Perennial: The Undergraduate Environmental Journal of Berkeley - Issue 3

PERENNIAL Spring 2021 | Issue No. 3

THE UNDERGRADUATE ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNAL OF BERKELEY

MOMENTUM

Dear Reader, A decade ago, 41 percent of Americans thought that protecting the environment should be a top priority for the president and Congress. Today, that number has grown to 64 percent. Underlying this change are a variety of factors: the majority of Americans now experience local impacts of climate change in their own communities, and an increase in climate education and activism has led to broader public awareness of the climate crisis. In 2019, millions of people around the world took to the streets to participate in the global youth climate strikes. In New York alone, 250,000 people attended the rallies.

While more people are calling for change, we have yet to translate these movements into transformative action. Despite overwhelming public awareness, climate action has been severely lacking. A recent United Nations report found that governments are nowhere close to meeting their Paris Agreement goals, and in 2019, 84 percent of the world’s primary energy consumption was still powered by fossil fuels. We need to build on the momentum of movements like the climate strikes to catalyze systemic change.

For this issue, we chose the theme “Momentum” to highlight how people can carry that momentum forward in their own way. When we think of how we can address the climate crisis, we often think of individual actions like recycling or minimizing one’s carbon footprint. While these are important, we must shift our focus to large emitters and demand that they create and institutionalize broad-ranging, systemic solutions. This can mean putting pressure on governments, corporations, and industries like transportation, education, and technology to implement wide-ranging, innovative sustainability and decarbonization solutions. Individuals have the power to call for systemic change: for instance, student activism contributed to the University of California’s decision to fully divest from fossil fuels in its $126-billion investment portfolio.

“Momentum” means more people are adopting a sustainable mindset to their work, even if their field is not “traditionally” seen as environmental. The climate crisis is an existential threat that affects everyone—regardless of identifiers like political ideology, ethnicity, or nationality—but disproportionately impacts low-income and BIPOC communities globally. In order to create widespread momentum that can meet the challenge of the climate crisis, we must emphasize how taking intersection-

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al climate action can lead us on a growth trajectory that prioritizes the health and wellbeing of people and the planet. Integrating climate action into multiple sectors can bring a plethora of opportunities to different fields.

In this issue, we highlight numerous ways different sectors can carry the momentum forward. This can include institutionalizing innovative policies, adopting sustainable business models, investing in green technology, revolutionizing agriculture and the food industry, and building green cities. Through these actions, we can address historical environmental injustices and create a more equitable, just, and sustainable future. While this issue explores a few approaches, there are countless opportunities to drive and create momentum.

Despite yet another challenging online semester, Perennial has continued to grow and make an impact. We engaged with our readership base on multiple platforms, garnering over 4,000 impressions and 1,500 issue reads in this semester alone. We pushed our boundaries, whether it be facilitating our first environmental journalism DeCal course or reimagining environmental education through Yale University’s Global University Climate Forum. We continued to diversify our online content and expand our influence beyond Berkeley: we now accept research paper submissions from university students globally, and we are actively building partnerships with student organizations at other universities. Overall, we envision becoming a more dynamic multimedia publication to better educate the public and spur environmental action.

As you read this issue, we encourage you to imagine the world you want to live in and what role you can play to help make that a reality. Through this collection of articles, we hope that we have challenged perceptions of what environmental action can look like. No matter what field you work in, you can help drive the lasting momentum we need to build an equitable, just, and sustainable future.

Sincerely, Jasmine Chen and Celine Yang Editors-in-Chief

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1.

Letter from th

3. EDITORIALS 5. The Environm Gunawan

8. Impact of C 12. Fast Fashio 15. Sustainabl Pelliccio

19. Sustaina 23. UC Gree 27. Commu

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MOMENTUM

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49

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he Editors

mental Impacts of PPE - Michelle

COVID on Food Security - Natalie Walzer on and the Environment - Andre Zendejas le Eats Around Berkeley - Christina

ability Model of Guayaki - Mina Burns en New Deal - Jacqueline Cox unity Solar Programs in California - Ingrid

es

d: Finding Hope During a Climate Crisis -

ie Park

Ed: Ecocritism - Khaled A

esearch ranberry Bogs Forever: Investigating American Farming Practices in Oregon - Sydney Lee Schmitter

The Supply Chain of Wine in Northern California: The Future of its Production - Sydney Stephens 9. Embodied Knowledge in Mongla Bay, Bangladesh - Hamzah Jhaveri 54. Fires & Ambivalence: Understanding Students’ Attitutes and Actions Toward Climate Change Lauren Marie May McCormack

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YOU CAN’T RUSH PROGRESS Creating a UC Green New Deal Under the Pressure of the Climate Crisis

by JACQUELINE COX

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As an institution that prides itself upon being at the forefront of progress and activism, the University of California is currently reckoning with voices of frustration from the UC Green New Deal (UC GND). The UC GND is a statewide coalition that is encouraging the University of California to radically improve their current approach to climate justice, as a spin-off of the federal Green New Deal championed by Congresswoman Alex-andria Occasio-Cortez.

As the largest employer and landowner in Califor-nia, the actions that the University of California takes could impact and inspire the state’s climate policies in the future. The UC Berkeley GND is one of 10 branches in a statewide organization com-posed of students, staff, alumni, faculty, and gen-eral community members that is pushing the old-est branch of the UC to use its position of power to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.

that would be the basis for their policies.

General demands of the UC-wide Green New Deal include:

“

sustainable energy infrastructure, climate/disaster resilience, curriculum overhaul, basic needs, land management and housing, food system and waste management, ending public-private partnerships, union labor, tuition and funding, representation at the table, and transparency

Following a report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2019 that the earth will warm an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030, the UC declared a climate emergency.

How-ever, many students are demanding tangible ac-tions rather than bold statements, given the ur-gency of the climate crisis.

(@ucberkeleygnd on Instagram).

The UC GND is inspired by the federal Green New Deal policy package proposed by Representative Occasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey in Feb-ruary 2019. Some cities, including LA and Seat-tle, have since formed their own versions of the Green New Deal that include comprehensive cli-mate justice policies.

In November of 2019, stu-dents held a town hall meeting in Wheeler Hall of UC Berkeley’s campus, where panelists spoke and attendees gathered in small groups to discuss the potential of a UC Green New Deal and estab-lish their demands. Based on these demands, the town hall’s organizers drafted a preliminary proposal

A primary goal, and point of significant contention, for the expansive UC GND is the incorporation of environmental justice into the policy platform. Emma Centeno, a Berkeley undergraduate student and department co-lead for the UC GND, said that environmental justice has always been a focus for Berkeley’s branch, but the UC-wide coa-lition posed more of a challenge.

For Berkeley’s campus, there is a greater focus on local issues, such as basic needs, the housing cri-sis, resiliency against wildfires, and the "Pour out Pepsi" campaign.

“It’s been a tough process,” Centeno said, “some people end up drop-ping out because of the burnout they face.”

As a national document, the Green New Deal em-

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phasizes a just transition to a more sustainable future. But for the UC GND, some coalition members worry that incorporating ‘too much’ environmental justice will increase the likelihood that the Regents and Chancellors reject their proposal.

ASUC Senator Sarah Bancroft, whose office is home to the UC GND Department, said, “the issue comes up when we work with other sustainability-minded people who don’t have the same priorities or understanding of environmental justice.”

Centeno said that the debate falls mainly along lines of group identity, with undergraduates and union members advocating for an EJ framework, and professors and PhD students more concerned with sustainability and energy.

UC Berkeley coalition members, including Centeno, have also expressed their frustrations with the structure of the UC-wide coalition, specifically its hierarchy and the lack of transparency from its leadership in the early stages. According to Centeno, “it branded itself as grassroots, but if you know anything about grassroots organizing, that’s not it.” Centeno, alongside students from other UCs, brought their concerns to the coalition heads, and they have seen some improvement.

However, the coalition still does not have equal representation from all the UCs, which is a point of contention moving forward.

Once the policy proposal is finalized and present-ed to the Regents and Chancellors, Centeno is confident that the UC GND can rally student sup-port.

The coalition has continuously worked to expand its base, holding open monthly meetings for students to join and provide their input.

However, Centeno said that a concern moving forward is that the Regents will “pick and choose what they want to implement like a menu,” most likely leaving environmental justice policies out of the package. For example, a provision like COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment)

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For All, which calls for in-creasing the salaries of Graduate Student Instruc-tors (GSIs) to accommodate for increased housing prices, is less likely to pass.

According to Senator Bancroft, the Regents will most likely support “the least expensive policies that uphold the status quo of UC power relations.” The longevity of the UC GND is a concern as well; since many student ad-vocates are graduating in the coming years, new members must fill their positions to ensure the policies are implemented.

Despite these challenges, the UC GND has made considerable progress, and the coalition is cur-rently solidifying their platforms to present to the Regents. In general, the issue of climate justice is gaining momentum across multiple institutions. The Academic Council and the University Committee on Planning and Budget both endorsed a resolution for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to review the UC’s current insurance companies to ensure they follow Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles. The Chair of the Ac-ademic Senate Mary Gauvain discussed the importance of being fossil free, rather than simply carbon neutral, at a meeting with the Regents. As more university powerhouses endorse the goal of climate justice, the UC GND’s platform becomes all the more compelling.

Still, the UC GND is calling on the Regents to take bold steps, instead of just lending to the cause.

Students are aware that this will take more than a single victory.

“You can’t rush progress,” Centeno said. “It’s not about checking boxes, it’s a careful process.” So racing against the urgency of climate change, the students of the UC Green New Deal continue to work tirelessly, pushing the Universi-ty of California to live up to its words and become a progressive model in the fight for climate justice.

by NATALIE WALTZER At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Annika Levaggi gave out free vegetable starts, educational materials, and food at the UC Berkeley Food Pantry. As the Berkeley Food Institute and Campus Gardens Coordinator of Berkeley Student Farms, coordinating between the producers and distributors of food enabled her to provide aid to the surrounding community throughout the pandemic.

The pandemic has increased both poverty and food insecurity, creating a heightened need for reliable and affordable food. Low-income is the

primary cause of food insecurity, and the pandemic has pushed an unprecedented number of people into extremepoverty, an estimated 88 to 115 million people in 2020 and an estimated 150 million by 2021, according to the World Bank.

As limited financial resources impact households’ decisions about food, many are affected by food insecurity, which is a state of inconsistent access to the affordable, nutritious food necessary for a healthy lifestyle. About 40 million households in the U.S experience food insecurity and impoverished households are more likely to Fall 2020/Perennial 10

experience food insecurity than those above the poverty threshold.

But Berkeley Student Farms (BSF) has picked up the gauntlet to address food insecurity. Throughout the pandemic, BSF has provided aid to the Berkeley community, from donating food to the UC Berkeley Food Pantry to creating an outdoor space for people to safely gather.

“It’s pretty funny to think about what it’s grown into now, just because the campus garden community was pretty small before BSF,” said Levaggi.

Having helped found BSF in 2020, Levaggi explained that “Once they [the formative leaders of BSF] graduated, there was this need to weather graduation cycles to create a coalition that was really resilient, as well as supported educational and experiential opportunities.”

BSF has grown exponentially since then, now boasting hundreds of members, eight on-campus gardens, and a variety of educational programs.

More importantly, it provides a unique space and community to learn about and sustainably grow nutritious produce.

One of the pillars of BSF’s agricultural practices and philosophy is agroecology, a field of study that applies ecological principles to agricultural production in order to create food systems that are environmentally, economically, and sociologically sustainable.

Agroecology combines a scientific framework, new technologies, and Indigenous practices of regenerative agriculture to optimize biological interactions between organisms and agricultural production.

“One of the most famous systems is the milpa system, which is corn, beans, and squash,” said Aaron Saliman, manager of the Student Organic Farm Association (SOGA) and BSF member. “The squash has these big leaves so it shades out weeds. The corn is a really good high-calorie food, which provides a trellis for the beans. The beans then get red nitrogen for everyone.”

While these practices may seem new, they have a rich history.

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“Agroecology is just the name that we give to Indigenous food systems with a regenerative [agriculture] approach that is simultaneously sustainable and productive,” said Saliman.

Acknowledging that these techniques didn’t all come from modern science could be a way to honor these practices, and even for some to reclaim the power they have lost.

“The Ohlone [people] would build shell mounds all around the Bay, and they were these sacred sites.

These sites were targets of colonization: they were ground into calcium-rich fertilizer, and then applied across the Central Valley to start up this process of industrial agriculture in California,” said Levaggi.

The current food production system has environmental consequences, as it represents 17 percent of fossil fuel use in the United States, according to a study by Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future.

The study also points out that this method is highly energy inefficient, with the average U.S. farm using 3 kcal of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 kcal of food energy. Energy use is even less efficient in meat production: the typical feedlot beef production using 35 kcal to produce 1 kcal of beef protein.

Industrial agriculture also contributes to many forms of environmental degradation, including biodiversity loss, topsoil depletion, and air and water pollution.

These agricultural practices have induced negative socioeconomic consequences. The study highlights University of California anthropologist Dean MacCannell’s statement: “Depressed median family incomes, high levels of poverty, low education levels, [and] social and economic inequality between ethnic groups, etc [are] associated with land and capital concentration in agriculture.”

This current system is also detrimental to human health. This is because the most common agricultural products are grown from monocultures that not only decrease biodiversity, but are also used to make highly processed food that are rich in fat, sugar, and refined grains. These products go through production processes and travel much farther to get from the farm to the table than pro-

“I see food and agriculture as being really foundational exploitative systems,” said Levaggi.

[But] on the flip side, it presents this opportunity to reclaim what you eat, how you grow, and who grows it.” duce that comes from local farms does.

However, there are many solutions to making agricultural systems more environmentally and socially sustainable. One such proposed solution is local farming. Local farms can create closer connections between producers and consumers and decrease the energy used in transportation and processing, thereby decreasing the environmental impacts of agriculture.

Local farming could also help improve health outcomes. A Washington State University study found that positive health outcomes, including lower rates of obesity, diabetes, and mortality, were correlated with a higher availability of local food.

Yet, farming locally and sustainably outside traditional agribusiness institutions comes with challenges. “The divestment from the support system for local farmers and commodification of food into cheap, nutritionless stuff makes it hard to be an honest farm,” said Levaggi.

The United States Department of Agriculture only subsidizes five crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice. It also requires land to be farmed organically for three years before it can be certified as an organic farm, which can be costly and disincentivize farmers to go organic. Expansion of subsidies to cover a greater diversity of crops could encourage more local and organic farming.

Other fundamental changes to current food systems may help lessen their environmental impact and improve human socioeconomic systems.

Agroecology and local farms may be a tools to

make these changes, but there are many other avenues being explored to make change.

Technological innovations, like vertical farming, increase agricultural output with limited resources. Vertical farming boasts increased crop yields with 95 percent less water, zero pesticides, and reduced space that could make it ideal for cities.

However, it is costly and may primarily cater to more affluent populations.

Changes in consumer attitudes may be another powerful tool for improving food systems. As more people adopt plant-based diets that drive down meat consumption or make other conscious efforts to be sustainable, producers may react to cater to new demand.

“I see food and agriculture as being really foundationally exploitative systems,” said Levaggi. “[But] on the flip side, it presents this opportunity to reclaim what you eat, how you grow, and who grows it.”

From large-scale changes in agricultural systems to agroecology, there’s potential to make food more environmentally and socially sustainable. As the COVID-19 pandemic brings certain issues within agricultural systems to light, new coalitions are inspired to address them.

If BSF demonstrates anything from the large impact it has made in such a short period of time, it is the contagious and revolutionary spirit of agroecology. The more momentum these ideas gain, the greater potential there is for tangible change.

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Not On Sale:

Paying the True Price of Fast Fashion

Sustainable fashion collage (Financial Times)

How have the ecological and moral impacts of fast fashion changed what we wear?

by ANDRE ZENDEJAS Over 200 years from now, the world as the human race knows it may cease to exist. The ecology, society, and culture of the earth will likely evolve and transform in a variety of ways.

Yet the fabrics and textiles from centuries-old clothing will sit unchanged, in landfills around the globe.

“Fast fashion” is often cited as one of the primary culprits.

People around the globe are estimated to collectively 13 Spring 2021 / Perennial

consume up to 80 billion new pieces of clothing every year.

Such high rates of fashion consumption have led to a number of negative ecological impacts, influencing the underlying structure of consumer culture throughout the world.

garments were items that people held onto for a longer duration of time. Nowadays, the availability of cheaper clothing in larger volumes has prompted individuals to buy and dispose of their clothes at higher rates than ever before.

Fast fashion refers to the collective process, from design to manufacturing to marketing, of the rapid production and distribution of clothing in high volumes. Historically, clothing

It may not be as obvious while one is at the checkout line in their favorite store at the mall, but the collective impact is significant. The garment industry produced 11.2 tons of textile

waste within the U.S in 2017, as projected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The production of these clothes also makes a significant environmental impact. For instance, the World Resources Institute estimated that it takes 2,700 liters of water to produce a single cotton shirt. Moreover, projections from the World Bank estimate that textile dyeing and fabric processing are the cause for nearly 20 percent of all water pollution.

The scale of consumer demand for large quantities of clothes has only increased in recent decades. The volume of clothing that the average person purchased in the United States increased each year over the last two decades. As clothing is purchased more frequently, with trends rising and falling each year, the resulting amount of waste has consequently increased. The United States alone has been estimated to produce over 11 million tons of textile waste each year.

Fashion trends change rapidly, pressuring consumers to stay on par with these trends. The need to communicate social status, power, and wealth all play into the function of fashion, as noted in the book "Eco-Friendly and Fair" by Mark Huer and Carolin Becker-Leifhold. In an interview with Claremont McKenna College, Dr.

Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, a lecturer and researcher at UC Berkeley, highlighted the reasoning behind the appeal of fast fashion to the consumer.

Drawing from her expertise in human rights and business within international development, Banerjee said, “The rampant consumerism and wasteful society that we are living in means that a lot of the time, people are literally throwing away clothes to stay on par with the new influx of fashion seasons.”

The rise of fast fashion induced fundamental changes in how clothes were designed, manufactured, and marketed to the everyday consumer. In his book, “The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry,” Nikolay Anguelov explains that while the past was characterized by eight major seasons such as Spring and Winter, modern fashion today witnesses a division into 24 seasons. According to Anguelov, this includes “such new classifications as ‘back to school,’ ‘prom,’ and even ‘wedding’ — a separate late spring ‘season’ for when most young people purchase special outfits for weddings, which tend to be popularly scheduled at that time of the year.”

The consumption of apparel is also often dependent on prices.

“People want to be able to dress well, but not everyone can afford

“The US alone has been estimated to produce over 11 million tons of textile waste each year.”

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Clothing Recycled (Tim Mitchell and Lucy Norris) the price tag,” said UC Berkeley student Genevieve Porter. Clothing designed directly in anticipation of popular trends, at a more affordable price, creates a product that is much more accessible and appealing to the average consumer.

purchasing decisions and are indicating a willingness to consume fashion in a more ethical manner." Consumers are demanding more sustainable practices, prompting major fashion companies to take more action.

As the ecological impacts of the fashion industry have become more well known, the relationship between clothing producers and consumers has changed.

According to Heuer and Becker-Leifhold, changes in where and how people are buying their clothes reflect how "a growing number of consumers are expressing serious concerns about the impact of their

Major clothing manufacturers are being affected as consumers increasingly explore more ethical and sustainable options. The clothing chain H&M, one of the world’s largest clothing manufacturers, announced back in 2018 that it would be closing more than 100 locations. This was following four billion dollars in unsold merchandise.

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According to a Nielsen poll, an estimated 73 percent of millenials expressed interest in paying more for products that are more ethical and sustainable. This number is expected to increase as awareness of the issues within the fashion industry increases in conjunction.

Major changes in consumption patterns can be seen with more people looking towards resellers and secondhand clothing stores for their apparel and accessories. For instance, Depop, an online-based reselling platform, has accumulated five million users as of 2019 and is expected to reach 15 million users by 2022.

UC Berkeley student Charles Paltzer recognizes that there has been a change in the relationship between fashion consumers and their clothes. “There’s a renewed interest to support more domestic labor, as people are realizing that oftentimes the labor sourced for major corporations is violent and exploitative,” said Paltzer. The success of startups such as Reformation and First-Rite Clothing illustrate this demand for new clothing manufacturers to adopt more ethical and sustainable manufacturing processes.

When examined holistically, fast fashion as it exists today cannot be entirely erased. For instance,

the affordability and accessibility of major retail products provides clothing to those who need the lower prices. “The solution has to go beyond just banning fast fashion and forcing people to buy sustainably; we have to address the larger issue of economic inequality,” said Porter.

The road to making these changes is one encompassing multiple groups and figures. “A combination of private initiatives, multi-stakeholder initiatives, corporate initiatives, and consumer pressure is ultimately necessary to make a change. One focus or one avenue is not enough,” said Dr. Banerjee. Con-

sumer choices must work in conjunction with government regulations in order to achieve tangible changes to the ways clothing is manufactured.

Fast fashion will likely continue to persist in the foreseeable future. However, consumer choices increasingly reflect the interest to act in more ethical and sustainable manners. These choices provide a basis of hope for a future where the clothes hanging off the racks at the mall fulfill the status, style, and gratification of fashion, but without the negative ecological impacts seen today.

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Sustainable Eats Around Berkeley Following the Farm-to-Table Movement in Berkeley

by CHRISTINA PELLICCIO “We are built on the idea that eating food that’s as fresh as possible is the ideal,” said Varun Mehra, manager of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, a restaurant that has been largely celebrated for its local and organic food since its opening in 1971.

“There’s a pretty long history,” Mehra said, explaining the vision that Alice Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse, had 50 years ago when she sought to introduce the French style of “market cooking” to Berkeley. As one of the first “farm-to-table” restaurants in 17 Spring 2021 / Perennial

the nation, Chez Panisse sparked the 2000s. Now, farm-to-table a movement across the country restaurants and programs are to promote local food sourcing. available in over 30 states, with a significant number of locations The farm-to-table movement in the Berkeley area. focuses on serving local food by buying directly from the produc- Since its recent expansion, this er. This method incorporates a movement has had a considerform of “food traceability” into able impact on sustainable food the food industry, allowing con- sourcing and preparation in sumers to know exactly where the U.S. food industry. Producing and consuming food locally their food is coming from. eliminates the need for food to Due to the large success and be shipped long distances, thereinfluence of Chez Panisse, the by decreasing fuel consumption farm-to-table movement grad- and greenhouse gas emissions. ually grew before exploding in Because locally-sourced food

is always fresh, there is also no need to add preservatives, meaning that consumers can enjoy their meals knowing that they contain only natural ingredients.

In addition to its environmental impact, the farm-to-table movement also has a positive impact on the local economy.

Farm-to-table restaurants and programs always deal directly

“

CSA is a food distribution system that connects farmers directly to consumers. Consumers buy shares of a farm’s harvest, in turn receiving produce weekly as crops are harvested. Consumers typically buy annual or quarterly shares, but some programs offer monthly or weekly memberships.

In Berkeley, there are a number of established CSA programs, some of the most notable being Brown Girl Farms, Black Earth spe- Farms, and Acta Non Verba.

In the Berkeley area cifically, the farm-to-table movement has emerged through three main avenues: community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, on-campus student-run gardens, and sustainable restaurants that source food locally.

In addition to this farm-to-consumer method, the movement has also grown to include farmto-student options, even on Berkeley’s own campus. One notable example of this is Berkeley Student Farms (BSF), a coalition of eight student-organized gardens on campus that prioritize sustainable and

” “

with the farmer they are sourcing from, so the money you spend buying food from a farmto-table establishment goes directly to local farmers. Supporting local farms is a great way to increase the availability of locally-grown and organic food in your community.

In the Berkeley area, the farm-to-table movement has emerged through three main avenues: community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, on-campus student-run gardens, and sustainable restaurants that source food locally.

equitable food distribution.

A lot of the food that is grown at these gardens goes directly to students, with BSF donating around 50 percent of their produce annually to the UC Berkeley Basic Needs Center Food Pantry, which offers emergency food relief to students, faculty, and staff.

BSF also makes sustainability central to their food produc-

tion by supporting agroecology. Through agroecological farming approaches, BSF focuses on “fostering healthy soil communities, conserving resources, and promoting biodiversity of the surrounding natural landscapes.”

The last main approach of the farm-to-table movement in Berkeley follows the farm-torestaurant model, in which restaurants work directly with local farmers to buy fresh and flavorful ingredients. Some of the most popular farm-to-table restaurants in Berkeley include Chez Panisse, Gather, and Cancun Sabor Mexicano, to name a few.

Mehra explained that they have been working with a network of small farmers since 1971 to serve entirely local food. “At this point, we buy locally from somewhere between 80 to 100 farms a year, mostly from this one farm that’s called Canard Family Farm,” he said.

In addition to this farm-to-consumer method, the movement has also grown to include farm-tostudent options, even on Berkeley’s own campus.

One notable example of this is Berkeley Student Farms (BSF), a coalition of eight student-organized gardens on campus that prioritize sustainable and equitable food distribution.

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Vegetables on the table (The Holbrook)

UC Berkeley also has farm-to-table restaurant and café options, such as Brown’s Café and Golden Bear Café on campus. Sunil Chako, Cal Dining Assistant Director of Commodities and Purchasing, explained that although purchasing directly from local farms is challenging for the campus, Cal Dining makes an effort to buy from distributors that source locally.

“We source products from approved distributors with stipulations to provide us with as many products that fall under UCOP sustainability food sourcing criteria,” said Chako. “Our distributors, especially produce suppliers, provide us with as much local produce available. I would say 90 percent of the produce comes from various small farms 19 Spring 2021 / Perennial

ods of farm-to-table production have been incredibly successful in recent years, it is also importSunil also acknowledged some of ant to note that the movement is the challenges with pursuing the by no means perfect. Many barfarm-to-table method on cam- riers to sustainable farming still pus, such as the unfixed avail- exist. ability of food at all times. “Farmto-table direct purchase is rather For example, the farm-to-table challenging since most small/ movement can be a less affordmedium growers do not have the able option for consumers. It is bandwidth to offer steady supply very expensive for small farmers and delivery capabilities,” Sunil which produce local and organic said. “Nevertheless, we always food to compete with large-scale entertain and welcome ongoing farms, so their prices for produce discussion with various farmers can be higher than average. and producers for any future A recent study in the Washingprospects and encourage our ton Post takes a look at this issue, distributors to work with small comparing food prices at grocery stores and farmer’s markets. For businesses.” a haul of “cage-free eggs, cheese, By addressing these challenges, mushrooms, salad mix, and both Sunil helps shed light on the fact organic and conventional strawthat although these three meth- berries,” the local grocery store and collectives, such as the Coke Farms Collective.”

Entrance of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California (Eater)

price in the study came to be Another obstacle for farm-to-ta$31.37, compared to $64.62 at the ble restaurants is that they have local farmer’s market. to constantly change their menu in accordance with the seasons.

At farm-to-table restaurants, this Because they only use localresults in the food being general- ly-sourced and organic ingredily more expensive in comparison ents, not all foods will be availto restaurants that do not source able and fresh at all times. their ingredients locally, and not all consumers can afford these Mehra explained that the seasonal availability of ingredients does higher prices. not necessarily need to be seen in Varun Mehra agreed that this is a a negative light for restaurants challenge that Chez Panisse and like Chez Panisse, which changes other farm-to-table restaurants its menu every day. “That things in Berkeley do face, but argued are seasonal and not available all that lower prices are not a viable the time is actually what works to our benefit,” said Mehra. “We option. only serve the [ingredients] when “We’re paying the cost of food they’re really delicious.” that allows those farmers to have a living wage and for them to be There is also some criticism over able to pay their employees a liv- the authenticity of farm-to-table ing wage,” said Mehra. “The cost establishments. Some restauof ingredients does create access rants have been found guilty of issues, which is a challenge that’s claiming they follow the farmcertainly worth addressing, but to-table method to attract cusI don’t think that the answer is tomers and increase prices, even less expensive food because in though they are not actually usthe end, we want to pay people ing local ingredients. In 2016, the what their work is really worth.” Tampa Bay Times published a series of articles reporting on how

many farm-to-table restaurants were using frozen and non-local goods.

