good because there's no skill required. Yeah, but it is. It is strange. Like as I get older, I like those, like puzzle type games more much more than like, anything or like a Zelda right. I like that a lot more because it's not quite as you're not comparing your skill level to others. You're just out there, you know, having a good time, at your own pace and you can do things like I'm gonna build. I'm gonna build a house instead of you know, trying to kill everything. Whatever it is, you know, you can kind of do your own thing. And I like that more as I get older. So just warning and now saying, you know, it'll happen.

Laura 
She's good time. Yeah.

Nic  
That's hurtful. That's

Sam Bartleson 
although Peters is in his early 30s. And he still plays fighting games and

Nic  
he's doing well. He enjoys was late 30s. That's what I'm saying late

Sam Bartleson 
30s. Okay, I'll enjoy your time now, because it's common.

Nic  
That's common and like you'll notice it like in small ways, like it's very funny. Like, it's just like, shooters in particular. It's like you wracking time just a little bit slower just because a little bit slower. I remember used to I used to be great at like Halo two back in the day, and that's, that's a long time ago. But I was very, very good at that. And I have not been as good as a game at a game since it just hasn't been the same. And in some of its timing to like, I just have less time so I don't play them very much anymore. Like I used to, and that's part of it too. But, you know, still still, you know, like, how I figured out was Mario Party. In Mario Party, there's like different games you play and so one of them is like pressing as fast as you possibly can. And I used to be like a plus if this I could do it on the hardest difficulty whatever it was, I could hit the top like no problem. Just pressing the button as fast as possible. But now I cannot. And so it's like a really clear, clear indication that I'm getting older.

Sam Bartleson 
That's too bad.

Nic  
Only 40 in like, like two months in almost two months and then before two years old. That's crazy to me. So

Sam Bartleson 
feel about that.

Nic  
We're talking about video games. Should I feel Laura?

Laura 
You should feel great. 40s are great. All right. So think 40s are good. You stop caring so much about everything.

Sam Bartleson  
It's nice, not caring,

Nic 
but you care about system part. Do you care far less about what's not?

Laura 
You care for Alyssa what people think about urine things? It's pretty nice.

Nic 
Yeah. It's kind of like you're you're fully formed. You're coming

Laura 
if you're a video game player because then you can keep playing without caring what people think.

Nic  
Yeah. Yeah, that is actually that's very true. And then you know, some of the funniest moments I've had playing games with friends is just me being terrible at them. And so like, we used to do this thing where we would play the apex and I just bad deck game, and that's a game where you have to be on it. And you know, my friends are making fun of me for it. Yeah, I say I have ADHD. So it's like it's the worst game for me to play. Cuz I'm like oh my gosh, need a god Did you know it's cool, it's got green on it. Why are you looking at the gun? Look at the guy and like when can I use your ears? I have to listen to Are you kidding me? No, come on.

Laura 
Good stuff, but our interview

[Interview with Dr. Tun Myint starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR stay we have two minutes Chair of political science and international relations and professor of political science at Carleton College on the show. Welcome. Dr. Mann's.

Dr. Tun Myint 
Thank you.

Laura 
So the classes you teach are sound really high level. Can you tell us about what you teach in the students that you have in your classes?

Dr. Tun Myint 
I teach all level actually but I enjoy teaching high level classes because they are most discussion oriented and also having students or fancy classes are just fun. So I teach global environmental politics, which is a mid level class 200 level meaning from the first year to senior level students can take and then to senior level seminars I teach both of which are related to environmental issues. One is approaches to development that is dealing with social change. ecological change, but in their seminar in progress on social changes, and the other is a global social change and sustainability. That's right on into the sustainable climate related chain related politics and so on. So that seminar deal with the intro concept development to all the way to advance theoretical exploration. So students will write their own research paper on the topic they pick. In some cases, I also design non paper writing assignment in that term, I would require students who define sustainability problem and come up with a solution to solve it. And in that solution, they have to produce a prototype product. So it could be a backpack. A self charging backpack, or pedaling under the desk is the size machine while you are charging, working on the computer and things like that, sort of sort of that kind of definition you can define and although solve the problem, so that seminar is more fun in some way, because Minnesota spring term, the weather is nice students kind of distracted from all outside the activity so therefore, you will have a hard time writing papers. So in that case, I would just assign, we have to make something in the lab, like makers lab where machines and tools and everything's provided and so on. So that that's a advanced level seminar.

