Perennial: The Undergraduate Environmental Journal of Berkeley- Issue 8

Fall 2023 | Issue No. 8

PERENNIAL

THE UNDERGRADUATE ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNAL OF BERKELEY

Dear Perennial Readers,

It is our pleasure to present you with Issue 8 of Perennial, UC Be expert interviews and research, our writers have woven together are also excited to showcase our Op-Ed section and research art nity and other institutions. We are grateful to everyone who cho to thank our amazing, hard-working Design Team for constantl

2024 marks a year of crossroads. Do we push ahead with human can we harness the knowledge of the past, such as traditional ec ues to spin hay into gold as natural resources are being consu Our writers tackle how we can integrate technology into should take it.

Our writers also address the center of environm ronmental degradation. Taking care of our We hope that you find something in the down new paths: We hope you choo

Sincerely, Sia Agarwal and Dennis S Editors-in-Chief

erkeley’s undergraduate environmental journal. Drawing from r a tapestry of stories across many environmental sectors. We ticles, featuring contributions from the wider Berkeley commuose Perennial as the new home for their work. Finally, we’d like ly outdoing themselves on the cover and article art.

n innovation, such as deep sea mining and biomimicry? How cological practices and community farming? Humanity continumed at a rapid pace in order to satisfy technological demands. our environmental progress while questioning how far we

mental change: real people and communities affected by envir planet requires more from us than we have given in the past. ese articles that challenges your perspectives and leads you ose your own adventure.

Song

Table of Contents Editorials Environmental Video Games

By Mona Holmer Urban Farming: Caring for the Land and the Community

By Amelia Pinto Concerts + Environment

By Indra Deshmukh The Cost of Deep Sea Mining

By Meghaa Ravichandran “Serendipity”: Protecting the Right Whales at the Center for Coastal Studies

By Sia Agarwal

Op-Eds Feminist Political Ecology: An Intersectional Framework for the Environmental Movement

By Lexie Garcia Biomimicry: Is Biology the Only Technology We Need For an Energy-Efficient World?

By Abby Wilber Red Seaweed Supplements to Reduce Methane Emissions in Cattle

By Paige Thionnet Unpacking the Universal Meals Program

By Evelyn Fontan, UC Berkeley Unsustainable by Design: Can Fast Fashion Keep Up?

By Anjaline Singh, UC Riverside Circular Threads: Innovative Textile Revolution

By Giselle Velasco, FIDM

Research Papers Earth Diagnosed: Case Studies on Environmental Health Issues

By Ben Bartlett Environmental and Racial Segregation in New Orleans

By Emma Mott, UC Berkeley Traditional Ecological Practices in India

By Tiva Gandhi, UC Berkeley Biodiversity in the Philippines

By Yichen Gao, UC Berkeley and Ben Bartlett

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orial rial

designed by Weiran Zhu

Game Over for Climate Change: Environmental Media Within Video Games

by MONA HOLMER

In June of 2020, Sims 4, a wildly popular social simulation video game, released an expansion pack called “Eco Lifestyle”. These packs expand players’ abilities to explore and act out specific social experiences within their digital world to shape as they please: They can range from additional gameplay specifically for seasons and weather to additional gameplay for horse ranches. This pack focused on players’ environmental impact on the world around them, giving them the ability to recycle, compost, create petitions, and vote for policies to reduce pollution and fight climate change. This expansion pack is just a small part of a wave of new video games focusing on the environment. Public demand for environmental media has grown dramatically, and various industries have jumped to meet that demand. Through these games, people find an outlet to live out the

world of their dreams: a clean one.

Video games present a unique form of media consumption. They are moving, often cinematic works of storytelling art while simultaneously providing players with a sense of agency within the story. In environmental video games, players can act to better the game’s world.

“Plasticity” is a puzzle-platformer game about a world facing the consequences of single-use plastic consumption. Players act through Noa, a young girl doing her best to navigate life filled with plastic in search of a cleaner land. Aims Zhang is the Game Director for “Plasticity” and derived some of the inspiration for the game from some of plastic’s impacts on the world: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, beached whales with 22

kilos of plastic in their stomachs, etc. They stated that they wanted “to make a game that gets people to think about their own impact on the world; how their decisions big or small can have an impact on our future.” The puzzles within “Plasticity” have two solutions: one sustainable and one unsustainable. The choices players make affect whether the world at the game’s end is a greener society working to reduce plastic or a world still ridden with it.

In real life, it is not as simple as making either sustainable or unsustainable choices. But in the game, the player is solely responsible for the world’s outcome, emphasizing individual responsibility in the environmental crisis. Video games are participative by nature; they require players to assume the character’s role and interact with the world around them rather than observing it happen.

participation in an open-ended game format. The game follows the premise that voicemails made in the future have leaked into the world, and players contribute their visions of what climate disaster could look like in the future by recording their own futuristic voicemails and uploading them to the game’s website. By requiring players to imagine a daily life through voicemails, it requires them to localize their climate experience to a more personal level. “[Climate change] seems very abstract,” stated Eklund. “It seems very large when we are very small. It seems like it’s hyper global, and we relate more to hyper local things.”

The voicemails span a variety of hypothetical, yet increasingly real future scenarios. Some describe schools shut down by hazardous air quality or floods blanketing seemingly climate “safe” regions, incidents which have become realities after the recording of those voicemails more than nine years ago in Northern California and Vermont respectively.

“FutureCoast” provides a place to realize individual concerns about climate change at a local level; it indicates what people most value and subsequently fear to lose.

“For many, video games propose a reality where there exists a climate problem and a reachable solution through the players’ actions.”

When people use single-use plastic, they do not see the consequences of doing so. They do not see where that plastic goes or its effects on the environment. But games can show the exact consequences of players’ actions and hold them directly accountable for them within the game. “It takes so many years to see a plastic bag biodegrade,” said Zhang. “But in a video game, you can play through 10 minutes of gameplay and then 10 years will pass in the game.” In this way, environmental video games like “Plasticity” hold a mirror up to their players and prompt them to consider their personal contributions to climate crises and imagine the world they help to, for better or worse, create.

Ken Eklund is the Game Director for “FutureCoast”, an environmental alternate reality game that utilizes collaborative storytelling to envision how climate catastrophes manifest in the future.

“FutureCoast” takes place in a digital scope similar to video games, but in contrast to “Plasticity”, this game is created and deepened through player

Dr. Alenda Chang is an associate professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara, specializing in environmental media, digital technology, and games. Dr. Chang explained video games’ utility in playing out environmental scenarios.

“We might fail, or we might destroy things, we might be invited to do destructive play, and that in and of itself can also be valuable as a lesson.”

When given the opportunity to destroy, players must grapple with the consequences of their choices. But games, as many recreational mediums do, also provide players with a cathartic alternate reality, one they get to shape themselves.

For many, video games propose a reality where there exists a climate problem and a reachable solution through the players’ actions. Amidst

constant onslaught of depressing climate news, it can be tempting to slip into nihilism about such a large scale issue. These video games can foster hope through creative, exploratory play. Through them, the player can imagine and exist in environmentally friendly worlds that are not accessible to them in real life. Here, they can take an action they know will make a difference.

However, the extent of the difference made by video games varies. Although video games can present compelling narratives of environmental action, their efficacy in actually moving people to action can be unreliable. In order for an environmental video game to be compelling, people have to consider it as an option in the first place.

“There’s a lot of suspicion, right, a lot of distrust, especially of video games,” Chang explained. “Environmental parents, environmental educators, they sort of see kids glued to screens, and they see it as a threat and as a nuisance.” Video games are so heavily stigmatized as engendering violence and damaging mental health. For those skeptical of video games, they might not be willing to view them as acceptable mediums for education.

Additionally, people have to be willing to consider the concept of climate change in the first place, a notably controversial topic at times. In regard to FutureCoast, Eklund commented, “People could say that it was preaching to the choir, you know, because the name itself kind of indicates a certain attitude towards climate change.”

Game designers also have to walk a fine line in their creation of the game and the feelings they wish to rouse. “[Plasticity] was meant to inspire people to do something about it, to bring awareness to the issue,” said Zhang. “it was meant to be the conversation starter rather than the I did it type of feeling.”

Despite their limitations, environmental video games are increasing in both popularity and relevance. In just the past five years, new releases of environmental video games have spanned innumerable topics. Some include futuristic worlds beyond climate crises threats, some place players in control of resolving dire climate threats, and some just ask that players live a green life in today’s world. Their surge in demand makes clear that their limitations alone are not enough in dissuading people from desire for change and media

that reflects similar interests and values.

Above all else, environmental video games simply inspire hope. “Forms of entertainment are so important by giving us the fuel to keep going” Zhang stated. “They played a really important role in that sense of like, keep fighting the good fight.”

Rather than painting environmental issues as an immovable force, they shed light on what we can do to stop it. They take a concept impossible to comprehend in its entirety, remove the stakes, and reduce it to one tangible item. They remind us that there is always something we can do, and it always matters.

designed by TIFFANY HO

Urban Farming: Caring for The Land and The Community

by AMELIA PINTO

Efforts for food sovereignty and coalition building seem like challenging projects, but with farming, they grow quite organically. With widespread polarization and politicization of environmentalism, there seems like few tangible, timely actions to take to feel hopeful about combating the climate crisis. Yet, amidst these complexities, an emerging solution stands out: community.

To cope with climate anxiety, as well as addressing food inequality and insecurity, more communities are adopting urban farming practices. Urban farms and community gardens are bringing people together in a social, environmental, and sometimes political, way. These efforts counteract green gentrification – the act of making sus-

tainability and green spaces inaccessible to minoritized communities, especially in urban areas.

Urban farms emerging across California demonstrate the social and environmental benefits of these community spaces.

While these green spaces are grounded in community, there are long-term individual benefits from joining these initiatives. Working on a farm compels people to step off their corporate treadmills. In a capitalist system, labor is often only valued when it is productive and commodified. Farming provides an alternative use of labor that aims to solve community issues. It provides hands-on learning by tending to the crops in a more intimate way. Education about agroecology and food systems fosters a better understanding of where our food comes from and how we can localize this production.

Community farming is a return to family farming and a rejection of corporate agricultural practices. In a small yet effective way, these acts are resistance against the agricultural industry and how they contribute to climate change.

derstanding food sustainability includes learning about the historical, contextual, and direct requirements of the community. Where food comes from, who acts as a steward of the land, and what inequalities people are facing are all part of this understanding. Therefore, urban farming and food production can take a political and social lens. The Berkeley Student Farms hold anti-oppression and anti-imperialism values. They write, “We center land—and all its opportunity for grief, tradition, and ancestral reconnection—in our community and actively work on integrating this into the ways in which we organize ourselves and tend to our crops. Four out of our eight gardens and farms are dedicated to underrepresented BIPOC student communities. We hope that these efforts will ultimately lead to the rematriation of stolen Indigenous ancestral remains and sacred artifacts, the return of stolen Indigenous land, and reparations for Black and Indigenous people.”

“Sustainability includes learning about the historical, contextual, and direct requirements of the community.”