In regards to problems associated with sustainable and small-scale farming itself, the extreme lack of institutional help for small farmers, the difficulty of finding locations for farms, lower yields in comparison to large-scale farms, and the lack of funding for research on agroecology all create challenges for local farmers.

Reflecting on these obstacles associated with farm-to-table, it is clear the model has some room for improvement. However, despite these challenges, the movement has helped incorporate the idea of sustainability into our food systems, significantly impacting the food industry over the last few decades.

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The Environmental Costs of Protective Equipment

by MICHELLE GUNAWAN Throughout the month of September 2020, thousands of volunteers participated in the California Coastal Commission’s annual coastal cleanup.

Thousands of pieces of trash were collected on beaches along the California coastline — the usual cigarette butts, food wrappers, and straws were among the top trash items found.

However, this year, a new category of trash was found: masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) were ranked 12th out of all categories of trash collected. PPE is now essentially as common as many other plastic pollutants.

21 Spring 2021 / Perennial

“We picked up more than 9,000 [PPE] over the course of the month, which is astonishingly high for an item that has only recently been introduced into our society,” said Eben Schwartz, the Marine Debris Program manager of the Commission.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a myriad of problems, but the trash it has produced and its environmental threats are often overlooked.

New public health measures and practices have skyrocketed the usage rates of single-use disposable plastics, exacerbating the ongoing plastic

pollution crisis around the planet — and the Bay Area is no exception.

The threat of the virus has warranted the need for PPE, primarily disposable masks and latex gloves for personal safety, with their use being mandatory in California public spaces. Similarly, many food businesses have emphasized the use of disposable plastics for safety. The increased reliance on takeout services, for example, has necessitated a greater distribution of plastic bags, utensils, and packaging.

Large amounts of these plastics are being improperly discarded and washed into the Bay via stormwater drains.

When it rains, plastic debris is washed into the stormwater system and discharged without treatment in almost all Bay Area cities, with the exception of San Francisco.

up eating plastics. The plastic ingested by marine wildlife not only directly affects these animals, but also progressively travels up the food chain when eaten by larger animals — including humans — a phenomenon known as biomagnification.

Additionally, marine wildlife is threatened by the possibility of being entangled in plastic trash. The Marine Mammal Center, a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center headquartered in Marin County, CA, has found that ocean trash and plastic entanglements disproportionately affect the young seal and sea lion patients they care for. “[Entanglements] cause life-threatening constrictions around the heads, necks, and bodies of marine mammals as they grow,” stated Adam Ratner, the Center’s Associate Director of Conservation Education.

“Intelligent and curious, seals and sea lions can see trash as something to eat, investigate, or play with—not knowing that this new object could end up being fatal.”

“We picked up more than 9,000 [PPE] over the course of the month, which is astonishingly high for an item that has only recently been introduced into our society.”

“Just like other trash, PPE doesn’t always end up in the proper disposal system and garbage cans,” said David Lewis, the Executive Director of Save the Bay, a nonprofit organization in Oakland working towards protecting the San Francisco Bay from environmental threats. “Everything that’s on the roads ends up in the Bay from that stormwater.”

PPE and other COVID-related plastic trash poses the same environmental threats as all plastic pollution. The plastic in disposable masks and gloves is not biodegradable and will persist in the environment for generations.

“Plastic never goes away,” asserted Schwartz.

“And it’s created using a whole host of different toxic chemicals that can leach out into the environment and at the same time can absorb other toxic chemicals.”

In marine environments, these toxic chemicals can cause adverse effects on animals that end

The full scope of PPE plastic pollution’s effect on the environment remains unclear. “More research is needed to fully understand the impacts of discarded PPE gear since the onset of the pandemic on marine wildlife,” stated Ratner. The Marine Mammal Center acknowledges the threat PPE poses but, due to COVID restrictions on gatherings, has been unable to thoroughly study its effects.

This issue is not unique to the Marine Mammal Center. While organizations around the Bay are working hard to combat PPE pollution, the pandemic has placed many constraints on their normal operations of community outreach, including the prevention and reparations of the effects of increased plastic pollution.

The California Coastal Commission has had smaller volunteer events, dropping from 80,000 volunteers in a single day to 14,000 in the span of a month in Fall 2020/Perennial 22

2020 for their annual Coastal Cleanup event. Save the Bay, on the other hand, has suspended all volunteer programs due to safety precautions and moved its operations entirely remote.

The pandemic has also inhibited progress towards plastic reduction on the political level. Bay Area cities — Berkeley, in particular — have facilitated a progressive movement of legislation banning or limiting single-use plastics in the past few years.

This progress has been undermined not only by the increase in PPE and plastic pollution, but also through the loosening of preventive laws.

The most notable example is California’s Plastic Bag Ban, which was suspended for two months in 2020 for safety precautions. As a result, “Plastic bags jumped back up into the top, after having fallen out of it for the last four or five years… both in anecdotal [evidence] and in our data from the cleanup,” said Schwartz.

and bays and the ocean,” Schwartz stated.

Nonetheless, the pandemic still limits the ability for policy to discourage plastic use, especially that of PPE. Health officials continue to cite that PPE is still essential for public safety, and disposable plastics are still used as safety precautions at most restaurants and grocery stores.

“It’s challenging because, obviously, we don’t want to discourage people from protecting themselves.

I want everybody to take precautions so that the pandemic ends and so that people don’t get sick,” said Lewis.

“The idea isn’t that [PPE] is this harmless piece of trash that we just dump on the ground.”

However, policies like the Plastic Bag Ban elicited visible changes in the amount of plastic bag pollution in the environment prior to COVID, suggesting that policy could still prove to be a viable solution. Legislation efforts in California towards addressing plastic waste issues are underway and advocates seek to target several aspects of the plastic pollution problem.

“There’s a lot moving forward on regulating plastic pollution in all of its different forms, like banning specific items,” said Schwartz. “Banning single-use to-go foodware is a big movement here in the Bay Area, especially Berkeley.”

Similarly, efforts have been made towards preventing trash from polluting bodies of water, such as the SF Bay. “There are new regulations in our stormwater systems that are supposed to require cities to prevent trash from being discharged from stormwater systems into creeks and rivers 23 Spring 2021 / Perennial

He also speculated that the desire to limit exposure might make community members less likely to pick up and properly dispose of PPE litter once it has been used. “Even if there’s a small chance that it’s carrying a virus, people might be reluctant to do it.”

Still, community members are encouraged to use and dispose of PPE wisely. Individuals can try to use reusable PPE, such as reusable masks, as well as avoid single-use plastic as much as possible within public safety guidelines. “Ultimately, a littered item will be seen less when less of it is being used,” remarked Lewis.

Spreading awareness of the issue may be the most feasible and effective way to mitigate the issue of COVID trash. However, amid the many other problems communities are currently facing due to the pandemic, the significance of the environmental threats of PPE and other disposable plastics may be lost.

“The idea isn’t that [PPE] is this harmless piece of trash that we just dump on the ground,” Schwartz affirmed. “It’s a synthetic material that adds to the overall plastic load that we are dumping into our environment, every single day.”

Are Brands like Guayakí and Patagonia the Future of Green Business?

by MINA BURNS It’s another beautiful day in Northern California, and you’re sitting on the beach, basking in the sun’s rays. Reaching inside your cooler, you pull out a cold Yerba Mate and crack it open, savoring the satisfying pop of the can.

Your experience is not alone; Guayakí’s Yerba Mate is gaining popularity, having become a household name in recent years. What isn’t as well known is the production process behind the drink—a socially and ecologically regenerative way of producing yerba mate.

With the founding of Guayakí in 1996 on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus, Alex Pryor—along with Californian David Karr—introduced the “drink of his people,” Argentinian yerba mate, to the local community. Yerba mate is considered a healthier form of consuming caffeine and is largely seen as being healthier for the planet too. Seeking to combat the issue of deforestation, South American grown mate leaves are cultivated alongside the existing rainforest. Shade grown yerba mate defies the conventional ideas that come to mind when thinking of a plantation. In-

stead of clearing away broad swathes of rainforest that are rich in biodiversity, growing yerba mate under the shade of trees in the rainforest helps preserve the existing flora and fauna, establishing a harmonious, rather than destructive, relationship with nature.

Guayakí offers a market-driven solution to the pressing issue of deforestation. Globally, the total tree cover loss from 2015-2020 was about 10 million hectares. Looking specifically at the Atlantic rainforest in South America—which is where Guayakí Yerba Mate is grown—over 92% of the forest has been lost in the past century. Many rainforest protections have been dismantled by political pressure, as deforestation is considered economically advantageous. Shade grown yerba mate, however, can provide an incentive to maintain forest cover. Although it is not a perfect solution, regenerative farming contributes to the preservation of the natural rainforest.

The Guayakí business model has harnessed the driving power of the free market to help steward and restore over 174,000 acres of South American Fall 2020/Perennial 24

Atlantic rainforest. By maintaining a symbiotic relationship with these rainforests, the company is contributing to carbon sequestration in forests and soils, as well as protecting natural water supplies and rainforest biodiversity. Deforestation is a strong contributor to anthropogenic climate change and tackling it in novel ways, such as in combination with business, may help address this issue.

Gretchen Gani, Guayakí’s Regeneration and Sustainability Lead, discussed the importance of environmental awareness in a business model.

Speaking to the issue of sustainability, Gani said, “corporations need to contribute to regenerating communities and ecosystems. . . we can’t leave it up to the government and nonprofits.” A number of social and environmental principles enable Guayakí’s model of market-driven regeneration.

“We have locked regeneration into the way we do business. . . [Guayakí] meets high standards for sustainable government, treatment of workers, community, and environment,” explained Gani.

One possible explanation for why Guayakí has grown to household recognition is that “consumers want to feel good about their purchases.”

Of course, as with the majority of sustainable business models, there are barriers to reaching complete sustainability within Guayaki’s model.

Latin America is an export-based economy, mainly shipping agricultural and mining exports. As a result, many of their products are transported to other countries, releasing greenhouse gas emissions. When looking more closely at greenhouse gas emissions across the agricultural supply chain, most emissions come from land use changes (such as deforestation) and farming. Other aspects are proportionally smaller, with emissions from processing (4%), transport (6%), retail (3%), and packaging (5%). It’s important to note that the type of product purchased, rather than how far away it’s sourced from, is likely to have the most impact on the carbon footprint of an agricultural import.

Guayakí has addressed some of these issues with their distribution emissions. Currently, about half of their shipping fleet is electric, while the other half still runs on traditional fossil fuels. There is

25 Spring 2021 / Perennial

still progress to be made in an imperfect model of sustainability, but there’s a clear focus on environmentalism within Guayakí.

Looking at another brand with sustainable practices, Patagonia, we find many similarities. This clothing brand was founded in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard, who has incorporated a message of environmentalism into the company since the start.

Patagonia gained popularity due to the quality of its gear and clothing, which are suited for the outdoors, and for its sustainable business model.

Currently, 64% of the clothing materials are made from recycled fibers. All of the cotton grown for the clothing line is organic, saving water and reducing CO2 emissions by 45% compared to conventional cotton farming. Also, over 550 farmers are part of Patagonia’s Regenerative Organic Certification pilot programs, which encourage switching to organic and low-till practices that build healthy soil and draw carbon back into the ground. Regenerative farming aims to rehabilitate soil, respect animal welfare, and improve the lives of farmers.

In 2002, Chouinard co-founded the non-profit 1% for the Planet. Patagonia was the first company in the world to donate 1% of its annual net revenue to nonprofit organizations that promote conservation and sustainability which has amassed to a total of over $116 million since they began.

Currently, the nonprofit has over 3000 members pledged to the cause and over $270 million have been raised to help the environment.

In 2013, Chouinard launched $20 Million and Change, which is “an internal fund to help like-minded, responsible start-up companies bring about positive benefits to the environment.”

Chouinard detailed the inspiration for creating this holding company in his announcement letter, writing, “economic growth for the past two centuries has been tied to an ever-spiraling carbon bonfire. Business—and human—success in the next 100 years will have to come from working with nature rather than using it up.” This sentiment is reflected in the company’s goal to use 100% renewable and recycled raw materials by 2025. Additionally, Patagonia has succeeded in using 100% renewable energy for its operations in the United States.

A common thread between both Guayakí and Patagonia is their focus on fair trade labor and providing workers with a living wage. This is an area that Guayakí has emphasized, with the company providing over 850 living wage jobs to Indigenous people and small-hold producers in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina by 2020. Receiving, in some cases, double the market price for shade-grown yerba mate, producers are guaranteed a living wage while also maintaining the ability to steward and restore their land. In these communities, the sale of yerba mate sustains over 180 families with many of them gaining better access to healthcare and education as a result. This is just one example of market-driven regeneration, as some of the profits from Guayakí’s Yerba Mate are invested in these communities.

In the case of Patagonia, we see a clear level of transparency and a focus on improvement in the treatment of their workers. By 2020, 49,200 factory apparel workers earned a Fair Trade premium for their labor for the company. Additionally, around 82% of the clothing line is Fair Trade sewn, which impacts over 72,000 workers.

However, based on a recent assessment of their entire assembly, only around 35-45% of the apparel assembly factories for Patagonia are paying their workers a living wage. The majority of their products are made overseas in 14 different coun-

tries, including Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and China.

Although these workers may earn the minimum wage in their respective countries, this typically isn’t enough to afford adequate food, water, housing, healthcare, education, transportation, childcare, and other essential needs. At the same time, however, one of Patagonia’s mission statements is “Providing a Supportive Work Environment.”

In their most recent Benefit Corporation Report, the company stated, “Patagonia has made the commitment to confirming that living wages are paid to all workers making our apparel by 2025.”

This would require paying higher wages to the 65% of their apparel workers not currently receiving a living wage. Although an ambitious goal, if it’s accomplished within the span of a few years, improvements in the lives of their workers could serve as a model to other companies.

In recent years, sustainability has become an important factor in the minds of many consumers.

Companies such as Guayakí and Patagonia have thrived in response, taking on environmental issues as their own responsibility. Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard believes in the idea of corporate action: “businesses have a responsibility to the planet, we all do.” And Guayakí’s David Karr hopes to encourage the action of others: “the greatest influence we’re going to have as a tribe or as a collective is to inspire rather than to have to do it all ourselves.”

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Sun Valley: A Microcosm of Environmental Justice in the Clean Energy Transition Can solar energy policy address environmental justice concerns?

By Ingrid Morales I. The Leak On August 21st, 2020, in a small, predominantly Latino community of Los Angeles, concerns about a 67-year-old power plant operated by the city’s Department of Water and Power (DWP) caused NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to notify the DWP about a possible methane leak at the plant. As it turned out, the Valley Generating Station (VGS) had been leaking methane for over a year before the notice.

The VGS is located in Sun Valley, California, a highly industrial residential neighborhood that is heavily burdened with dozens of landfills, waste facilities, and polluting sites. This includes the 27 Spring 2021 / Perennial

The Valley Gen Station (Ingrid Morales)

auto-dismantling junkyard “Pick-Your-Parts,” as well as trucking companies and the privately-operated Whiteman Airport. Consequently, residents of Sun Valley and the nearby Pacoima neighborhoods have some of the worst air quality and negative health effects in the state.

Sun Valley also happens to be my hometown. My family, including my sister and her family, still live around that area. My parents reside about a mile away from VGS. They, like many residents of Sun Valley, were outraged to hear the news about the leak, especially since Norm Cahill, the director of power supply operations, admitted in an August 2020 DWP Board of Commissioners meeting that officials had known about the leak for over a year

without feeling the need to notify the nearby residents.

The demographics of Sun Valley are significant to note in regards to this methane leak. According to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard’s assessment tool, CalEnviroScreen, Sun Valley residents have a pollution burden in the 97th percentile alongside high percentile burden scores in asthma, poverty, and housing. The neighborhood is 88 percent Latinx, with a large immigrant population. Historically underserved, Sun Valley is also subject to underinvestment due to its industrial zoning designation.

VGS officials were notified about the plant’s leak due to the JPL’s ongoing methane monitoring research. The plant, along with the Haynes Generating Station in Long Beach, Harbor Generating Station in Wilmington, and Scattergood Generating Station in Playa del Rey, provides electricity to millions of Los Angeles residents. They are all operated by the DWP and use natural gas as their fuel source.

Last year, during the height of the summer’s heat, these electric generating stations worked to keep Angelenos’ power on, allowing the DWP to avoid rolling power outages. However, of the 1.5 millionresidents served, Sun Valley and Pacoima’s still experienced power outages. Residents in Sun Valley have considerable proximity to VGS, prompting the DWP to provide a ‘special message’: “Equipment located at a distributing station in Sun Valley became extremely overloaded and overheated yesterday, which is affecting our ability to make repairs to the outage affecting your area and provide uninterrupted service,” said the DWP memo on September 6, 2020. “With today’s temperatures expected to exceed yesterday’s, we expect overloading again this afternoon, which will cause more outages in the area.”

II. The Shutoffs Californians are no strangers to power shutoffs; we are more than twice as likely to face a power shutoff than most other states in the country.

Back in October 2020, California’s largest utility provider, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), conducted a “Public Safety Power Shutoff,” which cut electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers

across Northern California. UC Berkeley students and faculty have also experienced these power shutoffs in the past.

Although these situations may illustrate examples of negligence in management and a failure to comply with regulatory maintenance of critical infrastructure, the DWP has considerably shifted towards implementing more renewable energy sources in an effort to phase out natural gas. In addition, PG&E’s shutoffs may have avoided losses of millions of acres due to wildfires.

These acts of environmental awareness and social safety concerns are in no small part due to the historic enactment of Senate Bill 32 (SB 32) and Senate Bill 350 (SB 350) in 2016, California’s official response to climate change and mandate of a 50 percent renewable energy standard for utilities, respectively.

These laws have brought the conversations of bold green energy implementation, economic equity, and environmental justice to the larger legislative table. They have promised to deliver a new age for renewable energy for energy markets, environmental advocates, and frontline communities alike. Now, five years later, residents of Sun Valley and many other communities of environmental justice concern across the state question whether the state has done enough to deliver on these promises.

III. The Policies Despite a recent focus on environmental justice funding, attention has been on Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent electric vehicle mandate, a law that requires all new automobiles sold in the state to be electric by 2035. SB 32 also brought about California’s cap-and-trade carbon market, a capitalist-driven solution to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, thanks to the carbon market, Sun Valley and Pacoima will receive $23 million in community funding. However, according to a 2018 study by Cushing et al. on California’s cap-and-trade program and environmental equity, the relative social benefits of carbon trading are still uncertain as many of the benefits are not felt by the affected communities.

Out of the many laws enacted as a result of California’s leadership and initiative in implementing Fall 2020/Perennial 28

image here

Number of Power Outages by State (2008-2017) (Data provided by Statista and Eaton’s Blackout Tracker Report 2018)

bold, climate-centered strategies, there have also been new opportunities for California residents to join in on the clean energy transition.

California’s policy on Net Energy Metering (NEM) allows residential homeowners and businesses to gain utility credits on their bills if they are able to acquire rooftop solar. The simplest way to explain NEM is through the following example: a set of solar panels on a roof produces X amount of energy. From that energy produced, a family will use a certain portion, but possibly not all of it.

Whatever energy is left over is accrued as “credits.” Those credits can later be used as electricity provided from a public utility like PG&E or applied as a discount credit on their regular utility bill.

The benefits to NEM can be advantageous as both an economic incentive in freely producing energy and helping to alleviate greenhouse gas emissions. However, the upfront costs of installing solar panels are too expensive for most people in heavily-impacted areas, such as the disadvantaged communities facing environmental burdens.

Some third-party solar suppliers, such as those who loan out the panels or provide a loan to obtain them, also rely heavily on credit scores to provide financial support, excluding many from the benefits of solar ownership. This, along with a variety of other factors, could be the reasons why there is such a large discrepancy in rooftop solar deployment among different ethnicities.

29 Spring 2021 / Perennial

Another concern with NEM is that not everyone owns a home. A large portion of Californians live in apartment complexes, condos, multi-family housing, or are houseless. If the state is hoping to create a just, clean energy transition that everyone and anyone can participate in, it would mean creating new programs that would enable everyone to benefit from renewables.

Enter: Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), commonly known as Community Solar programs.

CCAs were created as a response to NEM to allow developers and investors to be incentivized if they chose to build and finance large-scale renewable energy (typically solar) programs. While the price of solar has gone down, these large-scale projects are anything but cheap — with many costing millions.

Still, if a developer or community has the funds to build a community solar project, it’s more than likely that they’ll need to work with an investor-owned public utility (IOU). In most cases, utilities like PG&E, SoCal Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE) maintain control over the transmission and distribution lines to provide electricity to customers, resulting in a negotiation between the CCA energy provider and the IOU. This can come at the expense of the customer through a monthly subscription fee or a premium cost to sign up, as well as any other program restrictions that may have been negotiated with the IOU. This situation is most relevant in PG&E’s efforts to

establish its Solar Choice program, an option for existing customers to join a community solar program provided by PG&E or through a local renewable energy developer. Given the potential costs and added expenses of community solar, it is not a surprise that the communities to primarily benefit from CCAs are predominantly affluent communities like Palo Alto, Monterey Bay, and Marin County.

IV. The Possibilities According to some environmental advocates, community solar is a possible gateway to include and increase the diversity of people who benefit from clean energy, especially those from climate-vulnerable neighborhoods and areas, as well as communities of color. Black and Latinx neighborhoods are especially prone to devastating climate impacts, as we have seen in extreme weather events such as Hurricane Katrina and the recent Texas winter storm.

Grid Alternatives and East Bay Community Energy are two examples of solar industry companies looking to center and focus on low-income and underserved communities. Grid Alternatives currently works with communities, tribal nations, utilities and government officials to increase access to affordable clean energy while also providing thousands of well-paying green energy jobs. East Bay Community Energy also provides access to low-cost clean energy, with some funds and electricity credits reinvested back into local communities.

V. The Challenges Despite the clean energy progress and prospects, communities like Sun Valley and Pacoima have yet to see even an inkling of environmental justice or energy choice programs. The challenge remains of whether local policymakers and state government officials can steer the provisions from President Biden’s bold $2 trillion infrastructure plan in a direction that promotes racial equity and environmental justice through clean energy resources. But as of now, residents still face environmental justice burdens daily.

outside during lunch,” said Leonardo Perlera, a counselor at Alliance Charter School in Sun Valley. “Pre-pandemic, some students chose to cover their noses and mouths while outside so they wouldn't have to smell the stench during their break. It seemed to be worse in the mornings, but nobody truly understands why. We've had to reconsider outdoor nutrition and P.E. because of the smell," says Perlera, who grew up in Sun Valley and now lives in Santa Clarita.

On January 8th, 2021, Southern California’s regulatory agency in Los Angeles cited the VGS with a violation over the mismanagement of the methane leak. The subsequent citation may lead to civil or criminal action, as well as a hefty fine. Until then, local residents and L.A. city council members are continuing to call for the VGS to be shut down.

The efforts towards a just clean energy transition prompt many questions: Will rooftop solar deployment become more accessible in low-income, BIPOC communities? Can technology innovations, like low-cost battery storage, change the impact of renewable energy utilities?

In Sun Valley’s case, the four large decommissioned red-and-white smokestacks at the Valley Generating Station serve as a reminder and symbol of the toxic environmental impacts from the past. Although the city’s pledge for community ”revitalization” comes with climate resiliency plans from partners like Grid Alternatives, the bittersweet reality is that residents continue to face environmental injustices every day — some even prompting lawsuits, like in the instance of last year’s methane leak.

Of all the questions that can be asked about the clean energy transition, one stands out amongst the rest — who will own the bulk of solar in the clean energy transition — the privately-owned IOUs, the wealthy renewable energy developer, or the communities that face the largest threats of climate change and heaviest environmental burdens? Only time can tell.

"The smell can be so bad at times that students constantly ask what the smell is and where it could be coming from while changing periods or Fall 2020/Perennial 30

Featured Op-Ed Finding Hope During

a Climate Crisis

by Sophie Park I like to listen to the news because I am afraid to turn on the T.V. and have to face the images of recent climate disasters. The radio helps keep me distanced, confining myself strictly to the images of my own imagination, but the reality of the 24hour news cycle means that I can never really escape what is going on around the world. We’ve all become addicted to consuming news with feelings of anxiety being the unfortunate side effects. In recent years, more frequent and severe natural disasters have made it evident that climate change has already arrived. It’s hard not to internalize the burden of our dying planet; the younger and more “able” you are, the more things that are thrown onto you. To compound this, 31 Spring 2021 / Perennial

“I became depressed. I saw that everything was so wrong, and nothing mattered.”

- Climate activist Greta Thunberg the climate crisis is a battle on multiple fronts with implications that include social justice, agricultural limitations, and a refugee crisis that will reach every aspect of society and hurt people throughout the world. Thus, it is a natural human response that a person may experience some form of “eco-anxiety.”

According to a 2018 article by Dr. Panu Pihkala, a researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland, eco-anxiety refers to the fear of climate change and disaster resulting in symptoms similar to severe or chronic anxiety. It is not a medical term or diagnosis, but is rather used colloquially to describe pervasive climate-related stress. There is a certain degree of dread attached to our actions as we enter a period of unprecedented climate disaster. Without the guise of ignorance, it is impossible to escape this burden.The emerging generations, with their over-inundation of information, shoulder the brunt of it. And yet, they have grown resilient and have proven that they are dedicated to the environmental cause. This leads many of us to remain stubbornly hopeful in spite of the problems.

Hope is an elusive, yet powerful emotion that is essential: not only for individual mental health, but for environmental and societal action. According to Shane J. Lopez, author of the book “Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others,” hope forces humans to recognize that there is something better in the future and acknowledge that they must address their present to get there.

In a Ted Talk titled “The Optimism Bias,” cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot states that “optimism changes subjective reality. The way we expect the world to be changes the way we see it. But it also changes objective reality. It acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Sharot suggests that if one is hopeful, it is more likely that they will act on that hope and make changes. We are able to administer ourselves the placebo and force ourselves to believe, shaping our own reality in which we have the power to influence change.

It is inevitable that humans have already reached certain tipping points when it comes to climate change. Society has already experienced extreme wildfires, droughts and rising sea levels, immense species extinction, and prolonged storm seasons. Even still, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientists estimate that if the global temperature increases by 2 degrees Celsius, then

there will be catastrophic effects that will be irreversible.

This is a cause for urgent concern but neither panic nor surrender. Experts, governments, citizens, and the international community are currently working on mitigation efforts and adaptation strategies. Society will need to combat climate effects, as well as create infrastructure better suited to adapting to a changing world with a perpetually changing climate. Ronald Amundsen, a professor of environmental issues at UC Berkeley, states that the opportunity to create powerful change is still out there.

“It’s not too late, but things are going to be different in the future. And we have to brace for the change, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late,” said Amundsen.

While Amundsen acknowledges that the world will look different to the next generations, it does not mean that there is reason to give up working towards creating a better earth.

“I think it’s important to start from the perspective that there’s a lot of people that are taking this [the climate crisis] seriously and working on it,” Amundsen said.

It is one thing to be blindly hopeful, but another to be informed and hopeful. There is much reason for hope. Around the world, countries, organizations, businesses, and individuals are working to mitigate the effects of climate change. It can be easy to get caught up in the environmental disasters ravaging the world, especially when they’re available for viewing at our fingertips, but it’s important to remember that there is a powerful group of communities around the world that are fighting to make sure that that doesn’t continue any longer.

The Paris Climate Accords was signed in 2016 by 189 countries who pledged to limit global temperature warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by reducing emissions. Some countries have made more ambitious goals for themselves. For example, Iceland committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, and China promised to go carbon neutral before 2060. If met, these goals would greatly benefit the planet by helping to regulate the warming climate.