Laura 
That's very cool. That's really cool. Are all your students in person

Dr. Tun Myint 
right now? Yes, since in COVID, we were given a choice to do zoom hybrid and then also just face to face, and to face to face all the way through. I just don't like the Zoom teaching so much. Like interesting, interestingly, enjoy my Zoom classes. They said, Okay, so that was the first zoom class was in and 2020 right in the middle of the COVID. On it started. We all went into all zoom. So yeah,

Laura 
that's cool. And then so when did you decide that you wanted to get a PhD? And go into the academic route for yourself?

Dr. Tun Myint  
That was not planned. So I had to tell when I designed but I was generally interested in environmental issues because I was born and raised in a small village in northwestern corner of Burma, in orange, the name on Myanmar, in the Southeast Asia is a mainland on the mainland Southeast Asia. So I learned early on as a child all the way to the age of 12 where I lived in the village, the village have spent a lot of time collecting water, collecting firewood and hunter gatherer lifestyle, collecting food from the forest and also agriculture planting chili eggplant, tomatoes, wheat, sesame come so I learned all of those activities through my family. So I never was able to sort of switch from noticing and also understanding the importance of water issue, especially because water was the most time consuming activities in my village area because it's also dry zone which is what is recorded in the region. So in the dry zone, collecting water for animals like cows, horses, and pigs that you have at home, and although for host household, it would typically take about two to four hours for my family to get water from nears nearest week or lake depending on the season. So that issue stuck with me. And so I wanted to understand how people in their initial level or even in the global level, they can manage such an important resource like freshwater so I had that interest. So I did my master lash and environment a fair public affair, but with environmental issues as a primary interest. After I finished my master, I was more interested in big question like how people solve this infrastructure. pollution, water pollution, all of that. So I decided to apply for graduate program, PhD program at Indiana University Bloomington. And luckily I was accepted by a professor who was also leading the research program at Indiana University School of political theory and policy analysis. Our name is Elinor Ostrom. Vinson are from her husband, they focus on common pool resources CPS and how collective action problem at the local level contribute to success or failure of larger systems. So that really was my intellectual home where I started my PhD program. And I think partially my interest was in PhD was more of driven by conditions and questions that I was brought along throughout my study. So there was no any time frame or a point where I make okay I'm going to be so just to give you a low until now,

Laura 
okay, that's great. So your masters was that in my mark.

Dr. Tun Myint 
Master was, Oh, my degree in Bachelor master and PhD. All of those are done at Indiana. University. Okay, I left Myanmar in 98 Burma in 1980, after the high school, and I didn't have at University of Education.

Laura 
Well, that's really interesting. So do you still do work in your home?

Dr. Tun Myint 
Right now this year since 2021 military coup I won't be able to go back in 19 year here I was school students in Myanmar, and I was involved in student activism, overthrowing socialist, one party state for one party government system then, and so after the military coup, I cannot stay in Burma, Myanmar, so I left Burma in 1988. And then I came to the United States as a political refugee in 1993. So I started my education at IU from 93 on

[Democracy]

Nic 
yeah and so like you're in a kind of leads right into my next question. So your your work kind of follows a dynamic relationship between social change and global environmental changes, and it seems to be maybe influenced by how you grew up and what you've witnessed. Can you kind of talk us through what that work is and how your life has influenced what you go through today?

