Common Home Issue 001

Issue 001

Spring 2021

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TOXIC RACISM:

Georgetown scholars share perspectives on environmental racism

Care for our Common Home From the Spirit of Georgetown set of values

In his landmark 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis urgently calls for “a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet.” As we strive to protect our common home and promote the common good, we show respect for the Creator and act on the moral imperative to care for the earth and for those most impacted by environmental degradation.

Georgetown seeks to strengthen our efforts to bring the intellectual, institutional, and spiritual resources of our community to advance environmental sustainability and environmental justice.

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Letter from the Director It is a tremendous pleasure and honor to welcome you to the inaugural issue of Common Home, a student-driven publication exploring all topics intersecting environment and sustainability at Georgetown and beyond.

disciplines explain how racism contaminates where and how we live in America. In this inaugural issue, we face the pervasiveness of the chemical PFAS, the commonalities between famines and police brutality, and the genetic legacy of the insecticide DDT.

The launch of Common Home comes at the perfect time for our community. We are at the five year anniversary of the “Laudato Si’—On Care for Our Common Home,” a landmark encyclical

by Pope Francis that summons everyone to protect the environment. His words remind us that caring for our planet—and all species that call it home—is critical to our spiritual and physical survival.

We also celebrate movements forward. Articles explore how a New York theater troupe harnesses empathy to spark personal commitments to climate change, how an innovation in physics can reduce the burden of N95 masks in landfills, and how grassroots movements turn into long-lasting environmental change.

Moved to action, Georgetown has made four sustainability commitments, including to divest from fossil fuel companies over the next 10 years, a 15-year agreement to source two-thirds of its electricity needs from existing solar plants, and an energy partnership agreement to reduce consumption and sustainably manage utilities. On Earth Day of this year, Georgetown enshrined its new environmental commitment as its tenth Core Value: Care for our Common Home.

A note of gratitude to our first student editorial board, Marion Cassidy, Piper Conway, Sam Cormier, and Rowlie Flores. They turned Common Home from wishful thinking to the reality within these pages. A heartfelt thank you, as well, to contributors who authored or provided interviews. Your discoveries and environmental commitment are an inspiration.

Within these pages (and the online presence) of Common Home, we try to nurture an interdisciplinary approach to share stories as interconnected as life on our planet. I hope you join us.

Although I’m an ornithologist and a biologist, I will be the first to admit science alone cannot protect our shared home. Rather, we must embrace diversity—of race and culture, lived experiences, disciplines, and species—to drive us forward. In this spirit, contributors in Common Home draw unexpected connections between the arts, sciences, literature, medicine, business Peter P. Marra, Ph.D. and policy to the environment and sustainability.

Director, " 5 ,."5 )'')( ),! .)1(5 (#0 ,-#.3]-5 (-.#./. 5 ),5 This issue seeks an honest assessment, through such varied (0#,)(' (.5;5 /-. #( #&#.3 lenses, of the reality and complexity of our home environLaudato Si’ Professor of Biology and the Environment5Professor, ments. In the cover story, “Toxic Racism,” scholars from three McCourt School of Policy

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Table of Contents Snapshots How the Environment Shapes Us Samuel Cormier with Sonia de Assis

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Speaking the Wealth of Nature Piper Conway with Catherine Novelli

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Growing Up Rowlie Flores with Andra Roventa

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Forever Chemicals Laura Anderko

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Turning Copper Against COVID Piper Conway with Kai Liu

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Mapping the Mysteries of Bird Migration Rowlie Flores with Calandra Stanley & Peter P. Marra

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The Silo Toxic Racism Tiffany Ganthier, Laura Anderko & Sheila Foster

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Deep Dives Cops, Climate, and COVID Olúfémi O. Táíwò

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Leading with Empathy Marion Cassidy Conversations From Grassroots to Gold Leslie Crutchfield & Peter P. Marra Hoya Hive Lizzy Nguyen with Piper Conway The Breakdown “Environmental, Social, Governance” Eduardo Deschapelles

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Editorial Board Common Home is a product of ),! .)1([-5 ,."5 )'')(-5 (-.#./. and our student editorial board. Interested in joining? Contact /- at ,." )'')(-@georgetown.edu.

Piper Conway Piper is a senior in the college majoring in Government and minoring in STIA. She is interested in environmental policy and sustainable business. At Georgetown, she is also involved with the Georgetown University Student Association Sustainability Policy Team, Alpha Phi Omega, and the Ultimate Frisbee team.

Marion Cassidy Marion is a sophomore in the college studying Art History with a minor in Theater and Performance Studies. She is from Brooklyn, NY and is passionate about the intersection of sustainability and the arts.

Rowlie Flores Rowlie is a junior in the college studying American politics and environmental studies. He hails from the Big Island of Hawai’i and is a member of the student government, where he champions sustainability and socioeconomic advocacy. He is interested in the intersection of indigenous rights and the environment.

Sam Cormier Sam is a senior in the college majoring in Spanish and Psychology and minoring in Performing Arts. He began his environmental advocacy work canvassing in Texas, and has been inspired by the power of art to inspire climate action.

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Contributors Laura Anderko PhD RN Laura Anderko holds the Robert and Kathleen Scanlon Endowed Chair in Values Based Health Care at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing & Health Studies. She is also a committee member for the Guidance on PFAS Testing and Health Outcomes at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Leslie Crutchfield Leslie Crutchfield is an author, Executive Director of Business for Impact at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and a Senior Advisor at FSG Social Impact Consultants.

Sonia de Assis PhD Sonia de Assis is an Assistant Professor of Oncology and a Principal Investigator at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Eduardo Deschapelles Eduardo Deschapelles is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a director at The AES Corporation.

Sheila R. Foster Sheila R. Foster is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy at Georgetown University. She holds a joint appointment with the Georgetown Law School and the McCourt School of Public Policy.

Tiffany Ganthier Tiffany Ganthier is an Institute Associate at the Georgetown Climate Center. She is a project manager and a primary author of the Equitable Adaptation Legal & Policy Toolkit.

LubDub Theater Co Founding Members Caitlin Cassidy, Geoff Kanick, Robert Duffey, and the playwright Miranda Rose Hall are founding members of the LubDub Theater Co, a largely Georgetown Alumni-founded theater group based in New York City.

Peter P. Marra PhD Peter P. Marra is the Director of ),! .)1([-5 ,."5 )'')(-5 (-.#./. , Laudato Si’ Professor in Biology and the Environment, and a professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy.

Lizzy Nguyen Lizzy Nguyen is a Walsh School of Foreign Service student majoring in Science, Technology, and International Affairs. She is also the President of Hoya Hive.

Catherine Novelli Catherine Novelli is an adjunct professor at the Langegger Program in International Business Diplomacy and SFS Centennial Fellow. She is also President of Listening for America, and former Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment.

Andra Roventa Andra Roventa is pursuing a Masters of Professional Studies in Urban and Regional Planning at Georgetown University.

Olúfémi O. Táíwò PhD Olúfémi O. Táíwò is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, specializing in the philosophy of language, contemporary social science, and the history of activism.

Kai Liu PhD Kai Liu is the Robert L. McDevitt, K.S.G., K.C.H.S. and Catherine H. McDevitt, L.C.H.S. Chair in Physics at Georgetown University. He also currently serves as Secretary for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Commission on Magnetism.

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How the Environment Shapes Us

Reframing genetic predisposition through DDT exposure

By Sam Cormier The EPA outlawed use of DDT in 1972 because of the synthetic pesticide’s potential risk to human health and destructive environmental effects.

Nearly 50 years later, Professor Sonia de Assis of Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center is studying DDT as a model to understand how environmental toxins pose deleterious effects over multiple generations. Innovative work by her research team is changing the way we think about how the environment affects our genes, including predisposition to cancer and other diseases.

Dr. de Assis is focused on epigenetic inheritance of disease, the idea that environmental factors leave molecular marks in the parents’ germline. That “molecular memory” of past toxic 8

exposures can be transmitted—independent of DNA—to the next generation and affect their predisposition to disease.

“While family history is an important risk factor for many diseases, not all familial susceptibility can be explained by genetics,” she said. “There might be another way by which disease predisposition can be passed between generations.”

Her latest project won a prestigious R01 Grant from the National Institutes of Health. This paved the way for an expanded inquiry into how paternal exposures to environmen-tal toxins such as DDT can change a group of molecules called non-coding RNAs in sperm and lead to abnormal development in offspring. The work, initiated as a preliminary investigation with funding from " 5 ,."5 )'')(-5Impact Program, has produced

Image Credit: Susha Roy and Justine Bowe

findings that show children of fathers exposed to DDT have increased rates of cancer and diabetes.

Those efforts have developed into cutting-edge research exploring how environmentally induced epigenetic inheritance occurs. Using DDT as an example, Dr. de Assis is examining how environmental information including toxins gets coded in sperm and how that information affects the first stages of fetal development after conception, causing predisposition for diseases.

There’s a strong social justice component to Dr. de Assis’ work.

“Poorer and more disadvantaged communities are more prone to being exposed to environmental toxicants than wealthier communities,” she said. “These communities are being affected now, but the next generation might also be affected. If we are aware of that, we can try to break the cycle.”