In the United States, President Joe Biden plans to reach carbon neutrality before 2050. On a statewide level, specific states are creating their own ambitious climate goals and policies. For example, California is the fifth-largest economy in the world and already uses 30 percent renewable energy, and the UC system plans to run 100 percent of clean electricFall 2020/Perennial 32

ity by 2025. California has already reached its goal of getting to 1990 levels of emissions in 2016, four years before the target year, and plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2045.

Clean energy developments and other technologies, such as carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture practices, show promise for the future of these goals.

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to reduce the rates of the emissions, hopefully create some innovative ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere. I’m optimistic about the unexpected as well,” Amundsen said.

It is completely natural to feel the collective stress and anxiety in the current global climate crisis. An issue like the climate crisis can be especially daunting because it feels out of the control of just one person. It is helpful, though, to combat that stress by controlling what you can. Perspective is instrumental in this. One should acknowledge that the climate crisis is not going to be solved in one sweeping policy or with one presidential term or one global agreement. It is going to have to be attacked from multiple directions of collective action until a cleaner planet is created, and it’s going to take all of us.

“It’s [the climate crisis] something that we’re going to have to embrace as part of our lives for the next generation or so before we remediate it to the point that we have it under control,” said Amundsen.

Of course there are large systematic changes that need to take place in order to ensure a safer future. But that doesn’t detract from the value in taking control of one’s own life and taking small actions to help them deal with the larger problems society faces. Evolutionarily, control is embedded in the way we approach many issues because if we can control a situation, then there is a better chance of survival.

There is a lot one can do on an individual level: reduce one’s carbon footprint, educate community members, write to local and federal officials asking them to endorse climate policies, join an environmental club or organization, vote for green policies, and more. There is a balance between feeling overwhelmed and remembering to hope and act on that hope. In the end, hope is the only way to stay positive in such trying times, but the good thing is that there is hope everywhere. There is hope in the simple efforts, the large movements, and in the collaboration of individuals and communities, which are all pushing for a safer future.

Fig. 1. French Foreign Minister, U.N. Secretary-General Ban, and French President François Hollande Raise Their Hands After Representatives of 196 Countries Approved a Sweeping Environmental Agreement at COP21 in Paris. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/23076185424/ 33 Spring 2021 / Perennial

Featured Op-Ed

Fall 2020/Perennial 34

The context of human-nature relationships has been limited to analysis through the lens of atomistic science and environmental studies. This approach may seem appealing and relevant as it provides concrete conclusions on complex issues such as global warming and ecological degradation. However, this rigid scientific understanding of the human-nature relationship limits the possibilities of a thorough investigation into the intricacies of how humans impact and are impacted by the environment.

Scientific studies are portrayed as an “accurate” tool to describe a human-nature relationship. However, people in these studies are often represented solely as numbers and statistics. These studies often leave out the overall impact of environmental degradation on people and their lands, especially if it is in the form of colonialism and ongoing occupation. The numbers and accurately calculated statistics exclude the emotional devastation that people endure, which is an essential element of the human-nature relationship. There is no recognition of personal narratives and how they’re impacted and transformed by these disasters; there’s just “objectivity.” To holistically understand this dynamic relationship beyond raw data, a field of literary studies known as “ecocriticism” provides special insight.

The environment and literature may seem quite distant at first. However, they’re more connected than one may think. Ecocritic Cheryll Glotfelty writes, “literature acts on people, and people act on the world.” Ecocriticism bridges the gap between these fields to better understand the human-nature relationship. From poetry to prose, ecocriticism studies and analyzes literature that has environmental elements. For example, when reading a novel, not only do ecocritics look at how the characters and plot impact the environment, but they also look at how they’re impacted by it. Ecocritics do so by asking important questions like: How does literature influence harmful actions on the environment? How does literature propose alternatives to the harm being done? How can literary criticism be a part of the environmental movement?

In asking these questions, ecocritics move beyond raw data, and they choose to prioritize people’s experience with the environment to reach a deeper understanding of the human-nature relationship. This relationship is highly personal and shaped by critical factors such as gender, race, and wealth. Therefore, the answers that ecocritics find when asking the previous questions vary depending on the text they’re analyzing — a white American author’s novel in the 1960s will likely give different answers compared to an Egyptian poet’s poem in 2015. Different texts are expected to provide different answers to these questions because the human-nature relationship isn’t a monolith. So another task of ecocriticism is to try to connect the dots emerging from these very unique approaches to provide patterns that illustrate the collective human-nature relationship.

While ecocriticism does provide a more insightful analysis of the human-nature relationship, it is still a growing field with many flaws. One of them is that it’s “predominantly a white movement,” as Glotfelty points out. This means that the answers ecocritics look at to investigate how people impact and are impacted by the environment are mainly from the perspective and literature of white American and 35 Spring 2021 / Perennial

European figures — leaving so many voices and experiences behind.

The need to apply ecocriticism to literature not exclusively produced by white literary figures is not a mere need of representation. It is, in fact, a necessary pillar of ecocriticism: How can we understand the human-nature relationship when we don’t look at the literature of the communities disproportionately affected by environmental crises?

How can we be more holistic in understanding these crises when the only type of literature thoroughly investigated is the one concerned about the impact of these crises, rather than their roots? Not only is there a need to transform the lens conventionally used to understand the human-nature relationship (science), but there is also a need to criticize the basic approach in the alternative that is being proposed.

One literary critic currently working to transform the conventional understanding of the human-nature relationship is Hamoud Ahmed, a professor of English at the University of Hodeidah. He is interested in utilizing ecocriticism as a method of critical analysis because he believes it deepens people’s understanding of this relationship. Ahmed is expanding the scope of the texts usually studied with ecocriticism by applying it to Arabic literature. He focuses on how Indigenous people respond to occupation and settler-colonialism through poetry, especially in Palestine.

“In Arabic literature, however, ecocriticism is still in its infancy,” said Ahmed. “In other words, it is still quite unknown and opening up the field in Arab academia is immensely valuable for incorporating Arab voices in the recent ecocritical arguments.”

By expanding the genres and texts investigated by ecocriticism, more facets of the human-nature relationship can be understood. Settler-colonialism, in general, is one of those facets. Both in Palestine and globally, it is the root of many environmental crises currently taking place. This is a direct result of the exploitation of both Indigenous peoples and their land. By studying the literature of Indigenous communities that highlights their connection to the land, ecocriticism is centering on the experiences in which they are disproportionately affected. Ahmed, both as a researcher and an ecocritic, is employing ecocriticism as it should aim to be utilized: a method of analysis into the interaction between people and the environment through literature by prioritizing the experiences of those most vulnerable to these crises and changes.

The human-nature relationship is complex and multifaceted. To fully understand it, we need to transform our tools of analysis and think beyond science and raw data. Ecocriticism is one such tool that provides meaningful insight into this relationship. It centers the personal narratives and unique experiences people have with the environment around them by analyzing their literature. That being said, ecocriticism is still a growing field with many structural elements that need to be addressed. One element is that it is a predominately white movement and overlooks the experiences of the communities most vulnerable to environmental crisis. A transformation is needed to expand the scope of literature being investigated to understand the complex relationship of the natural world and the people who inhabit it.

Featured Op-Ed Intersectionality and the Environmental Justice Movement

by SHIVANI EKKANATH

The deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are more than the stories on our Instagram feed.

They are an urgent call to investigate the racial dimensions pertinent to today’s social justice movements. Acknowledging the specific ways in which marginalized communities are impacted by environmental calamities is crucial to the global environmental movement and call for environmental justice.

Understanding intersectionality is critical to exploring and fighting for environmental justice. Intersectionality is defined as a framework for conceptualizing the ways in which one’s multiple identities interact; it addresses the nature of social categorizations, particularly, race, class, and gender, and how Fall 2020/Perennial 36

they are created and overlap within established systems of hierarchy and power. ‘’Climate change is happening now to all of us.

No country or community is immune. And, as is always the case, the poor and vulnerable are the first to suffer and the worst hit,’’ said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, thereby summing up the very essence of intersectionality while considering environmentalism today.

From Intersectionality To Environmental Intersectionality Intersectional environmentalism highlights an important commitment to environmental justice.

This is to ensure that environmental advocacy takes complex issues such as race, wealth, and class into account in its work.

Intersectional Climate Activist and eco-communicator, Leah Thomas defines intersectional environmentalism as “the type of environmentalism where both people and the planet are considered... and are talked about in the same conversation.’’

When considering the intersections between nature and humanity, society must not turn a blind eye to the social dimensions that determine how people are affected. ‘’Environmental justice is the intersection between social justice and environmentalism, where the inequity in environmental degradation is also considered,’’ said Thomas. Intersectional environmentalism is built on the very foundations of promoting diversity, inclusion, and equality today. saias Hernandez, founder of Queer Brown Vegan, echoed a similar sentiment: “Environmental justice is often about constantly learning as well as unlearning.’’

Understanding the implications and impacts of climate change on marginalized communities is rooted in acknowledging the different underlying social problems that impact them.

Environmental racism is one issue at the heart of this problem, as marginalized communities are at greater risk of suffering from the impacts of environmental degradation.

To truly incorporate intersectionality into envi37 Spring 2021 / Perennial

ronmental justice, society must enact systemic changes, protect the most vulnerable communities, and empower the voices of minority groups within global environmental spaces.

Environmental Racism And The Racist Roots of Our Global Environmentalism Tackling environmental racism begins with understanding and deconstructing the racist roots and foundations of the environmental movement. This can be done by first “decolonizing” the movement, as the vestiges of colonial belief structures still remain deeply entrenched in environmental legislation.

This is apparent in the so-called “public lands discourse” that dictates the use and allocation of federal controlled land and has resulted in the erasure of the rich histories of Indigenous communities and lands.

There is a high incidence of land claimed from the grounds of Indigenous communities, particularly national parks. Nearly every national park has been built on Indigenous lands, where the wilderness has been commodified. For instance, many indigenous communities inhabiting the Yellowstone National Park and Yosemite were displaced from their homes.

What is more shocking is that environmental racism continues to take place within the environmental movement itself. For example, the Sierra Club, which fights to maintain the world’s natural resources, was found to have operated on reclaimed land from Indigenous tribes. The club has a history of dismissing the relevance of social issues and racial disparities in its environmental initiatives. Most recently, the organization even apologized for some of the racist comments made by its founder, John Muir.

The Underlying Problems Facing BIPOC Today Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities continue to face the burden of climate change to a disproportionate degree. Natural disasters and calamities often tend to accentuate poor infrastructure and festering inequalities that already impact them. For example, the Flint Water Crisis had devastating impacts on Afri-

can-American communities in a way similar to Hurricane Katrina, with over 175,000 Black residents being displaced from their homes. Federal and local governments provided inadequate assistance with aid and resettlement, thereby starkly underlining the racial inequalities and the racial dimension that this conflict revealed, proving once again how policies often exclude Black communities.

Additionally, climate migrants are often called “victims of a crisis they did not create,” falling under the subset of migrants who are forced to flee due to unpredictable deteriorations in the environment. These can be droughts, sea-level rise, and extreme weather conditions, among others.

Many climate migrants have embarked on what some call the “Great Migration.” While thousands of Guatemalans have fled their lands due to droughts and harsh weather conditions, the African Sahel has suffered overwhelmingly from crop failure, and many of its inhabitants have now become climate migrants. This underscores the importance of intersectionality as waste, pollution, and air quality, and, by extension, the overall climate crisis continues to disproportionately impact minority groups and marginalized communities.

It is no doubt that climate migrants continue to bear the brunt of climate change today. The case for considering climate migrants in policy underlines a wide range of multiplicative effects, ranging from displacement to societal stigmas such as xenophobia and racism. “The Climate Crisis goes far beyond borders,’’ says youth environmentalist Chloe Ten Brink while talking about the plight of climate refugees.

Acknowledging intersectionality will allow us to understand the systematic and gendered discrimination that many face more deeply.

The Importance of Empowering BIPOC

stories, voices, and lived experiences from those most impacted.

For example, the exclusion of Indigenous communities from important environmental policy decisions only perpetuates Eurocentric narratives and belief structures. Environmentalism often underestimates the power of Indigenous knowledge systems and conservation efforts and the essential perspectives they bring to the environmental movement today. The inclusion of this knowledge through further community engagement and government collaboration can go a long way when it comes to forest management and conservation initiatives.

Hence, environmentalism must make more space for BIPOC individuals. These communities are rarely involved in decision-making processes, many of which involve their own land, and their lived experiences are heavily discounted.

Ethnic minorities only account for 12 percent of leadership positions among leading environmental organizations. It is necessary that we create safe spaces and invite BIPOC individuals to crucial environmental discussions within current environmental justice frameworks. We must begin hiring more BIPOC and re-centering climate justice issues around the lived experiences of marginalized groups.

Effective allyship constitutes constantly engaging with a wide spectrum of issues within the environmental movement so that we understand the problems that affect different marginalized communities. Intersectionality is an essential foundation for more productive and inclusive conversations that go beyond performative allyship and activism. The work required to address the more deeply rooted and systemic issues at stake is hard, but it is no less important.

“Society needs to know how much space they occupy within the movement,’’ said SG Climate Rally, a nonprofit working on environmental justice and the climate crisis in Singapore. As a society, intersectionality helps us focus on the rights of people by understanding the multiple issues that concern them.

It is essential to understand the diverse range of Fall 2020/Perennial 38

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Cranberry Bogs Forever: Investigating American Farming Practices in Oregon AUTHOR: Sydney Lee Schmitter (Stanford University) Dear Reader, I am writing a public-facing RBA in the style of The Atlantic, which started as a literary and cultural commentary magazine in the 19th century that published commentary on the abolition of slavery, education, and other major political issues of the time. Since then, the magazine has become a general editorial magazine with a targeted audience of “thought leaders.” The current demographic of The Atlantic seems to be largely left-leaning and well-educated adults with an interest in expanding their knowledge base. In line with The Atlantic’s philosophy and audience, I thought that the topic of my RBA would be of interest to this magazine and its readers in expanding knowledge and presenting alternative viewpoints in relation to land management and agriculture. Articles in The Atlantic often stem from personal stories and narratives, and the language maintains a good balance between being informal enough to appeal to a large audience and formal enough to show ownership of an argument or research. In doing so, The Atlantic tends to use a conversational tone in exploring personal experiences or callsto-action in the introduction or conclusion of an article, but switches to a more formal research style in exploring data and argument. Strong research is typically embedded in articles, and The Atlantic typically uses short, digestible paragraphs. Articles in The Atlantic tend to introduce source material by name and not cite in a typical MLA style; I will adopt the introductory style of The Atlantic but adhere to typical MLA standards for my RBA. The Atlantic articles oftentimes hyperlink to helpful resources throughout their pieces, and I will hyperlink as well. Pieces on average range from about 2000-5000 words, and media is used throughout. As The Atlantic targets “thought leaders,” pieces aim to show a new way of thinking in their call to action. My RBA will hold many of the same elements as The Atlantic, from personal narrative, to media, to paragraph and sentence style.

Sincerely, Sydney Introduction Like clockwork, the farmer put on his work boots and loaded his rifles. Tonight, I took one of these rifles and hopped into the passenger side of his Polaris ATV. Driving alongside the property fence, we searched for glimmers of red or yellow bioluminescent eyes that pierced the darkness—the sign of a foreign and unwanted creature. Tonight, we were lucky. Peering through the fence, we saw two bright red eyes amidst the darkness—a deer. Turning off the lights of the Polaris, the farmer crept towards the fence, gun in hand. Placing the gun in a small opening of the fence, the farmer aimed, pulled the trigger, and completely missed the deer.

Wearing the wool of the sheep he raised, the farmer threw off his hat and let out a palpable sigh. Noticing his disappointment in having missed, I asked the farmer why he was so intent on shooting animals that weren’t even inside his fifty-acre property line.

He looked at me as if I had committed a crime. The farmer responded matter-of-factly that he wanted to protect what was his and that he was prepared to “protect” his land by any means necessary.

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While working on a cranberry farm in Oregon in the fall of 2020, I lived on a fifty-acre property with almost no wildlife; the only animals allowed on the property were the sheep the farmer raised. A large fence surrounded the property to keep wildlife out, and all unwelcome animals were immediately shot and dumped in a nearby field. Additional fences also surrounded each of the three cranberry bogs on the property, just in case a small animal or two managed to break through the property line.

Having worked on four other organic farms around the world that valued holistic, ecologically conscious, and ethical practices, I was really surprised by the cranberry farm’s approach. American culture and media seem to point to organic farming as the future of the world’s food system, and it had also seemed that way to me, at least until I came to this farm. However, the organic cranberry farm in many ways followed the same principles of the mainstream, conventional farmers of the cranberry farming community in Oregon—it didn’t differ much at all.

There’s an assumption in the United States that the term organic is synonymous with sustainable and ethical. Although I encountered unconventional practices of land

stewardship on only one organic farm in rural Oregon, this experience challenged my general perceptions of organic farming. Given this anomaly, I investigated the origins of the cranberry farmer’s attitude towards the farming practices he employed.

Why was my observation of land management on the cranberry farm so different from the organic farms I had worked at previously?

To answer these questions, I explore how Oregon’s complex relationship with white supremacy, as well as economic limitations imposed on cranberry growers by the Ocean Spray cranberry monopoly, affected the cranberry farmer’s views towards land management by drawing him towards a scarcity model of farming. Furthermore, I employ an ecofeminist and Indigenous framework to analyze the practices I viewed on the farm, and lastly, offer an incentive for the farmer to adopt a view of land ownership that is more ecofeminist and takes more principles from the Indigenous mindset.

Many scholars argue for the widespread reform of agriculture through the implementation of non-Western thought, but neglect to address the systemic challenges and conflicts that keep farmers from adopting more ethical or sustainable practices. On the other hand, many Western scholars argue that the implementation of non-Western principles in agriculture simply cannot address the food demands of a growing population, which invisibilizes the contributions of non-Western thought leaders in the agricultural realm. My research is highly original in that it incorporates both practical limitations and environmental management principles of non-Western communities to identify specific agricultural practices that can benefit organic farmers, both ecologically and economically.

The narrative surrounding conventional vs. organic farming practices was impacted largely by America’s agricultural transformation in the 20th century. Agriculture at the beginning of the 20th century was highly labor intensive and took place on a large number of small, rural farms. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, at this point in time, about 41% of the American workforce was employed in the agricultural industry (USDA). Spurred by the Green Revolution, a period of major technological advances in agriculture in the 1950s, agriculture in the 21st century is now highly productive and mechanized. The increased output per share of land from American farms has allowed consumers to spend smaller portions of their income on food and to pursue careers outside of the agricultural industry; 1.9% of the American workforce works in agriculture as of 2000.

Proponents of the Green Revolution, including many of my professors at Stanford, state that without the drastic technological advances of the time, the world would lack a predictable food supply, and that yield per acre would drastically decrease. However, a growing proportion of the population argues that the unnecessary application of pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides associated with the conventional farming practices of the Green Revolution has led to environmental issues, as well as a drastic shift towards the production of “cash crops” like corn instead of “staple crops” like wheat and rice.

American perceptions are generally more positive towards organically grown produce rather than produce grown through conventional methods. A study conducted by the International Food and Agribusiness Journal Review found that 40% of Americans believe

A Rundown on Conventional Vs. Organic In order to understand my surprise towards the farmer’s land management practices on his organic farm, it’s important to distinguish the differences between organic and conventional agriculture. According to the Rodale Institute, the “essential difference between organic and conventional farming is that conventional farming relies on chemical intervention to fight pests and weeds and provide plant nutrition.” Without the aid of the same synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, organic farming depends on integrated pest management (IPM), an ecosystem-based strategy towards pest management, as well as other biodiversity-centered principles to achieve sufficient yields without the help of synthetics.

Figure 1: The Furford Picker (Personal Photograph)

Fall 2020/Perennial 42

ing bogs. The farm that I worked on elected to dry-pick cranberries using a machine called a Furford Picker, since this technique is suited for smaller-scale operations. However, most conventional cranberry farms utilize the flooding method. After flooding a cranberry bog and using a tool that allows cranberries to break free from the vine, buoyant cranberries float to the bog’s surface and are corralled using large floats to a designated harvest point.

Figure 2: Flooded Bog Technique (Pixio)

organic produce to be more nutritious than conventionally grown foods, although scientific evidence shows no support for this claim. Another study by research economist Samuel Bonti-Ankomah also found that Americans that associate organic food with greater health benefits also think of organic food as more environmentally sustainable. Organic food in the United States is often marketed as more “natural” or “sustainable” than conventionally farmed produce, which I believe contributed to my perception of organic farming as synonymous with sustainable and ethical—this isn’t necessarily true.

My experiences working on community farms, agritourism businesses, and educational farms supported my perceptions of organic farming, but my experience on the cranberry farm contradicted this belief. In my research, I investigate how the unique conditions and challenges faced by the cranberry farming industry affected the farmer’s approach to land management.

Limitations in Cranberry Farming Unlike most crops cultivated in the United States, the cranberry is actually native to the Americas and has been cultivated there for thousands of years. The Wampanoag People of New England have been known to harvest cranberries for the past 12,000 years, eating the berries fresh, dried, or as pemmican: a mix of berries, dried meat, and animal fat (“The Cranberry”).

Beyond purely sustenance, cranberries were also used by indigenous groups in healing rituals to treat ailments like swelling and seasickness.

Grown on vines and cultivated in sunken beds called bogs, cranberries were surprisingly not cultivated as a crop until 1816 in Massachusetts and Oregon. Harvested in the fall, cranberry farmers either dry-pick the berries (which is a technique best used when selling cranberries fresh) or corral cranberries after flood43 Spring 2021 / Perennial

Although cranberries have been present in the Americas for thousands of years, relatively little is known about cranberry plant physiology, growth, and pests.

Journalist Lindsay Konkel notes that cranberries are less domesticated and studied than crop staples such as maize, corn, and rice. Cranberries are a niche crop, hard to find outside of the general holiday season. In particular, organic cranberries are especially difficult to encounter, with only between 200-300 acres of organic cranberries cultivated out of 40,000 acres of commercially managed bogs (Konkel). With less than 1% of cranberries in the United States grown as organic, organic cranberry farmers lack the information and mentorship necessary to transition from conventional to organic practices. According to Jessika Tantisook, co-owner of Starvation Alley Farms who made the transition from conventional to organic cranberry growing in 2013, “there was astonishingly little information out there to guide [her and her partner]” (Tantisook). Instead of the cranberry growing community, Tantisook relied on organic farming experts from outside the industry.

Given this information, it’s clear that the cranberry farmer, and the organic cranberry farming community in general, is confronted with a lack of mentorship and information. As a first-generation farmer with little background in the agricultural industry, the cranberry farmer lacked the generational knowledge and resources available to guide his land management principles. As the only organic cranberry farm in a sea of conventional cranberry farmers in the Southern Coastal region of Oregon, the only source of information the farmer could turn to was who he knew—in this case, a nearby conventional farmer named Dale. While working on the cranberry farm, I noticed that whenever an issue arose, the farmer’s first instinct was to call Dale and ask for his opinion. Without the confidence and knowledge base to farm cranberries organically, it makes sense that the farmer would be uninformed in his approach to land use. However, the lack of information surrounding organic cranberry cultivation doesn’t explain the farmer’s need to “protect” his land with such vigor and violent determination.

Ocean Spray, Who? Given the proclivity of the cranberry in the United

oversupply of cranberries resulted in low prices for growers and large inventories of frozen cranberries. The cranberry industry was able to recover in the 1990s, which led growers to make long-term investments in bog development, which costs between $25,000 and $40,000 an acre (Jesse 6). However, these development costs are “sunk costs”; since bogs are highly specialized, the cost of development can only be recovered by using the bogs in their specialized application. During the long period between development and harvest in the 1990s, market conditions deteriorated rapidly. However, due to the sunk costs of cranberry farming, farmers couldn’t abandon cranberry cultivation. Domestic cranberry production remains distressed from many years of low prices for cranberries.

Figure 3: Image from “Justa foo and his juice,” a viral video involving Ocean Spray juice

States, I wondered why there’s such a lack of knowledge surrounding its cultivation and why cranberries are typically grown non-organic. Answers point to Ocean Spray. If you’ve ever been to the store and bought dried cranberries or cranberry juice, it’s likely that you’ve consumed Ocean Spray cranberries. If you’re well-informed on internet trends, you’ve probably watched several renditions of Nathan Apodaca skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” while drinking Ocean Spray cranberry juice. Most Americans have come into contact with Ocean Spray one way or another.

Ocean Spray has drastically changed and impacted the American cranberry industry over the past few decades. When cranberries first entered the economy, the crop was marketed exclusively as fresh fruit. However, fresh cranberries are highly seasonal and can’t be stored for long periods of time. Between 1910 and 1929, annual cranberry prices ranged from between $4 to $14 dollars per barrel; this price volatility motivated efforts to preserve cranberries past their marketing season (Jesse 3). Here enters Marcus Urann, the first person to can cranberries commercially in 1912.

His canning experiment was so successful that his work eventually led to the creation of Cranberry Canners, Inc., which would later become the Ocean Spray Cooperative. Ocean Spray currently controls about 70% of cranberry production (Jesse 14).

During the 1960s, cranberry acreage grew in response to favorable and consistent prices offered by the increasing demand for cranberry cocktail and juice blends. However, during the 1970s, a persistent 1 “Justa foo and his juice.” YouTube, uploaded by suh dood, 23 September 2020, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=H7LpEMqMtCw&ab_channel=suhdood

The economic devastation I saw in the cranberry farming community in coastal Oregon aligns with the long-term deterioration of the industry. Cranberry bogs lined Highway 101 for miles and miles, as well as run-down multi-generational farms and overgrown pastures. Ocean Spray, which has held a virtual monopoly over cranberry products for decades, has shown poor industry leadership which has led to cranberries’ lack of profitability. As a leader in the cranberry industry, it’s Ocean Spray’s responsibility to incentivize new cranberry farmers to join its cooperative, ensure competitors do not develop their own cranberry supply line, manage industry supply in cases of surplus, and assume responsibility for the stability of the cranberry market (Jesse 52). However, Ocean Spray’s leadership failed in representing the diversity of its board of directors in focusing on maintaining its share of the rapidly expanding cranberry market instead of maintaining its own rapid rate of growth. Board members were eliminated over the past century to a small, underqualified and uneducated few. This structure allowed for Ocean Spray’s largest cooperative member, Northland, to leave the Ocean Spray Cranberry Cooperative, which created a major competitor in the cranberry industry. Ocean Spray focused on eliminating Northland for many years in the early 2000s instead of prioritizing industry growth and protecting the interests and livelihoods of its supplying farmers.

An air of resentment towards Ocean Spray pervaded the Southern Coastal cranberry farming community I became a part of in Oregon. As part of the Ocean Spray Cooperative, with low prices, contractual obligations, and no way out of the industry, many farmers I met were elderly, angry, and forced to endure hard manual labor in their older age to support themselves and their families. Furthermore, there are virtually no more young cranberry growers entering the industry. Interestingly, the farmer whose farm I worked on was by far the youngest cranberry Fall 2020/Perennial 44

elected to keep the racist clause in Oregon’s constitution (Camhi).

Figure 4: In 1859, Oregon Was Admitted to the Union with an Exclusion Clause in its Constitution (Camhi).

grower in the region, at 30 years old. Ocean Spray has contributed to a sense of scarcity and economic devastation in the cranberry farming industry, which I believe has contributed to its lack of innovation, mentorship, and thus prevalence as an organic crop.

Oregon’s Racist History Given the declining state of the cranberry growing industry, it makes sense that the cranberry farmer I worked with would resort to a set of land stewardship practices that didn’t align with the sustainable and ethical practices I saw while working on other organic farms. However, Oregon’s ostensibly hidden relationship with white supremacy points to the origins of the farmer’s paternalistic and aggressive approach towards pest management on the farm.

Although modern-day Oregon, with Portland and its “hippy” reputation, may seem like a liberal utopia, the truth is that the state was created as a white utopia, according to Philip Thoennes in “Constitutionalizing Racism: George H. Williams’s Appeal for a White Utopia.”