Dr. Tun Myint 
Yeah, so academically, I my first paper that I published was titled democracy in global environment and governance, so democratizing global environment and governance was a theme that I'm interested in because users on the ground like you and I, consumers are users of products. And material that we extract from nature and users on the ground have to have a key role in decision processes of environment and governance. So that was my interest because also the what I HV as in the village, you know, users who are water collectors, hunter gatherers, agricultural farmers who are using land forests, their decision have immediate and other long term impact on the forest fee, or river or a lake ecosystem. And so that was my interest why I started out with that paper came presented with that because the decision of individuals really is a key here. And then of course, a collective decision of communities and groups all the way to nation state to the global level is something that we have to handle. So the problem here is how do we organize such a collective vision that will give some sort of relief or solution to several climate change environmental related problems that are intertwined intricately intertwined with our own decision from like, what to eat for breakfast, right and what to wear, or how much time we want to spend on internet, right. And so, that's the kind of natural outcome maybe interest again, of my, my research, and so that will be where I begin to look at social changes, which is changes that we make decision to move from consuming one product to another is a suicidal decision or sometimes individual decision informed by suicide or education that we seek and so that makes me think, okay, ecological changes in social changes are simultaneously happening. It will go back all the way to the abandoning hunter gatherer lifestyle in beginning of Neolithic revolution with studying this sedentary agriculture system, right and domestication of plants, animals and fire, if you will. So from that point on, we have made a decision that is tied to our survival and our pleasure at the same time. At the same time, ontological survival and ecological dynamics are intertwined. So that to me was an exciting field of study. And that's how I get excited about teaching and research in this field.

Nic 
Well, you're not alone because I'm like, super curious. I think that's really cool. From a practical standpoint, so you talk about solutions to some of these issues. Are there things that your research has shown that is that works better in certain? Is it different political climates have different political needs or social and environmental needs? Have you seen that in what you look through?

Dr. Tun Myint 
Yes, to this specific thing, one is about forest in Fiji water bottle. The class that I teach on global environment, politics to another level class, I assign a group of students who pick a product, either the iPhone or a shoe Nike shoe, or a mango from Brazil that we get in the health food store here, and they come then I ask them to trace from the raw material stage to their hand and in some cases to the landfill where they will discard or put it in the recycling bin. So one of the projects during peak was Fiji water bottle, they decided to examine our Fiji water bottle. The water is available at the tap and then a college campus. You know, I mean drinking water is not that you don't need to buy if you don't want to. But Fiji water borer is one of the most expensive water that you can get when you go to the airport like a newsstand is right at your eye level when you look at the fridge in the newsstand, a news story book so so I was paying attention. So I throw that as an idea. So student trays with my technique from the raw materia note one to note n which will be in their hand so no one will be aware of raw material yes no to worry where manufacturing stage happen. No three transportation note four kinds of distribution. No five is retail store and note n is all the final note is in their hand. And now I ask them to sort of each know what are the input and what are the costs and benefits and costs and profit and the trades and then which note made the most money or the most profit? And then I also asked him to study what are the laws apply in each note like environmental regulations, and where are the environmental regulations imposed in the change which note and it turned out the majority of the environmental regulations are at the node where the least money is made, which will be like a raw material extraction stage right. But now at the node where the most profits is made, which could be headquarter in Los Angeles, where Fiji water is basically company is located and distributing and then they are making the most money out of it and that change. So if you look at almost all the communities, we find that legal mechanism that we apply are not really in line with economic and position, environmental and political and economic decision. Intensity is just in there. So basically, we're working in the wrong tree. So laws are made some trees and then the other environment issues are happening at different places. Right. So that was a one interesting finding. I initially published as presented as a conference and then published in a working paper and so on then I'm seeing working on and that line, and I can continue on the other project, which is in Southeast Asia. I can continue on talking about it if

Nic 
you have time. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, let's dive into it. I think it's really cool what the work you're doing and I'm I don't know if Laura has a follow up for Fiji at all. But yeah, let's dive into your next. Next project. No, go for it.

