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EL ESPECTADOR

Cuba Faces A Big Environmental Question After Castro’s Death

An agricultural project in Cuba
An agricultural project in Cuba
Juan Pablo Ruiz Soto

-Analysis-

In his half-century as leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro oversaw grand changes on the island. In the wake of his death, new changes may — or may not — be on their way under the helm of the late leader's brother, President Raul Castro.

Nowhere is the future more uncertain on the island nation than on environmental questions. Most land in Cuba belongs to the state, which means the government decides how it is used. Potential investors from China, U.S., and Europe see an economic opportunity in Cuba to turn that land into profit. But it's an endeavor that's highly risky, not least for Cuban citizens themselves.

What will become of Cuba's rich agricultural land? Who will reap the profits from harvesting the land or renting it out — or selling it for new construction projects? How will natural resources be used? And how will this use affect sustainability?

Castro's Cuba was a place of sometimes extreme experiments. These ranged from shockingly large-scale sugar cane farming, which involved pumping the land with pesticides, to present-day ecological initiatives that have contributed to local food autonomy.

Castro's speech to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 clearly reflected this contradiction. He offered an excellent analysis of the state of economic inequality among countries, while denouncing rampant energy usage, consumerism and waste in rich economies that was destroying the environment. Castro urged a fairer distribution of wealth and payment of the ecological "debt" through transfers of clean technologies and resources to boost sustainable development in poorer countries. His vision broadly anticipated some of the provisions of the Paris climate change agreement last year.

But Castro's speech also revealed the holes in his vision. He did not elaborate a clear alternative to the communist perspective. And he failed to criticize communism's own contributions to environmental destruction, locally and globally. He forgot to mention the poor health of workers working and living in highly-polluted factories and cities in communist countries.

Castro's death gives rise to big social, political and environmental questions for Cuba. Which way will the country go? Will the country offer its fertile and largely abandoned land to multinational companies that would use industrial methods to harvest the area? Or will Cuba promote an agrarian economy and organic farming, even in cities, to boost conservation and food sovereignty?

Cuba has experience in both those approaches. So far, no one can predict which way it will go. Either way, there's a lot at stake for ordinary Cubans and the world at large.

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Future

AI Is Good For Education — And Bad For Teachers Who Teach Like Machines

Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.

Journalism teacher and his students in University of Barcelona.

Journalism students at the Blanquerna University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

© Sergi Reboredo via ZUMA press
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ - Early in 2023, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates included teaching among the professions most threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), arguing that a robot could, in principle, instruct as well as any school-teacher. While Gates is an undoubted expert in his field, one wonders how much he knows about teaching.

As an avowed believer in using technology to improve student results, Gates has argued for teachers to use more tech in classrooms, and to cut class sizes. But schools and countries that have followed his advice, pumping money into technology at school, or students who completed secondary schooling with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have not attained the superlative results expected of the Gates recipe.

Thankfully, he had enough sense to add some nuance to his views, instead suggesting changes to teacher training that he believes could improve school results.

I agree with his view that AI can be a big and positive contributor to schooling. Certainly, technological changes prompt unease and today, something tremendous must be afoot if a leading AI developer, Geoffrey Hinton, has warned of its threat to people and society.

But this isn't the first innovation to upset people. Over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher Socrates wondered, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, whether reading and writing wouldn't curb people's ability to reflect and remember. Writing might lead them to despise memory, he observed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English craftsmen feared the machines of the Industrial Revolution would destroy their professions, producing lesser-quality items faster, and cheaper.

Their fears were not entirely unfounded, but it did not happen quite as they predicted. Many jobs disappeared, but others emerged and the majority of jobs evolved. Machines caused a fundamental restructuring of labor at the time, and today, AI will likely do the same with the modern workplace.

Many predicted that television, computers and online teaching would replace teachers, which has yet to happen. In recent decades, teachers have banned students from using calculators to do sums, insisting on teaching arithmetic the old way. It is the same dry and mechanical approach to teaching which now wants to keep AI out of the classroom.

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