UC Berkeley students have been leading the Berkeley Student Farms since the 70s. From the seven different farms, the coalition produces food for the Berkeley Food Institute (BFI). The BFI distributes food to students and the Basic Needs Center – a resource center for all students, staff, and community members. Willow Holiday and Ameia Smith, UC Berkeley students running the Agroecology in Action DeCal, seek to identify these gaps in the community. Willow shared how their work is inspired by an absence of political agroecology at the university. “One of those needs is space for political organizing, for embodied education,” Willow explained. “To belong somewhere in a way that the university, or immediate city, or nightlife really doesn’t offer.”

The integration of agroecology education directly correlates to meeting community needs. Un-

Organizations and farms like the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Berkeley’s Fannie Lou Farm underscore the importance of amplifying Black and Indigenous practices on stolen and occupied land. These entities emphasize that farming is not just about producing food but encompasses cultural and ancestral knowledge, relationships with ancestral seeds, and growing intentionally and thoughtfully on the land. Ameia shared about the importance of Black ecology and how it is meaningful and radicalizing for students of color. “It’s personal and emotional and also shaped like my politics and the way that I organized too,” she shared. “I think that’s a really big shift. I feel like I’ve been developing preferences in the way that I practice what I believe in. That feels very derived from what land teaches about being in relationship.” In Willow and Ameia’s workshops on the farm, they teach about Black ecology, settler colonialism, and land liberation.

These concepts are integral to their work on the Berkeley Student Farms, and they find them inseparably intertwined with the physical farming.

Political agroecology and farming is far from normalized; however, most family farming in urban spaces is derived from a place of production and monetization. Agricultural and industrial farming still maintains a dominant culture over farming practices and encourages new farmers to constantly expand their production capacity. But Berkeley farm leaders Ameia and Willow offer a different purpose for urban farming. Ameia calls this “community care.” Self care in an overwhelming world does not necessarily mean individualism and solitude – it can also look like a community invested in and taking care of each other. Ameia elaborates, “You pour yourself into your community and that love always circles back and like, that’s what you’re investing in. Like you’re investing in the relationships that take care of you and the systems that take care of you, and the networks that take care of you. Community care is self-care.” They emphasize that their work centers around community and people, rather than production and profit. While both philosophies understand the significance of empowering family farming, one is more personal and the other is more political.

While part of climate anxiety is the overwhelming feeling that efforts like these will never be enough, getting in touch with their community and plants has struck a chord with many people. Assuming responsibility to hyper-local people, foods, and places instills a sense of commitment and grounding. These projects gain a deep understanding of their unique histories and struggles, situating their community in a much bigger vision for food and land sovereignty. Urban farming is not a solution that disappears after food production or a climate disaster; instead, it transforms into a cyclical process empowering generational, accessible, and educational spaces.

designed by TIFFANY HO

Concerts + Environment

by INDRA DESHMUKH “The show was amazing,” breathes a Taylor Swift fan reminiscing on their experience at Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour. “I wish I could keep going every single day for the rest of my life.”

This fan isn’t alone. With 146 announced shows in five continents over a nearly two-year span, Swift’s record-breaking tour has been making waves in the music world. Swifties say her concerts stand out in terms of their extravagant production – which is no surprise. With a surge of artists going on tour following the COVID-19 pandemic, the pressure is on to outdo the competition by making concerts brighter, flashier, and more memorable.

But surrounded by spectacle, audiences are blind to the environmental consequences. While it’s exciting that music lovers get a chance to celebrate their passion, it’s also true that a lack of environmental awareness in concert culture can lead to dangerous wastefulness and overconsumption.

Transportation Concerts don’t appear out of thin air. Every piece of the setup - the stage, the venue, the merchandise, and the musicians themselves - must be painstakingly assembled. For tours spanning

multiple cities, this means transporting each of these components to every single show.

The Eras Tour is estimated to require 50-90 semitrucks to carry its three stages. During the first leg alone, this entourage covered nearly 15,000 miles over at least 220 hours of driving. According to the Environmental Defense Fund’s emission calculations, that’s almost 3000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is around 170 times the average American’s annual carbon footprint.

And that’s just the venue, not the people traveling there. From March to August, Swift took 83 flights in her private jets for the first tour leg.

These same jets came under controversy in 2022 for emitting over 8200 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Swift has attempted to make amends by purchasing “more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel”. But spending money doesn’t undo the damage done by so many carbon emissions.

and LED floors. For example, Swift’s song “Karma” is backed by bursts of indoor fireworks. In addition to the air, noise, and light pollution these effects can emit, the energy needed to power them is a major concern. Outdoor concerts primarily rely on portable power generators. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, such electricity generation emits air and water pollutants, generates hazardous waste, and requires large swathes of land and water to support.

Fan Service The concert experience goes far beyond music.

Audience members also seek food, drinks, merchandise, and hotels. For the Eras Tour, that means an economic impact significant enough that the Federal Reserve credited Swift with fueling national industries, and considerable environmental ramifications to go with it. According to a fan, food and plastic consumption lead to an estimated 10 tons of waste output per show.

Multiply that by 146 dates, and a single tour led to 1,460 tons of waste that will end up in landfills. This was just from concert garbage alone.

“The desire to consume without consequences leads to lack of awareness about environmental impact.”

Furthermore, these carbon credits don’t account for the approximately 70,000 people attending every show.

According to a member of the UC Berkeley Taylor Swift Society, fans will also travel to locations they don’t have tickets for in the hope of getting in at the last minute, bringing total emissions even higher than estimates.

Running the Show Laser lights, image projection, smoke machines, fire cannons. A custom-made piano that bursts into 300-degree flames. The sheer variety of popular concert special effects is breathtaking. For world-famous artists, these effects accentuate their music with a dramatic flair that keeps audiences hooked.

The Eras Tour’s 4D visuals include hundreds of floodlights, confetti cannons, massive speakers,

A Chance to Splurge

The average fan spent $1300 on Eras Tour expenses. For many people, that’s a substantial personal expense, akin to taking a vacation, but invested in a one-day event.

UC Berkeley ESPM professor Kurt Spreyer says that at some level, all concerts are “inviting consumption, and creating spaces of mass consumption.”

As big, dazzling concerts become the norm, audiences are compelled to give into that consumption to feel integrated into the social experience of the event.

“An issue with consumer culture is that it’s made out to be ‘if you don’t have this, your life’s over,’” explains Natalie Allen, co-facilitator of the “Going Green or Greenwashing?” DeCal. This outlook is

evident within the concert fashion sphere.

their waste or traveling sustainably.

The Eras Tour sparked a trend of concert-goers putting together elaborate themed outfits, including so many beaded friendship bracelets that stores ran out of bracelet supplies. While it’s amazing that people are creatively expressing themselves at these much-anticipated events, the problem is that these outfits are purchased only for a single night. When the concert is over, these fast-fashion pieces become unwearable, ultimately contributing to an already-high trash output.

Another path to change is through organizations that collaborate with artists to plan lowwaste concerts. REVERB is one such example – a non-profit group leading a “music climate revolution” through gradual steps such as eliminating single-use water bottles and sourcing concert food from local farms. If both artists and listeners supported such efforts, the damage done by concerts could be reduced significantly.

These examples of unsustainably designed transportation, concert setup, accommodations, and spending highlight a significant flaw in consumer culture. The desire to consume without consequences leads to lack of awareness about environmental impact. To reverse this problem, there must be a major shift in our collective attitude towards concerts, beginning with taking individual accountability.

“The artist has a leading role to play here,” says “Going Green or Greenwashing?” co-facilitator Anjika Morari. “It’s their event that they’re holding. They have [enough] power to make a change, like, ‘I want no single-use plastic at my concert.’

It’s a way of raising awareness and sharing influence, and fans would be more on board too.”

Morari adds that well-established artists are also in the best financial position to counter the “convenient low-cost [economic] model” that concerts currently operate at. Unlike some of their fans, artists have the resources to invest in sustainability. This action-oriented mindset is exemplified by bands like Coldplay, whose ongoing Music of the Spheres Tour aims to reduce their emissions by 50% compared to previous concerts. The band has used their affluence to implement changes such as using renewable energy and materials, diverting waste from landfills, donating excess food, planting one tree per concert-goer, and sending a percentage of their revenue to climate organizations.

When musicians openly try to be climate-conscious, their listeners can be influenced to follow in their footsteps. Morari states that “a big part of why people don’t want to take action is because it seems [overly] complicated to them.” Therefore, artists taking the first steps can help guide fans towards more thoughtful behavior, such as reducing

“As long as audiences and artists are both becoming aware and making small steps, it’s definitely possible that in the near future we have things like low-energy and low-waste concerts,” Morari says.

At their heart, concerts are about embracing a collective love for music. The Taylor Swift Society member shares, “When you’re with other people who are sharing the same experience, that experience becomes different and cooler because there’s this shared energy [...] that creates closer ties.”

People deserve to enjoy these events without risking the climate’s long-term future. By taking responsibility for reducing the environmental impact of concert culture, events like the Eras tour can be harmonious for fans and the planet.

designed by TIFFANY HO

The Cost of Deep Sea Mining

by MEGHAA RAVICHANDRAN In an increasingly digitized world, electronics are everywhere. People never leave the house without their trusty companions---their phones, laptops, and smartwatches. Yet, these devices would be useless without the batteries that power them.

With the over-exploitation of cobalt, nickel, and manganese mining beds, corporations contend with rising consumer demand amongst a global shortage of critical rare-earth minerals that facilitate modern society. Facing the possibility of an electronic blackout, corporations begin to explore alternative methods, such as oceanic sources.

Deep sea mining concerns the extraction and exploitation of seabed resources using specialized mining technology. Oceanic mining is not a new concept. It began with the discovery of the polymetallic nodules from the 1870s expedition of the HMS Challenger. Polymetallic nodules are miner-

als that assist in creating electronic devices for personal and commercial use. However, low interest in the practical usage of the nodules deterred public action until the twentieth century, when a rapid development in technology and engineering sectors fueled demand for these raw materials.

Oceanic deposits offer environmental and societal benefits. Compared to current land-based mining practices, they provide an ethically viable alternative and produce a reduced carbon footprint. As a result, deep sea mining is now classified as one of the potential new blue growth sectors by the European Union (EU). Millions of tonnes of minerals remain untapped below water, and proponents argue exploitation of the seabed would generate billions of dollars of revenue contributing to the global economy.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is the premier deep sea mining authority, tasked with protecting oceanic habitats from the harmful impacts of deep sea mining. Already, they have issued 31 exploration licenses and 18 deep sea mining contracts. The earliest initiatives to begin mining have been scheduled for late 2024 or 2025.

Although there is limited research on the extent of mining impacts on the unique deep sea ecosystem, the ISA continues to issue new permits and contracts.

Dr. Daniel Kammen, Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley and former policy advisor to the Obama administration, studies the negative environmental impacts of deep sea mining. Based on his research, he has publicly called for a moratorium to assess the full impact of mining operations.