Dr. Tun Myint 
So the other one that interesting, what I've found was the reforestation due to our migration of youth in the rural community in throughout Southeast Asia and during Thailand, Vietnam, and now Burma or Myanmar. happening, this phenomenon is interesting in the sense that the younger generation of people who are introduced with cell phone and internet began to be interested in more of a lifestyle. So they're vandalizing the rural lifestyle, and they are now interested in continuing to find like, taking the land at their grandparents of their parents own and therefore they're looking for exit opportunities. So all migration from the EU area, and suddenly a boom and factory in Thailand, Malaysia and other countries. So factory jobs are available, and therefore there'll be a labor market emerge here and there'll be some intermediary companies that are moving people to work from Burma to Malaysia or South Korea or Thailand or Vietnam and things like that. So what happened to the rural area where youths are leaving is you are left with grandparents and young kid. And so the area that they used to farm like a hilly area or Valley area, or Montana agriculture that are harder to do them flat land next to the river basin, those areas begin to top up like reforestation, or so forests are emerging in this area. And byproduct of this migration is that we frustration and carbon sequestration definitely will be increasing in it. So in some sense here, urbanization might be a type of solution that we might be able to imagine if we structure oven system, more sustainable, more sustainable way or we sustainable our design system. And because we reduce a lot of transportation costs for the distribution of food and commodities through the market, when you have the stance of an area well structures of an area. But then that is finding and somebody does it but then I think about it in the context of highly developed society like United States and once you left the villages, you become white collar workers like lawyers and corporate, you know, workers. We work in Washington, DC. When you get rich, you then begin to think about second home in northern Minnesota for Kevin, upstate New York for Kevin so that that transportation distribution that I was thinking might not really be also helpful if we have one resident and at the same time, own it Kevin and area and so it's interesting phenomenon that I found this I published a short paper hypothesis be back in 2018. In Europe, on that note, which was an A splendid data, when I was looking at the data from 1964 to 2018. I found the more urbanized the country you are, your region governs emission got reduced, due to the urbanization, and that really Luckenbach show up in my data set. Whoa, this is interesting. So more RNAs you are you're more sustainable and since our emission level, but yeah, the other question as a political scientist that I kept thinking about it as we're creating basically like urban area to come in like a beehive model, everybody is fed well, but your freedom, your political freedom might be restricted when you are living in an urban system. But is it up for the debate because urban systems also provide more opportunity for social gathering like theaters and museums and parks and whatnot. So this is an interesting area that cut across Urban Studies, urban design, political science and question more than freedom in our new scene, if you will.

Nic 
Oh, gosh, I'm pretty sure Laura can see my gears turning because this is really cool. To me. So okay, there's all these dynamics going on. And I love the idea that when you become more urban, you get more rural areas, turning back into forests that's really, really unique.

Is there also a dynamic with agriculture as well? So is there less output now because fewer people are doing it? Is there a concern that at some point, that's going to be a really big challenge that we have to address or is it one of those things that kind of works out in different ways?

Dr. Tun Myint 
The best output in terms of organic food, okay, but industry have been caught into that niche right food production and therefore you lose this quality of food, because industrial agriculture is producing tomato that is not no longer like organic tomato. So that's really interesting phenomena. And so I wonder if industry agriculture can solve food shortage problem. With a less land Pure Land, I mean, less amount of land that we may need. That might be a sustainable future where more reforestation and more forests coming, but I doubt that will be the case, too, because looking at some of the early study in two dogs and study I did in Indiana, Rural County, Indiana, and the phenomenon of reforestation in Indiana from early 1900 to 2000. I looked at the data, and we wrote and published a paper together, five of us actually as agent based modeling paper. In that research I did I found the reforestation in Indiana was due to federal government forest program, I think it was if you own more than 10 acre, you can sign into the program and you pay like a tax like $1 for an acre because you keep the land for conservation purposes. Right. Right. So that government subsidized program, combined with citizens their livelihood changes because your Indiana Hoosiers at the time were moving to Washington DC for white collar jobs. They no longer want to work out in the farm in Midwest and now they get degree from Harvard Yale Law Schools and began this white collar young people and send them they also don't want to sell their grandparents land. They want to poop in the family, if you will more than 10 acre then a good program federal government program came up so they basically donated quote, unquote, or sign into that program and pay less tax and keep your land and then the forest be growing. And so that was one of the phenomenon that we found in Indiana. So if you know multiple entities begin to address such kind of problems and creatively there is a solution. I will say, Wow.

Nic 
I know I'm grinning. Okay,

[Volunteering]

Laura 
so what's incredible research. So you do all this research and have amazing discoveries and insights. You're also involved in a bunch of different committees. So I'm not even going to try to list them all you want to talk about a few of them and some
___________________________________
Laura 
Research and have amazing discoveries and insights. You're also involved in a bunch of different committees. So I'm not even going to try to list them all you want to talk about a few of them and some of the projects you're working on

Dr.Tun Myint  
in terms of environmental area on

Laura 
environmental or maybe even just some of the social ones and things that you're doing back in Burma.

