Leah Penniman speaks about new book at the Odyssey Bookshop

BY CATELYN FITZGERALD ’23 SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT EDITOR

On March 22, the Odyssey was packed with people sitting and chatting in rows of chairs where one would usually find racks of MHC apparel. The group was brought together by an event featuring Leah Penniman, a “Black Kreyol farmer, mother, soil nerd, author and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY,” according to their bio on the Soul Fire Farm website.

Penniman co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2010, with the mission to “end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land” according to their website. Penniman is also a celebrated author, with previous publications including “Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land” and “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.”

Penniman’s latest publication, “Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists” first hit the shelves in February, according to HarperCollins.

The book explores Black peoples’ relationships with the environment and science through a series of interviews and essays. To write the novel, Penniman spoke to 40 Black environmentalists, including Alice Walker, Ross Gay and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, according to HarperCollins. This was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to inspiring

Black voices, but that the prolific involvement of People of Color in science would not be detected through traditional channels, Penniman said. When observing who holds leadership roles in science, and where grant funding goes, “you would think that somehow Black and brown folks just aren’t interested,” they said.

One of Penniman’s interviewees for the novel is Mount Holyoke

David B. Truman Professor of Environmental Studies Lauret Savoy. Savoy accompanied Penniman at the event, where the two discussed their respective experiences with racism and the environment, experiences which they found often occurred simultaneously in their early memories. These questions formulated the central narrative of “Black Earth Wisdom,” alongside an urging for readers to listen and learn from the nature that surrounds them. “This book is about remembering the languages of the earth,” Penniman said.

What languages does the Earth speak? This was the first question Penniman asked Savoy, with reference to a similar question posed to the professor in “Black Earth Wisdom.” Savoy began to answer before pausing to pick up a copy of the book off of the table in front of her and commented that her answer there was likely more concise.

The Earth speaks in “many voices,” Savoy read. “Uplift,” “erosion,” “water,” and “ice” are all ways in which the Earth speaks, she continued, adding that humans’ relation- ship with the Earth began “with direct experience.” Despite the vast array in which nature communicates with humans, “so many people today know little of this Earth, and they act as if this ignorance is an act of right and privilege,” Savoy said. Throughout her life, Savoy learned to “read and listen [to the Earth] in the languages of science and art,” she said.

Republican pushback stalls ESG initiatives

BY SARAH GRINNELL ’26 STAFF WRITER

State-level members of the Republican Party have recently accelerated their pushback against Environmental Social Governance considerations in public and retirement pensions, ubiquitously dubbing them “woke” investments, NBC reported. According to NBC, President Joe Biden’s first veto on March 23, which the House failed to override, blocked a bipartisan bill that would have nullified Labor Department rules permitting retirement plans to consider ESG factors.

According to Forbes, ESG first entered mainstream political parlance around 2020. The term broadly refers to the method of conducting a company and its budget in a way that considers “extraneous” issues such as climate change or social impact, according to SmartAsset.

In other words, Forbes defines ESG as “a company’s commitment to do more than make a profit, such as actively striving to contribute positively to the environment or social causes and to conduct themselves responsibly,” such as by encouraging sustainability or diversity in their business.

For example, SmartAsset explains that a fiscal plan “may explicitly choose not to invest in fossil fuels and dirty industries, or it may proactively invest in renewable energy companies” in an effort for the business to align its values with its financial actions.

However, according to NBC, recent bills and regulations in states like Texas, the “center of the U.S. oil and gas industry,” stand in direct opposition to these goals. For example, Republican Texas state senator Bryan Hughes recently proposed prohibiting pension funds from considering “social, political or ideological factors” in their investments.

Despite ESG’s potential to advance equity and social consciousness in big business, many Republicans are decrying it as an “activist liberal agenda” that needs to be expunged, NBC reported.

According to USA Today, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has vocally declared a crusade on “corporate wokeness.” DeSantis stated in an appearance at Florida SouthWestern State College that initiatives like ESG investments “try to impose politics on what should just be economic decisions.”

Per USA Today, Desantis, like many other Republicans, is pushing to “block all state investment decisions based on ESG standards.” NBC reported that states like Indiana have passed bills requiring entities such as the Indiana Public Retirement System and the Indiana State Police Pension Trust to “divest from any ESG funds and cease business with offending companies.”

Apart from the perceived threat of an encroaching liberal agenda, ESG is also seen by the GOP as a major threat to the oil, gas and coal industries. USA Today noted that many Red state fossil fuel sympathizers who want to resist the shift to renewable energy will naturally oppose ESG investing.

Others, such as Vivek Ramaswamy, author of “Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” claim that ESG investing is not “motivated by value maximization” and prioritizes social goals at the expense of the economy.

However, despite these objections, ESG has a number of proven financial and social benefits. For example, impact-related or ESG investments “post competitive results” and make a company more attractive to younger workers who are increasingly uninterested in working for corrupt corporations. Evidence also suggests that ESG can help lower operating costs, as Perillon cites a McKinsey study that found those benefits can be “as much as 60 percent.”

According to Perillon, since ESG focuses largely on reducing energy consumption and eliminating raw material usage, companies can then save money on utilities and waste fewer resources.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, argues in an NBC article that “[Red states that have pushed back on the investment of public entities in ESG funds] talk about limited government, the free market” in their justification of curbing ESG considerations, yet these very regulations actually interfere directly with business practices.

In fact, according to USA Today, around 63 percent of voters surveyed said the government should

Penniman’s connection with the environment arose in their childhood when nature served as a welcome refuge from racial discrimination and bullying. Penniman described that both they and their twin sister felt a “deep kinship” with the Earth as children.

“I am so proud of the clarity of youth,” Penniman said, explaining that young people are often the ones who refuse to compromise with “racial capitalism.” Penniman went on to explain that when people lose this clarity and see themselves as separate from nature, it “authorizes terrible acts of oppression.” They explained that in the face of impending climate change, society needs to undergo a transformation, rather than attempting to fit into the existing capitalist system.

Savoy shared that she had a similar relationship with nature during her childhood in Southern California. “The sun colored my skin as it colored the earth,” she said of her identity and understanding of race as a child. Savoy explained that as she grew older, she was quick to realize that land did not hate, “people did.” As with Penniman, racism was a driving factor in Savoy’s close relationship with the environment, she said. Savoy further explores the American landscape through history and her own memories in her novel “Trace.”

The event ended with a surprise appearance by Naima Penniman, Leah Penniman’s sister, who also serves as the Director of Education at Soul Fire Farm. Naima Penniman asked audience members to turn to their neighbor and share something they had learned by listening to nature. She then closed the event with a spoken word performance about the lessons she had learned from the Earth.