Kammen believes that the ISA lies at the heart of the problem, naming it as an “industry promotion group” and “non-critical body” that disregards opposition against deep sea mining as metals companies present them with overwhelming data gathered due to their funds.

Kammen demonstrates how deep sea mining is potentially the next successful non-renewable energy industry by exposing clean energy leaders like Norway which pivot from the “now shrinking oil and gas industry to a new thing which involves some of the same serious technology.”

tion and unchecked industry power decided the fate of the environment, creating a “system that really reinforces the opportunity to exploit.”

Polymetallic nodules mainly exist within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an abyssal plain around 4.5 million square kilometers found between Hawai’i and Mexico which contains a resource deposit of rare-earth minerals that exceeds the entirety of terrestrial deposits. The ISA has commissioned multiple joint research initiatives that have involved scientists from around the world to study the long-term impacts of deep sea mining. Dr. Craig Smith, the principal investigator in the Benthic Ecology Lab at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, is involved in research initiatives to develop an understanding of the environmental impacts of deep sea mining using benthic biological baseline studies. According to Dr. Smith’s Deep CCZ Project, data gathered through two cruises and an international scientific crew revealed that “the Clarion Clipperton zone in particular, especially the eastern end, has the highest biodiversity of any abyssal areas studied on the planet.”

“The major environmental impacts of deep sea mining are sedimentary plumes, noise pollution, and loss of biodiversity.”

Kammen also mentions that these mining corporations and the ISA have partnered with smaller island nations to buy mining rights from them. Essentially, the countries cannot refuse the transaction because “those deals are hard to turn down.”

U.S. and Canadian metals companies exploit South Pacific islands around the Clarion-Clipperton Zone such as the Cook Islands to obtain access to the seabed deposits nearby. Kammen draws eerie similarities to the oil and gas boom more than 70 years ago, as patterns of exploita-

The major environmental impacts of deep sea mining are sedimentary plumes, noise pollution, and loss of biodiversity. According to Dr. Smith, sedimentary plumes cause materials released from mining to settle in the water column in high particle concentrations, smothering ecosystems which are “very sensitive to an increase in suspended sediment load.” Additionally, the noise pollution released from mining equipment travels further through the ocean than it travels in air and impacts other ecosystems. Dr. Smith explains that “if we remove the nodules, we remove the habitat for this fauna, and it will cause local and potentially regional extinctions for hundreds of species.” Even small disturbances take ecosystems years to recuperate from, so the large-scale impact of commercial mining over long timeframes is unfathomable.

As each year passes, the ISA and mining corporations continue to push for deep sea mining operations. The polymetallic nodules mined in ecosystems such as the CCZ can provide rare-earth minerals that power our technology, but the process will impact the environment. Moving forward, we need to consider if we are willing to sacrifice parts of the ocean that hold environmental and scientific value to fund our lifestyles. In light of all the emerging research and opposing perspectives, it is necessary to examine the extent to which we can tolerate unsustainable oceanic ecosystem destruction in exchange for our technological lifestyles.

designed by Catie Kuehl

‘Serendipity”: Protecting the Right Whales at the Center for Coastal Studies

by SIA AGARWAL In Cape Cod Bay, North Atlantic right whales are the focus of immense conservation efforts at the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS). Growing up to 52 feet long and 140,000 pounds, these vital creatures uphold ocean food chains and regulate phytoplankton supply. Dr. Charles ‘Stormy’ Mayo, one

of the three founders of CCS, has worked on whale conservation for several decades and established a program that rescues whales, researches them, and raises public awareness about this critically endangered species.

“Serendipity” is what Dr. Mayo calls his journey towards whale conservation research. After earning his PhD at the University of Miami, Mayo moved back to Cape Cod, where ten generations of his family have lived as fishermen since the 1600s.

Another such native of the Cape who had been operating a tourist boat approached Mayo with a proposition to venture into the bay to search for seabirds and whales.

“We discovered what has become an international phenomenon and that is the huge concentration of various species of large whales off Cape Cod,” Mayo says.

In 1976, Dr. Charles Mayo, Dr. Barbara Shuler Mayo, and Dr. Graham Giese came together as advocates against a major development project and “[spoke] on behalf of environmental stability” in the Cape Cod community. Their collaboration was what later resulted in the Center for Coastal Studies, based in Provincetown in Cape Cod. As “the right whale story began to explode in the minds of environmentalists,” Mayo wanted to “test out [his] hypothesis that there might be right whales here in the winter,” an idea doubted by marine mammal scientists at the time. Equipped with a contributor’s research boat, they discovered “the motherlode of right whales” in the bay, launching decades of scientific investigation.

“The project has grown because… of the serendipity of right whales coming to my hometown,” says Mayo. In the late 90s, the picture became clearer to Mayo that whales were drawn to the bay’s rich plankton supply in mid-winter. Researchers at CCS have seized this opportunity to closely study the right whale’s habitat conditions in the institution’s backyard.

To understand how the bay serves as a marine mammal habitat, the right whale research team observes factors such as salinity, temperature, sunlight, and plankton. The right whales’ choice of prey is a type of zooplankton called copepods.

Availability of copepods varies both spatially and temporally in the bay.

In order to track whales, the team conducts aerial surveys. “Each right whale has its own distinct markings,” Mayo explains. After years of collecting data, Mayo and his research assistants “get to know who’s who.” By tracking the whales, CCS

aims to provide decision-makers key information for local marine policy. They quickly provide information to flag areas where whales have been spotted to reduce risk of vessel strikes.

However, Cape Cod’s shores have witnessed a decline in numbers. “Two years ago, we had 81% of the estimated population. Last year, it was 63%,” Mayo says. At the time of our interview, he had returned from the first flight of the season, having spotted zero right whales. As the winter progresses, right whales will hopefully flock back to Cape Cod. Threats to Right Whales A warming climate, fishing gear entanglements, boat strikes, and noise pollution are just some of the threats facing the right whales. Since 2017, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has recorded 34 deaths.

Being slow-moving creatures, whales can’t move out of the way fast enough as a speeding vessel approaches. Oceana, an organization that advocates for ocean conservation, found that in every slow zone along the Eastern US coast, at least one ship was moving at three times the speed limit.

Researchers at NOAA are urging policymakers to enforce boat speed limits and designate ‘seasonal slow zones’ that correspond with whale movement patterns.

Ensnarement in fishing gear also poses an especially potent danger to whales, often resulting in fatalities. At CCS, Mayo helped pioneer a rescue program, employing novel management techniques to save entangled individuals. Now, the Right Whale Emergency Initiative monitors a wide stretch of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire coasts to identify and free trapped whales. With only 336 right whales and only 100 breeding individuals, this small population cannot sustain more deaths for much longer.

However, Mayo describes climate change as the issue that changes “the story of right whales.”

“There is every likelihood that climate change is working across all ecosystems in a way we can say is detrimental,” Mayo says. Plankton availability is one of the factors that may be impacted by climate change.

Dwindling plankton supply in the Gulf of Maine caused by warming waters has already driven right whales to search for food elsewhere, as revealed by a study published in Oceanography.

Now, whales congregate in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the summertime, and in the winter, “the whales are choosing Cape Cod Bay.” “Cape Cod Bay has maintained its richness… It is amazing that it has remained stable in terms of density and plankton,” explains Mayo. Unfortunately, other indicators demonstrate the effects of climate change such as “regions of anoxia along the bottom” of the bay. Anoxia refers to stretches of low dissolved oxygen along the seafloor which threatens marine organism’s survival.

There are still mysteries to uncover. “All field biologists have to deal with cause and effect in the midst of an ecosystem that is always changing,” Mayo says, emphasizing the difficulty to pinpoint any one instigator of disturbance.

Looking Ahead, Informed by the Past “There is a big advantage to having a family that lives in the same ecosystem over long periods. The eyes of that family have seen the changes that we all recognize…due to climate change,” Mayo recounts, looking back at his family history. Experiences of the Cape’s natural wonder have been passed down “through the words of a grandfather and a father” to Mayo himself – and eventually to his sons and their children. The significance of witnessing ecosystem change via his family’s stories is not lost on Mayo: “How can one not pay an unusual amount of emotion to this Earth and the changes it is going through?”

“A long thread that leads to a place: where I am” is how Dr. Mayo described his arrival towards his passion for right whales. The intertwined stories of human life, right whales, and the bay itself continues to inform the research conducted by Mayo and his colleagues at CCS. Dr. Mayo’s story shows that there is still hope for marine life on our planet as we – writers, artists, scientists, and passionate citizens – find our own “thread” within the environmental movement. As we harness the strengths provided by our unique backgrounds, we can restore the ocean and its inhabitants. Future generations may be able to

stand at any shore and see what Earth has always intended: a sea that stretches to the sky, full of life and potential.

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designed by Amelia Jarolim

Feminist Political Ecology: An Intersectional Framework for the Environmental Movement

by LEXIE GARCIA

PART 1: The Third Wave “The personal is political” is a slogan rooted in radical feminism, posed by young women during the second wave of feminism that washed over the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Reflected by a movement for liberation, the phrase encapsulates how a woman’s everyday experience is shaped by the inequalities embedded within the social, economic and political structures surrounding her.

Riding the calm of second-wave, the birth of the ecofeminist movement in the 1970s established an environmental philosophy dedicated to understanding the dual oppression of women and nature in tandem. Upon the bookshelf of foundational ecofeminist texts, scholars and activists theorized a framework that explored the interconnectedness of gender, environment, and social justice.

The words of Carolyn Merchant offered strong critiques of female domination under mechanistic science and industrial society; Val Plumwood argued beyond Western dualisms that position men against women and nature separate from humans; the writings of Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies emphasize that a global capitalist system disproportionately exploits the labor and bodies of women and Indigenous people in the Global South.

But in the decades following its inception, ecofeminism was met with considerable criticism: mainly, that it centered a white, middle-class environmental narrative based in the United States. This white, American version of ecofeminism created a dissonance between Western scholarship and the experiences of women facing the consequences of environmental harm on a global scale.

Simply put, ecofeminism fell short of developing an intersectional approach to environmentalism—one with the potential to deconstruct patriarchy and environmental degradation through the lens of race, class and gender.

The opportunity for intersectional ecofeminism seemed forgone. At the same time that white Western thought came to influence the field, women of color formulated their own calls for liberation. In 1974, the Combahee River Collective, formed by a group of Black feminists, lesbians, and socialists in Boston, made their own political declaration: “A political contribution which we feel we have already made is the expansion of the feminist principle that the personal is political… We have spent a great deal of energy delving into the cultural and experiential nature of our oppression out of necessity because none of these matters have ever been looked at before. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of black women’s lives.”

When scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989, she outlined a framework that acknowledged how social, economic, and political oppressions manifested through the dimensions of one’s personal identity—particularly for identities of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Despite the concurrent strides made by Black women to name these layered systems of oppression, the ecofemi-

nist movement at the time did not inherit this lens of intersectionality.

This is not to say that ecofeminist theory should be discarded; in fact, it is quite the opposite.