Different ethnic groups experience a higher prevalence of certain diseases, including cancer. African Americans, for example, have the highest death rate and shortest survival of any racial and ethnic group in the US for most cancers.

More than that, she said, the “molecular memory of our parents’ environmental exposure can program us to have worse outcomes for diseases.”

Part of the work’s novelty is its focus on the paternal role in epigenetics, a field where research tends to focus more on the way environmental factors are passed from mothers to offspring.

Conditions like diabetes and obesity in fathers can alter the RNA of sperm, affecting fetal development. Dr. de Assis hopes that identifying how these paternal factors affect development will lead to improved care for the would-be father prior to conception.

Growing up in Brazil, Dr. de Assis spent her early years on a farm, always “very curious about the natural world.” Her old neighborhood in the Brazilian city of Goiânia is similar to disadvantaged communities in the U.S. affected by pollution and other environmental toxins.

Dr. de Assis’ research seeks to identify the intergenerational genetic causes of disease in hopes of improving how we approach and treat those conditions. By bringing epigenetics to the field of oncology, her team highlights the value of a holistic approach that combines environmental and medical research.

It’s a strong reflection of the core Georgetown Jesuit value of cura personalis, a Latin phrase that refers to care of the whole person.

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Speaking the Wealth of Nature

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by Piper Conway

The Wealth of Nature podcast is a rare audio exploration of “profit-minded solutions to sustainability challenges.” The title, Wealth of Nature, is a play on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, a nod towards what some might consider a contradiction in terms: doing economically “well” while creating “good” at the same time.

The innovative podcast has its roots in Georgetown and branches to audiences far beyond campus. It was created three years ago as part of the Walsh School of Foreign Service Centennial Fellows Program, and now exists within the Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) Department within the university.

The environment is the key focus. Since its initial launch, the podcast has explored everything from solar energy to finance to biodiversity. Recent episodes, for example, cover sustainable tourism, creating consumer products from recycled ocean plastics, and financing solar projects.

In 2019, Catherine Novelli, an Adjunct Professor at the Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy, won an Impact Program Award from ),! .)1([- ,."5 )'')(-5 (-.#./. for her role supporting the podcast. Working with a group of Georgetown students—Junior Fellows—the

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Image Credit: Susha Roy and Justine Bowe

team, led by Novelli, originated the name, brand, and logo of the podcast, among other contributions.

Professor Novelli explained that her favorite podcast has been one that was done with a former mayor of Houston, Texas, who discussed the city’s approach to integrating renewable energy.

Student leader, Abigail Cawley, spoke highly of her favorite episode that features Nike’s Director of Renewable Energy.

Novelli came to the Walsh School of Foreign Service as a Centennial Fellow, focusing on the intersection between the environment and business. Prior to Georgetown, she served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Mediterranean, followed by a senior position at Apple, where she focused on global government affairs.

The Wealth of Nature podcast shows the nurturing power of collaborations across Georgetown—between students, faculty, and multi-department support. Beyond the launch at SFS and home at STIA, Cawley explains that the funding was instrumental in ensuring that the podcast could run in the long-term.

Moving forward, Novelli is excited to continue working with students to expand and improve the Wealth of Nature podcast.

Staff Picks

These Wealth of Nature episodes showcase the podcast’s diverse subject range: #19 - Mission Driven Investing Returns Beyond the Bottom Line with Tom Mitchell, founding member of Cambridge Associate’s Mission Related Investments Group #18 - Solar Financing: The Bright Future of Clean Energy with Andrew Gilligan, Vice President at Sol Systems #17 - Net Positive: Consumer Products from Recycled Ocean Plastics with Ben Kneppers, Cofounder of Bureo #16 - The Journey of Sustainable Tourism with Dr. Harriet Hentges, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Master of Science in Foreign Service, Georgetown

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Growing Up

Georgetown graduate student studies the feasibility of vertical farming in Brooklyn

by Rowlie Flores

Farming and New York City do not typically belong in the same sentence. Yet Andra Roventa, a Master’s student in Urban and Regional Planning in Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies, made the case that farming—in this case, vertically— has a key role to play in reducing the city’s food insecurity.

The New York City native cited the metropolis’ population growth and food scarcity as motivating factors in pursuing her research. Brooklyn has many food deserts and food insecurity, she shared, “so it is a prime place to look into the feasibility of vertical farms.”

Roventa explored the feasibility of this innovative cultivation technique during the third annual Student Research Summit of the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative (GGCI) on March 5, 2021, alongside fellow students’ research from public health to sustainable development.

Vertical farming maximizes pre-existing space by growing different types of produce indoors. Vegetables or other plants grow on multiple trays, which are often stacked. The nutrition, lights, and temperature are closely controlled. Water is on a closed loop system and reused.

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required equipment would equate to about $144 per square foot or $5.1 million in total. This constitutes the primary hurdle, in her view.

Vertical farming should not be seen as a sole solution, but rather a way to complement other methods of food generation. The limited crop type that you can grow using aquaponic technology is another challenge to the opportunity for vertical farming to make a dent in urban food deserts. “Some things are crucial to people’s diets like starches,” Roventa says. Potatoes, for example, require outdoor farming because they need to build their roots into the soil, but aquaponics crops are limited to water-based plants like lettuce and tomatoes. While some fruits and vegetables may seem reasonable for vertical farming, these crops do not make up the entirety of a person’s nutritional needs.

Roventa focused on the feasibility of aquaponics, where planting takes root in water, rather than soil, and fish or other aquatic animals both grow and provide key nutrients for the plants. (Hydroponics and aeroponics are the other techniques, which differ in their bases—water or air—and nutrition sources.)

Advantages abound. Planting conditions vary less than the outdoors, and technology allows close monitoring and adjustments. Efficiency per square foot is comparable to or higher than standard growing practices. Climate-related events are less of a threat to the produce, providing a forward-looking benefit. By reducing the land needed for lettuce and tomatoes, more land could be used for cattle production, crops that can only be grown outdoors, or natural preservation.

The yield can be impressive. Early vertical farms in Baltimore, Detroit, and New York demonstrate such outcomes.

Implementing vertical farms in cities, particularly New York City, is a difficult task, however. The capital to rent and renovate an existing space, such as abandoned warehouses, in Brooklyn is a major constraint. The up-front investment “tends to discourage smaller businesses that are interested in venturing into vertical farming,” Roventa said. Equipment is another obstacle. In a 36,000 square-foot warehouse in Brooklyn, the

While technically possible, could vertical farming be profitable in Brooklyn? The profit depends highly on the market price and time to maturity for the produce and fish, found Ms. Roventa in her quantitative analysis. Looking at the average costs and market prices for tilapia and lettuce in Brooklyn, she found that both crops could net $340,000 in profits, which would likely rise in subsequent years.

When Ms. Roventa input the lowest market prices for lettuce and tilapia, produce profits were not enough to make up equipment and labor costs. Longer growing crops also threaten profit. Unlike lettuce, which can be harvested at least twice a month, tilapia can take up to six months to grow, thus limiting the farm to two harvests per year.

Affordability can be improved and the industry made more attractive. According to Ms. Roventa, cities could shift priorities and regulations regarding indoor uses and zoning by working closely with businesses. A public-private partnership or a similar system offers promise. Governments at any level could also incentivize green technology innovation or adoption that could bring down production cost.

Vertical farms allow cities to reimagine where their food comes from and decide which produce can be grown indoors and outdoors. Together with conventional farming, it is a promising tool in the fight against food security in urban areas.

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Forever Chemicals

What is lurking in our water, frying pans, raingear, and fast food wrappers?

by Laura Anderko

What synthetic chemical helps keep people dry, often travels in water, and may lead to a host of health problems?

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large group of environmentally persistent synthetic chemicals used in industrial and consumer products.

How do PFAS affect health?

Most adults and children in the U.S. have some level of PFAS in their bodies, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Exposure is common, and there is growing evidence that exposure can lead to adverse health outcomes.

Elevated PFAS concentrations in the blood have been associated with an increased risk of more severe COVID-19 cases.

High concentrations have also been shown to increase the risks of some cancers, cholesterol levels, and interfere with the body’s immune system.

Fetuses and children may also bear an impact from this pervasive chemical. Developing fetuses can be exposed when PFAS in maternal blood crosses the placenta and reaches umbilical cord blood. PFAS exposure may affect growth, learning, and behavior of children. Exposure to PFAS during pregnancy may also increase the blood pressure of the mother.

Data from human studies suggest that some PFAS can take years to be cleared from the body with estimated half-lives— the time required to reduce the quantity in half its initial 14

value—which can range from two to nine years. These long half-lives result in body burdens that persist for years, even after identified exposure sources have been reduced.

How are people exposed to PFAS? PFAS are grease- and water-resistant substances used in many consumer products such as non-stick cookware, stain-resistant carpeting, raingear, cosmetics, and food packaging.

Drinking water is the most common exposure to PFAS. 16.5 million people rely on water supplies in the U.S. that had detectable PFAS. For example, PFAS is found in aqueous film-forming foam, a fire-fighting substance often used on military bases. Once applied, the foam can enter drinking water in nearby communities.

