letter from the editors Dear Reader, Let’s take a step back and look at the state of our planet. The earth’s current carbon dioxide levels have risen to 400 ppm (parts per million), a level last seen during the mid-Pliocene, approximately 3 million years ago. At the current rate of increase in CO2, we will hit 500 ppm within 50 years, leading to temperature rise of more than 3 degrees C (5.4 F) — a level that would cause more frequent extreme weather and global sea rise. We are reaching a tipping point. Now we’re seeing stronger, longer, and earlier natural disasters on a yearly basis. In our home state of California, we’ve seen fires ravage our communities, with neighboring towns experiencing the fallout of toxic smoke and ash. Due to the state’s neglected power lines, cities across the state have been subjected to electricity shut-offs, resulting in blackouts that put a halt to social and economic activity. But are we past the point of no return? We’d like to challenge the narrative of hopelessness and apathy. Perennial’s story began in Fall 2019 as the brainchild of two undergraduate students who saw the need to amplify the diverse work of Cal’s environmental community. Students and Berkeley community members make significant contributions to a variety of environmental issues, but too often these accomplishments have not been visible to the wider campus. Our peers at Cal’s premiere environmental blog, the Leaflet, have made a significant impact in increasing environmental conversations on campus. However, there still remained a gap. While most other disciplines at Cal have journals dedicated to showcasing the academic work of their undergraduates, the ESPM (Environmental Science, Policy, and Management) department did not. At Perennial, we have sought to fill this gap. We seek to provide an open and accessible platform for the student community, publishing editorials written by Perennial’s passionate staff and academic papers from Berkeley’s environmentally-minded undergraduates. As Cal’s only undergraduate environmental journal, Perennial hopes to encourage student action and scholarship, inspire discussion on solutions to our planet’s most critical issues and promote diversity of thought and identity in the environmental sphere. We hope our environmental journalism shares stories that intrigue our readers, and that our academic research papers take readers behind the scenes of the complex processes of the stories we share. The journey to launching this, our first issue, has been fraught with challenges. In the fall of 2019, Perennial’s first semester as an official student organization, UC Berkeley,
1
Spring 2020 / Perennial