Ecofeminism, as a philosophy, seeks to uproot the structural oppression of both women and the environment in the context of addressing climate catastrophe. As the continued domination over women and ecological devastation accelerates the climate crisis, the case for refining critical frameworks and tools to understand the dynamics between gender and nature is clear.

Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) is a powerful framework that stems from the overarching branches of ecofeminist thought—it understands gender as a critical variable that interacts with race, class, and culture to shape resource access in times of ecological change. Emerging in the 1990s, the core principles of FPE began to address the call for intersectionality posed by ecofeminism’s initial shortcomings: The body is understood as a site of resistance to domination, and thus, the personal becomes the political.

Feminist Political Ecology moves ecofeminist theory into praxis—it unveils how women in frontline communities experience social inequalities and environmental degradation in their everyday life.

Such an example exists here, on Turtle Island.

PART 2: Swimming Against the Current A grassroots social movement led by Indigenous women, Idle No More originated in Canada as a response to the government’s plans to dismantle environmental protection laws, which would endanger First Nations who inhabit the land. Four Indigenous women among the Treaty People in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta protested this legislation, understanding that it would have significant adverse effects on their land and livelihoods.

Since Idle No More emerged in November 2012, the movement has grown into a continent-wide network of urban and rural Indigenous peoples who organize to uphold treaty rights and protect Indigenous resources.

Using strategies of social media awareness, faceto-face organizing, flash mobs and public demon-

strations, the movement has been successful in mobilizing campaigns that address the social and environmental inequalities facing Indigenous communities. Their campaigns are expansive, covering issues such as sexual violence, housing crises, defunding the police and protecting sacred lands from the First Nations to Mauna Kea. The organizing work done through these campaigns holds governments accountable to their moral and legal obligations to Indigenous communities—and it is strikingly led by women.

in the context of ecological devastation does not end here.

The historical role of Indigenous women—as leaders, pillars of culture, and keepers of knowledge— is central to Idle No More’s mission. Through the framework of Feminist Political Ecology, their leadership can be amplified in alignment and the principles of intersectionality; the reinforcing forms of social and environmental degradation that Indigenous women face is the intersection at which the personal is political, and a cause by which to mobilize the masses.

The dynamics between gender and nature have historically been understood as a relationship of domination. But as climate change exacerbates the vulnerabilities of women, BIPOC communities and queer people, structures of oppression must begin to be deconstructed through intersectional frameworks. Moving forward, Feminist Political Ecology must be used as such a framework to center BIPOC women and move beyond the gender binary within the environmental movement.

The call to action implied by the name “Idle No More” ripples throughout the world, sparking conversations about Indigenous sovereignty and calling on all people—Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike—to join “a peaceful revolution which honors and fulfills Indigenous sovereignty and which protects the land, the water, and the sky.”

The women-led aspect of Idle No More emphasizes the intersection between gender, Indigenous rights, and environmental justice on an international level.

In the 10 years since its founding, Idle No More has completely transformed the political landscape of Canada by amplifying the call for Indigenous sovereignty and environmental protection as one. If the personal is political, these efforts led by Indigenous women have demonstrated the potential of turning one’s personal vulnerability to environmental harm into a movement that advocates for social transformation.

Part 3: Shifting the Tide Feminist Political Ecology, as a framework, empowers the central role BIPOC women have in organizing movements for environmental justice because their everyday experiences are where environmental harms can be seen through the body as a site of resistance. But understanding gender

Challenging structures of oppression also means considering the pervasive heteronormative standards within environmentalism. To stay true to the intersectional approach embedded in the FPE, it is critical that feminist lenses continue to include queer perspectives that can speak to the experiences of trans, non-binary, and gender-fluid people.

designed by CATIE KUEHL

Biomimicry: Is Biology the Only Technology We Need For an Energy-Efficient World?

by ABBY WILBER

There are things we can never get back. We, as a world, as a collective of forward-moving organisms conscious of our entropic motion into new moment after new moment, can’t un-know all the technological shortcuts, developments, and eliminated impossibilities we’ve gathered over the years. We can’t un-learn quantum theory or thermodynamics any more than we can turn back time.

In many ways, in terms of technological fields, the expanding and implementation of new knowledge could be deemed inherent to the passage of time.

With novel technology constantly being developed, environmental issues often aren’t taken into account. People tend to solve problems with technological advancement that require complex mechanisms, new infrastructure and an excess of materials. The norm is to solve whatever problems we have with as many natural resources as it takes in order to reach a solution.

Take the oil industry, for example: Even though solar and wind energy are plentiful, rapidly becoming cheaper, and have the abundance and carbon-neutrality to steer the world away from a climate disaster, large corporations and countries continue to innovate more ways they can extract fossil fuels, keeping them in use. Consider the way that the temperature inside homes and buildings is typically regulated: if a large building must be heated, the answer is simple: blast the heater, scaling up the energy usage that would be applied to a small home under the same weather conditions.

Including temperature regulation, the natural world has already faced many of the same problems as the human world, and solved them of its own accord. The mechanisms of evolution, biology, and ecosystem dynamics are some of the best problem-solvers out there. They require no natural resource extraction and no computer programming—no modern scientific innovation.

Nature’s problems are solved efficiently, elegantly, and in ways that have proven to be effective by nature of the species’ survival who depend on them. Some engineers and architects, such as those who designed Harare’s Eastgate Centre in the Southern region of Africa, have taken an interest in these natural mechanisms and incorporated them into their design process, attempt-

ing to solve human problems with solutions that already exist in nature. The study and process of this integration of nature into innovation is called biomimicry.

In one corner of the world, away from the technological haven of humanity, the problem of largescale indoor heating has already been solved with no energy use whatsoever. A species of termite local to southern parts of Africa requires warm, humid conditions in order to grow fungus essential to its survival. To stay warm amidst the varying temperatures their environments face, these termites build piles of dirt, dung, and other materials in a structure that allows the inside of the mounds to retain heat, creating a habitat self-regulating temperature. These termites’ habits have been observed since the 1950s, but recently, their evolutionary genius has been scaled up significantly and applied to human architecture.

An architecture firm in Zimbabwe, after studying the thermodynamic efficiency of the mound structures of these termites, designed and built a shopping complex using the evolutionary knowledge of these wood-dwelling geniuses. Thanks to the building principles of termite mounds, the complex is able to remain a comfortable temperature all year round with only a fraction of the mechanical cooling and heating they otherwise would have needed. According to a 2017 study, Harare’s Eastgate Centre consumes 90% less energy than a building of its size typically would.

Biomimicry may not inherently be centered around or originated from a purpose of environmental stewardship or conservation, but many of its applications certainly have this commonality.

Regardless of the degree of environmental awareness of its creator, a design challenge solved with the use of biomimicry almost always yields a solution that’s not as much as a typical innovation— less energy use, materials, and infrastructure are typically involved.

In one case, biomimicry is also being used as an avenue through which to improve the sustainability, efficiency, and affordability of solar energy production. Chlorophyll, a component of plant cells, is the pigment that captures solar energy in plants. In addition to chlorophyll, accessory pigments work alongside it inside of plant cells, allowing them to absorb at all visible wavelengths

of light. Artificial photosynthesis is the process by which chlorophyll’s function can be replicated by scientists. Dye-sensitized solar cells are one method of artificial photosynthesis, believed to be capable of achieving what the color variance of pigments does in plants. Though its research is ongoing, artificial photosynthesis holds the potential to generate electricity from solar energy using much less to produce much more.

As it pertains to wind energy production, biomimicry has been used to help the design of optimally efficient wind turbines. Taking inspiration from the immense size yet swift maneuvering of humpback whales, Toronto-based company WhalePower is developing and testing wind turbines with the features of whale fins. Due to their unique angling and the presence of ridges along their edges, their fins allow whales to overcome the limitations posed by water resistance and move uncommonly quickly for creatures of their size. With these as their design principles, this company has created a turbine design that can harness energy from wind much more efficiently, even at low wind speeds.

The future is confronted with dual and interconnected challenges: firstly, greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, pushing along the effects of climate change. Second, natural resources that we rely on, that we use to generate energy and that create these greenhouse gas emissions, are finite. The study of biomimicry is bursting with possible ways to bolster energy efficiency and generate renewable energy in more effective ways. It provides a future in which we don’t rely on natural resources, where what the Earth offers isn’t expendable. Where the natural world remains invaluable, but for its mechanisms and cycles, its richness in biodiversity, rather than its materials.

The future of the climate is such that if we fail to change it or accommodate for it, the Earth will reclaim everything, its natural systems and methodologies winning against our deliberate technology so far diverged from nature. Simple cohesion between people and nature is both the beginning of our history and, in dire projections, the end of our reign. Why not form an alliance with nature now, and choose to be part of that future?

designed by CATIE KUEHL

Red Seaweed and the Cattle Industry: Pursuing Unexpected Climate Solutions

by PAIGE THIONNET As more time passes, fewer can deny that anthropogenic climate change is a defining issue of the 21st century. It’s a challenge of overwhelming proportions–a tangled mess of technological barriers and political red tape. Solving it means finding creative solutions that address its causes in an effective, equitable way.

No one strategy will fix the climate problem alone.

Instead, what’s needed is a globally collaborative approach that takes it on from multiple angles.

Climate change is widely known to come from carbon dioxide emissions produced through fos-

sil fuel consumption. However, carbon dioxide is not the only gas to exhibit the “greenhouse effect” that causes global warming. Second in abundance to CO2, methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 28 times carbon dioxide’s heat-trapping potential. So while methane is emitted in lower quantities than carbon dioxide, the impact of an individual molecule is far more severe.

Thus, in addition to CO2, effective climate solutions must address key sources of methane production. Methane can enter the atmosphere from a variety of places, but one of particular interest and scale is the agricultural sector–more specif-

ically, cows.

The reason for this pertains to a cow’s anatomy.

Cows are ruminants, meaning their digestive systems are organized into segments. One particular section, the rumen, ferments cow feed and produces methane which is ultimately expelled via belching. In just one year, a cow will belch around 220 pounds of methane.

Therefore, cattle are a big challenge when it comes to minimizing methane emissions. The obvious solution would be to raise less cattle, and thereby emit less gas. However, this would require a remarkable shift in global beef consumption. It’s highly unlikely that a reduction of this magnitude could be achieved quickly enough to make a difference.

This isn’t to say that individuals shouldn’t consume less beef as much as possible, but rather that other avenues should be explored as well.

Because the climate crisis is already so advanced, it is important to find additional ways to mitigate the methane production of cattle globally through technological and scientific innovation.

Sometimes, creative solutions come from unexpected discoveries. In a study conducted at UC Davis, researchers found that introducing small samples of the red seaweed species Asparagopsis taxiformis into cows’ diets can reduce their methane production–the first study of its kind to test the effectiveness of seaweed on live cattle. Led

by Professor Ermias Kebreab, the study indicated that red seaweed was a promising supplement for reducing cattle-produced methane.

When Professor Jennifer Smith at the University of California, San Diego, heard about Professor Kebreab’s work, she reached out to ask whether he might want to collaborate. With her background in marine botany, she proposed using facilities at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography to work on the cultivation of Asparagopsis taxiformis.