Other important exposure pathways include breastmilk, dust, food (e.g., fish), and garden soil.

PFAS levels in humans can differ by occupation, gender, race/ ethnicity, and age. This suggests that lifestyle differences may impact exposure and highlights the importance of identifying exposure sources in order to reduce the impact.

Image Credit: Susha Roy and Justine Bowe

Workers in industries that manufacture or use materials/products containing PFAS may have even greater exposure than the general public.

How may exposure be prevented?

Major manufacturers of two of the most commonly used PFAS chemicals joined with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to phase out production of these agents in the United States. However, PFAS is still produced internationally and can be imported to the United States in consumer goods such as carpet, leather and apparel, textiles, paper and packaging, coatings, rubber, and plastics. Therefore, multiple PFAS can still be found in drinking water, food, dust, and personal care products, and a person can be concurrently exposed to a variety of PFAS. Since drinking water is a primary exposure pathway, considering options to lower concentrations of PFAS in the drinking water supply is essential. Public water systems can treat source water with activated carbon or high-pressure membrane systems (e.g., reverse osmosis) to remove PFAS from drinking water. Some home filters can also be effective at reducing PFAS using granular activated carbon and/or reverse osmosis.

At a national level, the Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate PFAS in drinking water. More than six million people had PFAS concentrations above the EPA’s Lifetime Health Advisory. However, Lifetime Health Advisories are non-regulatory recommendations and not legally enforceable.

Without EPA regulation or established standards for testing and treatment, prevention of exposure is key to reducing negative health impacts.

Public health personnel and health care providers play an important role in educating communities on how to reduce the risk of exposure. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is conducting a study to explore the health outcomes associated with PFAS exposure, develop recommendations for potential changes to clinical guidance regarding PFAS testing, and how test results should inform clinical care. These include patient follow-up and care specific to PFAS-associated health outcomes based on known or suspected exposure to PFAS. Recommendations will also include risk reduction strategies.

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Turning Copper Against COVID

An innovative solution for effective and reusable N95 mask filtration systems

by Piper Conway A reliable facemask has become a critical weapon against the spread of COVID-19. However, not all facemasks are equal.

Masks of all kinds litter streets and create extensive landfill waste around the world. The N95 is the gold standard for an effective mask, but the single-use, non-biodegradable mask carries a high environmental footprint. Can science help this uncomfortable tradeoff between health and the environment?

Professor Kai Liu and fellow researchers from Georgetown’s physics department have devised a solution. In a recently published Nano Letters study, Liu and his colleagues James Malloy, Alberto Quintana, and Christopher J. Jenson 16

transformed copper nanowires into metal foams that effectively filter out microbes. Their research shows that copper foam is a highly efficient, durable, reusable, and recyclable filtration system that might be utilized in both facemasks and air cleaners. That is: it is effective and reusable.

In the study, “Efficient and Robust Metallic Nanowire Foams for Deep Submicrometer Particulate Filtration,” the Georgetown physicists demonstrated that nanowire-based metal foams serve as efficient particulate filters because they combine “extremely large surface areas with excellent mechanical properties.” Malloy elaborated, “the metal foams exhibit

were still quite delicate. They could not sustain realistic air flows. At that point we had zero experience in air filtration and had to start from scratch. Eventually, we figured out how to strengthen the foams without sacrificing their filtration performance. We are thankful to many colleagues who have helped.”

Liu and his graduate student, James Malloy, initially sought to address the problem of air pollution, classified by the World Health Organization as “the worst global environmental killer.”

They focused on particulates found in smog which are often in the sub 0.3 micron regime. Such particles can penetrate deep into the respiratory system and pose the most health risks.

“When COVID-19 hit, it made our project all the more urgent,” explained Liu.

outstanding filtration efficiencies, near 100% efficiency for much of the 0.1-1.6 micron size range, which is particularly relevant for capturing SARS-CoV-2 virus. They also have comparable breathability as N95 masks.”

These foams offer additional benefits that many existing filter materials lack. “They are durable enough to undergo cleaning, decontamination, and reuse; thus offering an attractive solution to minimizing the volume of polymer-based waste face masks created during this pandemic,” explained postdoctoral fellow Alberto Quintana and graduate student Christopher Jensen, who were also involved in the study.

Professor Liu and his group have been working with ultralight-weight metallic materials since 2010. Their research took a novel turn in 2016 when the UC Davis physics department, where Liu was at the time, renewed its focus on environmental research, courtesy of a gift by donors Tom and Ginny Cahill.

This nudge made the researchers wonder whether metal foams they previously developed could filter air.

“This turned out to be a very challenging project,” Liu explained of its early exploration stage. “Our foams were made to be lightweight, and while stable enough to hold together,

The coronavirus pandemic further illustrated that ultrasmall particulates play an important, and often underestimated, role in our health. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is responsible for the COVID-19 disease, can spread by larger airborne droplets that are many microns in size, as well as by smaller aerosols in the micron size range and below. These smaller aerosols are much more difficult to capture. They require specialized filters, such as N95 masks, which are difficult to decontaminate and reuse.

The new type of filter is expected to be economically competitive on the per-use basis with current products largely because they are durable, reusable, and recyclable. Malloy stated, “the estimated materials costs come out to around $2 per mask (assuming dimension similar to the active filtration layer in N95 masks), which will be substantially reduced if mass-produced on an industrial scale.”

Liu and his group are excited to continue their work on researching and improving the filtration efficiency of the metal foams. They have plans to conduct prototype demonstrations in order to optimize the mechanical properties for a variety of targeted applications. Dr. Liu elaborated, “We’d like to gain a better understanding, on the microscopic scale, which design works best for specific types of particulates.” The group is in the process of seeking additional support to carry out these studies, and they are grateful for the funding they have already received from ),! .)1([- ,."5 )'')(-5 (-.#./. , the McDevitt Endowment, and the inspiration and grant received from his late colleague Tom Cahill.

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Mapping the Mysteries of Bird Migration New satellite technologies track birds over thousands of miles

by Rowlie Flores

Every spring, as Hoyas prepare for final exams, billions of birds of hundreds of species migrate overhead, often traveling northward from the tropics to enjoy the mild climates.

[of this study] is that the birds are pretty small and the spatial areas they go are really large, like the entire area of the Western Hemisphere.”

Georgetown ornithologists Dr. Calandra Stanley and Dr. Peter Marra are tracking the movement of yellow-billed cuckoos using Argos satellite tags, one of the only tags small enough to be used for studying birds.

He added that the technology available to track smaller animals—such as birds—needs improvement. The Argos GPS tags have a solar panel on the back, so the individual behaviors of the cuckoos could affect their findings if the tags are not regularly charged by the sun.

Among their discoveries: these migratory birds are far-ranging athletes, much less sedentary than previously thought. Even within their own breeding grounds, the cuckoos often travel hundreds of kilometers.

The traditional view of a bird’s migratory journey, which assumed stillness during its winter and breeding months, runs counter to this reality. The yellow-billed cuckoos’ population has also recently declined, and conservation scientists struggled to figure out why.

In an unpublished tracking study, Stanley and Marra found that the cuckoos gathered in the Gran Chaco forest in South America, which was being rapidly destroyed by the expansion of agribusiness practices.

Uncovering the mysteries of bird migration is a career-long calling for both researchers. Dr. Marra has authored numerous books and papers on bird conservation and is, outside of his Georgetown focus, an Emeritus Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. Dr. Stanley is a post-doctoral researcher specializing in migration ecology and animal behavior at Georgetown’s Department of Biology and the Peter P. Marra Ecology and Conservation Laboratory.

And it has taken such dedication to manage the project’s “technical nightmares” as the yellow-billed cuckoos traverse the globe. According to Marra, “one of the biggest challenges 18

Fortunately, the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) project may finally enable ecologists to accurately track both the precise movement patterns of animals during these migrations, as well as the locations of where they rest, feed, or die.

Although Dr. Stanley and Dr. Marra did not use ICARUS for their research, they believe that such improved global wildlife tracking systems could reveal revolutionary findings with more efficiency and ease Unlike traditional tracking methods that require researchers to accompany animals into their habitats, the ICARUS project tracks ecological movement from a new antenna on the International Space Station. It then sends geographic, environmental, and health data from tagged animals to a ground station in Russia. The project is an international collaboration hosted at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

Instead of simply pinpointing where animals travel, the project can also tell how animals interact with their surrounding environments. Such insights can help researchers predict how animals are adapting to climate changes as well as how habitat fragmentation affects their migration patterns.

Since its attachment to the International Space Station in 2018, researchers have begun to attach large ICARUS tags to

Satellite tracking of Yellow-Billed Cuckoos migration routes (Calandra Stanley)

animals such as rhinoceroses, giraffes, and zebras. In the fall of 2020, they also began attaching smaller tags to species like blackbirds. As researchers attempt to improve tracking technology, they hope to create even smaller tags to track bats and insects as early as 2025, which would revolutionize the way that scientists address biodiversity loss.

Dr. Stanley said that “the ICARUS tags are substantially cheaper than the other tags that are on the market currently,” including the Argos satellite tags that she and Marra used.