Dr.Tun Myint  
So, I mean, my interest in democracy and the future of democracy, the future of agency of individual and freedom of individual, that is my interest. I became a United States citizen in 2013. And then since then, I was able to go back to Burma, and least once a year, or sometimes twice, and every summer I will do my field research in Burma, the National Park and agricultural farm and where I grew up, and things like that about environmental and food system, sort of related issues. That was really fun to do from 2013 to 2021. In February 2001 military coup happened in Myanmar, and now all the freedom in democracy were basically threatened and the coup in Myanmar. Well, we weeks before my adopted home United State phase January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and on that happened, it basically recall my memory of it at a student movement in Burma that I participated as close to it, there was a movement towards rule one party socialist authoritarian system. So I would participate in that. Now I landed in United States and the fusion became citizen. I voted in that election. And my alessian was my my vote on January 6 2020, was almost threatened. And in so that really was a reminder of the importance of democracy, the importance of freedom, importance of this individual agency of all of us, and so I was quite alarmed by January 6 insurrection. And as I was still thinking about digesting the coup in Myanmar happen on February 1 2021. So that led me into once a coup had been I got an email from some of my colleagues and students who went to Burma with me in those summer trips and few research trip I did from 2013 to 2020. And they all asked me what could we do? So I basically call for a Zoom meeting like this, and we discuss what can we do and we decided to support government workers in Myanmar who are walking out of their offices to break out military coup, because as you work out, of your office, you lose your paycheck. Right. So we need to support this movement. And so I and my colleagues established this 501 C three group to raise fund and to support this civil disobedience movement in Myanmar to support these workers or government workers who are wiped out in the coop. And so we started fundraising by this mutual aid in Yama. So mutual emr.org is the organization that we co founded. And since then, we have raised about 2 million in about 2829 months now. individual donors to support this democracy movement in general. And so that's a one site voluntary job that I do. Yeah,

Nic
how do you how do you write raise that much funding that's gotta be really consuming, challenging.

Dr.Tun Myint 
It was surprising to me how generous and also dedicated these global citizens are. My personal goal when we had that Zoom meeting was if we can raise $1 from each democratic citizen in the world, especially Europe, North America, we will be able to sustain movement in Myanmar. For at least one year to settle these, you know, so that would be about I calculate about 300 million is what we needed to support the civil disobedience movement everyone in your mouth quit the job. But you know, we we could only support so far. 20,000, CDN, participant and so on. So the money that donated individuals Family Foundation, or the corporation also have a matching program like Google and Apple and slack Foundation, invest slack is one of the only company that would match their employees donation to the mutual Manemma like one to one ratio. So that kind of donation and then several funding foundation or the donated and money individuals in order like my colleagues, who are individual professor would where you write 2000 check, you know, 1000 gone in like that. And so that's how we raised the money and it stayed going, but the movement in your mind is kind of noticed almost nearly three years is having a harder time to continue their stand in working out of the offices and losing job and everything. So we're still thinking about them and trying to help them out as much as we could.

Laura  
Yeah, how can people who are interested in supporting democracy in this effort like get involved,