In order for the Kebreab’s discovery to make a real impact on agricultural methane emissions, it needs to be applicable on a much larger scale than just the 12 Holstein cows used in his initial experiment. It requires Asparagopsis taxiformis to be produced in significantly larger quantities.

Smith’s research is an important step to making

Kebreab’s results applicable to real dairies and cattle.

Kebreab’s initial research was largely inspired by a California law enacted in 2016 that requires all dairy farmers to reduce their methane emissions by 40% by 2030. In order to meet this target, farmers across the state need access to consistent and reliable solutions.

Thus, Jennifer Smith and the team in her lab continue to seek effective cultivation methods for Asparagopsis taxiformis, hoping to make it scalable in time to make a measurable impact on the effects of atmospheric methane.

The window in which climate action will make an actual impact is closing. We lack the time and resources to follow up and follow through in convincing the world to move on reducing beef and dairy consumption, and by extension, cows and their methane. Therefore, it is critical that approaches like seaweed supplements are given the R&D attention, financial investment, and policy backing they need to become both scalable and feasible for farmers globally.

There’s a certain inertia that can be observed when it comes to the human behavior that drives climate change. Despite the clear danger, people don’t want to adjust the way they live; granted, the responsible parties when it comes to climate change are largely big corporations, rather than individuals. Still, it’s incredibly challenging to persuade enough people to make small changes–eating less beef, for example–to make a difference. Therefore, effective climate strategy involves both taking multiple approaches and considering the path of least resistance. Don’t try and convince everyone to stop consuming beef altogether–it’s simply not feasible. Instead, reduce consumption as much as possible while also finding a way to make cattle farming more sustainable to begin with.

Ultimately, as the threat of climate change continues to grow, it’s important that we pursue ideas like the work of Kebreab and Smith. Feeding seaweed to cattle isn’t one’s first thought when considering how to bring down emissions, but it’s discoveries like these that have incredible potential.

Unpacking the Universal Meals Program

by EVELYN FONTAN The issues of food insecurity and hunger directly impact our children’s classrooms and stomachs.

In 2022 the state of California offered a solution to childhood food insecurity with their new Universal Meals Program, also known as UMP. The UMP ensures Kindergarten through 12th grade students across the state weekly access to free breakfast and lunch. California has allocated a $650 million state budget to lift the financial burden of having to pay for schooltime meals from students and their families (CA Dept of Education).

The strength of the UMP lies in its ability to offer all students, regardless of their family income or federally determined “need,” two meals a school day.

Prior to the Universal Meals Program, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), implemented in 1946, allowed eligible students nationwide to receive free or reduced lunch. The NSLP requires families to first fill out a meal application in order to determine a student’s eligibility for federally funded food assistance. This meal application requirement functions as a barrier for specific groups of students from accessing the program’s benefits. For instance, the lack of documentation from unauthorized immigrant families and their fear of having their residency status known to the government ultimately prevent them from filling out the form and allowing their students to receive their deserved food. The UMP eliminates this barrier by automatically allowing any student, regardless of any proof of financial need or personal information, to access food at school.

Eliminating these barriers for students accessing food at their place of education is essential and receiving meals at school should have been ensured at the inception of public schools. Regardless of familial income or citizenship status, all students deserve access to nutritious meals.

California’s Universal Meals Program is the first state-wide policy in the United States to mandate access to food at all public and charter schools,

and it functions as an intervention preventing lifelong illnesses and stressors tied to inadequate access to nutritious foods. California’s new policy is a great step towards supporting students from vulnerable communities and removing barriers that more states and cities across the United States should replicate.

While the cost of meals at schools is alleviated from students and their families by the UMP, costs now appear as environmental impacts. The Universal Meals Program and its requirement of constant food availability on school campuses promotes food waste and the overconsumption of resources. An issue with school provided meals is the fact that students simply do not consume all the food and drinks made available to them. This is not the fault of students, but rather an organizational and educational issue. An elementary teacher interviewed for research conducted by Tufts University said, “I have 20, only 21 students right now. But I would say, on the average, we throw away at least 15 milks a day” (Ordway 2022). For a variety of reasons, including certain meals being perceived as unappetizing to students and the prevalence of students who choose to still eat food from home, school meals programs indirectly encourage food and energy waste. Not only does the food itself become wasted, but so does the energy used in food transportation and production. In order to combat waste, a Bay Area school chef named Josh Gjersand has begun surveying students about what foods they would be happy to see on their menu. Gjersand says, “The students like to be part of the conversation. By asking them what they like, where they’re from, it shows we’re paying attention and listening to them” (Jones 2023). If students like the food they are being served they are more likely to eat it.

Problem solved? No. The issue lies in the fact that Chef Gjersand is unique. He was an executive chef turned school chef for an easier work

life balance, and he works in Contra Costa County.

Contra Costa is a county made up of people with median incomes higher than the national average (Jones 2023). What about schools in areas that can’t afford a “Chef Gjersand”, or a similar figure with nutritional expertise and awareness of the issues surrounding food waste?

Perhaps the solution to the food waste and systemic issues embedded into the Universal Meal Program will occur simultaneously on the government and school level. It could mean implementing a mandated curriculum to teach students about nutritional health and food waste.

It could look like requiring school chefs to adapt menus to the actual paletes of students. While California’s Universal Meals Program takes major strides in eliminating access barriers to food for school children, the food waste issues embedded within it are yet to be addressed.

Unsustainable by Design: Can Fast Fashion Keep Up?

by ANJALINE SINGH

Clothing plays a significant role in shaping people’s lives, serving as a primary means of self-expression through fashion. Additionally, fashion allows for individuals to reflect their identity through their personal style. The fast fashion industry attracts its consumers with trendy, but relatively cheap clothing revealing a dark side: the implementation of exploitative and unethical practices.

The need for educating consumers on the environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry is the first step. Popular clothing trends incentivize faster disposal rates, creating a perpetual cycle of buying and discarding. Corporate retailers such as H&M, Zara, and Forever 21 take advantage of shoppers’ desire to follow trends, resulting in a culture of disposability. Although creating new styles can be innovative, the fast fashion sector is the second worst polluter on the planet after the oil industry due to the increased consumption of clothing. Fast fashion poses multiple consequences such as disparity in pricing, environmental degradation, labor abuse, and inadequate diversity and inclusivity, generating the need for greater corporate transparency.

Fashion corporations have adopted unsustainable practices in order to increase profit margins.

Apparel brands such as Topshop and Princess Polly entice their consumers to shop for clothes inspired by luxury brands for a fraction of the price, thus providing an opportunity for individuals to emulate the elite’s sense of style. Additionally, The Business Research Company conducted the Fast Fashion Global Market Report, revealing that the global fast fashion market is projected to reach $184.96 billion dollars in profits by 2027, while continuing to tempt their customers into purchasing cheaply made pieces of clothing at low prices (The Business Research Company; Watkins). On the other hand, sustainable fashion prices are considerably higher due to the sourcing and manufacturing of ethical fabrics. Having noted that, surveys conducted by Dr. Nadya Zhex-

embayeva indicates that 40% of buyers claim that they are inclined to purchasing ethically-sourced clothing, revealing that only 4% actually do so (Oliveira). This underscores the discrepancy between consumers’ intentions to buy ethical clothing and their actual purchasing behavior, highlighting the significance of the price disparity. While choosing to act in an ethical way is ultimately the wiser decision for our well-being, not everyone has the means to afford the hefty price tag that comes with choosing sustainable clothing options. Despite a growing awareness of the impacts of fast fashion, consumers often opt for cheaper alternatives due to the significant price difference. Fast fashion may come at a cheaper price, but it’s certainly not a bargain deal.

In fact, the true cost of fast fashion is impactful, particularly on the environment. The environmental degradation arises from clothing being constantly discarded and also from the way they are sourced. Beginning with production and ending with overconsumption, the textile industry counts for 10% of carbon emissions (Niinimäki).

The fashion sector’s overall business model relies on the rampant production in hopes of generating a high sales volume portraying the corporations’ lack of concern for the environmental consequences of their actions. Corporate greed is the current trend, and they are wearing it well.

Excessive discarding of clothing racks up a staggering 7 to 30% increase in textile waste, causing our landfills to be a dumping ground for outdated styles (Morgan and Birtwistle). H&M’s Swedish corporation has been reported to be burning 4.3 billion dollars worth of unsold inventory (Gwilt).

This continuous cycle of producing, consuming, and throwing is causing significant harm to the environment and society as a whole. Rather than overproducing unreasonable amounts of clothes, fashion companies must fundamentally change their business practices.

Moreover, the fashion industry not only camouflages its exploitative practices but is also signifi-

cantly labor-intensive, employing a substantial workforce from various international countries.

The global fashion sector faces scrutiny for poor working conditions and unacceptable labor environments. For instance, an eight story clothing factory in Bangladesh collapsed resulting in 1127 people killed, highlighting the dangerous work settings that fast fashion workers have to endure (Taplin; see fig.1).

Western fashion companies rely on global sweatshops to produce apparel, often resorting to exploitative practices. “You basically have to kill yourself in front of a sewing machine in order to provide for your family,” explains Maria Valdinete da Silva from Brazil, a now self-employed seamstress (Yar). In order to make minimum wage, outsourced employees “have to work from day to night” (Yar). 80% of women like Maria dominate the workforce in the fast fashion industry and are subjected to unsafe work conditions with little to no job security (Clean Clothes Campaign). Additionally, the intersectionality of the fast fashion labor industry, which includes factors such as race and class, serves to reinforce gender inequalities. This results in limited prospects for women in the industry who are already facing exploitative work environments and low wages.

Fig 1: Photo of the Rana Plaza Collapse that transpired on April 24 2013 in the Dhaka District (photo taken by Munir Uz Zaman for Getty Images).

In addition to the corrupted workplace, fast fashion’s marketing strategies have been criticized for perpetuating harmful beauty standards and performative attempts to appeal to certain groups of consumers. Neglecting the underlying issue of lack of inclusivity towards certain bodies and people of color, brands will promote specific content solely for the purpose of gaining positive attention. Their corporate social responsibil-

ity initiatives often amount to performative marketing rather than cultivating meaningful social changes. For instance, retailer Fashion Nova, a company that has been exposed for stealing designs from Black designers, posted a black square photo in response to the tragic death of George Floyd (Murphy). This is a superficial gesture that does not actually address or solicit positive action.

Furthermore, stealing designs from Black designers casts doubt about their authenticity to promote diversity and inclusion. In this industry, it seems as though profits are louder than promises, and the reality remains that many of these efforts are merely empty gestures.

Although the fast fashion industry has numerous flaws, it is crucial to acknowledge the power of our own actions in affecting change. While crucial changes must occur at a corporate level, buying second hand clothing and reducing consumption helps alleviate some of the negative impacts on the environment. Corporations and consumers need to commit to making more informed choices in order to create an equitable and sustainable society. Let’s break up with fast fashion and fall in love with slow fashion, a relationship built on sustainability and high standards.