While the technology isn’t quite there yet to be used on

yellow-billed cuckoos, Stanley is confident that the ICARUS technology is improving and that smaller versions of these tags are plausible.

In addition to the cost savings, Stanley said the new ICARUS technology will provide researchers data on wildlife with more accuracy and less interference from environmental factors.

ICARUS will not only track animals’ locations, but also their temperature and speed. As a result, the new technology will revolutionize wildlife tracking because it yields a holistic picture of animal behavior.

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TOXIC The Silo is a series that explores an environmental topic from multiple angles, engaging experts from divergent backgrounds and disciplines. Together, their wellrounded analysis offers the opportunity to expand our understanding of a complex issue.

This issue, Georgetown scholars Tiffany Ganthier, Laura Anderko, and Sheila R. Foster share their perspectives on environmental racism.

RACISM 21

How does your work relate to environmental racism?

Tiffany Ganthier: At the Georgetown Climate Center I focus on equitable climate adaptation. Climate change does not affect all people equally. Low-income communities and people of color are hit first and worst by climate impacts such as extreme heat and flooding. Struggling communities also receive fewer resources for recovery, so disasters push many into a downward spiral of poverty and vulnerability. As this truth is becoming more and more apparent, many local governments and community-based practitioners are incorporating principles of equity into their climate adaptation planning and implementation. To help communities address challenges of climate resilience and social inequality, in addition to providing place based support, GCC released an Equitable Adaptation Legal & Policy Toolkit. It includes best emerging practices, legal and policy tools, and case studies to help users explore solutions linking equity and resilience.

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Laura Anderko: Currently, I hold the Scanlon Endowed Chair in Values-Based Health Care position with Georgetown’s School of Nursing and Health Studies (NHS), which focuses on values such as the common good and social justice.

My current work focuses heavily on environmental racism and environmental justice (EJ). As Co-Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment, I’ve worked closely with EJ communities to identify and address environmental burdens. Other examples include courses I teach that address environmental racism such as Population Health, and a course I’ve co-taught with Dr. Rosie Sokas on Environmental Justice (EJ) and how it relates to health.

I first got started in this work in the early 1990s when I was director of the Home Health Agency. We had a contract with the State Health Department for Adverse Pregnancy Outcome Reporting Systems. I worked on a case with a baby that had been born with a brain stem but no brain. I visited the mother and conducted an assessment to try to determine if

“Climate change does not affect all people equally. Low-income communities and people of color are hit first and worst by climate impacts such as extreme heat and flooding.” there had been any harmful exposures (e.g., smoking, drugs) - and there were none. Later, I noticed that the house was located in an area that was highly polluted, with many factories on the adjacent river. I realized that this was a typical EJ situation, although it wasn’t called that at the time. I started exploring the research and connected with nurses across the country who were involved in environmental health, starting my own journey in this new field.

Sheila R. Foster: For most of my career, I have worked on issues of environmental racism, meaning, I’ve worked on how local governments, state governments, and the federal government can best respond to the disproportionate burden that low income communities of color bear. This is largely with regard to pollutants, toxins, and what we might call locally unwanted land uses such as waste facilities, incinerators, and other hazards that may be in the home like lead paint or contaminated land left over from industry or exposure to air pollution.

So I have worked on policies, in some cases brought lawsuits, and also worked with community groups on these issues over the course of my career.

How does your discipline define environmental racism?

Ganthier: Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental risks on people of color; particularly black and brown people who have long been marginalized.

Climate change is a threat multiplier for the effects of environmental racism. Environmental justice is the communities’ response to environmental racism. The practice of equity requires the recognition that we are not starting from the same place due to historic and present systems of oppression. Environmental equity can be described as the government’s response to the demands of the environmental justice movement. Equity is about reapportioning or redistributing resources so people can access opportunities. Justice is about dismantling the barriers to those opportunities.

Anderko: Environmental racism derives from systemic, societal racism with policies and politics that impact people disproportionately with increased burdens of industry and pollution in their communities. Environmental racism is prevalent today and remains strong despite efforts to reverse its course. It is seen in the communities of color that live in the most polluted neighborhoods, the communities of color that live in substandard housing, and the communities of color that cannot get decent nutritional food. It is systemic, it is societal, it is built into our political laws, and it is complex. But it is not impossible to defeat.

Foster: The accepted definition for environmental racism is that it occurs when certain communities bear a disproportionate share of environmental hazards while also disproportionately lacking environmental benefits and amenities such as green space, parks, or bike lanes. It is also connected to the structure and systemic racism that is often present or manifest in these communities. So I see environmental racism as one more manifestation of structural disadvantage and systemic racism. Environmental racism leaves these communities with the lack of access to good food choices, quality and affordable housing, employment opportunities, or lacking local amenities, including sidewalks or good roads. Pollution is just another manifestation of that because it’s connected to all of these other ways that these communities have been left behind and ignored.

What current event demonstrates where and how environmental racism plays out today?

Ganthier: This August, Hurricane Laura, a strong category 4 storm, struck the Gulf Coast in the heart of a U.S. petrochemical hub. Even under normal conditions, residents of majority-minority communities are regularly exposed to high levels of toxic air pollution that has been linked to increased levels of cancer and respiratory disease. Storm damage led to a chlorine leak at a swimming pool chemical manufacturing facility.

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That leak, in turn, ignited fires in surrounding facilities, which released chlorine gas. The toxic smoke that was released into the air forced Louisiana’s governor to warn residents to turn off their air conditioners, seal off their windows and doors, and stay inside.

In addition to the toxic exposure, many of these same communities of color were not afforded the same means of storm protection for their properties and evacuation as wealthier, predominantly white communities nearby. According to Louisiana State University, someone could pay $7,000 for 100 feet of tubing that will create a 4-foot-tall barrier around their home. Many wealthier residents in the Lake Charles area did so while their low-income neighbors who could not evacuate sheltered-in-place and braved out the stormwaters without inflatable barriers until the situation was safe enough for rescue teams to arrive. Hurricane Laura highlighted the contrasting experiences of dealing with a climate disaster in the face of environmental racism and classism Anderko: There has been a movement growing around righting the wrongs of racism and environmental racism. A lot of this has grown as a result of the killing of George Floyd. It will take time to disassemble the unfair laws and structural racism, but small steps are being taken. For example, a number of environmental groups are changing the way that they conduct business. They are increasing the number of people of color on their advisory groups and their boards. Many of these organizations are hosting events with communities of color and national leaders to address environmental racism. It is important to educate leaders who can move the country in ways that will get us to where we need to be faster. This article highlights many of the themes from these movements, and places emphasis on the importance of community partnerships in promoting environmental justice.

Foster: I think Flint, Michigan, with the water crisis demonstrates a classic example of environmental racism. There was a

low-income and predominantly African-American city where certain decisions were made at the state level that manifested a reckless disregard, or even an intentional disregard, of the health of these communities. In fact, these decisions tolerated and perhaps even intentionally desired that these communities be the sacrifice for larger decisions such as saving money at the state level. So Flint, Michigan, the water crisis is kind of a classic example. I think of the interaction between systemic racism and environmental racism taking on a large role in this case.

What systems or groups does environmental racism benefit, and who suffers most?

Ganthier: Social, economic, and political systems in the United States have routinely advantaged white and wealthy residents. For example, U.S. slavery and racial segregation led to entrenched education and job disparities, lack of investment in public transit and other services, and race-based housing segregation and exclusionary zoning practices. Those, in turn, have contributed to landscapes in which low-income, black and brown people and immigrants live in places that are more susceptible to sustained exposure to air pollution and water contamination. They also have limited access to healthcare.

Those impacts represent the very definition of marginalization: “the process of according less importance to something or someone moved away from the inner workings of the group.”

Anderko: Environmental racism at its core is societal. It is how we have built our society to benefit one group of people over another - and it tends to be minority groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, or Latinx that are most marginalized and overburdened. Our society is built on the shoulders of people who we have used to gain our wealth, to gain what we think of as the American way of life. Our laws are not designed to protect all people from the hazards of environmental contamination.

Foster: If you think about our consumption as a society, we

“Any solution must be committed to protecting people and aiming towards health equity through an honest evaluation of our current systems and policies.”

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consume a lot of things. Technology, technological products, clothes, many things that are disposable, and a lot of plastics.

As a society, we have to do something with all of those things in order to support our consumption habits.

Most of those consumption choices and patterns are not paid by all of us as a society, but rather externalized to the most vulnerable of us, whether intentional or not. Low-income, poor, minority communities therefore lose the most. Those who gain the most, on the other hand, are those who consume the most do not internalize the cost of their consumption decisions.

They do not think about how their consumption choices pollute our global commons, and they don’t have to live with waste facilities in their backyards.

How is this term misused? How do you wish it were better understood?

Ganthier: Many people do not realize that environmental racism exists in many forms. The chemicals released from “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, the traffic pollutants that create “Asthma Alley” in the Bronx, New York, or the failed treatment of the municipal water system in Flint, Michigan, are all the results of environmental racism. It has been occurring all over this country for as long as it has existed and now is a better time than any to work together to end it.