Dr.Tun Myint 
you can donate and mutual me and my dog or although pay attention and although the global citizen of our community is well aware of the crisis in Ukraine, in relation to the invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian struggle for freedom and Burmese struggle, struggle for freedom are similar, but at the same time totally different. Is a sovereign nation being invaded by Russia? The bigger sovereign is sort of a classic international relation problem where the bigger nation would do whatever they wish to do or they want to do and then we go to suffer whatever they need to suffer or they need to take on, but in the case of Burma or Myanmar is a sovereign authority itself within domestic slavery authority. itself, or rather, the group that captured that sovereign authority is killing citizens civilians burning down homes and the bombing villages and just like in Syria style, like a scorched earth campaign right now going on. So the domestic sovereign force is basically abusing sovereign responsibility that is defined in WTO law, and that is what the difference is here. And so in essence, and the other is if you if we compare democratic outcome based on the percentage of voters and votes in November 2 2020 US election and November 8 2020. election, which is the election that the coup nullified the election, Yama is far more democratic than the one that President Biden and vice president Harris are now holding offices. So if you think hypothetically you are a US citizen, and I am if January 6, insurrection was a successful event. And let's say that Biden and Harris are both in present and almost all Congress men and women are arrested if they disagree with January 6 insurrectionists. Leaders, and let's say the arrested the torture, some of them murdered in prison, and a few of them left for Canada and Mexico. What the US citizen do, what would you do? Is the question that's hypothetical question. I could pose for the United States and in the United States, but in Burma, this is not hypothetical question. This is actual live they're facing. So they are taking up arms, the youth in Bromont Generation Z is taking up on and on trying to engage with the military. And so it's a civil war of some scale is increasing since the coup so that is a situation that the fate of democracy.

Laura  
I mean, that's that's probably the most powerful question anyone's asked us on this show. Like, I think myself and a lot of Americans don't want to think about what if that would happen, so we don't think about it. I think generally we should write the question is just waiting for us to stop talking.

Dr.Tun Myint 
Think of Generation Z Gen Z, which is leading the movement in Burma, your show is on environmental related issue. I mean, the democracy is a secondary to the existential threat that we're facing climate change, right. If we don't address the climate change issue, and this loss of the diversity of ecosystem issue, we can talk about any discipline that we're studying. Climate change is so Gen Z is facing this both two fronts. One is the threat to their or to our economy agency freedom of individuals, which coming from the rise of autocracy around the world populism, all that and that issue, and the climate change, which is a threat to their future, the future of everyone, basically, the planet. And so I think Gen Z's are not only smart, but also dedicated in Burma, at least in the context of revolution in Burma right now. And their concern is both the future of climate and the planet and the future of freedom. Both and I mean, if you think of young people who had to flee Hong Kong, right, China took over and what happened in Hong Kong as you watch in Seoul and media, right, and so people in United States young people in United States have never faced such kind of imminent question or pretty good event yet, but the gentleman sick was very close. And I know my students, some of my student cried on in my classes, when Mr. Trump was elected, therefore quite emotional about about that election. And so that's all I could say. So I could probably imagine what they would do if the thing like in Burma happened, it will happen by January 6, but it was unsuccessful event right now, basically, deconstructing the event systematically and institutionally said there is a good news, democracy if we do it right. And we allow it all elements of society play out, right. Without will less violence and maybe hopefully with no value at all, that would be great. But the United States as a whole is a great experiment for freedom of humanity in many ways. This country was established by people with people from all over the world, right? It's a great experiment in the same compared to other country where indigenous communities started their nation state and you know, comfortably moving along the line with history and but disrupted by colonial expansion of different powers, you know, the state kind of avoided all of which try to avoid all of which, and start as a new nation, a new nation for everyone, right? This is true, and it's fantastic. As a social scientist and political scientists, in specific like, this is exactly four and a half to four for the humanity to move forward with this institutional setting. That the setting that is now playing out in investigating that January 6, insurrection and what Mr. Crump and how he participated or not participated in this event.

Nic
Yeah. This is so crazy. There's no I hadn't even considered how that would be discussed or taught for some reason. You know, I'm out of school been out of school for a very long time. But now I want to go back just so I can talk about it. I think that's absolutely fascinating. And it's absolutely worth discussing for the reasons you brought up. You know, the line between what happened in pharma and here isn't as sick as we think. And that's a really powerful message. Wow.

Laura 
Sure. Well, thank you for that. Anybody listening? write that question down, have some food for us out there. But Let's lighten things up a little bit.

[Brewing]

Nic
We're getting to be or wherever Minnesota that's what I'm hearing. All right. Yeah.

Laura 
What's your favorite? What have you brewed so far? How long you've been doing it?

Dr.Tun Myint 
Oh, I I started brewing in 2016. I think winter around and so I like all kinds of beer. What I have now on tab is IPA and I have bread IPA, the sour IPA. Brown Ale Megan brown ale and then Bella Jim and then I was a banana bread because I had pre brought in.