Circular Threads: Innovative Textile Revolution

by GISSELLE VELASCO Now more than ever, society is focusing on the carbon footprint each individual leaves behind as the heat of our climate continues to increase. From this concern for our climate arises the question of what the fashion industry can do to help combat this issue. Currently, people are searching for the most eco-friendly textiles and holding each brand accountable for their waste. However, it is not only fabric waste one company, Worn Again, is determined to reduce through their new way of creating textiles.

Worn Again is a company that got its start in 2005, by turning old textiles such as old prison blankets and scrap leather into new, usable products. Their focus has since shifted to turning non-reusable materials into usable fabrics. Ultimately, their goal is to create a complete cycle of textile recycling, unlike other companies who only convert 1% of waste back into textiles. Furthermore, this cycle consists of converting used bottles and packaging into cellulose and PET which are then spun into fiber for fabric. These raw materials will no longer need to be sourced from the planet directly. Once this fabric is utilized as a clothing item, it can go back into the cycle and be converted into a fabric for a new product.

The balance between waste and wear that is created from this innovative textile is exactly what is needed in a time of mass consumption. If this technology is adopted by larger brands, its impact could be major in keeping our planet clean. This cycle removes the incineration process of plastic waste which contributes largely to carbon emissions. With universal use of Work Again’s method, companies can reuse plastic instead of using raw materials for their fabrics. If all plastic materials and clothing can be utilized over and over, there will be less demand for new production of materials, keeping waste in check.

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designed by Amelia Jarolim

Earth Diagnosed: Case Studies on Environmental Health Issues

by BEN BARTLETT Introduction & Case Study 1: Richmond, California Incorporated into the Bay Area in 1905, Richmond stands as a testament to resilience. Nestled next to a refinery conglomerate, the city’s residents are vulnerable to both environmental health risks and industrial development. While many of these industries offer employment, they pose a threat to the wellness of communities. In the face of this encroachment of large factories, organizations such as Communities for a Better Environment declare that there are dramatic health inequities experienced by the working-class community, especially under the shadow of Richmond’s Chevron Oil refinery.

Richmond is very familiar with poor air quality and environmental degradation, but the intrigue lies in the emergence of adverse health effects, coinciding as an environmental justice issue. There is not only a purely environmental issue present but one that is socioeconomic and disproportionately harming minority groups.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand that Richmond is not just a purely industrial landscape, but one that is a melting pot of human experience, where environmental dynamics and cultural diversity amalgamate.

With a population that is primarily people of color, notably 43.8% of the population being His-

panic, the poor air quality and degradation of the surrounding environment are not merely a backdrop; it has evolved into an inseparable aspect of the residents’ identity. The Chevron conglomerate represents the powers that exploit and benefit from economically disadvantaged areas.

As an environmental student at UC Berkeley, I feel compelled towards the advocacy of our Bay Area.

Due to rapid urbanization and anthropogenic impact, the Bay Area has been inundated with environmental justice concerns, where proactive mitigation strategies must be implemented in order to foster healthier communities for all residents.

Through constituent engagement and informed policies, the Bay Area can prioritize environmental health and prevent the spread of health concerns and address intersectionality and equity.

By learning from the consequences of politicized environmental health case studies from people of color and low-income communities, the region can develop a just and inclusive approach towards environment management.

Case Study 2: Minamata, Japan Along the coast of Shiranui Sea on the outskirts of Minamata, Japan, an alarming phenomenon started to occur for the inhabitants of the rural town. Residents started claiming that their cats were inexplicably hurling themselves into the sea. Little did they know that this peculiar behavior foreshadowed what was to come.

The villagers soon exhibited a strange range of afflictions, including limb numbness, hearing difficulties, impaired walking, and even more disturbing, irreversible brain damage. The enigmatic symptoms befuddled scientists at Kumamoto University, prompting an investigation into the source.

In 1956, scientists were able to directly establish a link of perturbing health effects to fish and shellfish consumption. The perpetrator was no other than the Chisso Corporation petrochemical plant in Minamata, which created a deadly form of mercury poisoning that permeated into the coastal waters. The fish and shellfish experienced the bioaccumulation of the deadly poison, which was then subsequently eaten by the vulnerable village population, giving rise to what is now known as

the ‘Minamata disease.’

The Chisso Corporation continued to deny claims that their actions were causing any harm, despite mounting evidence that an estimated 82 tons of compounds were dumped into the Minamata Bay. The repercussions started accumulating intergenerationally. Poisoned parents that gave birth saw their children have a congenital form of the disease.

Legal action ensued with 40 plaintiffs filing against the Japanese government in 1982, stating that there was clear violation of pollution laws.

Though the regulatory damages were acknowledged eventually, the legacy of the Minamata Disease is profound and underscores the enduring repercussions of industrial pollution. Decades after childhood exposure, individuals continue to grapple with the health effects of methylmercury poisoning. This does not only illuminate the far-reaching consequences of environmental negligence on community health but also displays the lack of preventative actions on the government’s part.

Case Study 3: Agbogbloshie District in Accra, Ghana Located on the outskirts Accra in Ghana sprawls the world’s largest e-waste dumpsite, a commercial district known as Agbogbloshie. Referred to by the Basel Action Network as the illegal “digital dumping ground,” the site is a victim of electronic waste disposed annually from countries such as the US, China, Europe, and India.

West Africa has always been an ad hoc project for primarily neo-colonial countries, who want to transition what they see as an undeveloped part of the continent into a digital era. With a massive influx of computers, many severely unregulated and arriving as defective, there were tons of e-waste produced each year without any recycling measures.

Amplifying the issue, the methods of waste processing were crude and environmentally unsound.

People started to resort to dismantling televisions and other electronics for copper and other metals.

Then, the e-waste workers would sell the metals to nearby factories to earn meager wages.

Particularly, the burning method was found to be one of the most effective to extract the metals and as a consequence, released noxious gas such as dioxins, furans, and other hazardous airborne pollutants. The respiratory illnesses from the particulate matter proved to be a deadly dilemma for many e-waste workers. Lung function decline was observed in correlation with the exposure to their degrading environment, increasing risk for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Nevertheless, the work offered was the steadiest source of income in the region, leading to a migration pattern where individuals from all over the country would migrate to secure a living. All would soon be afflicted with not only the air pollutants, but the seeping of chemicals into the soil and water.

Agbogbloshie stands as a stark testament of global actions that has led to the environmental degradation of the vulnerable region. The toxic fumes not only permeate and choke the air, but they are emblematic of the pervasive impact of unmitigated waste disposal encroaching on these rural villages in Ghana.

Case Study 4: Pripyat, Ukraine The infamous Chernobyl disaster is considered to be the worst nuclear disaster in history. The accident unfolded in Reactor 4 of the plant and due to operator recklessness and design flaws, a surge in reactor power led to an explosion. Radioactive materials such as iodine-131, cesium-137, and strontium-90 got propelled into the atmosphere.

Immediately, two of the plant workers died on the spot and others soon followed from the acute radiation sickness that occurred within the next few weeks. A radioactive cloud formed from the particles and traveled to adjacent regions of Europe such as Belarus and Russia.

Individuals that were most vulnerable, specifically presiding in the town of Pripyat, stated that there were various health concerns that developed later.

Many plant workers, emergency responders, and residents started to claim symptoms of thyroid cancer from exposed areas of iodine-131. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, those that were adolescents during the time of the incident were more at risk for substantial thyroid

cancer cases attributed by Chernobyl radiation.

Image provided by the World Nuclear Association

Cases of cardiovascular disease rose as well. A study observing Chernobyl disaster clean-up workers found that ischemic heart disease and arterial hypertension were associated with environmental exposure, emphasizing the need for ongoing medical surveillance for lingering radioactivity.

Many decades later, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was established as a way to restrict human habitation around the nuclear plant and remains as a reminder of the disaster’s lasting impact. The desolate landscape and abandonment of the buildings within the zone display the socio-economic displacement of the citizens and the ongoing effects of the radiation.

But, most of all, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone serves as a haunting reminder of the human error and environmental consequences of nuclear disasters.

Conclusion There is an interplay between the well-being of communities to the physical environment, but that can easily be manipulated under the guise of short-term gains. Environmental health is a system that is constructed as a relationship, yet within this framework, the environment remains vulnerable towards exploitation from the people that most benefit from it. Within this unwieldy power structure, there is a pressing need for accountability for those guilty benefactors, the ones that hold positions of power and influence.

Ensuring the well-being of the environment and

its stakeholders is tied with the various dimensions of social identity, including socioeconomic status, gender, race, and more. Therefore, addressing intersectionality and equity as the forefront of dismantling systemic inequalities is the solution towards mitigating health challenges in the future.

Environmental and Racial Segregation in New Orleans AUTHOR: Emma Mott The destruction of New Orleans in the Hurricane Katrina disaster exposed long-lasting issues of racial and environmental justice going back as far as the nineteenth century. I argue that the racial and environmental segregation of New Orleans during the turn of the twentieth century, along with inefficient water management and policies, contributed to unequal suffering during natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. It is necessary to consider the differing desirability of land favoring wealthy white residents, Jim Crow era behaviors and policies, and the differentiated risk in segregated neighborhoods due to waste management policies in the city of New Orleans.

The land of New Orleans had differing degrees of desirability based on the environmental risks as well as the level of convenience that each area provided for its residents. In the article “An Ethnic Geography of New Orleans,” author Richard Campanella states, “Desirability of land thus varied directly with distance from the river and from the backswamp and indirectly with distance from the city center” (Campanella, 2007). Near the river, land was abundant and therefore cheap, but came with the environmental risks of potential flooding. Higher-elevated areas were scarce and therefore more expensive. Throughout the nineteenth century, a pattern developed in which Anglo-Americans dominated the upper city while Creoles inhabited the lower city. During the time of slavery, the American upper city was intermixed between enslaved Blacks and the wealthy white slave owners, while the Creole lower city was intermixed between free people of color as well as French and Hispanic, due to their 3-tiered multiracial caste system. This intermixed diversity became an infamous feature of New Orleans.

During the Jim Crow era, the previously intermixed diversity of New Orleans began to separate into segregated areas as freed people of color were forced into the lowest-lying land. Campanella writes,“Blatantly racist deed covenants excluded black families from the new land ... the neutralization of topography and distance, along with legally sanctioned racial polarization, helped desegregate the historically intermixed racial geography of New Orleans’’ (Campanella, 2007). Part of this separation was due to the Supreme Court case “Plessy v Ferguson” which ruled

that racial segregation was legal as long as there were “separate but equal” facilities between whites and nonwhites. The Jim Crow laws following this decision made it easy for Black people to be forced out of areas by the more affluent white people. In general, wealthy whites lived in higher elevation, middle-class Blacks lived in the eastern area, poor Blacks lived in the “back-of-town” and along the higher riverfront, and the poorest Blacks lived in high-density subsidized housing projects.