Anderko: I wish people understood better the need to have a focus on public health and social determinants of health - and how this can lead to inequities. Public health is fundamentally about keeping people well, by protecting and promoting health.

If we take an EJ stance that looks at social determinants of health, and how we have to consider the economy, housing, and more, we will be better able to address environmental racism.

Also, if we only focus on healthcare, it means people are already sick from an environmental exposure. If somebody has been exposed to a point where they are sick, we have already lost the battle.

Foster: One misunderstanding is that racism always involves malice or intent to harm a particular group. As we know, that can be the case, but the word systemic means that a lot of the racism that we do have is baked into the system, in part, because of legacy decisions that have never been remediated.

It’s not just examples like Flint where there was awareness about what was happening but no action. In most cases of environmental racism, it’s a corporate or state actor looking to make a decision to get rid of waste, to avoid clean up, or to disregard investments because they think it’s economically rational. So in those cases there’s not malice or harmful intent, but yet they are benefiting off of an already unfair, unjust, systemically, and structurally racist system that allows them to do that with ease.

If you never bring that system under interrogation then these outcomes will continue. People will continue to make economically rational decisions that further lock-in this kind of racism.

So I think a misunderstanding to think racism only means that you’re out to harm a group.

Is there an approach against environmental racism that encourages you?

Ganthier: Addressing environmental racism in the context of climate policy involves strengthening community resilience while ensuring that equity is integrated into policies and practices. In practice, this means building equity into every part of climate resilience planning and implementation, addressing the disproportionate impacts that affect frontline communities, and working to dismantle barriers that have prevented frontline communities from thriving. This involves thinking of equity as including both inclusive processes that give frontline communities opportunities to shape decision making and a deep investment in implementing the programs and policy solutions that frontline communities ask for and need.

Anderko: EJ communities must be “at the table” to inform and advise how best to address environmental racism, and there needs to be resources behind any solutions. Any solution must be committed to protecting people and aiming towards health equity through an honest evaluation of our current systems and policies.

Foster: Most advocates in the environmental justice world think that the solution to environmental racism is not a discrete solution, but rather it’s connected with all the other issues that characterize the communities in which George Floyd was killed. The solution to higher levels of police brutality and a host of other systemic problems is also the solution to the environmental racism problem. It is also connected to the climate injustice problem because these communities are vulnerable to flooding and they tend to live in lower lying areas. They are also exposed to heat waves because they lack access to air conditioning and healthcare that can help them in a climate crisis.

All of these things are wrapped up with each other. We’ve come to appreciate that you can’t discreetly address one without addressing the root causes of all of them. That’s what I think it’s so helpful when activists- such as those within Black Lives Matter and climate movements - look at these problems in an intersectional way. We are starting to think of climate justice as racial justice, environmental justice as racial justice, racial justice as environmental justice, racial justice as climate justice, racial justice as housing justice, et cetera. I think that is where the understanding is moving, so the solution to all of these problems are systemic and structural and that’s the level at which we have to be working to suggest solutions.

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Cops, Climate, & COVID A Compound Crisis

By Olúfémi O. Táíwò

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Statues in Dublin commemorate the Great Famine of the mid 19th century

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n the United States, protests against a recent spate of police killings and controversies, including the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky and of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, set off protests across the nation, which then spread across the globe. All 54 states on the African continent united in response to demand urgent debate in the United Nations’ Human Rights Council over police brutality. State violence and anti-Black racism are facing a global crisis of legitimacy.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis are provoked by the response of natural phenomena to our human activity, the dangers they present are just as political as the crisis of police violence. Moreover, these crises overlap and compound each other in important ways. The size, scope, and longevity of the suffering they trigger will be largely decided by the institutional responses to challenges and the power dynamics that structure them. A historic debate about the relationship of famine to colonialism and democracy helps illustrate why.

A starting point: the much-discussed distinction between two different approaches to explaining famines.

The first approach appeals to food scarcity: famine involves starvation, and starvation is lack of food. The “food availability approach” has been assumed in classic works of economics and philosophy, perhaps most famously by Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population. It focuses on phenomena in the natural world that could plausibly explain contractions in food supply, such as droughts, temperature variations, and pest infestations. It’s hard to dispute the plausibility of this approach. Other things being equal, surely anything disrupting food production in a region would make famine more likely.

Other things, however, often aren’t equal. Amartya Sen gives two examples from colonial history, both involving the British empire, in “Famines,” the inaugural annual lecture of the Development Studies Association he gave in 1979. The first: a famine in Ireland following a potato crop failure in 1822, when people starved to death even during a glut of corn supply. The second concerns the Bengal famine of 1943, in which 3 million people starved to death even though food production had actually increased relative to 1941, when there was no famine at all.

Food availability isn’t what went wrong. What did? Sen calls his alternative the “entitlement approach.” Here’s how it works: we have direct causal powers on ourselves and our environment. If we were all subsistence farmers, then maybe it would be enough to focus on these to explain our eating or starving.

But part of the reason we don’t all have to be subsistence farmers are the indirect powers we have, via our access to a global system of production and distribution. People get resources 28

(like food) from that distribution system by being politically positioned in the right sort of way—that is, being able to make claims on that distribution system that are effective in moving resources into their community or household.

This way of framing things, unlike the food availability approach, does succeed in explaining the suffering and death in Ireland and Bengal. Sen’s lecture recounts legendary economist David Ricardo’s address to Parliament in 1822, explaining that the potato failure led to starvation despite an abundance of corn because Irish workers’ wages were tied to potato revenue.

The potato crop failure did not lead to an inadequate supply of food—it led to an inadequate supply of wages, which serve as the default basis for claim rights over food in a capitalist system.

In both Bengal and Ireland, people starved to death despite an abundance of food.

The legal structure acted to protect the food supply from the people dying of hunger, rather than to protect hungry people from starvation. Economic, agricultural, and military problems created these crises, but were not, in and of themselves, decisive. The crucial famine-making ingredient was their toxic combination with a capitalist economy as a backdrop, the indifference of colonial elites to the evaporation of the claim rights of colonized people (thus, functionally, to their slow and horrific death), and their dogged determination to protect property, financial, and military interests.

But once you frame the problem in terms of effective claim rights (“entitlements” for Sen), its political dimension becomes clearer. In Bengal, famine deaths were unequally distributed.

The city of Kolkata (then Calcutta) was spared the worst thanks to heavy subsidies in its food market, which enabled residents to survive wage fluctuations. By contrast, rural Bengal did not enjoy such market protections. The British colonial authorities closed alternatives by expropriating rice stocks and destroyed large boats (which could have been used for fishing) in order to prevent a Japanese invasion. Similarly, distributive questions are at the heart of our failed pandemic response: disproportionately, the deaths and economic fallout from the pandemic have fallen on those who were already most vulnerable, while large corporations have used the legislative and political opportunities to seize even more wealth and social control.

Famines are not merely conceptually helpful for learning about the political dimensions and stakes of the rapidly combining COVID-19 and climate crises. Famines are the stakes of the crises. Even before the pandemic broke out, the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) warned that 135 million people faced “crisis levels of hunger or worse,” owing to political conditions that climate-related shocks had

contributed to. After the onset of the pandemic, this number doubled in addition to the 821 million people who are “chronically hungry.” Throw in, for good measure, a casual glance at the image provided above, taken from the appropriately titled commentary “Compound climate risks in the COVID19 pandemic.” Without the proper political systems in place, we can expect these stressors to provoke crises of “entitlement”—i.e., famine conditions, in Sen’s view. The executive director of the WFP is not being hyperbolic, then, when he suggests that we are on the brink of a famine of “Biblical proportions.”

Throughout the world, people’s access to claim rights on the distribution system are collapsing. The United Kingdom and the United States are on pace to face record levels of joblessness; in much of the Global South, the policies instituted to control the spread of the virus are wreaking havoc in their gargantuan informal economies. Meanwhile, the rich get richer and are poised to snatch even more political control. And, just as with famine, the potentially impending collapse in the ability to claim food, goods, and even housing has a political explanation.

The political dimensions of our current crisis are particularly exposed in the United States, whose long history of racial domination looms decisively over its distributions of political power —a social order maintained and cemented by a long history of violent policing. The call to police resulting in the death of George Floyd was based on the caller’s allegation that he attempted to pay for items with a counterfeit bill—that is, in protection of the distribution system from supposedly illegitimate claims. In response, President Donald Trump tweeted an assurance that military support was on its way, and insinuated that they were or would be authorized to use lethal force; “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

The compound climate and pandemic crisis have not stopped police from using lethal force: these crises seem likelier to intensify police violence. Like the United States, countries whose political structure makes use of regular police violence, like Brazil and Kenya, have continued to see frequent police

violence even during pandemic lockdowns. In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, residents have taken to the streets in protest of police violence for weeks on end in many of Nigeria’s major cities. The police in Nigeria are a colonial institution: begun in 1920 by the occupying British Empire to fuel a colonial system built on forced labor, which was used to run the colonial government itself and also to build the infrastructure it used to extract revenue from the country as a whole.