Laura 
Sorry, I love banana bread beer.

Dr.Tun Myint 
It was it was really good. So banana bread because I had three rotten banana in the kitchen sitting there that rotten banana ketchup aroma into my beer so I did I decided to put in your making process.

Nic
Nice. That's fine. Yep, come out. Okay, did you like it

Dr.Tun Myint 
or is everybody my club? Lucky Yeah, that's

Nic
really cool.

Unknown Speaker 
Yeah club

Laura  
you guys all get together and bring your stuff to taste around and get feedback.

Dr.Tun Myint 
Every second Wednesday of the month. We bring our brood and then we crazy sometimes we get a little nerdy because we catch it two or three agree conscious

because, of course, you can listen to you know, nitty gritty detail. You know, it's really interesting hops and so on. Do you brew to any of you?

Laura 
I mean, I don't but I you know, I have several friends just in there all environmental scientists.

Nic
My brother does, you know, well, he did especially over COVID I mean, so and my uncle is really into it. Like really, really into it too. Yeah, and he was a park ranger for decades. So he's, of course still in the environmental field and doing very cerebral about it too. And you know, talk to he'll talk to you for days about you know, I use this kind of grain and I have roasted it in the sun for so many hours or whatever it is and you know, you're like, Oh, yeah. Punko Monica. Yeah.

Nic  
Yeah, no, but it's really great. I love it. And you know, as like happy accidents, where there was a glacier brewing in Alaska. I went there, and they had a blonde stout, which I'd never had before, which was really good. And they had like a raspberry beer which I would never in my life order. And they were like, we have both of those. But you can also order both of them together, like poured in together. And that was one of the best beers I've ever had. Because it just totally blew my mind on expectations. And the reason they even did it is because somebody thought it'd be really funny joke.

Speaker 3 
Party, a birthday party and someone poured them together like and they were like, you know, here's here's the raspberry drink or whatever and everyone was like wow, this is amazing.

Dr.Tun Myint 
Wow. Yeah, that's gonna drink. Oh, wow.

Nic
That's really cool. So yeah, so like I say if you if you start cranking your your club maybe, maybe we'll come up with a new

Dr.Tun Myint 
a new beer. Yeah, we can blend beer. Certainly we do plan sometime.

Laura  
Interesting. I like the banana bread with the chocolate stout.

Dr.Tun Myint 
Huh? Yeah, banana bread. I put chocolate milk too. Yes. Wow. It was really good and I the only thing I didn't cinnamon

Unknown Speaker 
didn't thirsty now. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

[Field Notes]

Laura  
Drinking for Friday. It's time for field notes. It's the part of the show where we talk to our guests about their memorable moments during work in the field. We can all connect on having some interesting moments doing stuff in the field, regardless of the situation. And we encourage you listeners to share your stories using the hashtag field notes. And so tune you have been in many parts of the world and doing really cool things. So how about any memorable things you wanna share with us?