Meanwhile, a new waste management system increased the environmental hazards of the poorer neighborhoods in the lowlands. Rather than using a multi-tiered system of flood control, New Orleans politicians focused on a “levees only” approach. They removed wetlands that naturally acted as sponges absorbing flood water in order to expand urban spaces for greater economic opportunity.

As levees grew higher and higher, the Mississippi river’s water began to rise higher behind them. Swamps began to disappear because the levees prevented floodwater from “recharging” the wetlands. Oil exploration along the river also caused coastal erosion. All of these factors made it harder to pump water out of the city, and New Orleans began to sink.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, it impacted the racially segregated neighborhoods of New Orleans differently. In the article “In the Shadow of Disaster”, author Ari Kelman writes, “Brookings Institution reports that thirty-eight of greater New Orleans’ forty-nine poorest districts flooded.

In the city proper, 80 percent of the flooded neighborhoods were majority non-white” (Kelman, 2005). While all neighborhoods of New Orleans were impacted, Black neighborhoods were impacted at a much higher rate.

Finally, I want to end this paper with a quote from “In the Shadow of Disaster” that really impacted me. Kelman states, “The city had purchased its safety by sacrificing its poorer neighborhoods” (Kelman, 2005). I believe this quote is still true today. The racial issues reflected in these articles are still prominent today, and institutionalized racism continues to pop up in our society, from police brutality to redlining of neighborhoods and schools to lack of drinkable water, as we see currently in Mississippi. While Hurricane Katrina may have been a wake-up call for some, it is not the last disaster like this that will occur, because we are yet to make significant changes to this system. This pattern of environmental injustice continues in cities because of the greedy decisions of poli-

ticians that favor the wealthy and neglect the most economically vulnerable of our society.

WORKS CITED 1.

2.

Richard Campanella, An Ethnic Geography of New Orleans, Journal of American History, Volume 94, Issue 3, December 2007, Pages 704– 715, https://doi.org/10.2307/25095131.

“In the Shadow of Disaster” by Ari Kelman https://www.thenation. com/article/archive/shadow-disaster/

Indian Sustainability Practices AUTHOR: Tiva Gandhi 1980 My days were often one and the same. I woke up. I got myself ready and then prayed in my home. After I got my kids ready, I walked them to their bus stop. I knew they would safely get to school, and now I had time to start my day. I walked to the temple to pray once again. I went back home to grab some bags and rupees to head to the bazaar. Here, I found fresh fruits and vegetables to feed my family. I walked back home and made dinner for the night.

On special days when I wanted to leave the local area, I had rickshaws and the train station to take me where I wanted. There was something convenient about having so many distances at my fingertips.

While my grandmother had enjoyed the convenience of public transportation, fresh produce, and walkable cities, she lost that enjoyment after moving to the United States.

This isn’t an uncommon story. India consistently receives high scores in housing, transportation, and food choices but is still rarely seen as a leader in sustainability.

Practices rooted in the harmonious relationship between nature and humans have earned Indians the distinction of being ranked the least wasteful. To delve into the ideology’s impact on India’s sustainability, let’s examine it through the following two lenses: public transportation and farmer’s markets. Building on these insights, let’s explore the impacts of their implementation within the United States.

Public Transportation

in public transport, specifically StanRTA buses. Starting in 2019, the Modesto Area Express (MAX) and StanRTA merged buses leading to a significant expansion of commuter transport services, even spanning to BART and AMTRAK. Connecting California for commuters drastically reduces the transportation-related emissions being emitted into the atmosphere.

Another transportation goal was to encourage walking and biking. This involved creating more bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. As a generally suburban city, Modesto faces the issue where the accessibility to shops and restaurants is limited. However, investing in traffic infrastructure to accommodate bikes and pedestrians is a necessary first step to prioritize safety and encourage people to decrease car usage.

Unfortunately, as India urbanizes, they are losing their reliance on public transportation, shifting to a growing dependence on cars. Interestingly, policies in India reflect US policies meant to reduce the usage of cars and increase a “pro-environment” perspective. The odd-even policy allows cars with even registration numbers to drive on even days and vice versa. Despite the short-term effectiveness, the policy was instrumental in shaping Delhi’s perspectives positively toward new pro-environment policy measures. and reminding policy-makers that trust in policy is built on straightforward policy with clear results.

Farmer’s Markets

Public transportation thrives in cities where the public relies on public transportation like in cities where the cost of living is high and the income of the people is low. While larger cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, and New York City have developed their public transportation throughout the years, even less urbanized cities are now developing more accessible public transit. But for the majority of people living outside of these developed cities, people are spending money they don’t have on their transportation averaging out to about 16 cents per day per household.

India features ‘farmer-sellers,’ who are farmers who go to local markets to sell their products. Despite the history of farm-sellers being built on the oppressive caste system, the impact of farm-sellers is valuable to the rural market.

In the United States, farmer’s markets have been shown to increase the job market, reduce food insecurity, stimulate community building, and most importantly, improve sustainability in the local market. Focusing on sustainability, farmer’s markets contribute to locally grown produce which heavily cuts down the emissions (1,500 to 2,500 miles) of transportation for the produce. Local farmers reduce pesticide and fertilizer use due to their sustainable practices and prioritization of biodiversity.

In 2019, the suburban city of Modesto in the Central Valley implemented a variety of transportation policies and goals aimed at increasing accessibility for more modes of transportation. One main objective was to boost the usage of non-automobile modes of transportation. Having lived in Modesto for most of my life, I have become aware of a noticeable increase

It is important to acknowledge that farmer’s markets and their benefits are unevenly distributed across the United States, specifically neglecting communities of color.

Furthermore, with their association with higher-quality produce, farmer’s markets are in places with higher costs of living and subsequently raise the cost of living in the areas they are established.

India’s shift towards westernization is forcing them to forget their traditional roots that protect and respect Earth.

Like many countries, India battles between becoming a global superpower that glorifies westernization and preserving a tradition that emphasizes reverence for the environment. Westernization often aligns with industrialization which, in India’s case, has led to some of the highest world pollution witnessed. With Air Quality Index (AQI) numbers as high as 288, India, to some extent, lost the cultural beliefs that historically protected the world as it stands now.

Image sourced from IQAir, https://cms.iqair.com/sites/default/ files/blog/2020-04/DehliMobNew.jpg.

Culture plays a pivotal role in preserving the natural environment around us. Recognizing the importance of forests as carbon sinks, it is vital to protect them in their natural state, especially since many reforestation attempts are misguided. In northeast India, farmers have a process in which they rotate their agriculture across different plots of land, allowing the soil to rejuvenate. Despite misconceptions that their process ravages the forests and kills biodiversity, the impact of climate change on crops today illuminates the value of the farmers’ approach. Their agricultural practices contribute towards the enrichment of biodiversity and sustain food growth for families in the area.

Biodiversity in the Philippines ARTIST: Yichen Gao WRITER: Ben Bartlett Yichen Gao loves nature and, in particular, the jungle for its biodiversity. It has always fascinated him how just one small flower high up in the canopy can have a small community thriving in it. Life is hidden everywhere in the jungle if one looks deeper into it. Yichen started off by drawing portraits of individual animals, then progressed to drawing full backgrounds with the animal. Eventually, he realized that he could show the sheer amount of life in a jungle by hiding all types of organisms in his drawings. That’s when the amount of life in his art started climbing higher and higher. Yichen enjoys what he does; it is his way of decompressing and makes him feel accomplished after finishing every piece, especially since all his art can take months to complete.

Species: Philippine tarsier, colugo, Philippine flying fox, Philippine pangolin, Binturong Great hornbill (non-native), ring nose parakeets, Philippine eagle female and male sailfin dragon, paradise tree snake, Draco lizard Platymantis frog Altas moth caterpillar, Philippine leaf insect, Megapomponia cicadas, Pyrops candelaria and Pyrops maquilinganus, Atlas beetle, Prosopocoilus giraffa stag beetle, unnamed green beetle, damselfly, moth and mantis spiny orb weaver, Ornithoctoninae sp., Mindanae tarantula, Scolopendra subspinipes centipede

Species: Red macaw, common pottoo Oxybelis fulgidus vine snake, unnamed gecko Baby Amazon milk frog, Convict treefrog, Propachylus harvestman, Avicularia avicularia tarantula, juvenile Brazilian wondering spider, Argiope argentata, pair of tailless whip scorpion, Peripatus heloisae velvet worm, Typholaena seladonia tarantula, unnamed tree snail Ceraeochrysa larvae, Cathedra serrata leafhopper, golden tortoise beetle, Diaethria anna butterfly, unnamed longhorn beetle, beetle, caterpillar, moth, inchworm, stick insect, ant, and fly

Species: Phormingochilus sp sabah blue tarantula, unnamed lynx spider Daphnis neril moth, Ancylecha fenestrata katydid, Teleopsis dalmanni fly, saddle back caterpillar, Pseudochalcothea sp sabah flower beetle, Lymantria moth, unnamed stick insect, termite, fly, mantis

Species: Kakapo, Kiwi, New Zealand falcon, Moa skull on the forest floor and the silhouette of an extinct giant Moa in the back Tuatara Unnamed newt Cormocephalus centipede Giant Weta New Zealand short tail bats

Species: Poecilotheria mettalica male and female, milkweed bugs, leafhopper, and a snail

Species: Chilobrachys dyscolus blue

FALL 2023 STAFF Editor-in-Chiefs Sia Agarwal Dennis Song

Senior Editors Cole Haddock Megan Mehta Paige Thionnet Zora Uyeda-Hale Abby Wilber

Staff Writers

Indra Deshmukh Lexie Garcia Mona Holmer Amelia Pinto Meghaa Ravichandran

Research Editor Ben Bartlett

Design Director Tiffany Ho

Designers

Weiran Zhu Catie Kuehl Amelia Jarolim Trisha Andrews Claire Thompson

Internal Operations Director Rebecca Ding

Social Media Director Abby Wilber

APPENDIX Editorials Game Over for Climate Change! Environmental Media within Video Games

By Mona Holmer https://gamerant.com/the-sims-4-eco-lifestyle-complete-guide/#:~:text=know%20 about%20it.-,The%20Sims%204%3A%20Eco%20Lifestyle%20is%20the%20ninth%20expansion%20pack,released%20on%20June%205%2C%202020. https://plasticitygame.wixsite.com/about http://writerguy.com/2022/index.html#works&gid=1&pid=2 https://web-s-ebscohost-com.libproxy.berkeley.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid =66084f49-184b-44f9-a734-363f5ff19f5c%40redis Urban Farming: Caring for the Land and the Community

By Amelia Pinto https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31572-1 https://www.vox.com/2016/5/15/11660304/urban-farming-benefits https://food.berkeley.edu/mission/mission-overview/ https://www.studentfarms.berkeley.edu/ https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/ Concerts + Environment

By Indra Deshmukh https://business.edf.org/insights/green-freight-math-how-to-calculate-emissions-for-atruck-move/#:~:text=The%20average%20freight%20truck%20in,total%20grams%20into%20 metric%20tons. https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/ https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-spent-160-hours-using-private-jet-erastour-2023-8 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/arts/music/adele-las-vegas-review.html https://www.empirelakes.co/blog/taylor-swift-eras-tour-av-equipment https://tseentertainment.com/electrical-needs-a-big-part-of-concert-production/ https://www.epa.gov/energy/about-us-electricity-system-and-its-impact-environment https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/taylor-swift-federal-reserve-creditseras-tour-boosting-hotels-tourism-rcna94046?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma&taid=64b01c0575849d0001c38aad&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_ source=twitter https://energyforenviro.com/2023/04/26/the-eras-tour-the-environment/ https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-taylor-swift-fans-spend-concerts-eras-tour2023-7#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20the%20report%20found,to%20see%20the%20Eras%20 Tour. https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/seattle-bead-store-business-tiktok-taylor-swift/281-27f37c2b-3c02-4dc1-81b0-e5d60136b9a6 https://medium.com/chasing-purple-skies/fossil-fuel-ed-fame-the-environmental-im-

pact-of-stadium-tours-2e946f42d365 https://reverb.org/take-action/ The Cost of Deep Sea Mining

By Meghaa Ravichandran The International Seabed Authority and Deep Seabed Mining | United Nations Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) - Environmental assessment and protection in mineral-rich seabed areas beyond national jurisdiction - Conservation Corridor.