The exploitative role of the police continues to the present day: police have helped raze slums to the ground in recent decades to clear land for luxury real estate to house the Nigerian middle class and funnel profit to its ruling class. The #EndSARS protestors on the streets of Nigeria demand, amongst other things, an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, the “most notorious” perpetrators of crimes endemic to policing in a country where more than three out of four Nigerians who have encountered police over the past year report having been extorted for bribes, and sexual assault and extrajudicial killings are also chillingly common throughout the country.

The message from the ruling class in Nigeria is much the same as the message from those in power in Kenya, the United States, or Brazil. When times get hard—and they will, as climate and COVID compound each other—the state will act to defend the interests it has chosen to defend. The rich will get secret unaccountable bailouts and the poor will get a stimulus package of tear gas and rubber bullets. If the military fires on civilians to prevent “looting” in the protests that are sure to continue—as the President insinuated that he was prepared to order—then protestors risk death in front of stocked shelves protected by the police, just like the colonial Irish subjects before them.

As the chart demonstrates, the climate and COVID-19 crises are combining and compounding each other. How they interact is, primarily, a question of whom and what the political system chooses to protect: and their continued defense of violent police demonstrates their answer. As the impacts accelerate, locusts will swarm, floods will come, and winds will blow. Our only hope of surviving the wrath of the natural world is wrestling back control of our political one.

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. Nicole Albanese, Panna Gattyan, Anna Schiff, and Jake Teall perform the On The Lawn workshop at Georgetown University. Photo credit: Leslie E. Kossoff.

Leading with Empathy LubDub Theatre Company puts human emotions around the environment center stage

By Marion Cassidy

Founders of LubDub Theater Company Caitlin Nasema Cassidy, Geoff Kanick, Robert Duffley, and Miranda Rose Hall shared with Common Home their creative process and commitment to environmental work.

At the intersection of art and environmental awareness, New Yorkbased LubDub Theater Company performs immersive shows that respond to climate change. Playwright and Georgetown alumna Miranda Rose Hall, one of the founding members of LubDub, was named a finalist of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play, A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction, which Lub Dub commissioned and developed. The play is currently being filmed for its digital premiere this summer.

LubDub grapples with the heavy and overwhelming nature of environmental crises. The team is the first to admit emotional trauma as this scale can be overwhelming. “Once we dove in, there was no bottom…it’s asking so much of us emotionally to process and wade through all of it,” Caitlin Nasema Cassidy expressed.

Amitav Ghosh’s non-fiction book The Great Derangement was LubDub’s call to environmental action. Ghosh called for artists to become involved in conversations of climate, to help people who don’t have a scientific background to have an embodied relationship with what’s happening with the environment. After extensive deliberation and research, the troupe decided they will commit to environmental issues for at least the next four years.

But how to translate environmentally informative messages into their theater in a way that was accessible and authentic? How to get people to care about environmental issues, rather than shy away from them?

These creative challenges loomed large. And, moreover, many people look to the arts—particularly theater—as a form of escapism, to watch an entertaining performance passively in a dark room.

Miranda Rose Hall wrote A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction in response. It asks the fundamental question: what does it mean to be human in an era of man-made extinction?

Hall had the “wind knocked out of [her] about extinction and the crisis of biodiversity and mortality.” Her play was an attempt to process the grief, rage, and confusion she felt when immersing herself in studying environmental crises. “I can’t be the only one who feels 31

this way, and I have to figure out how to deal with it,” said Hall.

While environmental issues are often treated as symbolism or overly dramatic events in works, Hall sought to “make imaginative fiction that can contend in a more honest, authentic and upfront way with matters of climate crisis.”

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction embodies the unique power of theater to engage in social criticism—and, powerfully, to create empathy. The “personal as political” is a central to the troupe.

“When LubDub committed to climate work, we heard activists calling for local stories and smallness. We took that seriously, we are trying to listen and be in conversation with the folks who are on all of those sides of the revolution. That’s how I see us fitting in to the ecosystem,” Cassidy elaborated, “the reason I do theater is because I believe fundamentally that it teaches us how to be in the world.”

Because of the complexity and mental anguish that environmental issues may cause, LubDub aims to infuse joy and lightness into their theater, translating their message to the stage without being judgmental. Duffley explained that LubDub’s plays “don’t ask you what you are going to do––they ask are you there, are you with us, are you present and in this space.” And LubDub’s creative team understands the struggles of non-scientists like themselves in grappling with these issues. This connection with people is vital to the environmental movement and critical to the foundation of LubDub’s work.

Directly engaging with their audience is a tool they use to build this nonjudgmental, inclusive experience. “Fourth wall breaking communal invitations are at the heart of what we do,” said Cassidy. Duffey said they try to “make a space where people can admit and laugh at the fact that environmental issues are stressful, and we often don’t know what to do.”

Joy and lightness only grow when they are shared with others, and Cassidy emphasized that “there is huge power in joy and lightness and humor. For too long we have seen those things as less powerful. I think they are actually potent and vital to the sustainability of the work.” After all, “It’s a super power of theater and the arts to make emotional arguments. Science is logic based, and you need to balance logic with emotion.

Theater is a perfect place to make emotional arguments through laughter, compassion, or even just saying ‘Hello neighbor, we’re in this together’,” Kanick added.Hall voiced that “the theater has a lot to figure out about the ways that it tells stories about the environment and the natural world, because it’s such an indoor art form. Theater relies on a lot of artifice and non-natural elements, at least the way that we practice it primarily in the United States. So it can be sort of confusing to be on a stage in the dark with a ton of bright lights and be like, 32

“There is huge power in joy and lightness and humor. For too long we have seen those things as less powerful. I think they are actually potent and vital to the sustainability of the work.”

remember trees? There can be a complete disconnect.”

The theater group recognizes the irony in its outdoor-commitment. Yet they question this widespread assumption that climate only exists outside the human body. Rather, it is inside of us. With these elements in place, LubDub wants people to walk away from A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction feeling a deeper sense of care and personal connection to the natural world.

Yet they question this widespread assumption that climate only exists outside the human body. Rather, it is inside of us.

With these elements in place, LubDub wants people to walk away from A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction feeling a deeper sense of care and personal connection to the natural world.

Georgetown features prominently in LubDub’s origin story.

Cassidy, Dluffey, and Hall all met at Georgetown (and they affectionately named Kanick as an honorary Hoya!) and participated in theater there. The group has deep roots with

Nadine Malouf gives a work-in-progress reading for Episode 4 of WNET ALL ARTS Uncommon Voices series on PBS at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York. Photo credit: Jesse Green. Photo Credit: Leslie E. Kossoff

Georgetown’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, such as a 2019 performance at “The Gathering,” which brought together visionary artists from more than 40 countries to celebrate the power of performance in addressing global challenges.

Reflecting back on Georgetown, Hall traces her civic engagement to the theater department’s emphasis on political discourse. “Georgetown is such a politically active community with national and global concerns. It’s a really special theatre training to be considering art within the context of a community that’s thinking deeply about political matters here and abroad and is looking to foster the conditions for deeper civic dialogue. Not everybody comes up in that context, and I feel very lucky to have come up that way.”

A couple years after graduation, Cassidy and Kanick met when working together on productions in London, England. The communal aspect of British theater, which incorporates dance and circus and actors often perform multiple shows together, excited the pair. Productions in the United States, in contrast,

often bring together independent contractors who disperse once the curtain closes. The LubDub members thus created their own sustainable theater community of regulars that would keep people coming back.

Professor Peter Marra, Direct),5) 5Georgetown[- E ,."5 )'')(-5 (-.#./. , explained that “people have different windows of understanding with which they view and can appreciate things in the world. In our current declining environmental state, we are in a race to open these windows of understanding about why the environment and the species it holds matter! Theater, and specifically the work of LubDub, opens these windows for more and more people to engage around nature.”

Indeed, Miranda Rose Hall hopes that audience members feel “they were able to metabolize something difficult through a communal narrative experience.” While LubDub has committed to four years of environmental work, Kanick acknowledged that environmentally aware theater “will always be a conversation we have for the rest of our lives.”

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Image Credit: Susha Roy and Justine Bowe

From Grassroots to Gold How to organize successful movements

Leslie Crutchfield interviewed by Peter P. Marra

Director of Georgetown[- E ,."5 )'')(-5 (-.#./. , Pete Marra, interviews Leslie Crutchfield, Georgetown’s director of Business for Impact within Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Leslie Crutchfield is also a professor of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the MBA program with a focus on creating social and environmental benefits alongside profits. Crutchfield is the author of How Change Happens: Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t.

Marra: I’d like to learn about your recent book and hope to challenge you a bit to view your findings with a more environmental angle. But let’s start with getting to know more about you. When did you figure out what you wanted to do? When did you find your passion?

Crutchfield: My career has been at the intersection of social impact, writing, and new knowledge development.

If I had to go back to a point in time, it probably would be in 1998 in the Gambia with a summer Peace Corps volunteer opportunity with an agricultural development project. To fundraise for the trip, I wrote a series called ‘Out of Africa’ in my local newspaper. I fell in love with writing, especially about change and how it happens.