Dr.Tun Myint 
Yeah, one was when I was doing research and living with the fishing community in Northeast Thailand, the region known as ESA region, which is also aware that most of great Thai dishes are born like love chicken soup is a Thai restaurant and so, so it's cook rich region. People are very creative, innovative with their own culture activities and daily activities. So I was doing research in 2000 and that is site is called Pat Moon Gam PK mun bottling dam. So I was studying the dam and it's a one of the only dam in Southeast Asia, which has a sluice gate which can be open or closed, depending on the water volume in the river or reservoir to adjust the flood movement of the water and then they installed well because of the fishing community were initially against it, because fish migration will be wiped out. And my interest was whether local community again users are the resources were incorporated into decision making process of that dam building project and the World Bank funded 10% of it and then remaining funded by Thai state. So I went to the community live with them and just basically observe what they were doing. And the against the solution from the state and the wall back for the fishermen's protest was to what they call it install fishing. And when the dam is in operation, fish can pass through the letter to the upstream and therefore the fish migration would not be disrupted. So the my critical question that I want to know was whether there fish letter work that you do as it was designed by engineers who study textbook on engineering and how to design fish letters, and they brought from that integration from the Western University most likely and go back to Thailand and they come up with the came up with this fetch letter. So I want you to stay in I have a few curious villager following me as I follow me so because also the SSC, that letter was prohibited by Thai authority, but I got permit to go into that. So there were some curious villager who never seen the letter fish letter before and in with me, so I went to this dam site and I was at the base of the fish letter, and I walked up to the letter, you know who's got canal which is a zigzagging pattern of a letter like water is contained within the red canal inside of the dam. So in the Midway, I was almost like tired from walking up to that. There's some of the villagers were also following me and so then I came down fish at the beach, and I curiously, Sam, have you ever seen fish you know, swimming through this and going into the reservoir side, you know, upstream side? They said no, one Yemen answer and then there was one woman who said to me this, if you are pregnant about nine months and you started climbing from the base of that letter that you started out, and do you think you'll be able to reach to the top? And that was her answer to my question. You've seen fish, right? It turned out my reading about these fish migration. is usually fish begin to migrate, especially fish with eggs in their belly, looking for spawning ground, where quiet and rapid for cave or small pond there'll be quiet where they can lay their eggs and then they will commute back to the river and their offspring will be you know, going in those little caveats on so this woman, somebody may have had her own pregnancy. And considering the fish with pregnant fish with eggs, we have to climb this lever letter up all the way to the reservoir. I thought that was the best answer I ever get. In my field note right here. This woman never been to school like beyond her village school, and was able to answer the graduate student who had a PhD dissertation. It took me several days to really appreciate I mean just Randy and I just appreciate how the wisdom of this local people who what we will call it tacit knowledge, knowledge that is embedded with their experience, their life they're doing they're experiencing that knowledge we as a scientist can only observe and capture and sort of report back to our community. There. I think about the knowledge that somebody intrinsically owned through life experiences and the knowledge we gained from books and classroom lectures and things like that. But we also worship if you will, policymaker kind of take these observers knowledge as a legitimate authority in decision making process, but the women's knowledge that she has or to me, is illegitimate knowledge. It was never peer review never reported in perfect format. I could only describe that in a story in my writing. Knowledge wasn't as bedded in the whole process of dam building in that dam project in Thailand. And so and so I was thinking here is the problem of disregarding local users, life experiences and knowledge is indigenous knowledge is one here in the United States as well. So that became a question we need to pay attention to. So that to me was a story that worth sharing. And I keep thinking about it. And I work in thinking as well as I teach is written reading books and peer review and regurgitating those to my students, versus what if I go and do it and then gain my own or understanding that right? So that kind of testing knowledge I mean, just to expand further to what that tests acknowledge the power that Texan knowledge is, I mean, I could never write or transmit accurately, the birthing experience of a woman. Even if a quantum computer or AI generated software. brain moves level thinking emotional reaction to the birthing experience and certain level in joint movement and pain. That machine to measure write neatly kind of record those and issue this flashy graph and show that this is how the brain movement and this is how the muscle movement and joint movement all that is your this is what the birthing feel like look like if I write it I must be joking, right. That level of textbook knowledge man can never really explain know, yet we respect that man's knowledge, but if you will, a decision a source of decision making authority and that to me is a problematic one, especially for environmental governance in all kinds of environmental management. Here, yeah.

Nic
Totally agree. It's a great story.

Laura  
Yeah, it is. And I love to hear so many more stories, but we're running out of time. Is there anything else you would like to talk about that we didn't get to mention or didn't get to today?

Dr.Tun Myint 
I think you do. Fantastic. Thanks for asking those questions. Of course. Yeah.

Laura 
Thanks so much for being here. If people are interested in talking to you more about your projects, or even some of the volunteer work and social work that you're doing, where can they get in touch with you?

Dr.Tun Myint 
You can share my email in your podcast. Also, my profile is link is given to you so you could share that. But if you check Calvin College and type in my name, you'll find me as well. And the President, I have Facebook, I have Twitter, and also my profile is there too.

Laura 
Okay, fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today and we hope we'll get to chat with you again soon.

Dr.Tun Myint 
Thank you for having me.

[Outro]

Nic 
And that's our show. We thank you tune for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. See you everybody.

Laura
Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai