President Biden on Tuesday established two recent national monuments in Californiathe newest in a series of major environmental initiatives affecting the Golden State as his presidency involves a detailed.

Biden designated Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California, south of Joshua Tree National Park, and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California, east of Mount Shasta near the Oregon border.

Chuckwalla consists of 624,000 acres of federal land, most of which is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. There, the Colorado and Mojave deserts mix to form a combination of scenic mountains and canyons, home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and chuckwalla lizards. Sáttítla is a 224,000-acre national forest within the distant landscapes of Siskiyou and Modoc counties, a landscape teeming with bald eagles, black bears and salmon. Together, the 2 areas are larger than Yosemite National Park.

Both sites are sacred to local tribes who pushed for monument status, allowing logging, mining and other extractive uses reminiscent of mining. B. restricts energy production.

“The breathtaking canyons and winding trails of Chuckwalla National Monument represent truly unparalleled beauty,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the primary Native American to function Cabinet secretary. “I am so grateful that future generations will have the opportunity to experience what makes this area so unique.”

The Sáttítla Monument, which incorporates portions of the Shasta-Trinity, Modoc and Klamath National Forests, was a top priority for the Pit River Tribe, situated in Burney, northeast of Redding.

“For generations, my people have fought to protect Sáttítla, and today we celebrate the voices of our ancestors being heard,” said Yatch Bamford, Chairman of the Pit River Nation.

However, not everyone agrees with the brand new monuments.

Last summer, when the thought of ​​a Sáttítla monument first gained traction, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Yuba City, whose district includes the realm, said he opposed it since the designation would mean more regulations and restrictions on the land What has already happened was a seek for geothermal developments.

“They just want to lock everything down so that hardly anyone can access it,” LaMalfa told Redding Record Searchlight in July. “These are not the friends of rural California.”

Town leaders in Blythe, a town of 18,000 near the Chuckwalla Monument area, opposed it because they feared it will limit large-scale solar energy development.

But on Tuesday, a significant California solar industry organization said the boundaries appeared to have been drawn in a way that will don’t have any impact on transmission lines or solar plans.

“Solar development is taboo in much of the desert,” said Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-Scale Solar Association in Sacramento. “I understand your concern. But at the moment we do not share this concern. We do not believe the monument will hinder solar development.”

Biden was scheduled to go to Gov. Gavin Newsom in Thermal within the Coachella Valley on Tuesday afternoon and provides a speech in regards to the monuments. But resulting from dangerously strong winds in the realm, his flight was canceled and White House officials said a ceremony could be held in Washington DC next week

Tuesday's moves were the newest in a wave of environmental actions Biden has taken on the request of California leaders before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

On Monday, Biden closed 625 million acres of federal marine waters to recent offshore oil and natural gas drilling, including all federal waters off California, Oregon and Washington, in addition to your complete Atlantic Coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

In November, he closed the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary and banned oil drilling along 156 miles of coastline along San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. It was the most important recent national marine sanctuary in California in 30 years, since President George H. W. Bush established the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 1992.

Last Friday, the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency gave California permission to implement its zero-emissions rules for lawn mowers and leaf blowers and to permit tougher recent emissions rules for refrigerated trucks and off-road vehicles reminiscent of mining trucks and bulldozers. The decisions, referred to as waivers, give California the authority to set rules under the Clean Air Act which might be more expansive than federal standards.

In December, the EPA granted California a waiver from the state's landmark pollution rules for cars and trucks, which ban the sale of recent gasoline-powered passenger vehicles reminiscent of cars, pickup trucks and minivans by 2035.

Trump is predicted to attempt to roll back the EPA exemptions, which can likely end in a lengthy court battle. In a radio interview on Monday, he said he would also reverse Biden's ban on offshore oil drilling. However, in accordance with a 2019 court ruling, this requires an act from Congress, where Republicans have a really narrow majority of 219-215 within the House of Representatives and will not have the mandatory votes.

Only Congress can create recent national parks. But under the Antiquities Act of 1906, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt to curb looting and theft of Native American pottery and artifacts in New Mexico and other areas, presidents can establish national monuments on existing federal lands by proclamation without congressional approval.

Monument designation often brings with it recent conservation regulations that restrict mining, oil exploration, or other development. Almost every president has used the law to create monuments, which in lots of cases Congress eventually converted into national parks.

Roosevelt used it to put aside the Grand Canyon and in addition Pinnacles in San Benito County; Herbert Hoover used it to guard Arches, Utah, and Death Valley, California; Bill Clinton decommissioned Sequoia National Monument and George W. Bush used it to guard vast areas of the distant Pacific Ocean, including the deepest place on earth, the Mariana Trench.

Originally published: January 7, 2025 at 9:41 am PST

“Uncommon Courses” is an irregular series from The Conversation US that presents unconventional teaching approaches.

Course title:

The Archaeology of Buddhism

How did the concept for the course come about?

I took over this course from a colleague after I began my position as an assistant professor here on the University of Illinois at Chicago. Over the years, the course content moved further away from the who, what, when and where of Buddhist objects and monuments and focused more on the why and the way of Buddhism becoming considered one of Asia's most vital religions.

In particular, I ask students to reflect on a puzzling query: If Buddha believed in impermanence, why are there so many images and monuments dedicated to his ideas?

What does the course examine?

This course begins with the Teaching story from the lifetime of the Buddhafrom his early years as Prince Siddhartha Gautama to his development right into a famous ascetic and spiritual teacher who was revered during his lifetime throughout what’s now northern India and Nepal.

We then restart the timeline to look at the fabric evidence used to support the claims, where he was born, grew up, attained enlightenment, and at last died. Answering these questions raises some very interesting ideas, reminiscent of whether the rise of Buddhism was a response to the political, social and economic problems of the time.

Recent archaeological research at sites related to the lifetime of Buddha has led to political feud between India and Nepal, each of which try Claim ownership about his birthplace.

The second half of the course examines what happened after the Buddha's death, how Buddhism developed and took hold in various cultures in South, East and Southeast Asia.

An necessary a part of this section is to see how monasteries functioned and interacted with their local communities, and likewise what influence Buddhism had on the event of technologies that shape our world today. For example, the The woodcut press was developed for copying sacred sutras in China in the course of the Tang Dynasty. It is considered one of the primary examples of mass production of printed matter in human history.

Finally, the category visits local museums to see first-hand the range of Buddhist objects, reminiscent of memorial stone slabs referred to as Votive steles created by donors to make merit, sacred containers that supposedly held fragments of the Buddha himself, and thighbone trumpets that were played in funerary rituals. In addition to the sweetness, variety, and craftsmanship of those works, these visits give rise to discussions about how these things got here to be within the United States and the necessity to think about their lawful repatriation to their native land.

Why is that this course relevant now?

Two central concepts that appear time and again on this course are openness to discourse and recognition of the usefulness of a middle path. Successful Buddhism Expansion beyond India was directly related to the power to integrate into other cultures.

We take a look at examples of monasteries, like Nalanda in East Indiawhich function places of debate and dialogue between religions. The exchange of opinions and knowledge expands our understanding of humanity – past and present – and enables growth.

Learn about the Middle Way of the BuddhaA lifestyle that recognizes and overcomes the extremes of asceticism and hedonism offers a option to live a life in balance.

What is a vital lesson from the course?

When we ask ourselves how Buddhism acquired such a big material presence in archaeological finds, we must understand how a faith manages to survive over time. Religion is as necessary to individuals because it is to societies and sometimes becomes a vital instrument of state power. Countless Examples from the past emphasize how kings and customary people cared for the Buddha and later for monks and nuns by giving land, food and donations.

For the elites, donating money to monasteries and monuments is an enrichment of their individual merit, but may also as a method of enforcing power by becoming “Buddha-like” within the eyes of the masses. This fact makes us think more generally about how patronage today advantages the patrons, and we see how politics and economics are at all times present in a faith.

Despite the somewhat contradictory proven fact that there are literally thousands of ancient Buddhist monuments throughout Asia, the category also ultimately learns an indisputable fact about culture: it’s each ephemeral and continuously changing.

What does the course prepare students for?

In addition to gaining an understanding of where to go to explore Buddhism’s past, students learn a vital skill to make future museum visits more enjoyable: the power to tell apart the meaning of seemingly an identical seated and standing Buddha statues from their Hand movements alone.

In our fast-paced and overstimulated world, we are able to all profit from the power to understand and understand small details and nuances of life.

K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil knew his story.

For eleven generations, the dynasty of the Mayan ruler Copan had ruled, a city-state near the present-day border between Honduras and Guatemala. From the fifth century AD to the seventh century AD, scribes painted his ancestral family trees in manuscripts and carved them into stone monuments throughout the town.

Around 650, a special piece of architectural history seems to have caught his eye.

Centuries earlier, village masons built special structures for public sun-viewing ceremonies—ceremonies timed to coincide with the solstice, similar to the one that can happen on June 20, 2024. The construction of such architectural complexes, which archaeologists call “E-groups,” had largely gone out of fashion by K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's time.

But to appreciate his ambitious plans for his city, he seems to have found inspiration in these astronomical public spaces, as I even have seen in my research on ancient Mayan astronomy in hieroglyphs.

The innovations of K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil are a reminder that science changes through discoveries or inventions – but occasionally also for private or political reasons, especially in precedent days.

Looking on the horizon

E-groups were first inbuilt the Maya region as early as 1000 BC. The site of Ceibal on the banks of the Pasión River in central Guatemala is one such example. There, the inhabitants built a protracted, plastered platform borders the eastern edge of a giant plaza. Three buildings were arranged along a north-south axis on this platform, with roofs high enough to protrude above the rainforest cover.

In the middle of the square, west of the platform, they built a radially symmetrical pyramid. From there, observers could watch the sunrise behind and between the structures on the platform all year long.

At one level, the earliest E-Group complexes served very practical purposes. In Preclassic villages where these complexes were found, similar to Ceibal, several hundred to several thousand people made their living from “milpa” or “slash-and-burn” agriculture. still maintained in pueblos throughout Mesoamerica today. Farmers cut down scrub vegetation after which burn it to fertilize the soil. This requires careful attention to the rainy season, which in precedent days was tracked by the position of the rising sun on the horizon.

However, most sites within the Classic Maya heartland lie in flat, forested landscapes with few notable features on the horizon. To the viewer standing on top of a tall pyramid, all that’s striking is a green sea of ​​flower crowns.

By interrupting the horizon, the eastern structures of the E-Group complexes might be used to mark solar extremes. The sunrise behind the northernmost structure of the eastern platform might be observed on the summer solstice. The sunrise behind the southernmost structure marked the winter solstice. The equinoxes might be marked halfway between them when the sun rose due east.

Scientists are still discussing Key aspects of those complexesbut their religious significance is well documented. Finds of finely crafted jade and ritual ceramics reflect a cosmology based on the 4 cardinal directionswhich can have been coordinated with this 12 months's E-Group division.

Dwindling knowledge

However, the residents of K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil were probably less attuned to direct remark of the sky than their ancestors.

By the seventh century, the political organization of the Maya had modified considerably. Copan now had 25,000 inhabitants.and agricultural technologies also modified to maintain pace. The cities of the classical period practiced several types of intensive agriculture which relied on sophisticated water management strategies and mitigated the necessity to meticulously follow the sun's horizon movement.

E-Group complexes were still installed within the classical era, but were now not aligned with the sunrise and served more political or stylistic purposes than the representation of celestial views.

Such a development, I believe, remains to be relevant today. People listen to the changing seasons and know when the summer solstice occurs because of a calendar app on their phone. But they probably don't remember the science behind it: how the lean of the Earth and its path across the Sun make it appear as if the Sun itself is moving north or south on the eastern horizon.

United through ritual

By the mid-seventh century, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil had developed ambitious plans for his city – and astronomy offered a strategy to help realize those plans.

He is thought today for his extravagant burial chamberan example of the success he eventually achieved. This tomb is situated in the center of an impressive constructing, in front of which the “Hieroglyphic Staircase“”: a record of the history of his dynasty, which is probably the most extensive single inscriptions in ancient history.

K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil looked for tactics to remodel Copan right into a regional power and sought alliances beyond the local nobility. He turned to the encircling villages.

Over the last century, several scholars, including myself, have studied the astronomical component of his plan. It appears that K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil commissioned a series of stone monuments or “stelae” to be erected throughout the city and within the foothills of the Copan Valley, and followed the sun on the horizon.

Like the E-Group complexes, these monuments involved the general public in observing the sun. Viewed together, the stelae formed a countdown to a very important calendrical event orchestrated by the sun.

In the Twenties, archaeologist Sylvanus Morley discovered that from Stela 12 within the east of the town, one could watch the sunset behind Stela 10 on a hill to the west twice a 12 months. Half a century later Archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni realized that these two sunsets defined 20-day intervals relative to the equinoxes and the zenith passage of the sun, when the shadows of vertical objects disappear. Twenty days is a very important interval within the Mayan calendar and corresponds to the length of a “month” within the solar 12 months.

My own research showed that the dates on several steles also commemorate a few of these 20-day interval events. Moreover, all of them result in a 20-year event called the “Katun End.”

K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil celebrated this katun end and set in motion his plans for regional hegemony in Quirigua. a growing, influential city about 30 miles away. A round altar there bears a picture of him commemorating his arrival. The hieroglyphic text tells us that K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil “danced” at Quirigua, thus sealing an alliance between the 2 cities.

In other words, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's “sun steles” did greater than just track the sun. The monuments brought communities together to witness astronomical events and thus share cultural and spiritual experiences across generations.

Collectively appreciating the natural cycles that make life on Earth possible is something that, I hope, won’t ever exit of fashion.