12 schools. Teach for America was also launching, City Year had just begun.

The idea to write my first book hit when I was training social entrepreneurs at Ashoka in DC. I was consistently buying business management books because only about three business school cases then (in the 1990s) had been written about social enterprise growth. As social entrepreneurs, we need our own resources, our own books, our own studies of what drives impact and greatness. My first book, Forces for Good, which came out in 2008, studied high impact nonprofits. And then I did a second book on philanthropy and donor support.

But the ‘big aha’ that came out of Forces for Good was that high impact nonprofits, whether you’re looking at Habitat for Humanity or Environmental Defense Fund or Teach for America, build movements. So then I got interested in this question of what it takes to build successful movements, and that’s what brought me to Georgetown. I had a research fellowship to write what eventually became How Change Happens.

Marra: How would you define a movement? Why are some more successful than others?

After graduating college, my first job was at National Geographic Magazine. I envisioned myself writing about the environment while trekking in Nepal or hiking around Patagonia. Instead, I was an administrative assistant, getting visas for the actual writers on assignment. So that was a short-lived experience, but I had the good fortune of launching a startup out of National Geographic.

Crutchfield: I found six core strategies that all movements employ to be successful. The first and most important is that they “turn grassroots gold.” Movements that mobilize people at the grassroots level in local and state contexts tend to be more successful. This is important in the context of the U.S. decentralized democracy, with the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which puts most power to the states and very limited power to the federal government.

So, for the first decade of my work-life, I ran a social enterprise with two co-founders. We started a magazine about social impact and wrote about innovative NGOs at a time when national service was just taking off. In the United States, service learning was just getting instituted in all the K through

Marra: Let’s talk more about the environmental movement and parallels between how social movements happen and how the environmental movement happened. I often think of how the book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, raised awareness.

Communicating to a popular audience in a way that let them 35

access the information was powerful. It led to the creation of Earth Day, the EPA, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and so much more. Yet we are back to where we started in so many ways. So how do we start another environmental movement given the past? What are the keys to a new movement?

Crutchfield: That’s a great question. While writers and discoveries were raising awareness, you also have to look at what the NGOs were doing. In the U.S. you had the Environmental Defense Fund, NRDC, World Wildlife, Sierra Club, David Brower, and more. Sierra Club had a big reach and millions of members and chapters across the country.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) went in a different direction because they focused on economic and market-based approaches to solving environmental problems. They brought together scientists, economists, and political actors. That cocktail of different disciplines eventually led to their idea of a cap-and-trade solution.

A lot of the success of EDF’s movement was luck, timing, and circumstance. George H. Bush, who was running for office, wanted to be the “environmental president.” When they proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990, around the time that the U.S. faced a serious acid rain problem, the EDF was able to lobby and get a cap-and-trade mechanism inserted as the approach to reduce sulfur. It was the right idea at the right time. And, they had support in the White House.

In the U.S. today, there has been more focus on working with policymakers and business leaders, and much of the bottom up, grassroots energy has been lost. Let me give you a specific example that we write about in How Change Happens. There were two big legislative policy areas during the Obama administration: Waxman-Markey, known as the Climate Bill, and the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

The healthcare for all movement was supported by a large coalition of over a thousand health related agencies with millions of members, all organizing behind a common purpose.

After Trump was elected, the republican controlled Senate and House repeatedly tried to repeal and replace affordable care, but they failed each time because grassroots mobilization held the policy officials accountable.

On the other hand, when you look at Waxman-Markey and why the cap-and-trade bill eventually failed in the Senate, it is because there just wasn’t anywhere near the grassroots mobilization of enough local constituencies holding their elected officials accountable for that outcome.

Marra: I am challenged by the idea that grassroots support is all that’s necessary. In ecology, there is this back-andforth theory between bottom-up and top-down regulation 36

“In the U.S. today, there has been more focus on working with policymakers and business leaders, and much of the bottom up, grassroots energy has been lost.”

of ecological processes. I would argue that we have a responsibility to maintain this environment for future generations, regardless of what the overall population wants. In some cases, it might be top-down regulation that’s required. There need to be laws and regulations in place that save our glaciers and our species from going extinct. Right now, those things aren’t there, and I don’t know how we can best mobilize change at this point to make sure that those things are protected for future generations. What are your thoughts on this?

Crutchfield: I agree with you; our policies in the United States are not preserving and protecting the environment to the extent that they could. There is a role for a top-down approach, but successful grassroots movements are not just chaotic and organic, instead, there is “leaderful” leadership. At the top, there are grass tips that are coordinating and aligning but still allow the energy and momentum to build up from the grassroots. To get a law like Waxman-Markey all the way through, you have to build the political will for enough of the populace to demand that their elected officials put those policies in place.

Unfortunately, in the United States, with science deniers and climate skeptics, the environment has been made a wedge issue.

Climate action has become the carnage of this new political division that we are experiencing.

Our research looks at two other key roles in movements, besides grassroots. One is the role of business in movements.

Traditional social environmental activists protest, boycott, and shame businesses that are polluting the earth. There are also companies today that realize they need to have a sustainability strategy if they want to be competitive.

The change is happening whether the motivation is consumer backlash and the glare of NGOs or an authentic desire to do well. A major shift in the business world was with Larry Fink’s letter to shareholders saying that Blackrock would divest from thermal fossils and hold their portfolio companies accountable to ESG metrics. When investors start screening and holding portfolio companies accountable, that’s true top-down. And Bank of America, our founding partner at Business for Impact, introduced the first green bonds and a market-based approach.

Using the billions or trillions of assets of a company to nudge behavior towards more sustainable practices can have a real impact. The private sector dwarfs both government and individual philanthropy in terms of its ability to scale solutions, so business can really be a large part of the solution.

Again, to your point about whether or not grassroots are enough for a movement, we found that a third successful strategy is a focus on changing hearts and minds. You can’t just change the rules of the game, you have to change the way people feel about an issue. With the environment there is an opportunity to focus on consumer behavior: on recycling, reducing our carbon footprint, and buying from sustainable companies. You have sentiment on your side, but there are still challenges at the systemic and public policy level.

Marra: The top-down approach seems necessary because I don’t know if we have time for the grassroots movement and heartstrings. There’s a divide now between many people and natural history. It is a fundamental divide that occurs, so it’s hard to pull across that divide and grab those heartstrings and pull them back towards the environment. How can we go back to the grassroots movement if people are disassociated with the environment? How can we be more optimistic about the future?

Crutchfield: There may be more support for the environment than it seems.Urban populations might be disconnected, but a lot of people in America live in rural areas, where they are connected with conservation, hunting, and fishing.

The environmental movement is trying to broaden their coalition to Republicans and Evangelicals, among others. And the Millennial and Gen Z populations are also making an effort to connect with the environment again.

There is common ground around the environment, but it hasn’t been organized under a big tent. Instead, it has become a wedge issue in this political fight that we’re having in the United States.

Marra: What advice do you have for students looking to make an impact in either social or environmental movements?

Crutchfield: There are many ways to do so. I am excited by Greta Thunberg and Fridays for the Future, where young people are advocating, speaking out, and standing up. That’s one way where one person’s voice can join with millions of others to get the power and the force for change.

Students can also have an impact through their careers.

Whether they go work for nonprofits that put purpose at the center or companies where they can advocate for change as employees. They can also be innovators, such as with innovating products that help the planet.

Students can also make an impact based on how they choose to live their individual lives. However, it’s not enough to just be a responsible environmental consumer. You’ve got to raise your voice and advocate for systems change. You can express this in the way you vote, volunteer, and advocate. That’s how change happens.

Marra: A similar question, what would you like to see Georgetown do to make a difference around the environment?

Crutchfield: Georgetown already has investment strategies which align with our values and our wish to protect and preserve the environment. I was really heartened to see that big and systemic change with the fossil fuel divestment. The environmental initiatives through " 5 ,."5 )'')(- are important, as is teaching sustainability in all of the Georgetown schools. At McDonough, we talk about wanting every business student to know that there’s more than one bottom line in life and in work. We want them to know how to manage and lead organi-zations across the triple bottom line. Even if they don’t go work in sustainability, it is important that they have that mindset. There is a big opportunity infusing that mindset across all the programs and departments.

I also think it is extremely important to support students who have new and bold ideas. We want to unleash innovation and support students that want to do environmental activism.

Marra: I totally agree with you, with respect to infusing environment and sustainability ideas into all different parts of the school. We all have different switches that get us activated in the environment. If it’s music, or a play, or book, or whatever it happens to be; we need to figure out how to flip all those switches. We need to get people connected to the environment, no matter what their entryway is. It’s about creating a movement. It’s time for a new movement around the environment, and we should be doing it in Washington D.C. with Georgetown.

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Hoya Hive

Georgetown students buzzing with bee pollination Lizzy Nguyen interviewed by Piper Conway

Did you know Georgetown has harvested 20 pounds of honey from our campus beehives this Fall? Lizzy Nguyen (‘21), president of Hoya Hive, discusses beekeeping at Georgetown and the process of becoming a bee campus, harvesting honey, and the importance of protecting pollinators.

Hahn (an adjunct professor in STIA) because he is teaching a beekeeping class in the spring, but Hoya Hive has been working closely with Dr. Hahn to help out. All of the hives are located on the western side of campus, near the observatory and the biology lab.

How did you get involved with Hoya Hive?

I am a senior in the SFS and a STIA major and physics minor.

Ever since my freshman year I have been involved in GREEN (Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environment Network), Georgetown’s largest student organization focused on the environment. I was trying to decide how to become involved in GREEN, and what projects to focus on, when a senior asked whether anyone knew how to beekeep. GREEN had just received a small grant to place beehives on campus, but they didn’t have anyone who knew how to care for the hives. They had the money but no beekeepers. So freshman me thought, ‘why not take a beekeeping class?’ Soon after, I took an intensive beekeeping class at the University of D.C. and that spring we got our first beehives on campus. Over the summer I also installed beehives on my family’s small farm in North Carolina.

Then in the fall of 2018, we officially designated Hoya Hive.

Do you harvest honey from the hives? And, if so, what do you do with it?

Yes we do! We have our own Georgetown honey right now.

But unfortunately since the club is not meeting in person, most of it is just in my kitchen. Our first big harvest was in August, and we harvested a lot of honey. You can get up to 70 pounds of honey out of a single hive, but you don’t normally harvest all of that. We only harvested around 20 pounds which we have been distributing to members and professors who have helped us. In the future we are hoping that we can give it out to students to educate and raise awareness, and we are hoping to eventually create products with the honey. For example, a lot of our members are interested in wax products like candles and chopsticks.

How does Hoya Hive fit into other organizations on campus?

Hoya Hive is a part of GREEN and the Georgetown Beekeeping Initiative. The bee team is a group of professors, students, and faculty that works to designate Georgetown as a bee campus. In order to earn this designation, we had to meet certain requirements, such as student involvement, faculty research, coursework requirements, which were established by the pollinator protection society Xerces Society.

How many beehives does Georgetown have?

Hoya Hive has been taking care of 2 hives since we started.

We recently expanded to 8 new hives with the new designation of a bee campus. These additional hives are kept for Dr. Bill

Can you tell me a little more about the beekeeping process?

How often do you take care of the bees and the hives?

It isn’t often, as the bees are mainly self sustainable. They have been doing this much longer than humans have so they are the experts, not us. But it depends on the season. In the winter you try not to disturb the bees too much. It is the most hands on in the spring when you are installing the bees, and then throughout the summer you go in about twice a month. As a beekeeper you want to make sure you aren’t telling the bees how to live, your job is to make sure they have access to all the resources they need. So you want to make sure there is water nearby, that they are building up enough food, that they are reproducing well, that they have enough space, and that there aren’t pests damaging the hive.

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“My goal was always to create as many beekeepers for life as possible. In order to save the bee population we don’t need a bunch of perfect beekeepers, we need a lot of imperfect beekeepers and a lot of people who are aware of pollinator protection in general.”

Do you work with all the same types of bees?

There are over 20,000 different species of bees, but humans are mainly concerned with honey bees, officially called Apis bees.

We keep honey bees because they survive in the hive formation. A lot of people don’t know that not all bees live in hives.

Many native bees live in solitary or family units in holes in the ground or the dirt, so there are a number of different possible habitats. We specifically keep Italian Honey Bees because they are very social, they build up fast, and they have a mild temper.

How has Hoya Hive evolved since it was started in 2018?

When we first started, it was mostly just me and a couple other students from GREEN who were interested in bees and were trying to somehow make the bees survive on campus. My goal was always to create as many beekeepers for life as possible.

In order to save the bee population, we don’t need a bunch of perfect beekeepers, we need a lot of imperfect beekeepers and a lot of people who are aware of pollinator protection in general.

So I started teaching beekeeping classes through Hoya Hive.

We offer the 7-class course once throughout each semester, and we have gotten around 40 students through our course so far. It is essentially a condensed version of the intensive course that I took during my freshman year. The course is taught by students, for students, and it is meant to provide a basic 40

knowledge of pollination. Beyond the expansion to offering an informal beekeeping course, we have also gained a great deal of support from professors as we have continued to develop. We have even gotten the chance to work with facilities in order to build out pollinator gardens, and we are in the works of creating insect hotels for traveling bees and insects.

How has your work shifted since the move to the virtual environment?

It has been a little tough. Right now we are in the last week of our beekeeping classes, and they have all been taught over zoom. The virtual classes have been hard because we want to get people excited about pollinator protection, but it is difficult when everyone is at home and they can’t see the bees. Part of the main appeal to beekeeping is that it is hands on, and you can see ecology in motion. But fortunately, a number of the Hoya Hive members live around the Georgetown neighborhoods so we have been able to meet up to take care of the hives together. We are responsible for living entities so we can’t just drop the ball because things are going virtual.

Why is the practice of beekeeping essential for our well-being?

I think a lot of people don’t necessarily realize that the bees are

really unsung heroes because they provide pollination services for so many plants that humans rely on. For example, we can think about almonds. Every year, ⅓ of all the bees in the U.S. go to California to pollinate the almond trees there, and they are shipped from as far as Florida. People do not realize how valuable the ecosystem service of pollination is until it is lost.

I beekeep here in D.C., a major city, but also at home in rural North Carolina. I think a lot of people don’t understand how important bees are in cities specifically. As urbanization continues, there is a big drive for urban greenspaces and urban agriculture, and none of that can happen without urban pollinators. In the District of Columbia there are over 300 beehives, but up until 2014 there was a law that states that you can keep bees in D.C. as long as they stay in their hives. But that standard could never be met because we can’t control the bees, and they need to leave their hives to get food and water and other resources. So I think it is extremely important to incorporate beekeeping practices and pollinator protection into our laws. If we want a chance to protect our ecosystems, we need to understand the critical component of pollination.

There are lots and lots of things you can do. One of the best things you can do is to have a pollinator garden. Research what’s local in your area and try to grow native plants. You should look out for, and speak up for, the native species around you. Also, stop using pesticides. These don’t only harm little bugs on your plants, they also harm bees. Another thing you can do is avoid monocultures. They are super dangerous because they can create food desserts for bees and they can cause an ecosystem imbalance.

What is next for Hoya Hive? What are you excited about for the future?

One of the best parts of my college experience has been seeing Hoya Hive grow and Georgetown become a bee campus. I would love to see more students become life-long beekeepers.

And I am very excited about the potential to scale-up Georgetown honey and bee products in the future.

How can individuals make a difference even if they aren’t able to have their own hive?

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The Breakdown: Environmental, Social, and Governance with Eduardo Deschapelles

This is the first in “The Breakdown” series. It guides you through relevant, complex and emerging environmental concepts. We ask the experts, from Georgetown and beyond, to explain these issues and explore how they might shape our future.

Eduardo Deschapelles, an adjunct professor at Georgetown, examines ESG as an emerging environmental concept. He unpacks the core meaning and analyzes its implications for future business innovation.

What does the term “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) mean?

ESG is the criteria people use when they evaluate potential ‘Socially Responsible Investments’ (SRI) or the more focused ‘Impact Investments.’ ESG usually covers over fifty criteria, such as greenhouse gas emissions, gender equality, and minority board representation. While there are still no common standards for evaluating ESG criteria, numerous government agencies and NGOs around the world are advocating for more disclosure and standardized reporting.

Why are ESG initiatives so essential for achieving our longterm sustainability goals?

ESG is rapidly becoming more important as we face the urgent challenge of climate change. It appears that COVID-19 significantly accelerated our realization that the world is rapidly approaching a climate crisis that puts human civilization at risk. ESG standards and transparency will help governments focus on implementing targeted regulations to mandate mitigation strategies to the climate crisis. Moreover, investors can more easily allocate resources in a more informed and efficient manner that helps achieve long-term sustainability goals. This will not be easy, but it will be critical if we are going to address this crisis successfully.

How has ESG been used in an innovative, or powerful way?

One example is ESG ratings on equities, bonds, and 42

investment companies. Companies such as MSCI, ISS, Bloomberg, and Sustainalytics provide these innovative and important tools. Armed with this information, potential investors have a stronger sense of a company’s ESG compliance and can make more informed investment decisions based on their own beliefs and priorities.

Unfortunately, most ESG rating services are not transparent so it is difficult for people to understand how they determined the ratings. Some newer rating services (e.g. www.ethos.so) now offer more data and methodology transparency. This is expected to accelerate ESG incorporation and help investors make better informed decisions.

What recent trends have you seen with ESG initiatives, and how do you think they will shape our future?

The recent trend that is gathering momentum is the hiring of senior ESG investment officers at large institutional investors and banks. This senior leadership and priority encourages companies to become more transparent and compliant with important ESG criteria.

The actions taken by investment managers, banks, pension plans, insurance companies, endowments & foundations, sovereign wealth funds, and other investors will inevitably force companies to focus on relevant issues and force changes to their environmental, social, and governance activities. In addition, governments around the world are starting to mandate ESG disclosures in corporate financial statements. These are positive steps but they need to be implemented with increasingly painful penalties for non-compliance.

Image Credit: Susha Roy and Justine Bowe 43