Past Research | Craig Smith’s Benthic Ecology Lab The promise and risks of deep-sea mining What We Know About Deep-sea Mining and What We Don’t | World Resources Institute Urgent need for moratorium on deep-sea mining | Berkeley “Serendipity”: Protecting the Right Whales at the Center for Coastal Studies

By Sia Agarwal https://oceana.org/marine-life/north-atlantic-right-whale/#:~:text=North%20Atlantic%20right%20 whales%20have,are%20unique%20to%20each%20individual. https://wwf.ca/species/north-atlantic-right-whales/#:~:text=Why%20are%20North%20Atlantic%20 Right,breathing%20environment%20for%20all%20animals. https://coastalstudies.org/rescue/ https://coastalstudies.org/right-whale-research/habitat-studies/#:~:text=Cape%20Cod%20Bay%20is%20 not,of%20this%20behavior%20almost%20impossible). https://coastalstudies.org/right-whale-research/conservation-and-research/ https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/north-atlantic-right-whale https://newjerseymonitor.com/2023/10/19/speeding-ships-threaten-extinction-of-north-atlanticright-whales-study-warns/#:~:text=Thirty%2Dsix%20North%20Atlantic%20right,because%20most%20never%20wash%20ashore. https://provincetownindependent.org/featured/2023/10/25/climate-not-wind-farms-is-called-threatto-whales/ https://tos.org/oceanography/article/ocean-regime-shift-is-driving-collapse-of-the-north-atlanticright-whale-population https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2115231119

Op-Eds Feminist Political Ecology: An Intersectional Framework for the Environmental Movement

By Lexie Garcia https://psyche.co/ideas/the-origin-story-of-a-slogan-the-personal-is-political https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/ https://idlenomore.ca/about-the-movement/ https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf https://www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com/toolkits/ecofeminism-and-environmental-liberation The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-137-38273-3_18 Biomimicry: Is Biology the Only Technology We Need For an Energy-Efficient World?

By Abby Wilber

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/charts-renewables-are-on-track-tokeep-getting-cheaper-and-cheaper#:~:text=Renewables%20will%20keep%20beating%20fossil,gas%20costs%20globally%20this%20decade. https://biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306456519303249#:~:text=For%20 instance%2C%20the%20African%20and,thus%20creating%20optimal%20temperature%20 conditions. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610217308603?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=843e59cb98fb52a1 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0958166910000649 https://vaeec.org/biomimicry-and-energy-efficiency/ https://whalepowercorp.wordpress.com/ Red Seaweed Supplements to Reduce Methane Emissions in Cattle

By Paige Thionnet https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane#:~:text=Methane%20is%20the%20second%20most,16%20percent%20of%20global%20emissions. https://magazine.ucdavis.edu/making-cows-more-sustainable/ https://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/can-seaweed-cut-methane-emissions-ondairy-farms https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1383 https://ecpamericas.org/newsletters/from-the-ocean-a-cure-for-cow-burps/ Unpacking the Universal Meals Program

By Evelyn Fontan, UC Berkeley “California Universal Meals - School Nutrition (CA Dept of Education).” n.d. Www.cde. ca.gov. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/cauniversalmeals.asp.

Jones, Carolyn. 2023. “Goodbye Hotdogs, Hello Vegan Masala: California’s School Lunches Are Going Gourmet.” CalMatters, August 10, 2023, sec. K-12 Education. https://calmatters. org/education/k-12-education/2023/08/school-lunches/#:~:text=Last%2 0year%20California%20began%20providing.

Ordway, Denise-Marie. 2022. “Offering Free Lunches to All Students: Financial Impacts for Schools, Families, Stores.” The Journalist’s Resource. September 19, 2022. https://journalistsresource.org/education/free-lunches-financial-consequences/.

Unsustainable by Design: Can Fast Fashion Keep Up?

By Anjaline Singh, UC Riverside Author links open overlay panel Luana Gomes de Oliveira a, et al. “Sustainable Practices in Slow and Fast Fashion Stores: What Does the Customer Perceive?” Cleaner Engineering and Technology, Elsevier, 20 Jan. 2022, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S2666790822000180.

“Fast Fashion Market Size, Trends and Global Forecast to 2032.” The Business Research Company, The Business Research Company, Jan. 2023, https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/fast-fashion-global-market-report.

“Gender: Women Workers Mistreated.” Clean Clothes Campaign, 29 Apr. 2013, https:// cleanclothes.org/issues/gender.

Medina, Sascha. “Greenwashing in Fast Fashion Beast, Shein’s, Communications? - A Content Analysis.” Carolina Digital Repository, 20 July 2022, https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/ masters_papers/1g05fn52m?locale=en.

Morgan, L.R. and Birtwistle, G. (2009), An investigation of young fashion consumers’

disposal habits. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 33: 190-198. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14706431.2009.00756.x Murphy, Yume. “One Year after #BlackoutTuesday, What Have Companies Really Done for Racial Justice?” Vox, Vox, 2 June 2021, https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22463723/blackout-tuesday-blm-sephora-starbucks-nike-glossier.

Niinimäki, K., Peters, G., Dahlbo, H. et al. The environmental price of fast fashion. Nat Rev Earth Environ 1, 189–200 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0039-9 Taplin, Ian M. “Who Is to Blame? A Re-Examination of Fast Fashion after the 2013 Factory Disaster in Bangladesh.” Critical Perspectives on International Business, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 25 Feb. 2014, https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/cpoib-09-2013-0035/full/pdf?casa_token=4_c4QXFmcdkAAAAA%3A9XQUEzgfGKjb1bORydeCyy_fv9Ni1KyQUW-zq1aC9gXcImJHqvp7_f5_bf Yio_Rt1yGi2rsiXk70MoPYl6cSCsqsQ3vqchMT0bhpDAro-eY-Xk5A7nBj. Yar, Sanam. “Who Made Your Clothes?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Dec. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/style/garment-workers-around-the-world.html.

Yardley, Jim. “Report on Deadly Factory Collapse in Bangladesh Finds Widespread Blame.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 May 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/report-on-bangladesh-building-collapse-finds-widespread-blame.html.

Circular Threads: Innovative Textile Revolution

By Giselle Velasco, FIDM Friedman, Arthur. “$30 Million Funds Worn Again’s Textile Recycling Facility.” Sourcing Journal, 10 Oct. 2022.

“Worn Again - Abundance. for Everyone. Forever.” Worn Again Technologies, 22 Mar. 2022, wornagain.co.uk/.

Research Papers Earth Diagnosed: Case Studies on Environmental Health Issues

By Ben Bartlett https://www.cbecal.org/organizing/northern-california/richmond/ https://earthjustice.org/case/protecting-global-climate-and-community-health-from-oil-refinery-impacts#:~:text=Richmond%2C%20CA%20is%20home%20to,the%20Refinery%20and%20other%20sources. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/667767 https://datausa.io/profile/geo/richmond-ca/#:~:text=Richmond%2C%20CA%20is%20home%20to,any%20other%20race%20or%20ethnicity. https://www.ucop.edu/sustainability/index.html https://www.newgeography.com/content/004165-the-evolving-urban-form-the-san-francisco-bay-area https://www.science.org/content/article/mysterious-chemical-found-dead-cats-brain-reopens-debate-over-mercury-poisoning https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28931792/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/42800184 https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/samplechapter/0/1/3/6/0136038026.pdf https://www.verywellhealth.com/minamata-disease-2860856 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10921517/ https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/10/1103842 https://wiki.ban.org/images/f/f4/Holes_in_the_Circular_Economy-_WEEE_Leakage_from_Europe. pdf

https://www.newsweek.com/ghanas-e-waste-dump-seeps-poison-68385 https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2013/11/2/inside-ghanas-electronic-wasteland#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%20two%20decades,collect%20the%20valuable%20metals%20inside. https://www.equaltimes.org/the-informal-e-waste-and-metal?lang=en https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32349371/#:~:text=Conclusions%3A%20Direct%20exposure%20of%20e,%3B%20longitudinal%20study%3B%20lung%20function. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/chernobyl/faqs#:~:text=Iodine%2C%20strontium%20and%20caesium%20were%20the%20most%20dangerous%20of%20the,Strontium%20can%20lead%20to%20leukaemia. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/na-flip-chartv-7-0#:~:text=Iodine%20collects%20in%20the%20thyroid,thyroid%20disease%2C%20including%20thyroid%20cancer.&text=Thyroid%20cancer%20is%20not%20common,treatment%2C%20it%20is%20usually%20curable. https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/chernobyl.pdf https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22606887/ Environmental and Racial Segregation in New Orleans

By Emma Mott, UC Berkeley Richard Campanella, An Ethnic Geography of New Orleans, Journal of American History, Volume 94, Issue 3, December 2007, Pages 704–715, https://doi.org/10.2307/25095131.

“In the Shadow of Disaster” by Ari Kelman https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ shadow-disaster/ Traditional Ecological Practices in India

By Tiva Gandhi, UC Berkeley https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/what-india-can-teach-the-world-about-sustainability/ https://www.apta.com/news-publications/public-transportation-facts/ https://www.modestogov.com/DocumentCenter/View/11381/Chapter-V---TransportationPDF https://stanrta.org/155/History-of-StanRTA https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X21000822?via=ihub https://indianexpress.com/article/what-is/what-is-delhi-odd-even-scheme-air-pollution-9016010/ https://www.proquest.com/docview/2650200730?parentSessionId=ZxmUuNjn2qMvrFG4mfR%2BFsjBeig1HdJDdtk%2BSXqpSCQ%3D&pq-origsite=primo&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/articles/national-farmers-market-week-think-localand-global https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/08/09/farmers-market-week-2019/ https://www.iqair.com/us/india/delhi https://cms.iqair.com/sites/default/files/blog/2020-04/DehliMobNew.jpg

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