In 1844, Oregon banned slavery but passed legislature that deemed “black immigration to the region a crime punishable by whipping” of 39 lashes every 6 months until the black person left the territory (Thoennes 468). In 1857, Oregon adopted a state constitution that banned black people from migrating to, residing in, or holding property in the state.

Furthermore, Oregon was the only state to enter the Union in 1859 with an Exclusion Clause in its constitution, deeming Oregon as a place for white people only.

Investigating the impact of Oregon’s racist laws in the 21st century, Tiffany Camhi interviewed Walidah Imarisha, writer and activist who focuses on black history in Oregon. Imarisha emphasizes that Oregon’s exclusionary past lingers in Oregonian systems to this day—as of 2019, Oregon was 87% white and only 2% black (U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts).

Although Oregon’s exclusionary laws were repealed in 1926, almost a century ago, racist language in Oregon’s constitution was not removed by voters until 2002. Imarisha stresses that in 2002, 30% of voters 45 Spring 2021 / Perennial

Oregon’s racist past that has persisted into the present suggests that white supremacy remains in or has affected other institutions in Oregon, such as the agricultural sector. The most obvious connection that white supremacy in Oregon holds to agriculture is through conceptions of land ownership. In the 19th century, any white males that settled in Oregon were entitled to 650 acres of land and 650 additional acres if he was married (Camhi). Yet, all of this land entitled to white men was taken forcibly from Oregon’s Indigenous groups. White supremacy in Oregon set a precedent for land ownership by exclusively white men who felt entitled to forcibly acquire land in the 19th century.

Perceptions of land as something to be conquered or entitled to white men have long-lasting impacts. In the region of Southern Coastal Oregon where I resided, Oregon’s coastal Indigenous groups were displaced and relocated to the Siletz Reservation in 1856 (Beck). Since that time, land in Oregon has become inexpensive and designated for white men through racially restrictive covenants and HOLC policy. Strikingly, the farmer bragged that he was able to purchase his 50-acre property, a home, several barns, and farm equipment for a mere $500,000. Given Oregon’s discriminatory land-ownership policy, if the farmer felt entitled to his own land, logically, he managed this land with such domination because he didn’t know any other way of approaching land use.

I note however, that the cranberry farmer was a well-educated white man from the Bay Area that grew up wealthy due to his family’s involvement in Silicon Valley’s big tech industry. Interestingly, the farmer bought his farm with money he made through investments in Tesla stock to become a first-generation farmer. Although the cranberry farmer didn’t come from a traditional Oregonian farming background, the farmer’s mentors still came from multi-generational cranberry growing families. My personal experience as a person of color living on the cranberry farm during the contentious 2020 election supports my assumption that these multigenerational farmers inherited racist or paternalistic views over several decades.

Even though the farmer was not raised in Oregon, I believe that his mentors instilled views and approaches towards land management rooted in conceptions of white supremacy.

An Ecofeminist and Indigenous Framework Given my research on the unique economic and physiological conditions of cranberry farming, as well as Oregon’s ties to white supremacy, I better understood and uncovered the roots of the cranberry farmer’s ap-

proach to land use. Keeping this background in mind, I created a framework in which I analyzed the farmer’s land management practices in order to identify where the farmer could become a better steward to his land.

I combined principles of Indigenous and ecofeminist knowledge in the framework I developed to view the farm through a lens that directly contrasted the perspective of the white and male cranberry farmer who treated occupied Indigenous territory as his own.

Indigenous cultures have historically focused on land stewardship, “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care,” instead of simple land management, which “on its own is the ‘act’ or ‘skill’ of controlling and making decisions” (Sonoma Land Trust). Keeping this general approach in mind, I turned to Sherri Mitchell, Indigenous activist and lawyer. In her personal essay, “Indigenous Prophecy and Mother Earth,” she describes how Indigenous American cultures maintain a view of timescales, generational empathy, and origin stories that are different from many other Western cultures (Mitchell 20).

Mitchell discusses that in her culture, there’s no separation between spiritual tradition and daily life, and that “everything is interrelated and recognized for its sacred place within the web of life” (Mitchell 5). This principle is demonstrated in perceptions of timescale, where “time does not exist as separate epochs unfolding in linear fashion, but as one movement unfolding in all directions simultaneously” (Mitchell 6). Present generations can’t be separated from past and future generations, and all people are inextricably linked through shared experience, harm, and truth that crosses time.

These cultural views have made way for the principle of kincentric awareness. As described by Dr. Enrique Salmon in his paper, “Kincentric Ecology: Indigenous Perceptions of the Human-Nature Relationship,” kincentric awareness, the recognition that the environment is only usable when humans view the life sur-

Figure 5: Dr. Vandana Shiva, Environmental Activist and Prominent Ecofeminist (BBC Travel).

rounding them as kin, has long been embedded in Indigenous land stewardship (Salmon 1327). The reciprocal relationship between American Indigenous groups and the natural environment, where man and nature are seen as one, emphasizes the importance of stewardship towards the natural environment.

In discussion of kincentric awareness, Sherri Mitchell explains that Indigenous knowledge employs traditional family kinship models in simply recognizing “that each element within creation (including humans) has the right and the responsibility to respectfully coexist as coequals within the larger system of life,” like a family (Mitchell 6). By employing kincentric awareness at a wider scale, Mitchell believes that humanity could realign with a future that ensures not only human survival on Earth, but also nurtures a mended relationship between humans and the natural world.

Apart from the principle of indigenous kincentric awareness, I looked to ecofeminism, a philosophical and political movement that draws upon gender to analyze the relationship between humans and nature. Ecofeminism arises from the recognition that the understanding of nature and environmental problems can help understand why women’s oppression is linked with the domination and exploitation of nature (Warren).

By analyzing the book Ecofeminism by Maria Mies and Dr. Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and sustainable agriculture revolutionary, I identified ecofeminist principles that apply to the agricultural system. Shiva and Mies argue that “women’s work and knowledge is central to biodiversity conservation and utilization both because they work between ‘sectors’ and because they perform multiple tasks” (Shiva and Mies 166). Due to the multifaceted and heterogeneous nature of a woman’s role in society, Shiva and Mies believe women hold unique ties to biodiversity, and thus are the best custodians of environmental health.

However, at the same time, Shiva and Mies emphasize that the quality of heterogeneity in women makes them vulnerable and victim to the conventional monoculture scheme that modern farming practices have adopted. The use of genetically modified seed and the destruction of natural land for farming effectively breaks open the “closed cycle of production and consumption” that is inherent to the subsistence farming culture that women thrive in (Shiva and Mies 170). Shiva and Mies argue that large-scale monoculture farming directly harms women and contradicts ecofeminist philosophy.

Thus, from Shiva and Mies’ ecofeminist philosophy, Fall 2020/Perennial 46

I took the view that heterogeneity and its resulting multifaceted approach to environmental management is a keystone for the earth’s health, which makes women the best custodians of the environment. Given these Indigenous and ecofeminist perspectives, I apply principles of kincentric awareness and heterogeneity in my framework to the land management practices I viewed on the cranberry farm. I analyze my personal experience on the farm by first exploring how the Coquille Tribe of Coos Bay, Oregon employs the ecofeminist and Indigenous principles described in my framework.

In Practice: Ecofeminist and Indigenous Frameworks in the Coquille Tribe Just a 30-minute drive away from the cranberry farm I worked on exists the Coquille Tribe of Coos Bay, Oregon, which has adopted many aspects of my framework through organic cranberry farming. The Coquille not only farm cranberries; they maintain one of the most well-regarded sustainable timber operations in the United States, and they connect the success of the forest to the success of their cranberries.

The Coquille Tribe utilizes ecologically conscious practices in their integration of kincentric awareness on their 5,400-acre forest. In many timber operations, undesirable trees that are unprofitable are usually removed to make room for more valuable species, such as the Douglas fir. This practice brings forestry towards a monoculture operation, where trees are of uniform size and species; biodiversity is sacrificed for profit.

However, the Coquille Tribe employs the ecofeminist principle of heterogeneity as described in my framework, which has led to the economic and ecological success of their agricultural operation. The Coquille manage a diverse collection of plant species along with trees of various densities and ages, which has led the way for diverse wildlife. According to a report on the Coquille Tribe by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of Oregon, side-by-side with profitable trees, the Coquille tend to culturally significant trees such as cedar and spruce, which increases animal diversity and makes their forest more resilient against extreme weather, fire, and disease (Natural Resources

Figure 6: Member of the Coquille Tribe Harvest Cranberries using the Furford Picker (Nate Traylor).

47 Spring 2021 / Perennial

Figure 7: Member of Coquille Tribe Admires the 5,400 Acre Coquille Forest (NCRS Oregon)

Conservation Service of Oregon). Sustainable timber harvest using ecologically beneficial practices also reap economic benefits; organic cranberry farming only increases this revenue. Timber operations account for 20% of the Coquille Tribe’s revenue, thus providing a source of income and job opportunity for the Coquille Tribe that is well-regarded and respected around the world.

In the 90s, the USDA determined that cranberry farmers in Southern Coastal Oregon would no longer be able to use additional river run-off, which severely limited the amount of bogs that each farmer could cultivate. However, a testimony by the Coquille Tribe before the House Appropriations Committee on the Interior shows that the soil and stormwater management infrastructure used in the Coquille’s forest management allowed for 4 reservoirs to nourish the Coquille’s cranberry bogs with a self-sustaining supply of water (Coquille Indian Tribe). The complex and ecologically diverse practices employed by the Coquille in their forest management directly contributed to the success of their cranberry crops.

Furthermore, the Coquille Tribe actively follows principles of kincentric awareness as evidenced in an interview with Chairperson Brenda Meade, who argues that interdependency between humans and the natural world is essential for cultural and environmental revitalization. Meade approaches the forest thinking “about all the materials [the Coquille] use for basketry, regalia, houses, canoes—it’s cedar, it’s maple bark, it’s the willow that grows on the river” (Meade). Thinking about the natural world in this way demonstrates the interdependence between the Coquille and the forest, which has led Meade to adopt a conservation strategy that recognizes that “all species are important to life. It can’t be just one species that [the Coquille] focus on [protecting]” (Meade). Complementary to the ecofeminist heterogeneity, kincentric awareness is also central to the Coquille’s stewardship practices.

Beyond the forest, Indigenous kinship is also demonstrated by the Coquille’s cranberry farming in its weeding strategy to train cranberry vines to crowd out their own weeds as opposed to using herbicides or pesticides. Thus, the Coquille Tribe takes the time to care for and train plants like kin. As demonstrated in my framework, heterogeneity and kinship in land stewardship have led to the success of the Coquille’s crops and people.

An Incentive for the Farmer The Indigenous and ecofeminist principles practiced by the Coquille Tribe contrasted my experience on the cranberry farm in a multitude of ways. Although the cranberry farm’s property was covered in large and beautiful trees, as a first-generation farmer, the farmer didn’t know how to manage his forest. Across the property, trees were perfectly spaced apart in a monoculture with uniformity in plant type and density. While working on the farm, I regularly saw and participated in the erratic burning and chopping of trees, simply because the cranberry farmer didn’t like their appearance.

Comparing the Coquille Tribe’s cranberry farming practices with the farmer’s through my framework showed me that the farmer is missing out on a potential economic opportunity to sustainably manage and harvest timber from his forest. Sustainable forest management would provide benefits like storm-water sequestration to water the farmer’s land, which would save operational costs and increase profits. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, sustainable forest management provides an array of ecosystem services besides simply stormwater management, including water quality improvement, carbon sequestration, climate resiliency, and reduced risk for invasive species colonization (Environmental Protection Agency). Economically, the cranberry farmer would profit from the sale of sustainably harvested timber, and although less obviously, would benefit from long-term savings associated with resilience against climate change and pests, along with savings in operational costs through water sequestration.

Furthermore, through analyzing the Coquille’s farming practice with my framework, I saw that valuing and understanding the importance of diversity in the ecosystem surrounding the cranberry bogs shows empathy and a sense of kinship towards land. While the main source of revenue for the farmer is in cranberry production, he also grows a smaller volume of blueberries, chestnuts, and marijuana to supplement his farm when it’s not cranberry season. Although the farmer does not exclusively grow cranberries, he adopts an almost monoculture approach to his farm

Figure 8: Monoculture Approach to Forest Management on the Cranberry Farm (Personal Photograph)

in that all crops are distinctly separated from each other by hedges and fences. To adopt a more ecofeminist approach to his land, I suggest that the farmer utilize land stewardship strategies to adopt a more heterogeneous approach to agriculture.

This could be solved by implementation of multiple self-sustaining riparian areas on the farmer’s property, which are lands that occur along watercourses and water bodies. Riparian areas, which comprise less than 1% of land area, are uniquely productive in that they act as buffers between upland areas and open water and as productive habitats for wildlife (Natural Resources Conservation Service). Riparian areas are beneficial for pollination, pest management, and stormwater sequestration, and implementation of riparian areas on the farmer’s property would draw pests away from cranberries, sequester storm water, and bring in much needed pollinators, since the farmer has to buy bees each year.

Implementation of sustainable forest management and riparian areas would save operational costs for the farmer and better his land stewardship practices using an Indigenous and ecofeminist approach.

These ecologically conscious stewardship techniques are also practical given the farmer’s workforce and economic bandwidth. Given my knowledge on the background of the organic cranberry farming industry, I saw a strong need for profitability and realistic land management practices in the space. The best incentive for a business person is money, and the suggestions I give for the farmer to adopt my framework save money for the farmer over time, as well as generate an alternate source of revenue.

Reframing Land Management Practice Understanding the historical and cultural complexities that afflicted the cranberry farmer’s thoughts gave me the context to see where, realistically, the farmer could adapt more ecofeminist and Indigenous principles that would benefit his farm, both Fall 2020/Perennial 48

ecologically and economically. I’ve recently been updated that the farmer intends to create the first riparian area on his farm, and is going through the motions of starting this project.

I believe that the research approach I took in analysis of my personal experience can be applied at a scale larger than just a small organic cranberry farm in Oregon. Regardless of an organic farm’s deviation from “typical” perceptions of the practice, investigating land management practice on other organic farming communities in the context of an Indigenous and ecofeminist framework can reveal general land management processes and inform how we as a society can become better stewards to our land. I recommend that all farmers and even hobby gardeners consider how they can apply ecofeminist, Indigenous, and non-Western principles to their land stewardship practices.

In reflection on the ecofeminist and Indigenous approach I utilized, I turn back to Sherri Mitchell in her essay “Indigenous Prophecy and the Seed of Life.” If we, as Americans, as a Western culture, desire to align Indigenous and ecofeminist knowledge with Western thought, Mitchell highlights that “thought leaders” will have to be courageous enough to challenge and upturn the structural barriers that have prevented these voices from coming forward. In the age of the anthropocene, what we know of scientific discovery, which has foundations in racially driven confirmation bias, must become more holistic to accommodate non-Western belief. We must be brave to heal our Earth.

49 Spring 2021 / Perennial

Works Cited 1. Beck, David. “Seeking Recognition: The Termination and Restoration of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians”, 1855–1984. 42nd ed., vol. 2, University of Nebraska Press, 2009, pp. 244–45.

2. “Benefits of Healthy Watersheds.” US Environmental Protection Agency, 19 Feb. 2021, www.epa.gov/hwp/ benefits-healthy-watersheds.

3. Bonti-Ankomah, Samuel, and Emmanuel Yiridoe. “Organic and Conventional Food: A Literature Review of the Economics of Consumer Perceptions and Preferences.” Cite Serve PSU, Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada, 2006, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.459.7393&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

4. “Coquille Indian Tribe.” 1993.

5. “The Cranberry: Where Tradition Meets Innovation.”

Massachusetts Cranberries, www.cranberries.org/history.

6. Cranberry, Harvest, Jersey. Pixnio.

7. Furford Picker at Black Moon Farms. 4 Nov. 2020.

8. Dimitri, Carolyn, et al., The 20th Century Transformation of U.S. Agriculture and Farm Policy, United States Department of Agriculture, 2005, pp. 1-13, https://www. ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44197/13566_ eib3_1_.pdf?v=7260..

9. Feldman, Justin. “Public Views and Misperceptions Relating to Organic Food: Terminology and Understanding.” The Journalist’s Resource, 4 Dec. 2020, journalistsresource.org/environment/public-views-and-misperceptions-relating-to-organic-food-research-on-terminology-and-understanding/.

10. Jesse, Edward V, and Richard Rogers. “The Cranberry Industry and Ocean Spray Cooperative: Lessons in Cooperative Governance” Food System Research Group Monograph Series, vol. 19, 2006.

11. “Justa foo and his juice.” YouTube, uploaded by suh dood, 23 Sep. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=H7LpEMqMtCw&ab_channel=suhdood 12. Konkel, Lindsey. “Why Are Organic Cranberries So Hard to Find?” Civil Eats, 3 Dec. 2016, civileats. com/2015/11/23/why-are-organic-cranberries-sohard-to-find-thanksgiving/.

13. “Organic vs. Conventional.” Rodale Institute, 3 Dec. 2018, rodaleinstitute.org/why-organic/organic-basics/organic-vs-conventional/#:~:text=The%20essential%20difference%20between%20organic,weeds%20 and%20provide%20plant%20nutrition.&text=Organic%20farming%20relies%20on%20natural,to%20produce%20healthy%2C%20abundant%20food.

14. “Natural Resources Conservation Service.” NRCS, www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/technical/?cid=nrcs143_014199#:~:text=Riparian%20areas%20supply%20food%2C%20cover,in%20 reduced%20downstream%20flood%20peaks.

15. “Top Timber Forest Balances Business with Culture.”

NRCS Oregon, 2017, www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/or/newsroom/stories/?cid=nrcseprd1341480.

16. Traylor, Nate. Coquille Tribe Harvests Cranberries--the Hard Way. The Bulletin.

17. Vandana Shiva on Why the Food We Eat Matters. BBC Travel.

The Supply Chain of Wine in Northern California:

The Future of its Production AUTHOR: Sydney Stephens Abstract: In response to recent changes in consumer taste, the global supply chain of wine is continually modifying production methods. Emerging technology has simplified the inherent complexity of the supply chain by enabling producers to control nearly every aspect of the production process—from automated temperature controls of vines to optimizing future growth inventory. To this day, California remains one of the top producers of wine in the United States. Unsurprisingly, its Mediterranean-like climate with warm summers and mild winters contribute to the success of this profitable industry. Thus, the increasingly visible effects of climate change—from fire frequency to anomalies in temperature—have had substantial implications for production methods, harvest seasons, and land suitable for vineyards. The shortened growing season and deterioration of various grape qualities—a consequence of global warming—have challenged the traditional supply chain model. However, the transition from a bioeconomy based on fermentation to one based on information technology has potentially negated the destructive effects of climate change. This paper explores how effectively producers have adapted to the expanding supply chain and how wineries in Northern California have potentially offset the external complications associated with climate change. Another area of concern is how recent wildfires have impacted the industry and whether or not suppliers in these regions have rebounded. The paper draws from a study that assessed tourists’ empathy towards natural disasters in the context of California’s wine industry. The results suggest that strategic targeting towards tourist groups following a natural disaster can help mitigate the financial burdens associated with crop loss.

An Introduction to Wine I. The Inception of Wine Although this report focuses on the supply chain of wine and the evolution of manufacturing methods in Northern California, it is worth disclosing the true origins of wine production and travel back to its inception. Ancient wine is projected to have emerged sometime between 4,000 and 6,000 BC in Southwestern Anatolia, Turkey. Through immigration and transportation, wine spread swiftly across Europe.

Wine flourished in Italy and Greece, for both of these regions possess the Mediterranean-like climate needed for cultivation. While many features of wine production have changed substantially over time, fermentation has remained an essential stage.

II. A Preface to Wine in Northern California The emergence of wine production in Northern California is associated with the sacrament of communion. In 1769, the construction of California’s first mission—Mission San Diego de Alcala—was accompanied by an overwhelming demand for wine. Shortly after completing the Mission, Father Junipero Serra planted the first variety of grape called the Mission grape. This variety maintained its preeminence for nearly one hundred years thereafter. While the initial planting of Mission grapes was intended for sacramental purposes, individuals soon began ferment-

ing their wine for pleasure.

Although the initial, primary region for vineyards was Southern California, today, Northern California is universally identified as a “wine country.” This is because, in the mid-17th century, the Gold Rush drew an inundation of settlers to the northern regions. Just as wine production began to take off, however, the Constitution ratified the 18th Amendment in 1919, prohibiting the sale of alcohol. The livelihoods of wine producers who were just beginning to see significant returns were threatened.

However, the legislation permitted each home to produce a limited amount of their own wine, so thousands of inexperienced households engaged in production. Demand for grape seeds rose exponentially and the prices followed suit. The 18th Amendment was repealed in the 1930s, but the formerly flourishing industry was already Fall 2020/Perennial 50

dismantled, and production fell “94 percent from 1919 to 1925” (Borg). After the repeal of the prohibition, California wine production slowly recovered, and fifty years passed before California’s wine industry returned to its triumphant state, pre-Prohibition.

Before Napa emerged at the forefront of the state’s wine production, more popular wines were exported from other states and abroad. It was only when settler Joseph Osborne planted Zinfandel on an 1,800 acre plot of land in 1850, in what is known today as Napa County, did Northern California become characterized as the wine country of the state. Not only was Osborne an innovator of agricultural techniques, he also advocated for grape quality. From this period on, the wine industry took off, accompanied by hundreds of newly established vineyards, made to accommodate for the exponential increases in demand.

The Evolving Supply Chain I. Technology and Software Adoption Adoption is a “decision by a specific individual to use a new technology and is measured at the individual level” (Zibberman). Diffusion, on the other hand, is measured by the percentage of potential users who actually continue to use the innovation. The emergence and adoption of new technology have enabled wineries to advance their production methods, improve the efficiency of the supply chain, and enhance the quality of wine. In fact, technology is reshaping the entire industry and providing hope for grape cultivation even in undesirable climate conditions. The wine industry encompasses large-scale production facilities, mid-size operations, and small, independent wineries.

Like many modern industries, the largest companies control a substantial percentage of the industry, leaving small-scale and independent enterprises to fill the remaining niches with specialty products.

The most notable distinction between mass production of wine and independent vineyard production lies in the varying technological capabilities. Nonetheless, regardless of the size of the producer, the stages of the supply chain are as follows: grape grower, wine producer, bulk distributor, transit cellar, filler/packer, finished goods distributor, retail (Wine Supply Chain Traceability). Furthermore, the suppliers are categorized into three tiers: Tier 1—wineries and breweries; Tier 2—wholesale distributors; Tier 3—retailers.

While the three tiers are influenced by supply chain management in different ways, each must respond and adapt to the ever-changing market. For exam51 Spring 2021 / Perennial

ple, recently, wholesalers and distributors are making significant adjustments in response to additional services offered by third-party operations. These services include storage and handling and can often be performed at a lower cost than their Tier 1 equivalents.

In response to the increasing number of stock-keeping units (SKU), depositories are adopting new technologies to minimize the complexities involved in receiving various SKUs and inventory varieties (Datex). Automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/AR) have become the primary method for doing so. Another response to the increasing complexity of inventory is implementing forecasting. Forecasting allows producers to outline the anticipated production in future years and, in turn, allocate the appropriate amount of time for aging. Both forecasting and AS/AR have permitted manufacturers to tailor production in response to the expanding supply chain. Furthermore, since wine is part of an international market, the supply chain is impacted by regulatory measures that monitor imports and exports. The globalization of the supply chain adds even more complexity. From weight restrictions to registration mandates, government regulations are becoming increasingly unyielding. However, despite these additional complexities in trade, businesses have sought membership in Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). C-TPAT analyzes member organizations and provides suggestions for improving operations while offering reduced screenings for them (Datex). A reduction in screening accelerates delivery time and simplifies inventory for producers.

The implementation of AS/AR, forecasting, and C-TPAT has enabled suppliers to adjust production methods in response to the expanding supply chain. The former two are primarily applicable to warehouses, whereas the latter is more relevant to shippers and receivers.

However, it is also worth mentioning how distributors are adapting. Many distributors are attempting to integrate their networks into one or a few main facilities.

Centralized and consolidated provisions can mitigate handling and storage costs through “specialization and automation and inventory pooling” (Datex). The cost reductions associated with consolidation extend to consumers as well.

Finally, various technological innovations have been implemented as operations transition away from paper-based mechanisms towards more automated software—a transformation that began at the end of the 20th century. Sensor-driven viticulture devices have allowed growers to detect minuscule changes in water absorption, light exposure, and growth within vineyards (Parkinson). Each of the improvements mentioned above, coupled with more efficient irrigation management, new algorithms designed to distinguish grape varieties, drones that detect smoke contamination on vines, and infrared wavelength to measure the

Figure B: (Franson)

grapes’ ripeness, have enhanced the supply chain.

Despite the adoption of technological innovations that have both improved the monitoring of grapes during the growth process and improved the efficiency in warehouses, the effects of climate change are increasingly visible. As a result, even though the supply chain is constantly changing, unexpected natural disasters have compromised supply. Evidence of the intractable management of grape cultivation in Northern California has surfaced following a sequence of high-severity wildfires. In a later section, research on how wildfires affect local business in Northern California will be analyzed, and several recommendations for producers will be provided.

II. Transitioning From the Old Bioeconomy to the Modern Bioeconomy The birth of the wine industry emerged from the traditional bioeconomy. The European Commission defines bioeconomy as “the production of renewable biological resources and the conversion of these resources and waste streams into value added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy” (Bioeconomy). The old bioeconomy is based on fermentation that facilitates the transformation of grapes into wine. Contrary to other agricultural products, the quality of the finished product is only partially dependent on the initial crop variety. In the wine industry, the color of wine is determined more so by the order of processes the producer takes throughout the production process than by the type of grape seed planted. Biotechnology requires an understanding of the natural biological processes that occur during fermentation, and producers manipulate and alter this system to create differentiated varieties. A key characteristic of fermented products is the vast potential for differentiation. Today, there are thousands of wine producers who practice in specialized niches of the industry. Professors David Zilberman and Eunice Kim fabricated a forum on the transitioning bioeconomy from one based on fermentation to one that utilizes more modern approaches: green chemistry, biotechnology, and remote sensing. Specifically, applying the hedonic pricing method, they measured consumers’ willingness to pay in response to the extent of product differentiation. They concluded that differentiation in wine yielded “a small percentage of

Figure C: (Wine Institute)

the volume of wine accounting for a large share of the revenue” (Zilberman and Kim). In other words, while ‘premium’ and higher-quality wines only account for 8% of the total volume of supply in the year 2003, they warranted a third of the total revenues. The economic activity that transpires within the traditional bioeconomy validates the substantial potential for the modern bioeconomy. Not only will the new bioeconomy expand the geographic and climatic conditions where grapes can be grown, but it will also transition production towards a more sustainable system. Examples of recent biotechnology applied to wine production include plant sensory systems, cold controlled fermentation, and methoxypyrazines.

III. Growth of California’s Wine Industry The Mediterranean-like climate and ideal topographical conditions of California make the state particularly desirable for grape cultivation. In fact, California supplies 81% of the total U.S. wine production. The chart on the left (Figure B) presents the economic distribution of the national wine industry in relation to the U.S. economy in 2015.

Not accounting for taxes, the total national economic output of wine yields 0.55% of the U.S. GDP (Franson).

On the right (Figure C), is a distribution of both California and U.S. wine production (in gallons). Between 2014 and 2017, the state increased output by nearly 7 million gallons (Wine Institute). The California wine industry generated 325,000 jobs within the state and 786,000 jobs across the nation during 2015. In the report “The Economic Impact of California Wine and Grapes 2015,” author John Dunham identified a 17% growth in California’s wine industry within the past seven years, which demonstrates the resiliency of the industry following the Great Recession (Dunham).

Over 2,600 wineries are situated within the state, 800 of which reside in the northern regions of Sonoma Valley and Napa County. Compared to 1990, the number of production facilities has increased by 200%. As of 2019, nearly 635,000 acres of land in California were specifically designated for grape cultivation (Franson). The California wine industry has responded to a global revFall 2020/Perennial 52

olution in grape growing, marketing, consumer preference, and production techniques. Goodhue et al. analyzed the supply chain of California wine over the last two decades. Specifically, the study considered how wineries have evolved to compete in different niches of the industry. The largest wineries continue to enlarge their operations and expand their volume while smaller wineries are improving their marketing strategies to sell directly to end-users. However, midsized wineries are struggling to compete in an ever crowded market. Goodhue identified three substantial changes in wine consumption during this time: (1) the preference for red wine has increased, (2) the willingness to pay for higher quality wine has risen, and (3) Americans are increasingly favoring the consistent tastes of California’s fruit varieties (Goodhue et al.). In general, a universal preference for “New World’’ production techniques—economies of scale and modern technology—over the “Old World’’ mechanisms employed in European countries—smaller scale growers and austere rules for production—has prevailed in the United States.

IV. Marketing Strategies Customer engagement is a key characteristic of any profitable business and can be achieved through constructive marketing and advertising. Marketing fabricates brand credibility, creates product awareness, and serves as a communication platform to convey information to potential buyers about a product. It is specifically important for smaller wineries whose brand awareness is limited in scope, as it enables the expansion of consumer profiles. The successful execution of marketing can effectively mitigate consumer risk by addressing a product’s performance, reliability, and individual consumer fit. However, marketing is not exclusively targeted towards consumers. With the growing application of technology in agriculture, tech companies are increasingly marketing their devices to wine producers. Local and family-operated wineries generally have less capital than large-scale businesses, so publicizing and promoting a brand requires various marketing strategies. Wine club mem-

berships, tasting events, and tourism are commonly used throughout Northern Californian wineries and have effectively generated consumer loyalty. The 21st century supply chain of wine is characterized by individuality, and consumer preference is becoming increasingly specialized. Across all three tiers of suppliers, producers have transitioned away from homogeneity and towards unique products specifically customized for consumers; for example, personalized bottles with the customer’s identity on the label. Furthermore, in an era of environmental advocacy, consumers have demonstrated a preference for organic, low-sulfite wines. Thus, eco-labels on wine bottles have become an effective marketing strategy that target the niche of consumers with environmental concerns.

V. Risk Management and Information There are inevitable risks in any industry, and the supply chain of wine is no exception. Producers endure risk when adopting new technologies and employing new methods of production, while consumers engage in risky behavior when choosing one brand over another. Price fluctuations, policy framework, and political and/or economic factors are examples of risks that are present on both the supply and demand side. An increasing amount of literature on risk management in the California wine industry, as well as other agricultural sectors, has emerged as the effects of climate change become more visible. Grape varieties are highly sensitive to even the slightest variations in temperature, moisture content, and sunlight exposure. In their report on risk management in the wine industry, Seccia et. al characterizes “grapevines [as] a geographically expressive crop, being grown in distinct climate regimes that provide ideal conditions” (Seccia et. al.). The close relationship between grapevines and climate conditions fabricates a high-risk environment for viticulturists.

This paper argues that a transitioning bioeconomy, coupled with new technology that authorizes producers to control every stage of production, have potentially offset some of the harmful effects of climate

Figure D: This image provided by Orion Software simplifies the complexity of the supply chain for producers through utilizing a software system that compacts all aspects of winemaking into one database (Orion Wine Software) 53 Spring 2021 / Perennial

change on grape cultivation. Evidence for this argument lies in the continued expansion of the industry within the state and the ability of producers to swiftly adapt to changes in consumer preferences. The question is whether or not California wine producers are resilient enough in the context of unforeseeable natural disasters that eliminate acres of vineyards in short periods of time. This concern will be explored in the next section.

Fortunately, there are remedies to both consumer and producer risk. Marketing techniques effectively mitigate consumer concerns. Offering wine samplings and tasting sessions can reduce the risk consumers face when deciding which wine to purchase, especially if the consumer is unfamiliar with the product. Through samplings, consumers can avoid impulsive purchases and narrow down their options while also exploring which varieties best suit their preferences. On the supply side, production risk can be mitigated through insurance policies that serve as a buffer in the event of crop loss. Additionally, unexpected equipment malfunctions can be rectified through warranties upon purchase. Finally, knowledge, information distribution, and data availability are essential when addressing the different risk typologies that confront producers. Knowledge-Based Capital (KBC) investments provide suppliers with the necessary information to predict future risks within the industry and to modify behavior in accordance with these predictions. Insurance companies collect agronomic data on crop yields in order to estimate insurance premiums for their customers. Data and information are particularly important when employing disease management procedures. The management of pest and disease outbreaks on vineyards has improved in response to more accurate weather and pest forecasting.

Implications of Wildfires on the Supply Chain Climate change has impacted agricultural industries at a global scale. Drought, temperature anomalies, and high-severity fires are particularly endemic to California. Under the unusually warmer conditions, grapes ripen quicker, resulting in wine that is lower in acidity and higher in sugar content. Wineries whose identities are built on individuality and differentiation are highly vulnerable to inconsistencies in their products. Suppliers must therefore tailor their current production methods in order to circumvent variabilities in wine and to meet the increasing demand for high-quality, specialized wines. The previous section discussed the emerging technologies and forecasting systems that have allowed producers to manipulate environmental conditions directly. Through adopting new innovations, the supply chain has visibly demonstrated growth, despite tem-

perature variations. However, the effect of wildfires on the supply chain is less obvious. In the year 2020 alone, nearly four million acres of California burned from high-severity fires (Daniels). The LNU Complex fire was named the fifth largest fire in California history, burning 365,000 acres of land across Napa and Sonoma County. Planned power outages intended to serve as a preventative measure made it impossible for wineries to keep fermentation tanks cool enough to avoid unwarranted oxidation. Unlike factors like temperature and moisture content which can be manipulated with the implementation of new technology, wildfires often transcend the boundaries of human control and occur without warning. The question, then, is whether or not suppliers in this state have demonstrated resilience after recent fires have swept through the wine country, leaving nothing but a trail of ash.

I. Case Study: Tourism Empathy in the Context of Natural Disaster In order to discern how wildfires have impacted wine production in Northern California, Bauman et. al. developed a measure for assessing the extent to which frequent wine tourists empathize with the wine industry during times of natural disaster. Wildfires and other destructive events are particularly catastrophic for destination industries, like wineries, which are expected to portray and embody the image of a pristine landscape. The majority of sales for tier 1 suppliers come from tourism, so it is particularly problematic for the supplier when a destination location is destroyed. The authors propose that tourism segmentation variables can support the industry in strategically targeting tourists after a natural disaster occurs, as tourism is an essential part of the recovery process. They examined the perceptions of 600 wine tourists (n=600) who had visited a winery in Northern California within the past two years. The purpose of this study was to disclose the extent to which wineries within this region have been affected from an economic and financial stand-

Figure E: Table 6 provides examples of several qualitative quotes that were gathered from the sample, divided into dimensions of concern. Note that this pertains to Theme 1: concern felt regarding the wildfires, but four additional themes were used as well (Bauman et. al)

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Figure F: California Wine Shipments (In millions of 9-liter cases) (Wine Institute, 2007)

point, following a sequence of high-severity fires. Furthermore, the report offers strategies for destination wineries to use following a natural disaster. In the study, the “destination image acts as the conceptual lens with which this research aims to explore tourists’ perception of a destination impacted by a natural disaster” (Bauman et. al.). A questionnaire and an open-ended question were used on the sample population; the corresponding qualitative (themes and dimensions of concern) and quantitative (descriptive statistics) results were provided in the report.

The results illustrate that deliberate tourism scored the highest on the natural disaster empathy measure.

Therefore, suppliers should specifically target this population with marketing following a natural disaster event. Although the study had several limitations— for example, the majority of participants were part of Generation Y which prohibited the researchers from accounting for generational differences—the results provide useful information for destination wineries in the context of natural disasters. The research proposes that the tourist cohorts with the highest measures of empathy should be prioritized following a natural disaster in order to boost resilience and recovery from economic losses. In general, this study affirms that the supply chain of wine in Northern California can in fact persevere when confronted with tribulations that cannot be overcome by adopting new innovations.

Finally, it is worth revisiting wine exports in Northern California. In an earlier section that scrutinized the growth of California’s wine industry, Figure C confirmed a significant growth in output per gallon between 2014-2017. However, 2019 and 2020 were accompanied by many high-severity fires, so it is worth investigating the impact of those years on the industry. Unfortunately, it is still too early to tell how fires in 2020 impacted the grapevines in wineries that remained intact, but the Wine Institute provides data from 2019 (Figure F). Between 2018 and 2019, both the global and domestic total wine exports from California fell, yet the estimated retail value increased.

Wildfires undoubtedly contributed to the decline in the former, however the industry’s net worth grew nonetheless. Consumers willingly paid the higher prices, enabling the profit margins to expand. While this paper excludes COVID-19 and its impact on wineries, one can expect that the pandemic has undermined the work of many businesses. The next section will provide several recommendations for operating 55 Spring 2021 / Perennial

wineries in Northern California with reference to the findings provided by Bauman et. al.

Recommendations and Conclusion Given the increasingly visible effects of climate change on agricultural industries, having access to technology and surveillance that allows for the manipulation of temperature and growing conditions on premature vines is essential for growers to adapt to climatic variations. Following adoption, proper training on implementing the new equipment and software-managing programs is necessary for product diffusion within the industry. Because grapes are highly sensitive to even the slightest changes throughout all stages of production, suppliers should welcome new innovations that resist natural anomalies resulting from climate change. This is where the application of precision farming will be favorable.

Precision agriculture employs new technologies to increase yields and profit margins while reducing the number of traditional inputs like fertilizer, water, or acreage. In other words, using less inputs, farmers can expand production. This type of agriculture is often referred to as satellite farming or site specific management and prioritizes a thorough observation of intra-field variability. Precision technologies include geospatial devices, multispectral imagery, and small instruments or sensors (Trimble).

In addition to technology, providing suppliers with a framework for optimizing resilience will increase the probability that production will resume after a crisis. Glinksy et. al. investigated the strategic resilience in the wine industry and provided a framework called the Resilience Adaptation Model (Figure G).

The authors stress the importance of building and maintaining stakeholder support in order to recover from unexpected phenomena. Preparing for a natural disaster requires suppliers to quickly alter cur-

Figure G: (Glinksy et. al.)

rent production methods, if necessary. Next, because recent consumer behavior reveals a preference for higher-quality, specialized wines, smaller-scale wineries with differentiated and regional varieties will become of increasing importance. While many wineries in Northern California are family-operated, it is of particular importance to maximize their individual supply chains through the efficient allocation of resources. Furthermore, many wineries have overtime pay taking up a substantial share of their weekly payrolls. Employing ‘labor balancing’ will eliminate many of the unproductive tasks workers engage in during the workday and reduce the frequency of overtime labor. In addition to labor, optimizing both energy and water efficiencies will also be necessary, especially in a state characterized by frequent blackouts and persistent seasonal droughts. Achieving energy efficiency will increase the overall efficiency of wineries and help reduce operating costs. Wineries can reduce energy use in many areas, from refrigeration and lighting to tank insulation and air compression systems.

For example, Dr. Thomas Henick-Kling, author of Energy Efficiency in Wineries, recommends that wineries “insulate wine storage tanks to reduce heat gain from surrounding air” and install window ceilings to minimize the need for electrical lighting (Henick-Kling).

Water usage can be reduced by addressing equipment leakages, employing drip irrigation systems, or capturing rainwater from roof spaces. Finally, as seen from the results of the study measuring the level of tourist empathy in destination locations, strategically targeting tourists with marketing will optimize resiliency in the context of natural disasters.

In conclusion, the general supply chain has evolved significantly over the last 8,000 years. A transition from the traditional bioeconomy based on fermentation, to a modern, sustainable bioeconomy that utilizes an integrative approach—drawing from biotech, genetics, and informatics—will improve the supply chain and enable producers to adjust production methods. Over the last century, the wine industry has accommodated for changes in demand and, for the most part, resisted the effects of climate change on vine health. Time lags—due to the lengthy process of producing wine—create data gaps in 2020, making it difficult to predict how the most recent wildfires have impacted the industry in Northern California. While this brief focused exclusively on the response of California’s wine industry to climate change, the Novel Coronavirus has unquestionably undermined sales at the global level. Nonetheless, the capacity for product differentiation, the various dimensional scales of suppliers, and the irrefutable plasticity of the wine industry make a thorough analysis of this supply chain difficult, yet captivating.

Works Cited 1. Bauman, M. J., et al. “Developing a Measure for Assessing Tourists’ Empathy Towards Natural Disasters in the Context of Wine Tourism and the 2017 California Wildfires.” Current Issues in Tourism, vol. 19, no.

19, 2020, pp. 2476–491, doi.org/10.1080/13683500.201 9.1681944.

2. “Bioeconomy: The European Way to Use Our Natural Resources: Action Plan 2018.” 2018, edepot.wur. nl/467092.

3. Borg, Axel. “A Short History on Winemaking in California.” UC Davis Library, 5 Jul. 2016,

www.library.ucdavis.edu/news/short-history-wine-making-california/.

4. “California & U.S. Wine Production.” Wine Institute, 2017, wineinstitute.org/our-industry/statistics/california-us-wine-production/.

5. Cheslow, Daniella. “Georgia’s Giant Clay Pots Hold An 8,000-Year-Old Secret To Great Wine.”

NPR, 8 Jun. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/08/412039092/georgias-giant-claypots-hold-an-8-000-year-old-secret-to-great-wine.

6. Daniels, Sarah E. “Climate Change Is Rapidly Altering Wine As We Know It.” Wine Enthusiast, 3 Feb. 2020,

www.winemag.com/2020/02/03/wine-climatechange/.

7. John Dunham & Associates, Inc. “The 2015 Economic Impact Study of the California Wine Industry.” Aug. 2015, www.wine-economy.com/ media/1050/2015-california-wine-economic-impact-methodology.pdf.

8. Franson, Paul. “Economic Impact of California Wine: $114B.” Wines & Vines, Sept. 2016, winesvinesanalytics.com/features/article/173240/Economic-Impact-of-California-Wine-114B#:~:text=85%25%20 of%20U.S.%20wine%20production,France%2C%20 Italy%20and%20Spain.

9. Henick-Kling, T. “Energy Efficiency in Wineries.”

Washington State University Extension Energy Program, 2011, p. 2, www.energy.wsu.edu/Documents/ Industrial_Wineries_Feb2011.pdf.

10. Goodhue, Rachael, et al. “The California Wine Industry is Evolving to Compete in the 21st Century.” California Agriculture, vol. 62, no. 1, 2008, pp. 12-8.

11. Gilinsky, Armand Jr., et al. “An Exploratory Investigation into Strategic Resilience in the U.S. Wine Industry.” Journal of Wine Research, vol. 31, 12 Feb. 2020, pp. 1-14, doi.org/10.1080/09571264.2020.1723068.

12. Grainger, Keith, and Hazel Tattersall. Wine Production and Quality. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 1 Jan. 2016, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ book/10.1002/9781118934562.

13. Maumbe, Blessing and Cheryl Brown. “Entrepreneurial and Buyer-Driven Local Wine Supply Chains: Case Study of Acres of Land Winery in Kentucky.” International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, vol. 16, no.1, Jan. 2013, pp. 135-57.

14. May, Catriona. “Five Ways Technology is Changing the Wine We Drink.” Pursuit, University of Melbourne, 20 Jul. 2018, pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/five-ways-technology-is-changing-the-wine-wedrink.

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15. “Oak Knoll District: Napa Wine Growing Appellation, Napa Valley AVA.” Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley, 20 Dec. 2018, www.okdnapa.com/about-us/.

16. Parkinson, Emily. “Wine Production is Controlled Through New Technology.” Financial Review, 9 Mar. 2016, www.afr.com/companies/wine-production-controlled-through-new-technology-20160307-gncemc.

17. Russell, Chris. “How Does Wine Fermentation Work?”

2 Hawk Vineyard & Winery, 13 Feb. 2019, www.

2hawk.wine/2019/02/13/how-does-wine-fermentation-work/#:%7E:text=Fermentation%20is%20the%20 process%20by,convert%20grape%20sugars%20into%20 alcohol.

18. Seccia, Antonio, et al. (2016). “Risk Management in the Wine Industry: A Review of the Literature.” BIO Web of Conferences, vol. 7, no. 03014, 26 Oct. 2016, doi. org/10.1051/bioconf/20160703014.

19. “The 5 Stages of the Wine Making Process.” Alto Vineyards, 29 Aug. 2014, altovineyards.net/5-stages-wine-making-process/#:%7E:text=There%20are%20 five%20basic%20components,and%20variations%20 along%20the%20way.

20. Trimble, Scott. “Precision Farming in 2021: What It Is & Why It’s Changing Everything in Agriculture.” Felix Instruments: Applied Food Science, 5 Mar. 2021, felixinstruments.com/blog/precision-farming-what-it-iswhy-its-changing-everything-in-agriculture/.

21. “Wine & Spirits Logistics - Supply Chain Management Basics” Datex, 12 Sept. 2019, /www.datexcorp.com/ supply-chain-management-basics-wine-and-spirits-logistics/#:~:text=The%20three%20main%20 tiers%20of,recent%20years%20is%20Tier%202.

22. “Wine Production: From Vineyard to Bottling.” Orion Software, 1995, orionwinesoftware.com/solutions/cellar-management/.

23. “Wine Supply Chain Traceability.” GS1, 2005, www. gs1us.org/DesktopModules/Bring2mind/DMX/ Download.aspx?Command=Core_Download&EntryId=660&language=en-US&PortalId=0&TabId=134.

24. Zilberman, D., and E. Kim. “The Lessons of Fermentation for the New Bioeconomy.” 2011.

25. Zilberman, D. “Adoption.” Lecture 8, 2021.

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Embodied Knowledge in Mongla Bay, Bangladesh: A Critical Look into Climate Change, Urbanization, and the Secondary City Project in the Global South AUTHOR: Hamzah Jhaveri Abstract: The climate crisis is a key driving factor in the displacement of millions of individuals worldwide.

Due to floods, storms, and other climate-related disasters, people in Bangladesh have been abruptly displaced, prompting an internal influx of movement towards urban centers. While these include areas like Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi, this research paper focuses on Mongla Bay as a lesser-known center for rural-urban migration. As the city adapts to the changing landscape and growing population, an increasing number of sustainably motivated initiatives seek to build adaptive infrastructure and raise living conditions. However, changing migration patterns also influence the social setting of the city, namely in reinforcing the proliferation of gendered economies and the emergence of sexual labor. Finally, this paper discusses the global power dynamics involved in knowledge production and appropriation in a postcolonial context. It observes that as Western institutions continue to dominate scientific narratives concerning climate change, embodied experiences in the Global South are overlooked and erased. This paper concludes that decolonizing knowledge involves centering those with lived experience, such as migrants in Mongla, in critical decision making processes as they serve as true sites of knowledge production and corporal data collection.

I. Introduction: Rural-Urban Migration of Internally Displaced People to Dhaka, Bangladesh Bangladesh is ground zero for the international climate crisis. The deltaic nation is a locus of environmental and human behavioral change due to intensifying protracted climate phenomena that are permanently altering the known landscape and, consequently, its inhabitants’ lifestyles and ontologies. In this sense, the people of Bangladesh corporeally record a specific form of knowledge about their space and climate through their lived experiences. The nation’s specific topography, consisting of “a lush honeycomb of island villages, farms, and fish ponds linked by protective embankments,” means that “more than one-fifth of the country can be flooded at once” during the monsoon season (McDonnell). As rural parts of the nation become increasingly inhospitable due to treacherous floods, tropical storms, and increased levels of salinity in what was once arable farmland—to name only a few dominant climate-related trends—the country has seen a rapid and chaotic influx of internally displaced migrants to the nation’s urban centers. Citing a report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Tim McDonnell notes that over the last ten years alone, “nearly 700,000 Bangladeshis were displaced on average each year by natural disasters.” This number is projected to rise to 13.3 million by the year 2050 (McDonnell).

Optioned with scarce alternatives, these rural-urban migrants are predominantly choosing Dhaka, the nation’s capital, as their new home.

A sprawling, densely populated, unplanned, slum-laden megacity, Dhaka offers socioeconomic opportunities coupled with a host of challenges for its new residents. In their 2007 report on climate change and urbanization in Dhaka, Mozaharul Alam and Golam Rabbani note stresses on the city—which has a turbulent history of migration since after gaining independence from the British Empire and the Partition of India and Pakistan in 19471, as well as after Bangladesh’s subsequent independence from West Pakistan in 19712—as rural-urban migrants continue to preference it as an option in the face of climate change.

Alam and Rabbani catalog key concerns about the city, including the infrastructural problems caused by and related to “higher temperatures, water shortages, increased flooding, and rising sea levels” (82).

These problems are intensified for those living in slums.

People living in slums make up around “40% of the city’s residents,” 70% of which “moved there due to environmental challenges” (McDonnell). The experiences of Dhaka’s precariat class are turbulent. Ranging from drastic levels of poverty to rampant fires to sexual violence, these experiences have begun to be included in the growing trend of acknowledging the impacts of climate change on internal migration within acutely affected nations, with the goal of improving the resilience of urban centers and including marginalized contingents in global development frameworks.

This paper, however, seeks to foreground Mongla Bay—a lesser-known, small city that many rural-urban migrants have been considering over Dhaka and other larger cit-

1 Jip Claassens notes the historical trend of unplanned urbanization in Bangladesh vis-a-vis violent, national events in his thesis on “Future developments in Bangladesh: urbanization scenarios to assess flood risk”: “Bangladesh experienced urbanization since its separation from India in 1947 when Dhaka became the provincial capital of East Pakistan. However, the real substantial urbanization started when Bangladesh became independent in 1971. The urban population grew fivefold in the period 1974- 2011” (2016:7).

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ies—in a conversation of climate change and its effects on urban population centers in the Global South.

II. Secondary Cities and Urban Planning: Mongla Bay, Bangladesh Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi are Bangladesh’s largest metropolitan cities, housing “over 56% of the total urban population” of Bangladesh, according to a 2010 report by the Local Consultative Group (LCG) Urban Sector Working Group (4).

These cities, especially Dhaka, have been the center of international focus as a result of the ingress of internally displaced people forced to move from their rural homes due to catastrophic or protracted environmental crises.

However, the same LCG report goes on to mention the recent increase in attention being paid to “Pourashavas,” also called “secondary cities,” that have been contributing “significantly to sustainable urbanization, economic growth and strengthening rural economies through rural-urban linkages with smaller market towns” (4). One such city is Mongla, “a booming port town on the country’s south-central coast” (McDonnell). Along with a handful of other secondary urban centers throughout the Global South2, Mongla is addressing climate change through a forward-thinking, “urban overhaul that aims to turn it into a magnet for climate migrants” (McDonnell). In Mongla, “investments in sea walls and other adaptive infrastructure are being paired with factories and other blue-collar job opportunities, as well as public services like affordable housing, schools, and hospitals,” making the city a potentially vibrant site of knowledge production, especially in regards to changing migration and urbanization patterns and resilient, economic urban planning in the face of climate change (McDonnell).

The city planners are perhaps the most apparent producers of knowledge, working from observations of environmental phenomena as well as migrational patterns to develop robust and resilient urban planning frameworks and scenarios for Mongla’s growing population. The industrial zone of the city—home to “cement factories, diesel fuel mass storage facilities, and two dozen factories with jobs for 4,300 workers producing everything from luggage and electronics to packages snacks and mannequins”—coupled with the bordering agrarian lands, makes the municipality a perfect candidate for planners (McDonnell).

Investment in infrastructure, from a freshwater distribution system to pedestrian walkways, and a variety of economic opportunities has amounted to positive social changes: namely, better living conditions than those of the cramped and unhygienic slums of 2

Bangladesh’s larger metropolitan cities.

These conditions and opportunities translate to an increased population in the fledgeling city. Jip Claassens attributes the projected population growth rates of secondary cities like Mongla to “the planned Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Corridor (a major infrastructural plan to connect India and China) and the plans to build the seaports; Payra Port, Mongla Port, and Sonadia Port” (24). These plans, as well as the lived experiences of those creating and engaging with the plans, serve as useful records of how the population is actively adapting to climate changes in the context of the current, turbulent global crisis.

III. Mongla’s Residents: Embodied Records of Climate Knowledge

As opportunistic as it may seem, Mongla is not immune to the dangers of climate change. In their research, Jenny Gustafsson and Karim Mostafa highlight some of the ongoing environmental struggles of Mongla’s residents. While some of these struggles include the routine cyclones and flooding that the entire subcontinent has been facing, others are more specific to the Delta.

Take, for example, the increased salinity of bodies of water in a region where rice cultivation has been commonplace throughout the swampy, lake-laden landscape, and sources of freshwater have historically been readily available (Gustafsson and Mostafa). Nonetheless, Mongla’s residents have been adapting to these changes in their milieu. Farming crabs, shrimp, and other aquatic life has begun to replace rice cultivation (Gustafsson and Mostafa). New types of rice, including the saline-tolerant “scuba” variety, have been introduced to farming practices in certain regions (Gustafsson and Mostafa).

Moreover, water purification systems are being written into the urban plans of secondary cities, including Mongla. Still, farmers face economic challenges in their markets that are hard to overcome. Here, the effects of climate change are inherently embedded and recorded in the ways that humans have adapted to them, highlighting the importance of centering cities like Mongla in the global discussion on the climate crisis and emphasizing lived experience as a form of knowledge production and record keeping.

Also tied to economic stress, social adversities in Mongla are, in many cases, a result of environmental challenges. For example, Luca Catalano Gonzaga photographs the emergence of a frequented brothel in Mongla called Bani Shanta, one of 14 officially designated and legal locations for sex labor across the Muslim country. Showcase huts housing young prostitutes span the coast of this one-kilometer island, connected

Secondary cities are a popular subject of discussion in the context of urban planning vis-a-vis climate change. For example, Jonatan A. Lassa and Erwin Nugraha discuss the centering of the Indonesian

secondary city 2021 of Bandar Lampung by the Asian Cities Climate Change Network (ACCCRN) in the national discourse on building urban resilience to climate change (2014).

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to the ocean by a series of wooden docks (Gonzaga).

Many of Gonzaga’s pictures capture women in their late teens and early twenties, some of whom have children, with their prospective clients—older men who arrive on the island via boat. Clearly, there is a gendered dimension to the emergence of sexual labor in an economy battered by climate change, as more and more young girls move to cities like Mongla in search of better economic opportunities and are still faced with few options. Bani Shanta is just one example of how a gendered economy emerges and operates in this context; it exemplifies a social phenomenon closely associated with migrational patterns caused by environmental stresses.

McDonnell mentions other elements of this gendered economy, claiming that in Dhaka, men “and boys work in brick factories, drive rickshaws, and build skyscrapers. Women and girls clean houses, stitch Western fashions, and raise families—often fending off sexual violence at multiple steps along the way” (McDonnell). Usually, the youth that can afford the luxury of education are men, as women often take on more household tasks and jobs or are married off at a young age so as to not be an economic burden for the family. When considered in conversation, these social patterns are lived records of the effects of a changing climate.

IV. Colonial Legacy of Data Collection in South Asia and the Global South In any conversation on the Global South, it is important to consider the global power dynamics of knowledge production and appropriation in a postcolonial world order. Many of the studies on the emergence of secondary cities like Mongla, including those cited in this paper, have been conducted or sponsored by Western institutions. This is an alarming parallel to the nature of scientific research in India3 during the colonial area. According to Deepak Kumar, the colonial project sought to “dethrone and delegitimize several pre-colonial symbols and totems [of knowledge production],” while positing that “their ideological material wares in a form that would appear attractive, if not always superior, to at least a section of the indigenous population” (197). Upon the first encounter, the colonists’ imaginaries saw Indian scientific tradition as “impressive and inaccurate at the same time,” explaining how British colonists found merit and issue in non-Western forms of knowledge production (Kumar 196).

an culture, challenging the colonists’ “self-proclaimed epistemological superiority and growing technological prowess for colonial expansion” with like-minded, yet subversive projects to, for example, highlight “Hindu contributions to ‘exact, positive and material culture’” (Kumar 207). Essentially, these anti-colonial scientific campaigns were mobilized to reclaim the rubric of what was acceptable science and what was not. We see a similar opportunity to reclaim scientific practice and knowledge production and center it on a global scale, in Mongla.

Clearly, science was and remains an active tool of empire-building, since in large part, stolen and appropriated knowledge remains a concentrated reservoir of power within the Western metropoles. Also clear in this discussion is the colonial discourse that distinguishes “data collection” in the Global South from “knowledge production” in the Global North. This discursive distinction empowers Occidental nations with the claims to knowledge collected, and therefore produced, in the ex-colonies.

Conclusion In an attempt to decolonize the discourse surrounding the impacts of climate change, this paper has argued for lived experience as a form of corporeal data collection and embodied knowledge production. Relatedly, how do we manage to foreground and deploy this wealth of embodied knowledge—recorded in the lived experiences of Bangladeshis—without invoking colonial power structures or appropriating knowledge and experience for the benefit of nations more fortunate as to not be the ground zero of climate change?

Through highlighting efforts across the Global South to address climate change and including lay observations of and engagements with local and international agreements that uplift, award, and promote as opposed to silence, appropriate, and steal from those sources of knowledge, the knowledge engendered by migrants in Mongla may be included in the dominant narrative of climate change. Better yet, their experiences and embodied knowledge may come to comprise an entirely novel narrative of climate change and redefine standards of scientific practice altogether.

Kumar also notes the resurgence of Hindu scientific practice during the Swadeshi nationalist movement in the early twentieth century. These nationalists sought to recenter scientific discourse along the axis of Indi3

Bangladesh was a part of the British-occupied India before Independence and Partition in 1947.

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Alam, Mozaharul, and M.d. Golam Rabbani. “Vulnerabilities and Responses to Climate Change for Dhaka.” Environment and Urbanization, vol. 19, no. 1, 2007, pp. 81–97, doi:10.1177/0956247807076911.

Claassens, Jip. “Future Developments in Bangladesh: Urbanization Scenarios to Assess Flood Risk (Master’s Thesis)” Vrije Universiteit, 2016, Amsterdam.

Gonzaga, Luca C. “The Island of Forgotten Women” Witness Image, 2010, www.witnessimage.com/stories/what-monsoons-wont-wash-away/ Gustafsson, Jenny, and Karim Mostafa. “Surviving Climate Change in Bangladesh.” Al Jazeera, 2016, www.aljazeera.com/ indepth/inpictures/2016/07/surviving-climate-change-bangladesh-160702110256889.html Kumar, Deepak. “The ‘Culture’ of Science and Colonial Culture, India 1820-1920.” The British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 29, no. 2, 1996, pp. 195–209. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/ stable/4027833 Lassa, Jonatan A, and Erwin Nugraha. “Building Urban Resilience to Climate Change in the Secondary Cities in Indonesia.” IRGSC Working Paper Series, vol. 9, Feb 2014, pp. 1–22, www.irgsc.org/pubs/wp.html Local Consultative Group (LCG) Urban Sector Working Group.

“Bridging the Urban Divide in Bangladesh. Conversation Event of the Local Government Division, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives and the LCG Urban Sector, 2010.

McDonnell, Tim. “Climate Change Creates a New Migration Crisis for Bangladesh.” Environment, National Geographic, 3 May 2021, www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/climate-change-drives-migration-crisis-in-bangladeshfrom-dhaka-sundabans.

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Fires and Ambivalence: Understanding Students’ Attitudes and Actions Towards Climate Change AUTHOR: Lauren Marie McCormack Abstract: The effects of man-made climate change have already been experienced around the world. Here in the United States, climate change has contributed to devastating fires in the West, floods and cyclones in the East, and record-breaking heat across all 48 contiguous states. While more Americans are recognizing the reality of climate change, there remains surprisingly little domestic grassroots mobilization. This paper expands upon existing research on why many individuals believe in the reality of climate change but do not take action. For my research, I utilized surveys to gather quantitative and qualitative data on how personal experience with climate change and demographic factors affect climate change attitudes and action. I focused my research on UC Berkeley students who have experienced the effects of climate change via the Northern California fires in fall 2017, 2018, 2019, and/or 2020. I found that the key factor that shapes climate change attitudes are political beliefs, while the key factors that shape climate action are political beliefs and intended career paths. The data also showed that personal experience with the fires made respondents more concerned about climate change; however it did not elicit action. The most revealing finding was that many individuals do not take action because they associate climate action with efforts to reduce their personal carbon footprints; therefore, they view climate action as incapable of addressing the larger, structural roots of the climate crisis. Based on this finding, my main suggestion is for environmental advocacy organizations to publicize their commitment to promoting systemic changes and cease using terms like “zero waste” which imply a sole focus on individual actions.

Introduction Climate change poses the greatest threat to humanity we have ever faced. For the past 10,000 years, the stable geological age known as the Holocene created conditions conducive to human life and development (Rockstrom et al.). However, over the last few centuries, fossil fuel use and industrialized agriculture have rapidly increased the concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, causing our climate to change (Rockstrom et al.). Climate change has the potential to irreversibly damage the natural processes that keep Earth in a livable, Holocene state and thus poses a fundamental threat to human life. Scholars have predicted that climate change will cause several dangerous phenomena which will render Earth uninhabitable for humans (Wallace-Wells). Higher temperatures will cause hyperthermia, drier and hotter temperatures will lead to food shortages, and melting ice caps may (re)release deadly plagues. Furthermore, changes to the chemical composition in our atmosphere will render Earth’s air and oceans poisonous. All of these health risks will contribute to mass migration, “perpetual war,” and “permanent economic collapse” (Wallace-Wells).

The effects of climate change have already been felt around the world. In most cases, these effects have come sooner and more extremely than scientists

previously predicted. Shifts in climate patterns and landuse change have contributed to a dramatic biodiversity loss, such that several scholars assert that humans have “triggered the sixth major extinction event in the history of life” (Chapin et al.). Today, Arctic ice caps cover 961,000 fewer square miles than they did between 1981 and 2010, which has contributed to rising sea levels across the world (NSIDC). These higher sea levels have given rise to the world’s first climate refugees, who have had to abandon their now-submerged homes in places ranging from the Pacific Islands to Louisiana (Campbell & Warrick; Jessee). Furthermore, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “the world’s five warmest years have all occurred since 2015” due to climate change, which contributed to the Western United States’ record breaking fire seasons over the last few years (NOAA). In California, where I attend UC Berkeley, fires burned thousands of acres during the falls of 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020—with each year successively worsening. By the end of the 2020 fire season, 9,639 different fires had burned more than 4% of California’s total land.

The smoke from these fires created unhealthy air conditions and residents were warned to stay inside, while events were cancelled. And, as scientists across the world are warning, these events are only the beginning.

While natural and scientific evidence clearly suggest that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and quickly worsening, what is far less clear is what should be done politically. Successfully mitigating and adapting to cliFall 2020/Perennial 62

mate change will require large-scale changes of almost everything around us. We must decarbonize our electricity, our manufacturing, our vehicles, and our agriculture. To reach these goals and keep our global climate within inhabitable limits, we need strong and organized efforts at the individual, local, state, federal, and international levels around the world.

Unlike previous decades, there is now increasing recognition of man-made or anthropogenic climate change in the United States; however, considering the gravity of this issue, climate change has engendered surprisingly little domestic grassroots mobilization (McAdam). While support for climate policy has increased over the past few years and youth activist organizations like the Sunrise Movement have gained some momentum, climate change is still not the top priority for most people—across both sides of the political aisle (Funk and Kennedy).

This research explores the factors that shape climate change attitudes and actions in order to uncover why more people are not engaged in climate action.

This research investigates the case of UC Berkeley students who have experienced the effects of climate change-related fires in Northern California for the past four falls1. My hope is that the findings of this research will inform environmental activist strategization and ultimately foster more widespread mobilization around this issue.

Literature Review Sociology and Climate Change Because climate change is caused and experienced by humans, it can be said that it is inherently a social problem. Nevertheless, the scholarship surrounding climate change has been dominated by the natural sciences. Sociology is a particularly underrepresented field in the literature on climate change. Sociologist Sandra Bhatasara explains that this is partially due to the fact that the first climate change research was conducted by natural scientists, and so the institutions founded thereafter, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have had an institutional bias against all social sciences except economics. At the same time, sociologists and other social scientists have been slow to engage with climate change, “at both theoretical and policy levels,” since the environment is a topic that mainstream sociology often does not delve into (Bhatasara). That said, there is a branch of sociology that has been studying the social aspects of environmental issues for over forty years and has produced a considerable body of research on climate change: environmental sociology (Bhatasara).

1

Environmental sociologists have “used quantitative and qualitative methods to research the social and cultural processes that configure attitudes, discourses, and ideological dimensions of climate change in public debates and policy processes” and have also studied “‘environmentalism’ as a social movement... in the context of climate change” (Bhatasara). Nagel et al. further articulate that at the core of these sociological analyses is the understanding that successfully mitigating or adapting to climate change will require deep consideration of social factors, rather than “purely technological fixes.” One such social factor that environmental sociologists consider is what everyday people think about climate change and why they may fail to take action.

Understanding Climate Denial Early sociological research on the “lay public’s” understanding of and attitudes toward climate change found—rather unsurprisingly given that political discourse on climate was still relatively new—that the average person did not understand climate change very well (Dunlap). At this point, in the 1990s and 2000s, people often confused climate change with general air pollution and considered ozone depletion and rainforest destruction to be bigger environmental problems (Dunlap). From this body of research emerged what environmental sociologist and geographer Harriet Bulkeley calls the “the information-deficit model” (Bulkeley). This model posits that people who are not concerned about climate change suffer from a deficit of information and, should they have more facts presented to them, they would both care and take action.

While this model is important in understanding some cases, Bhasarata asserts that this model cannot account for why levels of concern decreased in the 2000s to mid-2010s, when scientific consensus on the certainty and danger of climate change increased. Furthermore, the information-deficit model cannot account for the behavior of people who understand and believe in the threat of climate change but do not take action in response (Bhatasara).

To account for those who have exhibited a decrease in climate change concern as scientific certainty increases in the United States, environmental and political sociologists have examined the ideologies and fossil fuel industry ties of right-wing America, particularly the Republican Party. It is now commonly understood that right-leaning individuals are more likely to deny climate change and oppose climate policy, which multiple studies have confirmed. A 2011 study that measured people’s “[climate change] beliefs, behaviors, policy preferences, and issue engagement” found that the strongest predictor of each of these measures was

For more detailed information about the fires and how they affected UC Berkeley, see Part III of Appendix A.

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political orientation; the more conservative someone was, the less likely they were to believe in climate change, reduce their carbon footprint, support climate change policy, and engage with the topic other than denying its reality (Maibach et al.). Anthropologist and environmental sociologist Jean-Daniel Collomb argues that from an ideological standpoint, right-wing Americans are more likely to deny climate change regulation for two reasons: 1) They oppose government regulation and prefer laissez-faire, small government, and 2) they wish to uphold the “American way of life,” which is associated with high consumption and materialism (Collomb).

While conservatives may have been predisposed to be more skeptical of climate change science, scholars have documented the links between fossil fuel industries, conservative think tanks, and conservative politicians which further contribute to right-wing climate change denial and policy disapproval. Political analyst and author Naomi Klein explains that the right-wing “climate change counter-movement” receives more than $900 million per year for a variety of activities, including the funding of conservative think tanks like the Heartland Institute that propagate (false) uncertainty over climate science (Klein). While its funding cannot be fully traced, the Heartland Institute has collectively received at least $1 million from ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel corporations (Klein). Furthermore, scholars Dunlap and Jacques found strong ties between conservative think tanks and books that deny climate change. They found that conservative think tanks fund, assist, or otherwise inspire these books, which are powerful vessels for disseminating skepticism of climate change and attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Dunlap and Jacques). Once published, the findings of such books are echoed by right-wing media, politicians, and everyday citizens.

Thus Klein asserts that “the deniers are doing more than protecting their personal worldviews—they are protecting powerful political and economic interests that have gained tremendously from the way Heartland and others have clouded the climate debate” (Klein).

Belief in Climate Change and Inaction While right-wing groups have largely remained skeptical of climate change and responsive policy, the percentage of left-wing Americans who believe “global climate change is a major threat to the well-being of the United States” has grown from 60% in 2009 to 88% (Kennedy). This left-wing surge contributed to an overall increase of 16% over this time period, such that now 60% of Americans hold this view (Kennedy).

Given these numbers, why is there not broader support for climate action? While we have seen the rise

of groups like the Sunrise movement, Extinction Rebellion, and student climate strikes, there is not the widespread mobilization one might expect for an issue this consequential. None of the works reviewed thus far can account for this phenomenon; however, several scholars have offered explanations.

At the heart of explanations about our present political moment, where the majority of people believe in climate change but are not taking action, lies the fact that feeling deep concern and taking action against climate change requires more than just believing in the reality of this issue. The prominent sociologist and anthropologist Anthony Giddens claims that people do not care enough to act on climate change because its effects “aren’t tangible, immediate or visible in the course of dayto-day life” (Giddens). As a result, Giddens argues that people will not do anything to stop climate change until they personally experience the effects of it, at which point it will be too late (this he calls “Giddens’s Paradox”) (Giddens). Sociologists Smith and Howe expand upon Giddens’ findings, asserting that many people do not care about climate change because they perceive it as a problem for other people, either in the future or in “lands far away” (Smith and Howe). The authors contribute this effect partially to how climate change was characterized as a “Save the Polar Bears Issue” (Smith and Howe). Smith and Howe assert that people care more about social problems that confront them on a daily basis such as education, healthcare, and jobs (Smith and Howe).

Not all scholars agree with the theory of Giddens’s Paradox, however. Anthropologist Cindy Isenhour directly refutes Giddens’s Paradox, pointing out that Sweden has taken commendable efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that Swedes on average are very concerned about climate change, even though most have no personal experiences with its effects. She attributes Swedes’ concern for climate change, specifically global climate justice, to Sweden’s broader cultural, and political contexts (Isenhour). She found that factors such as Sweden’s “ethnic homogeneity and the ideology of the social welfare state have interacted with Sweden’s consensual political culture and their international identity as a global mediator that are highly motivated by concerns for global climate justice” (Isenhour). Conversely, Isenhour argues that Americans do not take action and do not exhibit particular concern about climate change because of prevailing ideological, cultural and political norms in the US that are very different from those of Sweden (Isenhour). Isenhour asserts that these ideological norms, which emphasize personal responsibility rather than collective action for a broader good, are to blame for Americans’ inaction rather than their lack of firsthand experience (Isenhour).

Increasingly, scholars have realized that there is a more Fall 2020/Perennial 64

complex psycho-sociological phenomenon afoot causing this apparent mismatch between individuals’ beliefs in the reality and severity of climate change and their actions. One of the earliest scholars to illuminate this topic was French sociologist Bruno Latour, who theorizes that in the modern era, we increasingly seek to “purify” the world by separating the human from the non-human. This purification has shaped our academic and governmental institutions such that they do not recognize environmental issues to be interconnected with human issues. He contends that because of this purification, our institutions are neither well-positioned nor willing to address environmental issues. This is why environmental problems, like climate change, have not been sufficiently addressed despite our thorough scientific understanding of them.

Furthermore, this purification has affected how individuals relate to and conceive of environmental degradation. For example, individuals may acknowledge the reality of climate change, but they do not take action because they perceive this to be outside the realm of their professional domain.

Another sociologist who has explored the complexities of human action on climate change is Michael Carolan. He attributes the mismatch between Americans’ concern for climate change and their inaction to the concept of sociological ambivalence. In his research, he defines sociological ambivalence as the contradiction between individuals’ beliefs (namely their belief in climate change) and their actions (or lack thereof), which arises due to social embeddedness within both micro and macro-level social structures (Carolan). These structures include families, jobs, academic institutions, religious institutions, the US government, etc. He found that almost all of the participants believed in climate change but very few took action and thus exhibited sociological ambivalence. Carolan grouped the participations’ internal justifications of their inaction into the following categories, all of which illustrate the participants’ social embeddedness: they trusted that the government and experts would solve the crisis. Participants didn’t want to disrupt their personal routines; they felt that they were just a “small piece of the larger puzzle” and doubted that their efforts could really do much to mitigate climate change. Lastly, participants felt that they could not do anything about climate change even if they might want to because of the “various statuses, roles and expectations each felt tied to” (Carolan).

In the same vein, social scientists Chloe Lucas and Aidan Davidson have also studied sociological ambivalence regarding climate change in subjects. However they use the concept of “unconcern” to explain why many fail to take action in the face of this crisis (Lucas and Davidson). They argue that unconcern should not be framed as a “concern deficit” that can be remedied 2

My research contributes to the literature that explains why individuals do not take more action to address climate change, considering the importance of this issue. Specifically, I investigate how demographic factors and firsthand experience with climate change shape attitudes and actions regarding climate change. This topic has remained relatively unexplored, in part, because the effects of climate change have only recently been experienced. Furthermore, since existing theories of ambivalence do not predict whether participants will remain ambivalent about climate change in light of lived experience, this case study provides an empirical advancement of the theory of sociological ambivalence.

Methods I distributed surveys to collect quantitative data on UC Berkeley students’ attitudes and actions towards climate change. I focused this study on UC Berkeley students rather than other Northern California residents who have experienced the fires for several key reasons: UC Berkeley’s students are disproportionately well-educated, liberal, young, and activism-oriented. These traits indicate that students are well-aware of the serious danger that climate change poses to them and are more likely to engage in climate action than other groups (Kennedy and Johnson). Therefore, I was interested in exploring students’ engagement in climate action and the factors that constrain their climate action.

To gather my participants, I posted information about the survey opportunity on two Facebook groups of which many UC Berkeley students are part of: “Overheard at UC Berkeley” and “Berkeley Free & For Sale.” I also sent an email to almost every student (~800 in total) that had taken an introductory astronomy class with me during Fall 20172. Finally, I posted the information on the Reddit group “UC Berkeley” and in the Slack channel for the Cal Club Tennis team, which I am a member of. In the blurb about the survey that I circulated, I stated that the

I chose this class because students from diverse academic backgrounds take it to fulfill the Physical Breadth requirement within the College of Letters & Sciences.

VisitSpring perennial.berkeley.edu to view the appendices.

65 2021 / Perennial 3

with clearer scientific evidence. Instead, unconcern conveys that individuals’ other concerns appear far greater, especially in the course of day-to-day life.

These other areas of concern include other social obligations, roles, and ideologies which are more important to their daily lives and are not compatible with taking actions to combat climate change—for example, the role of providing for a family. Therefore, clearer scientific evidence cannot evoke more concern amongst those exhibiting unconcern. Moreover, these individuals should not be deemed ignorant or apathetic for not prioritizing climate action over their immediate needs and obligations.

participants must have been in attendance at UC Berkeley and living in the Bay Area for at least one of the following semesters: Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, or Fall 2020. The informational blurb about the survey also highlighted that all participants would be entered into a raffle for a $50 Amazon gift card for compensation and that the survey would be brief, around 15 minutes long.

I used UC Berkeley’s Qualtrics software to create anonymous surveys in which I asked a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions (See Appendix A3). Through these surveys, I gathered statistically significant and generalizable data on the relationships between various factors—including demographic factors and experiences with climate change—and climate change attitudes and actions. In the survey, I asked participants questions about various demographic factors, such as the participants’ race, class, religion, extracurricular responsibilities, familial obligations, academic major, etc. I also asked about their experiences with the Northern California fires, as well as their attitudes and actions towards climate change and how the Northern California fires shaped these two variables. To measure attitudes, I focused mostly on climate change concerns, though I asked about other feelings as well. I also gave respondents the opportunity to express their attitudes through open-ended questions. To measure actions towards climate change, I asked respondents about how frequently they engaged in actions that were aimed to either 1) reduce their personal carbon footprint or 2) promote systemic change. I henceforth refer to both types of actions as “climate action.”

Prior to collecting the data, I predicted that students’ experiences with the Northern California fires were not severe enough to elicit action from students who were not already engaged in climate action. Additionally, I predicted that the biggest driver of climate change attitudes would be political beliefs, and the biggest driver of climate change behaviors would be busyness—with a negative correlation between busyness and climate action engagement.

Results and Discussion Descriptive Statistics Upon completing my data collection, I received 129 survey responses—112 of which were complete and suitable for analysis. Of the 112 complete responses, the average age of the respondents was 21.8 years old with a standard deviation of 2.6 and a range of 18-34 years old. Most of the respondents (61.6%) identified as cis-women, 34.7% identified as cis-men, 3.6% identified as non-binary or genderqueer, and

none identified as transgender. In terms of race and ethnicity, 54.5% of the respondents were Asian, 25.9% were white, 9.8% were mixed race, 8% were Latinx or Hispanic, 0.9% (1 person) was Middle Eastern, and 0.9% (1 person) declined to state. Of the eleven mixed race respondents, eight identified as Asian and white, one identified as Black and Mexican, and one identified as Middle Eastern and white. Thus the demographic make-up of this sample population was disproportionately white and Asian relative to the U.S. population.

With respect to family income, the highest percent of respondents, 38.4%, were raised in middle-class households (with $50,000-$150,000 combined household income), 29.5% of respondents were from upper-middle class households ($150,000-$250,000 combined household income), 16.1% of respondents were from lower-income households ($50,000 or less), and 16.1% were from upper-class households ($250,000 or more). Based

Figure 1: Responses to Question 36: “Approximately what is your family of origin’s household income? Family of origin refers to the significant caretakers that you grew up with.”

on these statistics, the sample population’s socioeconomic background is, as a whole, wealthier than the U.S. population. See the figure above.

In terms of whether respondents grew up in environmental justice communities4, which is highly correlated with race and class, most respondents (78.6%) reported that they did not. A minority of 14.3% did grow up in such communities, and 7.1% reported that they did not know whether they did.5. The majority of respondents did not have a mental or physical disability (79.5%); however, a significant percentage did—20.5%.

Of the 21 respondents who reported having a mental or physical disability, the most common disabilities that were listed were anxiety (13 mentions), depression (9 mentions), and ADHD (3 mentions). Other mental disabilities included OCD, ADD, insomnia, and bi-polar disorder. Only one respondent had a physical disability rather than a mental disability, which was epilepsy.

The respondents held a wide range of religious or spiritual beliefs, with the largest percentage adhering to Christianity (29.5%), followed by agnosticism (25.0%), atheism (25.6%), “spiritual but not religious” (7.1%), Buddhism (3.6%), Islam (2.7%), and Hinduism, Judaism, and Sikhism which each had 2 respondents (or 1.8%). With respect to respondents’ overall religiosity and spirituality, 53.6% answered “Not at all [religious or spiritual],” 23.2% answered “A little bit,”

4 An environmental justice community is a community that disproportionately experiences environmental injustices such as toxic dumping, pollution, citing of hazardous waste facilities, or a lack of parks and green spaces— relative to its population size and consumption.

I predict that those who did not know likely did not grow up in an environmental justice community, since environmental justice community members are typically made aware of the environmental hazards to which they are exposed 5

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14.3% answered “Yes, moderately,” and the smallest group responded “Yes, very much so,” constituting 8.9% of the total.

Regarding political views, the survey respondents represented all seven distinct categories of the political spectrum. The largest share of respondents (48.2%) identified as “center left,” followed by “far left” with 33% respondents, and “center” with 8% of respondents. The “I do not know” category account-

respondents ranked “climate change” their fifth most pressing political issue in the United States today, on average. Of the seventeen total political issues that were listed, only the averages for the “coronavirus pandemic,” “healthcare,” “racial equality/justice,” and “economic inequality” ranked higher than climate change. See the figure below.

Figure 2: Responses to Question 34: “ On the political spectrum in the U.S., with progressivism being on the left and conservatism being on the right, where would you place yourself?”

ed for 5.4% of the respondents, followed by “center right” with 3.6%, and lastly “apolitical” and “far right” both received one response or 0.9% each. See the figure above.

Attitudes Towards Climate Change The entire sample population believes climate change is real. The majority of respondents (58%) responded being “very concerned” about climate change, while 30.4% responded being “moderately concerned.”

Trailing far behind, 8% responded “Slightly concerned,” 3.6% responded “Not concerned, but I do believe human-caused climate change is occurring” and no one responded that they are not concerned because they do not believe human-caused climate change is occurring. In terms of how often, on average, respondents think about climate change, 43.8% answered “a few times per week,” 31.3% answered “a few times per month,” 17.9% answered “Every day,” 3.6% answered “a few times per year,” and 3.6% answered “rarely [less than a few times per year].”

See the figure below.

To situate these responses within a broader context,

Figure 3: Responses to Question 11, “On average, how often do you think about climate change?”

6

Note that this adds up to more than 100 because respondents could write multiple items in their response.

67 Spring 2021 / Perennial

Figure 3: Responses to Question 4 “Please rank the following political issues in terms of how pressing you think they are in the US today.” The lower the average, the more pressing the issue was ranked.

Turning now to how the respondents perceive the effects of climate change, the vast majority of respondents (89.3%) believe that California has been affected by climate change. Those respondents were prompted to describe the ways in which California has been affected by climate change, and 71 mentioned fires, 33 mentioned drought, and 16 mentioned weather6. Ten respondents, or 8.9%, answered that they do not know if California has been affected by climate change, and only 1.8% of respondents answered that California had not been affected by climate change.

When asked about their experiences with the Northern California fires, the majority of respondents reported feeling concerned (65.2%), while 20.5% felt “frustrated or annoyed that events were cancelled and I could not go outside,” 6.3% felt “intrigued or excited by these unusual events,” and 4.5% reported feeling “no change in mood.” The majority of respondents reported that the fires made them more concerned about climate change; however, most reported that the fires did not prompt them to conscientiously take more action. See figures 4 and 5.

Based on the above data, most respondents are quite concerned with climate change and recognize that its effects are already manifesting in California and

Figure 4: Responses to Question 25, “25 - Did the fires affect how you feel about climate change?”

Figure 5: Responses to Question 26, “Did the fires inspire you to take action against climate change? (Either through reducing your personal carbon footprint/waste or engaging in climate advocacy/activism).”

sue in the United States today, as Klein (2014) and Dunlap et al. (1998) document. Klein explores the rise of a right-wing “climate change counter-movement” that emerged at first as a fringe right-wing movement and later gained a stronghold throughout corporate America and the Republican Party (Klein).

Dunlap et al. explores the way that this movement disseminated disinformation through the publication of non-peer-reviewed “research” which was cited in books (thus gaining a sense of legitimacy), which were then cited in various right-wing media outlets such as Fox News (Dunlap et al.). The think tanks that churned out this “research,” such as the Heartland Institute, were funded by fossil fuel companies and billionaires from other industries such as the Koch brothers (Klein).

Fire experience severity and race or ethnicity were weak drivers of the model, though they did have statistically significant correlations even when other variables were controlled. The finding regarding fire experience severity is consistent with Bergquist et. al.’s (2019) finding that experiencing a severe weather event leads to an increase in climate change con-

elsewhere across the nation. Let us now examine why respondents hold these views and more specifically, what factors shape said views. Upon conducting linear regression analysis on the various independent variables—measuring busyness and obligations, fire experience, and demographic information—I found that the main variable that shapes climate change concern is political beliefs. Other variables with statistically significant correlations with variance in climate change concern were fire experience severity, along with race and ethnicity. The variables measuring busyness, undergraduate degree, intended career field, age, family income, having a mental or physical disability, gender, religiousness, religious affiliation/ ideology, and growing up in an environmental justice community did not have statistically significant correlations with variation in climate change concern.

To understand the relative importance of the statistically significant variables when all other variables are controlled for, I utilized a multivariate model. The model accounted for 56.3% of the variance in climate change concern (r = .563), and revealed that the relative importance of each variable was 10% for fire experience severity, 17% for race/ethnicity, 17% for political party association, and 56% for placement on the political spectrum. Thus placement on the political spectrum is by far the primary driver of this model.

See the figures right.

The findings regarding this primary driver come as no surprise considering the extent to which climate change has become a highly politically polarized is-

Figure 6: Relative importance model of factors affecting the “Climate Change Concern” formula variable.

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cern. This is also consistent with the responses to a different survey question, in which respondents overwhelmingly expressed that the fires made them more concerned about climate change. However, while experiences with climate change may at first appear to be a random event that affected people indiscriminately, there is potential bias since people interpret their experiences with the effects of fires differently.

For instance, someone who is very concerned about climate change may be hyper-aware of the smoke and damage caused by the fires. Furthermore, they may subscribe to news sources that are more likely to emphasize the damage caused by climate change. More research would be valuable to shed light on the causal mechanism behind this correlation as well as that of race and ethnicity. Overall, the most salient takeaway from this data is that political belief is by far the strongest factor that shapes climate change attitudes.

“Participated in a protest or demonstration” with a 0.563 average and “Call or write to an elected official about climate change” with 0.518. The least frequently engaged in activity was the one that would likely require the biggest commitment: “Participate in an environmental organization or club,” which received an average score of 0.340. See figure below.

Thus even amongst this category of action that is aimed at producing broader societal change, the most common actions were done at the individual level rather than in a group context. This has been a trademark of environmental or climate action for decades and has proven ineffective in gathering the momentum that is required to elicit change (McAdam).

Climate Action Now that climate change attitudes have been explored, let us turn to climate action. In terms of taking action, the respondents stated that they participated the most in individual, low time-commitment activities. The most frequently performed actions that were aimed at reducing individual carbon footprints were 1) putting items in recycling and compost when appropriate, 2) using reusable water bottles and food containers instead of single-use plastic, and 3) limiting energy consumption. Each of these three had an average score that rounded to 3, corresponding with “Frequently (50-75% of the time).”

See the chart below for the average and median scores of all actions:

Figure 7: Recoded response values to Question 12: “On average, how often do you make the following environmentally-conscious choices? An environmentally-conscious choice is something done for the purpose of reducing one’s personal contribution to climate change and/or waste.” I assigned a value of 4 to “Very frequently (75%-100% of the time),” 3 to “Frequently (50-75% of the time),” 2 to “Occasionally (25-50% of the time),” 1 to “Rarely (less than 25% of the time)” and 0 means “Never” or “I do, but not for environmental reasons.”

As for the actions I considered aimed at producing systemic changes, the most frequently performed were 1) sharing information online or with friends and 2) signing a petition. Well behind those two actions were

Figure 8: Recoded response values to Question 13: “On average, how often do you engage in the following activities for the purpose of combating climate change?.” I assigned “Frequently (a few times per month or more)” to 3, “Occasionally (a few times per year)” to 2, “Rarely (once a year or less)” to 1, and “Never” to 07. The two actions with the highest frequency of participation were “Share information online or with friends” which had an average frequency score of 1.438, followed by “Sign a petition” with an average score of 1.420.

Of those respondents who participated in an environmental organization, seven respondents specified which organization(s). Individual responses included “Reuse, Cal Zero Waste,” “Sustainable Environmental Design [major],” “Environmental Conservation Outreach [of Berkeley Law],” “Biofuels Technology Club,” “Office of Sustainability,” “Zero Waste Coalition,” “HADSA [Housing and Dining Sustainability Association],” “SERC [Student Environmental Resource Center],” “EthiCal,” and “CalPIRG.” Notably, no two responses mentioned the same group. While seven respondents listed organizations of which they were a part, thirteen other students marked that they participate in an environmental group without stating which group. This may indicate they either do not know the name of the organization (which may occur when joining large events like the youth climate strikes, which were hosted by various organizations), that they do not really participate in these organizations, or that they did not want to write out their answers. Overall, the relative frequency values for these actions were much lower than those for personal actions. The medians of this type were especially low with most variables having a median of 0. This indicates that at least half of the respondents never participate in those actions. See figure 8.

7 The scale of frequency for these actions was different from the other types of action because they are difficult to do as frequently as the personal actions, and they rarely entail replacing one routine action with a more 69 Spring sustainable one.2021 / Perennial

Based on the aforementioned data, I concluded that most students do not consistently engage in actions to affect systemic change. To understand why respondents do not partake more in these activities, I utilized linear regression models to see how various factors affect action frequency. I found that there were statistically significant correlations with race/ ethnicity, having a disability, fire experience severity, and intended career field. (See Appendix B8 for statistical analysis results8). The variables measuring undergraduate degree, family income, gender, religiousness, religious affiliation/ideology, and growing up in an environmental justice community all did not have statistically significant correlations with variation in climate action, consistent with the established literature on the subject.

Again, I created a multivariate model to test for the multicollinearity and relative importance of the statistically significant variables. This model had an

Figure 9: Relative importance model of factors affecting the “Taking Action: Total” formula variable. People who reported being busier were more statistically more engaged in climate action. Republicans were less engaged in climate action than Democrats and “Independent or none” respondents. Meanwhile, respondents who planned to pursue careers in the following careers—1) arts & cultures 2) environment & sustainability 3) social impact/ community service and 4) sciences - biological and physical—were more engaged in climate action than those who intended to pursue careers in business or engineering.

8

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r-squared value of 0.426, indicating that the model accounts for 42.6% of the variance in climate action in the data set. The model revealed that race/ethnicity, having a disability, and fire experience severity were not important drivers in the model and the inputs of each of these variables did not have statistically significant differences in outcomes when the other variables in the model were controlled. For example, there were no statistically significant differences between how much climate action individuals of one race/ethnicity took versus individuals of another race or ethnicity. The main drivers of this model were busyness which was positively correlated with taking action and had a relative importance of 15%, political party which had a relative importance of 20% (those who associated with the Democratic party took more action than Republicans), and career field which had a relative importance of 47% .

See figures to the right.

Thus the primary driver of this model was a student’s intended career path, which exhibited statistically significant differences amongst several career paths. The differences amongst intended careers likely occur for two reasons: the first is that intended career is a strong proxy for problem-prioritization, obligations, and even world-view; secondly, because students often associate with other like-minded individuals. For instance, individuals who intend intend to pursue careers in environmental and sustainability or public service fields likely view themselves as agents of social change and are also likely to associate with students who feel similarly. These people would be much more likely to see petitions online, share articles online, and have discussions with friends and family about social and environmental issues. Facebook, in particular, is often a center for political organizing and sharing information; however, if one is not friends with people posting this content, one would not see this. Since some of the most popular actions were signing petitions and sharing information with friends, social circles are thus of primary importance in providing opportunities for action.

The next strongest driver of the model, political party, comes as no surprise again considering the extent to which climate change is a politically polarized issue (Klein; Dunlap et al.). However, I was surprised by the third and final driver of the model, busyness.

There was in fact a positive correlation with busyness when I expected a negative one. This finding challenges the existing literature on sociological ambivalence which posits that obligations and perceived busyness inhibit individuals from taking action. This may indicate that individuals who are involved in climate action are also involved in many other activities, and this busyness does not preclude them from Fall 2020/Perennial 70

taking climate action. Another possible explanation for this finding is that the “busyness” metric did not discern between busyness derived from environmental actions and that from other obligations; as such, part of the reason for the positive correlation between busyness could be that climate action engagement contributed to individuals’ perceived busyness.

Notably, fire experience severity was not a main driver of climate action, although there was a small, statistically significant correlation between these variables.

Giddens would argue that fire experience severity was not a main driver because the experiences students had from the fires were not life-threatening enough to elicit action. On the other hand, Isenhour would argue that the relationship between exposure to the effects of the fires and climate action is more complex; she would explain that American culture values individual responsibility in a way that disincentivizes us from taking collective action to prevent a largescale issue like fire prevention. However, both of these scholars failed to take into account a different phenomenon that my data revealed: many individuals doubt the efficacy of existing forms of climate action and therefore resist taking part.

This key insight was revealed in the free-response answers explaining what factors limit respondents’ climate action. Several respondents expressed doubt that existing forms of climate action were effective and therefore were skeptical that their individual actions would have a positive impact. While my survey questions asked about climate action in general—including actions aimed at reducing personal carbon footprints and those aimed at producing systemic change—respondents revealed that they did not take action because they perceive climate action to be exclusively aimed at reducing individual carbon footprints. Therefore, they do not believe climate action is effective because it does not produce the structural change needed to adequately address the climate crisis. Some of these responses convey that environmental organizations as a whole are too focused on individual actions and fail to promote political change or corporate accountability. This sentiment is expressed by the responses below. The first two indicate how respondents view climate action as mutually exclusive from political change or policy advocacy: “My personal change is small, so I focus on political change” “I do pay attention to my personal choices and try to be as environmentally friendly as feasible. But on a larger scale, I feel like climate change prevention is impossible due to the economic implications and the rate of global warming. We should probably focus on mitigation but even that is very hard policy wise.”

The following response highlights how the respon71 Spring 2021 / Perennial

dent views the environmental movement as overly-focused on individual actions to reduce carbon footprints, which places too much burden on the individual consumer. The respondent believes that the environmental movement tacitly blames low-income people who cannot afford more expensive “eco-friendly products” for environmental degradation: “I feel like eco-friendliness has been white-washed and turned into an impossible endeavor (“zero-waste” movement). It heavily focuses on Instagram aesthetics and downplays structural factors that force low-income people to make decisions that do not benefit the earth. For this reason, I have distanced myself from the movement.”

The following two responses both mention that large corporations are responsible for most of Earth’s environmental damage, and therefore they should be held accountable. These responses thus imply that “climate action” is mutually exclusive from seeking to hold corporations accountable: “Capitalism and pollution caused by large corporations far outweighs the damage that any individual can do to the environment... doing these individual eco-friendly practices makes us feel good but it doesn’t make a big enough difference to prevent widespread climate change in the grand scheme of things.”

“Corporations are responsible for the vast majority of environmental degradation.”

Thus these respondents perceive climate action to be mutually exclusive from political advocacy and systemic change, rendering it ineffective. Given the history of environmentalism in the United States, these responses make sense. Environmentalism initially arose in the 1800s as a movement led by wealthy white men who wanted access to nature in its pristine, uninhabited state to help them find deeper meaning in life. This movement created the system of national parks we have today and in the process also led to the displacement of Indigenous tribes across the nation. For decades, the U.S. environmentalist movement was characterized by its whiteness and its central ethic of personal responsibility to keep nature pristine for its own sake. For example, in the 1970s, an environmental campaign called “Keep America Beautiful,” aimed to end littering, focused on individuals’ actions with the goal of keeping nature beautiful.

Thus respondents considered “climate action” in terms of taking individual action and expressed skepticism that individual actions alone are sufficient to mitigate climate change. The respondents were justified in feeling this way; over three decades of individual-focused environmental campaigns from the 1980s-2010s proved woefully ineffective in reducing carbon emissions, which continued to skyrocket

during this time. However, now more than ever before, organizations around the world are advocating for systemic change and are making progress to that end. Nonetheless, the data show that organizations must increase their efforts to rebrand themselves as being focused on systemic change.

The final key insight from my data was that the main reported barriers to taking climate action were “I am too busy with academic and professional development, and environmentalism doesn’t relate to my career” (67.9%) and “I am too concerned with paid work and my financial security” (45.5%)9. These two barriers both embody the theoretical concept of sociological ambivalence, wherein individuals may want to take action, but are restricted by their embeddedness within various social roles and obligations (Carolan).

The former reason, regarding academic and professional development, also illustrates the concept of “purification,” in which environmental issues are perceived to be separate from human issues (Latour).

See the figure below for the complete statistics for this question.

Figure 10: Responses to Question 14: “What factors prevent or constrain your climate change-related actions? Check all that apply.”

Conclusion This research explored a case study of people who have some of the earliest experiences with the effects of climate change in the US. All of my respondents believed human-caused climate change was occurring and the vast majority felt concerned by it.

The majority of respondents attributed the severity of Northern California fires to climate change and also reported that they had personal experience with the effects of climate change (namely the fires and changes in weather patterns). In general, these fires made respondents more concerned about climate change; however, they did not elicit action. I found that the key factors that shape climate change con9

These percentages add up to more than 100% because respondents were asked to check all that apply.

cern are political beliefs, and the factors that shape frequency of climate action are political beliefs and intended career paths. In terms of taking action, the respondents participated the most in individual, low time-commitment activities. While these actions are important, coalition building through group participation and collective action will be essential for the climate action movement to succeed (McAdam).

The most revealing finding from this research was something I had not anticipated: individuals do not take action because they do not believe in the efficacy of “climate action” since they associate climate action with reducing their personal carbon footprint.

Tying this finding back to the literature, I conclude that previous academic discourse has oversimplified what is required to take action. Sociologists Giddens and Isenhour debated over whether firsthand experience with climate change is a sufficient condition to taking action. Giddens argued yes, but at that point it will be too late. Isenhour argued no, stating that levels of climate action have to do with larger socio-cultural norms/phenomenon such as ethics of solidarity versus personal responsibility. My data showed setting up this framework is flawed because it assumes that the only difference separating those who are not taking action from those who are is the will to do so. I found that the reason for the gap between climate concern and climate action is more nuanced. Although climate action encompasses a myriad of behaviors, students perceive climate action, as prescribed by the environmental movement, to be focused on individual responsibility. Therefore, they do not think these actions will be effective since what is needed is comprehensive policy changes.

As mentioned above, this finding makes sense considering the history of environmentalism and environmental action in the United States—of which climate action is considered a subset. Environmentalism traditionally focused on preserving nature and limiting individual consumption for aesthetic and spiritual purposes. Today, environmental organizations look very different; however, many are advocating for systemic and political changes in order to mitigate the climate crisis. Nonetheless, my data reveal that individuals still associate environmental or climate action with focusing on limiting individuals’ environmental impact. They then have a negative view of climate action in general.

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Works Cited 1. Bhatasara, Sandra. “Debating Sociology and Climate Change.” Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, vol. 12, no. 3, 2015, pp. 217-233. Taylor & Francis, doi:1 0.1080/1943815X.2015.1108342.

2. Bulkeley, Harriet. “Common Knowledge? Public Understanding of Climate Change in Newcastle, Australia.” Public Understanding of Science, vol. 9, no.

3, 2000, pp. 313-333. SAGE Journals, https://doi. org/10.1177/096366250000900301.

3. Campbell, John, and Olivia Warrick. “Climate Change and Migration Issues in the Pacific.” International Labour Organization, 2014, https://www.ilo.org/dyn/ migpractice/docs/261/Pacific.pdf .

4. Carolan, Michael. “Sociological Ambivalence and Climate Change.” Local Environment, vol. 15, no.

4, 2010, pp. 309-321. Taylor & Francis, https://doi. org/10.1080/13549831003677662.

5. Chapin, F. Stuart, III et al. “Consequences of Changing Biodiversity.” Nature vol. 405, no. 6783, 2000, pp. 23442.

6. Collomb, Jean-Daniel. “The Ideology of Climate Change Denial in the United States.” European Journal of American Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 2014. OpenEdition Journals, https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.10305.

7. Dunlap, Riley. “Lay Perceptions of Global Risk: Public Views of Global Warming in Cross-National Context.” International Sociology, vol. 13, no.

4, 1998, pp. 473-498. SAGE Journals, https://doi. org/10.1177/026858098013004004.

8. Dunlap, Riley, and Peter J. Jacques. “Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 57, no. 6, 2013, pp. 699–731.

SAGE Journals, 9. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764213477096.

10. Giddens, Anthony. “The Politics of Climate Change: National Responses to the Challenge of Global Warming.”

Policy Network, 2008, https://fcampalans.cat/images/ noticias/The_politics_of_climate_change_Anthony_ Giddens%282%29.pdf.

11. Isenhour, Cindy. “The Politics of Climate Knowledge: Sir Giddens, Sweden and the Paradox of Climate (In) Justice.” Local Environment, vol. 18, no. 2, 2013, pp. 201216. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/135498 39.2012.729570 12. Jessee Nathan. “Community Resettlement in Louisiana: Learning from Histories of Horror and Hope.” Louisiana’s Response to Extreme Weather, 2020, pp. 147-184.

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13. Kennedy, Brian. “U.S. Concern About Climate Change is Rising, But Mainly Among Democrats.” Pew Research Center, 31 May 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/ fact-tank/2020/04/16/u-s-concern-about-climatechange-is rising-but-mainly-among-democrats/.

14. Kennedy, Brian, and Courtney Johnson. “More Americans See Climate Change as a Priority, But Democrats Are Much More Concerned than Republicans.” Pew Research Center, 28 Aug. 2020, www. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/28/moreamericans-see-climate-change-as-a-pri ority-but-democrats-are-much-more-concerned-than-republicans/.

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the Bandwagon’: When Climate Change is a Matter of Unconcern.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, vol. 2, no. 1, 2018, pp. 129-149. SAGE Journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618818763.

Maibach et al. “Identifying Like-Minded Audiences for Global Warming Public Engagement Campaigns: An Audience Segmentation Analysis and Tool Development.” PLOS ONE, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0017571.

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Park, Lisa Sun-Hee, and David N. Pellow. The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden.

New York University Press, 2013.

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The Politics of Plastic Bags: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Plastic Bag Policies in Africa AUTHOR: Jasmine Chen Abstract In recent years, the scale and impact of plastic pollution have driven more international organizations, governments, and advocacy groups to take action. While many governments have responded to the plastic crisis, Africa is a leader in the fight against plastic pollution with 46 out of its 54 countries having enacted some sort of plastic bag regulation. This thesis provides a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of plastic bag policies in Africa based on the time-series trade data from the UN Comtrade Database. This study has two parts: the first part focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of plastic bag policy in Africa; the second part studies the individual countries and why effectiveness varies between them. The study finds that plastic bag policies have had both short-term and long-term effects in reducing plastic bag imports, and that plastic bag bans seem to be more effective than levies in both the short-term and long-term. Moreover, this study also examines the correlation between the policy’s effectiveness with state capacity and corporate power. As the first comprehensive study on the implementation of plastic bag policies in Africa, this thesis provides insights into how environmental policy implementation differs in varied political economies and recommendations for policymakers on improving regulation on plastic pollution.

Introduction The earth is becoming a ‘plastic planet.’ It has been estimated that more than 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced since the early 1950s, and almost 60% of plastics have ended up in landfills or the natural environment (UNEP). Roughly 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste from different countries have entered the oceans every year, which has created a global tragedy of the commons (O’Neill). In 2018, the “Great Garbage Patch” in the Pacific Ocean was estimated to be twice the size of Texas.

Due to the scale and impact of plastic pollution, more international organizations, governments, and advocacy groups have taken action to combat the plastic crisis. Internationally, the Basel Convention in 2019 listed plastic waste under “hazardous waste” and banned the plastic waste trade. Local governments have enacted legislation to regulate single-use plastics in their jurisdictions. However, combating plastic pollution is not an easy task—plastic has already permeated every facet of modern industrial life. The versatility, durability, strength, and low cost have made it an indispensable companion for consumers (Nielsen et al.). Combating plastic pollution requires us to change the political and economic arrangements that secure its overabundance and low price, as well as the norms and practices that maintain the role of plastics in society (Nielsen et al.).

This thesis will focus on the politics of the plastic bag,

which is one of the most commonly consumed plastic objects. As Nielsen et al. argued, plastic objects play a crucial role in the politics of plastic because we as individuals and societies most directly encounter the problematic sides of plastics through consuming these items. These plastic objects make plastic politics tangible in ways that complex academic studies cannot. Their materiality is essential for mobilizing political action: they have become central points for social movements and campaigns. As a ubiquitous item, the plastic bag was one of the first objects that has been politicized through public policies.

The story of the plastic bag demonstrates how businesses have created the norm of plastic bags being the most common plastic item today. Although they are now ubiquitous, less than 50 years ago, plastic bags were a rarity.

Their prevalence is the result of elaborate persuasion by plastics manufacturers, beginning with a battle between paper and plastics. In 1965, the Swedish company Celloplast patented the one-piece polyethylene shopping bag, which quickly began to replace paper bags in Europe because they were more convenient and cheaper to produce. When plastic bags were first introduced in US stores in 1976, they weren’t immediately successful.

To remedy this, the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) founded the Plastic Grocery Sack Council in 1985, which developed a marketing campaign to facilitate the adoption of plastic bags in supermarkets (Atman). They sent press kits to 100 trade and 600 general-consumer publications and held training sessions to teach baggers how to use the bag-dispensing system and pack groceries in plastic. They also set up a telephone line and distributed Spring 2021 / Perennial

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thousands of “informational” pamphlets to promote plastic bags to retailers and consumers (Shiver). By 2003, plastic’s share of the bag market was approximately 80%. Today, over 5 trillion plastic bags are used globally every year, and about 160,000 are consumed every second. This story highlights the business interests behind the light, translucent bag that tries to maintain its dominance in society.

In recent years, attitudes towards plastic shopping bags have shifted, and an “anti-bag norm” that restricts or regulates the use of plastic bags has started to emerge in the Global South (Clapp and Swanston).

Bangladesh was the first country that introduced a plastic ban that reflected the anti-plastic bag norm.

The ban gained public support after plastic bags blocked drains and caused floodwaters to persist for two months in 1998. India, Taiwan, and South Africa all perceived shifts in norms and adopted plastic bans.

In contrast to many other environmental norms that often diffuse from the North to the South, this anti-bag norm began in the Global South and then diffused to the North (Clapp and Swanston). This South-North diffusion pattern is shaped by the fact that pollution has posed more immediate challenges to developing countries. The North has long shipped plastic waste to the Global South for recycling and remanufacturing, which has caused public health crises and environmental degradation because recipient countries are not equipped to safely and efficiently manage plastic waste. For instance, the US exported 157,000 large 20-ft (TEU) shipping containers (429 per day) of plastic waste to other countries in 2018 (Dell). In recent years, more high-income countries have also adopted plastic policies due to international pressure to reduce plastic pollution.

As of July 2018, at least 127 out of 192 countries reviewed (66%) have enacted some form of legislation to regulate plastic bags (UNEP).

African governments are leading the way in the fight against plastic bags. By March 2021, 46 out of 54 African countries have already enacted some plastic bag legislation at the national level, making Africa the continent with the highest percentage of countries with a plastic bag policy (85%). African countries interpret the anti-bag norm into legislation in different ways. Twenty-six countries, including Rwanda, Kenya, and Morocco, have fully banned the manufacture, importation, and sale of plastic bags. The rest of the countries either prohibited certain types of plastic bags or imposed a levy on plastic bags. One of the reasons for the popularity of plastic bag policies in Africa is that plastic pollution has posed many threats to the local environment and public health.

As African countries often lack adequate waste man75 Spring 2021 / Perennial

agement and recycling facilities, plastic bag policies have become popular solutions to cut plastic use at the source.

Because the plastic bag was one of the first objects to shape plastic politics, it has received the most scrutiny in the academic literature. A lot of plastic bag research has focused on the adoption of plastic bag policies.

However, there remains a significant research gap on the implementation and evaluation of bag policies. The whole public policy process is often described by the following steps: problem definition, alternative generation, analysis of alternative, policy adoption, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. The existing literature tends to assume that if a plastic bag ban is announced or adopted, it will be implemented, meaning that the policy will be carried out to accomplish its objective (Behuria). In fact, plastic bag policies might not be effective in achieving their goals. In Bangladesh, the first country that passed a total ban on plastic bags, 14 million pieces of polythene bags are still used every day, just in Dhaka city. More research is needed to examine the effectiveness of plastic bag policy and discuss how to improve its implementation (Karasik et al. 111). Nevertheless, there has not been a comprehensive study that examines the performance of plastic bag policies in Africa. Studying the impact of plastic bag policies in Africa and why effectiveness varies in different African countries can fill the research gap and help us understand how developing countries can implement environmental policies in varied domestic contexts.

This thesis is the first study that comprehensively evaluates the effectiveness of plastic bag bans in Africa.

Through quantitative analysis and case studies, my research tries to answer two questions: (1) how well are plastic bag bans implemented in Africa, and (2) why does effectiveness vary? To answer the first question, I will apply a pooled data analysis to study the impact of plastic bag policies on plastic bag import using UN Comtrade data. For the second part, I will study individual countries and examine a few hypotheses: first, plastic bag bans are more effective than levies; second, state capacity and effectiveness of plastic bag policies have a positive correlation; and third, business power of the plastic industry negatively correlates with the effectiveness of bag policies.

II. Background 1. Plastic Problem in Africa Africa is one of the major contributors to the global plastic pollution of aquatic systems (Jambeck et al.).

Out of 192 countries, four African countries occupy top 15 positions in the ranking based on plastic waste generation (Egypt 7th, Nigeria 9th, South Africa 11th, and Algeria, 13th). Jambeck et al. estimated that the total

mismanaged plastic waste (out of 32 million metric tons globally) for the continent is 4.4 million metric tons in 2010. This number could be as high as 10.5 million metric tons in 2025 if nothing changes to deliberately reduce the flow of land-based plastics to the ocean.

Three primary explanations for the increasing plastic pollution worldwide—human population growth, urbanization, and industrialization—are also applicable to the case of Africa (Akindele and Alimba). African countries have a population growth rate that is ten times higher than the OECD countries and 2.5 times higher than the rest of the developing world (Akindele and Alimba), which is equivalent to 3.5 million more people per month, or 80 additional people per minute (Jambeck et al.). Population densities are the highest in adjacent cities or towns to the coast or around large freshwater systems, so the land-based waste is likely to make its way to the ocean. Alongside this rapid rate of urbanization, Africa’s growing middle class is creating large consumer markets for plastic goods. The number of shopping malls and supermarkets has significantly increased in the last two decades, leading to greater consumption of plastic bags given out for free (Akindele and Alimba).

Additionally, Africa lacks sufficient infrastructure to manage waste. Many African cities do not have adequate infrastructures for solid waste management or land-use practices that prevent indiscriminate waste disposal (Akindele and Alimba). Unregulated solid waste dumping on open spaces, along major roads and river banks, into canals, gutters, and unsanitary landfills, is the common method of managing solid waste in most African countries. Only 4-15% of plastic waste is deposited in landfills, and a lot of landscapes and water bodies are littered with plastic debris.

Moreover, plastic bags have unique and essential applications in Africa due to the lack of infrastructure.

The lack of potable water in many African homes induces plastic pollution because individuals have to purchase water sachets or drinkable water packaged in plastic containers. For instance, the sachet drinking water business is common in African countries, where water is packaged in 500 mL polyethylene plastic bags that are heat-sealed on either end. The inappropriate disposal of discarded sachet bags leads to environmental and health risks, as they are fertile ground for mosquitoes to breed and can block drains. A few countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Congo, and Tanzania, have outlawed the use of “plastic sachets” for beverages. Due to a lack of proper toilets, “flying toilets”—a facetious name for a plastic bag used as a simple collection device for human feces—are also common in countries such as Kenya. These flying toilets spread diseases and threaten public health.

The increasing trend in per capita consumption, urbanization, and population growth is concerning when combined with a lack of sufficient infrastructure to manage the increased waste generation. Plastic waste not only presents an environmental issue for African countries but also a major socio-economic development challenge that impacts biodiversity, infrastructure, tourism, and fisheries (Jambeck et al.). As a result, many countries have taken action to reduce plastic pollution. Compared to other policies that target the latter end of the plastic life cycle, such as waste management, plastic bag bans and levies reduce plastic production or consumption.

2. Plastic Bag Policies in Africa As of March 2021, 46 out of 54 African countries (85%) have enacted some type of plastic bag regulation. Out of 46 policies, 26 countries have enacted a total ban prohibiting the production, manufacture, sale, and importation of non-biodegradable plastic bags. As Knoblauch et al. point out, industrialized countries have mostly adopted plastic bag taxes, while developing countries have mainly introduced more stringent plastic bag bans. The difference results from the different motivations for the Global North and the South to adopt plastic regulation. While developed countries are often driven by the geopolitical pressure to reduce plastic pollution, developing countries have to pass more stringent regulations in order to control the environmental and public health crises they face (Knoblauch et al.). In Kenya, for instance, the unsanitary “flying toilet” problem has led the government to impose a total ban on plastic bags.

The rest of the countries either adopted a partial ban on certain types of plastic bags or imposed a levy or tax on plastic bags. One common partial ban is to prohibit the production, importation, and use of any non-biodegradable plastic bags made of lightweight polyethylene, or similar plastic derivatives with a thickness less than the standard (which varies from 30 to 60 microns). Only five countries have adopted economic instruments— levies or taxes—to regulate plastic bags. South Africa was the first African country to impose a tax on plastic bags while banning all lightweight bags. In section IV, I will examine whether bans or taxes are more effective in reducing plastic bag usage.

Despite the existence of plastic bag policies, enforcement has remained a challenge for many African countries. The plastic bag industry continues to fight against the regulation and tries to repeal anti-plastic law, consumers complain about the inconvenience of the tax/ ban and protest to bring back plastic bags, and the government doesn’t have the capacity to oversee the businesses or control smuggling. For example, the parSpring 2021 / Perennial

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tial ban introduced in Malawi in 2015 was overturned after plastic manufacturers obtained an injunction, citing an “infringement of business rights” (Pensulo).

Thus, effectiveness varies in different countries, given the different political-economic contexts. In the next section, I will examine the existing literature that explains why the effectiveness of plastic bag bans varies.

III. Literature Review 1. Effectiveness of Plastic Bag Policy Although plastic bag policies are the most common instrument to regulate plastic pollution, there remains a significant research gap regarding the effectiveness of these policies. According to the study by Karasik et al., at most only 6% to 8% of national policies and 11% of subnational policies they reviewed have outcomes observed and reported in scientific literature (111).

Additionally, the majority of the studies focus on economic instruments introduced in wealthier countries, although regulatory bans are the more prevalent instruments worldwide. As for the geographies of studies, the literature reviewed were almost exclusively related to North America (40%), Europe (28%), East Asia, and the Pacific (24%) (Karasik et al. 111). The outcome and effectiveness of policy instruments in Africa have not been fully examined.

As for methods used to measure the effectiveness of plastic bag policies, only a few studies have employed methods for causal inference typically used for evidence-based policymaking (Karasik et al. 83). For example, the study by Taylor and Villas-Boas uses a difference-in-difference estimation strategy and evaluates the effect by controlling for various individual and store-level covariates. However, most of the evidence regarding the effectiveness of plastic bag policy instruments comes from research that is not sufficient to attribute causal changes solely to the instrument (83). The causal effect of a policy instrument can only be identified with reference to a well-defined and defensible counterfactual—a group of untreated units that can represent the outcomes that would have occurred to the treated units in the absence of the policy instrument (83). The use of a counterfactual in isolating the effect of a policy is considered to be more robust than directly comparing outcomes before and after the policy is induced. Thus, to examine the effectiveness of plastic bag bans in Africa, I will employ an interrupted time-series analysis, a method for causal inference that creates a counterfactual to compare with the post-intervention outcomes (Linden). More discussions about the model are included in Section IV. Past research has shown that the short-term and long-term effects of plastic bag policies are different.

Short-term effects refer to the immediate impact of 77 Spring 2021 / Perennial

policy on the consumption of plastic bags within 24 months after the policy is implemented. Karasik et al. reviewed 38 plastic bag instruments with quantifiable effects reported in the scientific literature (83). They found that short-term reductions in plastic bag consumption have been significant across the policies studied, regardless of what kind of policy instrument was used. The findings by UNEP were also consistent with the trend, as some 30% of jurisdictions reported “dramatic reductions” in single-use plastic bag consumption within the first year after the instrument was implemented (Schnurr et al.).

However, the plastic bag policies often fail to sustain the effect in the long term. Consumers might return to the old practice of using plastic bags in what has been called the “rebound effect” such that the effectiveness might diminish over time (Dikgang et al.).

In South Africa, where the government implemented a partial ban along with a levy over plastic bags, the researchers found that there was a sharp fall in plastic bag consumption following the introduction of the legislation—with the high-income retailer and the low-income retailer experiencing 57% and 50% reductions respectively (Dikgang et al.). However, their predictions indicated that the consumption of plastic bags would continue to increase in the long run, despite the higher price (Dikgang et al.). These studies show that it is hard to change consumer behaviors, even with financial incentives or strict regulations.

Given the existing literature, I hypothesize that plastic bag policies in Africa will also lead to statistically significant reductions in consumption in the short term, but the impact might be minor in the long term. I will provide more details on how I collected and analyzed data in Section IV. 2. Why Does Effectiveness Vary?

The effectiveness of plastic bag policies varies in different countries. While a ban has reduced plastic pollution in countries like Rwanda, white pollution—the term used to mean discarding too many white plastic bags into the environment—still persists in other countries. For example, the government of Kenya has enacted plastic bag bans four times since 2005, but none of them have delivered satisfactory results.

Scholars have offered a range of political, economic, legal, and social explanations to this question: why does effectiveness vary. While there are a variety of explanations, I will mainly focus on three schools of thought: business power, institutions, and the difference between bans and levies.

The first school of thought focuses on the industry actors and how the plastic industry has used its in-

strumental and structural power to block or reverse the legislation. According to Clapp and Swanston, industry actors often play an essential role in influencing the interpretation of the norms and the actual policies at the domestic level. In the US, for instance, industry resistance to the anti-plastic bag norm has blocked the national-level policy. The American Progressive Bag Alliance, established by plastics manufacturers, launched a campaign to reverse a plastic ban in California in 2015. At least eight US states have enforced legislation to preempt local regulations on plastic bags (O’Neill). While the challenge from industry actors was visible before the law was passed, the business sector continues to influence the implementation of bans. Behuria argues the agency of governments in implementing environmental policies is mediated by business power, local pressure, and external pressure. The industry can use its structural and instrumental power to influence or obstruct legislation. The businesses derive their structural power from the fact that the government and the society rely on business investment to sustain economic growth, while also providing employment and tax revenues. For example, some of the largest diversified business groups in Kenya and Uganda are involved with plastic manufacturing, which has a lot of power to challenge government policy. Instrumental power is a more active form of power that includes lobbying, the use of political connections, and the financing of political parties (Behuria). The story of the Malawi ban that I mentioned earlier in Section II is an example of how businesses use their instrumental power to overturn the legislation and obstruct its implementation. This school of thought is convincing because the plastic industry is often highly visible in the fight against bans or taxes. The businesses thus play a significant role in influencing how the law is interpreted and implemented.

The second school focuses on the role of the state and the strength of institutions in carrying out environmental policies. After the law is enacted, insufficient monitoring or enforcement often leads to its failure.

Bharadwaj concludes that effective monitoring of the ban by authorities plays a crucial role in the policy’s success. In Nepal, ineffective monitoring contributes to the ban’s failure, as people realize the authorities won’t find out even if they violate the law. Zhu investigates the plastic bag usage in different markets in China and finds that the ban is most effective in supermarkets and less so in farmer’s markets, where official monitoring is lacking. Bharadwaj points out that enforcement is lagging because it imposes a significant financial burden on institutions. In Nepal, the costs of having ban enforcement in place entail significant pre-operational and promotional expenditure. Added to this amount are enforcement costs that include the cost of mobilizing the city police and

communicating the message of ban enforcement to the public on a regular basis. As plastic bag usage is scattered across the nation, it is almost impossible for the government to monitor the enforcement regularly. For the purpose of the study, I will use “state capacity” as a measure of institutional strength to examine the role of the state in implementing plastic bag policies.

Another school focuses on the difference between plastic bag bans and market-based instruments such as taxes or levies. Although few researchers have compared the effects of bans compared to economic instruments, it has been shown that both tools turn out to have consistent and significant reductions in bag consumption (Karasik et al.). The study by Taylor and Villas-Boas compared the use of plastic bags at local stores during pre- and post-regulation period and found that both instruments led to “remarkably similar” results (Taylor and Villas-Boas). Some studies have shown that bans might be more effective and may result in a greater increase in the use of disposable alternatives (Heidbreder et al.). Nwafor et al. suggest that bans can be more effective if they also include proactive measures, such as market-based instruments like levies. The underlying monitoring and enforcement costs vary in different contexts, but compliance with bans might be easier to monitor (Taylor and Villas-Boas). This explains why more countries have adopted bans instead of taxes.

This school of thought can help future policymakers to choose the most appropriate policy instrument, but there need to be more empirical studies on this topic.

In my study, I will examine three main factors. First is the difference between plastic bag bans and taxes.

Since Africa has the highest number of plastic policies, it provides an opportunity to compare the effects of bans and levies. Moreover, I will focus on two major types of actors in terms of environmental policymaking—the state and the industry. I will explain how I operationalize the relationship between the policy’s effectiveness with state capacity and corporate power respectively in Section IV and V. IV. Research Design 1. Data Collection Many data gaps have been identified in Africa concerning plastics. In examining the effectiveness of plastic bag bans, it would be ideal to obtain data about plastic bag consumption in each African country every year before and after the regulation. However, this type of information is not available for many African countries. There are independent studies that estimate plastic bag consumption based on surveys, but researchers used different samples and research methods, making it difficult to compare the results across countries. Plastic manufacturing and production data are also not available in most African countries, so it is impossible to directly examine the impact of plastic Spring 2021 / Perennial

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bag bans on the industry. Although data on municipal household waste is present in some countries, the category “plastic waste” contains many other plastic items unrelated to this study.

In this thesis, I employed the plastic import data from the UN Comtrade Database to measure the effectiveness of the bans. UN Comtrade, or the United Nations International Trade Statistics Database, is the largest depository of international trade data with over 40 billion data records since 1962. Over 170 countries/ areas provide the UN Statistics Division with international trade statistics data detailed by commodities/ services categories and partner countries. The Statistics Division transformed these data into the standard format with consistent coding and valuation using the processing system. All commodity values are converted from national currency into US dollars using exchange rates from monthly market rates (“What is UN Comtrade?”). Commodities are classified according to SITC, the Harmonized System (HS) and Broad Economic Categories. Chapter 39 of Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (2020) Revision 28 detailed the classification of plastics and associated articles. HS 3921 represent articles for the conveyance of packaging plastic good, as well as of plastic stoppers, lids, caps, and other closures. Under the 3921 heading, 392321 refers to “sacks and bags (including cones)” of polymers of ethylene, and 392329 represents “sacks and bags (including cones)” of other plastic bags.

Therefore, the value of import under the code HS 392321 and HS 392329 is the primary data source for this study.

There are a few advantages of using plastic bag import data. First, both full and partial bans as well as taxes restrict plastic bag import, while some still allow manufacturing or sale of plastic bag bans with thickness above a certain standard. The import data can indirectly offer evidence on whether the ban has had an impact on the industry. Second, import data is relatively accurate compared to other available data.

Import data is reported by the government and transformed into a standard format by the UN Statistics Division. In contrast to data estimated by scholars or reported by the industry, the import data is more consistent and suitable for comparison across countries.

Third, the trade data are available for multiple years and for many countries. The plastic bag import data has been reported every year by many countries since 1994, which provides valuable information for studying the trend of countries’ plastic bag consumption over time.

However, it is also important to recognize the limitations of the dataset. First, although importation is a major source of plastic bags, some African countries have a robust plastic manufacturing industry. Even if 79 Spring 2021 / Perennial

bans have an impact on plastic importation, domestic production or consumption might still remain high. The data can only provide indirect evidence on whether the policy has been successfully implemented, but it doesn’t directly showcase whether the ban is effective in terms of changing individuals’ behaviors or regulating domestic businesses. Moreover, plastic bag smuggling is reported in a number of countries after plastic bag bans are implemented.

Even if plastic imports decrease, the existence of smuggling might cancel out the effects. Third, some scholars are concerned about the quality of trade statistics in Africa. Jerven argues that the statistics continued to be plagued by smuggling and underreporting. Despite these concerns, it is still valuable to examine whether the policy has an impact on plastic bag importation, which provides limited but useful information regarding the policies’ outcomes.

While 46 African countries have enacted some sort of plastic regulation, only 27 countries implemented bans before 2018 and had at least 10 years of importation data records available. Therefore, my dataset primarily consists of data from these 27 countries.

2. Research Design The quantitative analysis has two parts. First, I will use pooled data to examine whether plastic bag bans have led to reductions in imports, in both the short term and long term. This part of analysis employs an interrupted time series (ITS) model that compares the pre-intervention and post-intervention trends.

Second, I will study individual countries and examine why effectiveness varies using the simple regression model.

Since multiple observations on plastic bag imports in the pre-intervention (before the ban) and post-intervention periods can be obtained, I chose an interrupted time-series analysis (ITS). As a quasi-experimental research design, ITS compares the outcome before and after the intervention. The regression model is in the following form: Yt = ß0 + ß1Tt + ß2Xt + ß3XtTt + Ɛt (1) In this case, Yt represents the monetary value of plastic bag imports at year t, Tt is the time since the start of the study, Xt is a dummy variable representing the ban (pre-intervention periods 0, otherwise 1), and XtTt is an interaction term. ß0 is the intercept or starting level of plastic imports when the study begins. ß1 is the slope or trajectory of the plastic imports until the introduction of the ban, which is the counterfactual as it shows what would have happened in the absence of an intervention. Here I used the complete data series to create the counterfactu-

al. ß2 represents the change in the level of the plastic imports that occurs in the period immediately following the introduction of the ban (compared with the counterfactual). ß3 represents the difference between pre-regulation and post-regulation slopes of the outcome. Thus we look for significant p-values in ß2 to indicate an immediate treatment effect, or in ß3 to show a treatment effect over time (Linden). Since the values of plastic bag imports (Yt ) are large, I will use a log-level regression instead: ln(Ytt) = ß0 + ß1Tt + ß2Xt + ß3XtTt + Ɛt (2) In this log-level regression model, ß1 still represents the trajectory of plastic imports until the introduction of the ban, but the interpretation is different: if we change Tt by 1 (year), we would expect our Y variable to change by 100 • ß1 percent. Similarly, ß2 represents the percentage change in the level of plastic imports that occurs immediately following the introduction of the ban (compared with the outcome). ß3 is the percentage point difference between pre-regulation and post-regulation slopes of the outcome.

reflect the average effect of a ban.

In the second part, I will use a simple regression model to study individual countries.

Yi = ß0 + ß1Xi + Ɛi (3) The simple linear regression model is used to estimate the relationship between two quantitative variables, which can tell us how strong the relationship is between two variables. In this model, Xi is the independent variable, which will be the measure for state capacity, business power, or civic society participation in each country i. Yi is the dependent variable, which will be the percentage point difference between pre-regulation and post-regulation slopes of the outcome for country i. ß0 is the intercept. ß1 is the regression coefficient—how much we expect Yi to change as Xi increases. For example, when we test the first hypothesis about the relationship between state capacity and the effectiveness of the policy, ß1 will tell us how much plastic bag importation will reduce per year as the state capacity rises by 1.

While the first section looks into the average effect of a policy, this section examines the effects of the policy in each African country. However, because there are only about 10-30 observations for each country, the results are only suggestive of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.

Figure 1: Visual depiction of a single group interrupted time-series design

In the first part of the analysis, I will use the fixed effects (FE) model. The dataset we have is a panel dataset that combines cross-section and time-series elements: units of observation (country) are observed repeatedly over time (see table 1). The FE model allows us to control for characteristics of the cross-section units that do not vary over time and are not observable as variables in the data (Sundstrom). The FE model runs the pooled regression with a complete set of country dummy variables. In this case, each country is allowed to have its own intercept, so the slope ß2 and ß3 can be interpreted as the short-term and long-term effects of the ban within each country. The model implicitly assumes that within each country, the ban has the same marginal impact on plastic bag importation.

Since there aren’t too many observations for individual countries, and there might be other factors that explain these trends, such as other policies or events, the FE model can cancel out idiosyncratic factors and

Table 1: Nigeria’s Data

V. Findings and Discussions 1. Effectiveness of Plastic Bag Policies A compilation of plastic import data for the 27 African countries between the period 1993 and 2020 is used for the ITS analysis. As I mentioned in the last section, I only included countries that implemented policies before 2018 and had at least ten years of records.

The results of the fixed-effects regression show that plastic bag policies have had significant effects in reducing plastic bag import in both the short term and Spring 2021 / Perennial

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However, it is important to recognize the limitations of the findings. The ITS analysis is based on aggregate data from 27 countries. While the findings tell us the overall effectiveness of bag policies in Africa, the effectiveness varies in individual countries. In the next section, I will discuss my findings regarding why effectiveness varies.

2. Why Does Effectiveness Vary? a. Hypothesis 1: Bans or Levies?

Table 2: Country fixed effects

long term. The value of ß1 is 0.0948, indicating that plastic bag import increased by 9.48% on average every year before the introduction of the ban. The value of ß2 is -0.2588, which means that there was on average an immediate 25.88% reduction in plastic bag imports within 24 months following the introduction of the ban. ß3 is -0.0681, suggesting that there is a slight decrease in the growth rate of plastic bag import. All of the values are statistically significant (p<0.01). Since ß3 is the difference between the pre-intervention and post-intervention slopes, the sum of ß1 and ß3 indicates the trend of post-regulation trend, which is 0.0267. This suggests that after the ban was implemented, plastic bag import has increased slowly at 2.67% every year. Although the post-intervention trend shows that plastic bag import keeps increasing, it is increasing at a much slower rate, suggesting that the plastic bag policy has had a significant impact on plastic bag import.

The results confirm my hypothesis that the plastic bag policies can lead to a significant reduction in plastic bag consumption in the short run, while the longterm effects are less significant. The value of ß2 suggests there is a large reduction in plastic bag import immediately after the ban was implemented. However, in the long term, plastic bag import keeps rising albeit at a lower rate. This research finding is also in line with previous research, where researchers find that plastic bag bans are often effective in the short term, but people often resort to the old practice in the long term.

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Bans and levies are two of the most common policy instruments to regulate plastic bags, which represent two different approaches of environmental policy: command-and-control and market-based instruments. Command-and-control policy refers to environmental policy that relies on regulation (permission, prohibition, or standard-setting), while market-based instruments rely on financial incentives to achieve an ideal policy outcome (“Command and Control”). There has long been a debate in environmental economics regarding whether command-and-control or market-based instruments like levies are more effective in terms of environmental protection. According to the standard economic account, regulations are less efficient than market-based solutions (Cole and Grossman). As Africa has the highest number of plastic bag policies, it provides a natural laboratory to test which approach results in better outcomes. However, bans were much more common than levies. Among the 27 countries included in the dataset, only three countries—South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia—adopted levies to regulate plastic bags.

By comparing the coefficients of different fixed-effect regressions that are based on full bans, partial bans, or levies, it seems that the bans outperform

Table 3: Comparison of all policies, bans, partial bans, and levies

the levies. The values of ß2 indicate that full bans and partial bans lead to an immediate reduction in import after they are implemented (29.63% and 27.13% respectively). In contrast, levies do not seem to have an immediate reduction effect on plastic bag import.

When comparing ß3, it seems that bans also lead to more plastic bag import reduction in the long term (6.81% for full bans, 7.8% for partial bans, and 5.68% for levies).

However, when I run another test to compare the coefficients, the difference is not statistically significant (p>0.1). This might be due to the fact that the dataset only includes three African countries with plastic levies—South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia—so the sample size is relatively small. The results are thus only suggestive of the relationship between bans and levies.

While we cannot reach a conclusion about whether bans outperform levies, the results are consistent with existing research. Cole and Grossman studied the Clean Air Act and found that when institutional and technological costs are considered, command-and-control regulations are not less efficient than economic approaches. Indeed, in some cases, such as those involving very high monitoring costs, command-and-control can be more efficient than economic instruments (Cole and Grossman). In the case of regulating plastic bags, a tax might be more difficult to monitor than a ban. While bans can target upstream actors—importers and manufacturers— taxes are collected at the consumer level. Thus, the costs of monitoring a tax might be higher than monitoring a ban. However, this doesn’t mean that bans are always better than levies. For example, the plastic tax in Ireland has been successful—the tax has led to a reduction in plastic bag usage by 90% (Convery et al.). The cost of administration is low, amounting to about 3% of revenues because it integrated reporting and collection into existing Value Added Tax reporting systems. Thus, levies can work better in countries with established VAT reporting systems. b. Hypothesis 2: State Capacity State capacity refers to a state’s ability to make and effectively implement decisions in domestic and foreign policy (National Research University Higher School of Economics). As I discussed in Section III, one school of thought focuses on the role of the state and the strength of institutions in carrying out environmental policies. The successful implementation of a policy requires effective monitoring and enforcement by the state. Thus, past research has shown that state capacity plays a central role in enforcing environmental policies (Schwartz; Meckling and Nahme). In the case of plastic bag policies, I hypothesize that the

effectiveness of policies will have a positive relationship with state capacity.

In terms of measuring state capacity, approaches are based on different definitions of state capacity. State capacity can be defined as military capacity, bureaucratic or administrative capacity, or the quality and coherence of political institutions (Hendrix). According to Hendrix, bureaucratic quality is a promising measure of state capacity because it is in line with the literature on political development, which states that state capacity is associated with the professionalization of the state bureaucracy.

The data about state capacity is thus drawn from the bureaucratic quality index (BQI) provided by The Political Risk Services Group. Hendrix finds BQI captures the state capacity relatively accurately. BQI is measured on a 0–6 scale and uses expert assessments of the degree to which the country’s bureaucracy is characterized by (1) regular, meritocratic recruitment and advancement processes, (2) insulation from political pressure, and (3) the ability to provide services during government changes.

Figure 2: Relationship between plastic bag policies’ long-term effects (ß3 ) and BQI

By comparing the ß3 coefficients in model (3) with the BQI in different countries, it seems the value of ß3 decreases as the bureaucratic quality index increases. Because the sample is relatively small with only 15 observations, the relationship between the two variables is not significant. However, it still provides limited evidence that as a country’s state capacity increases, the plastic bag policy has a larger effect on plastic bag import. c. Hypothesis 3: Business Power As mentioned in Section II, business power is also mentioned by many researchers as a potential factor that might affect the implementation of the policy.

Business power can be discursive, instrumental, or structural. Discursive power refers to the businesses’ capacity to shape discourses and norms, and inSpring 2021 / Perennial

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strumental power is a more active form of power that includes lobbying. The structural power derives from the industry’s important position in the economy as a driver of economic growth and provider of employment and tax revenues. Among these different forms of power, it is easiest to measure structural power, as it is positively related to employment and revenues.

Therefore, I collected data from the input-output table (supply use table) in a few countries and compared their plastic industry’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The business power is measured by the ratio: (Plastic, Rubber, and Chemical Manufacturing Output)

GDP

I hypothesize that there will be a negative relationship between business power and plastic bag policy’s effectiveness: as the business power increases, the plastic bag policy’s effectiveness will weaken due to the industry’s influence.

Figure 3: Relationship between plastic bag policies’ long-term effects (ß3 ) and the plastic industry’s contribution to GDP

However, this analysis is severely limited by the availability of data. Only four out of 27 countries’ supply use tables are available online: Ethiopia, Rwanda, Morocco, and South Africa. While the analysis could not reach any concrete conclusions, the graph shows a positive correlation between the two factors, in opposition to my hypothesis. There are a few explanations for this result: first, the sample size is too small to accurately capture the relationship; second, the supply use table classifies the rubber, plastic, and chemical industries into one industry, so the data might not be an accurate representation of the real value of the plastic industry; third, even if the industry has a lot of structural power in a country, the government can subsidize the industry or support their transition to other industries, such as plastic recycling or biodegradable plastic manufacturing. More research is needed to further examine the relationship between business power and the policy’s effectiveness.

V. Conclusion 83 Spring 2021 / Perennial

This thesis provides a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of the plastic bag policy in Africa.

Using the UN Comtrade data, the study finds that the plastic bag policies in Africa led to a significant short-term reduction in plastic bag import, while the plastic bag import still grows in the long term albeit at a slower rate. Moreover, the study finds that plastic bag bans are more effective than plastic levies on average, which is consistent with the existing literature. The study also examines two potential factors that might contribute to the variation in the policy’s effectiveness. The analysis shows that state capacity and effectiveness have a positive relationship, while the relationship between effectiveness and business power seems negative. Neither of the relationships are statistically significant.

Research about plastic bag policies in Africa has faced data challenges. There is incomplete data about plastic production, consumption, and waste. To better regulate plastic pollution in Africa, the governments should collect relevant data and make them available for researchers. While this study has to use the plastic importation data to evaluate the effectiveness of plastic bag bans, future research can benefit from a more complete dataset. Moreover, because a number of policies have just been enacted in the past three years, there is a lack of data to examine the longterm effects of the policies. However, researchers can start tracking the progress of these policies for future studies. Moreover, existing literature focuses on countries like Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa, while few researchers have studied the plastic bag policies in smaller countries like Eritrea. Researchers can conduct more field research in smaller countries to study how they combat plastic pollution. In general, as Akindele and Alimba point out, more research attention should be given to plastic pollution studies in Africa by scientists, and more funding is needed to support research on this urgent issue.

For African governments that want to enact or strengthen their plastic bag policies, they should consider enacting a ban over a tax, strengthening monitoring and enforcement, and consider subsidizing the business sector. Especially in countries with a strong plastic industry, the policy is likely to face a lot of challenges. As the case of Rwanda shows, complementary policies like tax cuts and subsidies are helpful to incentivize innovations in substitutes to plastic bags, which will create economic opportunities and compensate losers as a result of the ban.

Finally, it is important to recognize that there is no silver bullet for plastic pollution. As this research finds out, although plastic bag policies can lead to short-term reductions in plastic bag import, the plastic bag import keeps rising in the long term. Giv-

en the current scale and growth rate of plastic pollution in Africa, more urgent public policy responses are required to deal with the crisis. While the plastic bag policy is advocated by governments and NGOs, it should not divert too much attention from the larger environmental challenges and social issues in Africa.

For instance, as mentioned earlier, plastic bag waste is closely related to other issues such as the lack of infrastructure and poverty. Policymakers should introduce more comprehensive measures to target plastic pollution, such as the practice of three R’s (reduce, reuse, and recycling of plastic materials) that consider the whole lifecycle of plastic items.

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This is the third issue of Perennial: The Berkeley Undergraduate Environmental Journal, and it is the accumulation of many hours of hard work by our dedicated staff. We would like to thank the many individuals who worked on this project during the COVID-19 crisis and The Green Initiative Fund for their support in funding this project. As a contributing team to the Global University Climate Forum, Perennial advocated for innovative environmental education in support of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference 26 (COP26).

If you are interested in contributing to future issues, please check out our website perennial.berkeley.edu for information on joining our team, as well as how to submit work to Perennial.

With “Momentum” as this issue’s theme, we want to highlight some organizations focusing on intersectional environmentalism, as well as those based in the Bay Area that are pushing for transformative change. This is by no means an exhaustive list: we encourage you to get involved with campus, local, and community-based organizations.

Student Environmental Resource Center UC Center for Climate Justice Intersectional Environmentalist California Environmental Justice Alliance Energy Justice Network Brightline Defense Center on Race, Poverty, & Environment Earthjustice Indigenous Environmental Network

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Spring 2021 Staff EDITORIAL

DESIGN

Editors-in-Chief Celine Yang Jasmine Chen

Design Director Lilian Zhang

Senior Editors Grace Sandel Jessica Stubbs Claire Sauter Lamiya Gulamhusein Copy Editor Jeremy Chang Staff Writers Nicole Inaba Ashley Soliman Fallon Funseth Andre Zendejas Jacqueline Cox Natalie Walzer Alina Rangel Michelle Gunawan Mina Burns Gracie Williams Ingrid Morales Christina Pelliccio

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Members Ella Suh Krista Villegas Trisha Andrews Mia Tu Alyssa Ha

FINANCE Finance Director Charity Liu

TECHNOLOGY Technology Director Ryan Bada

PERENNIAL The Undergraduate Environmental Journal of Berkeley perennial.berkeley.edu calperennial@gmail.com

ISSN 2693-145 (print) ISSN 2693-146X (online) © 2021 Perennial: The Undergraduate Environmental Journal of Berkeley