Mooving Forward

This past weekend I watched Cowspiracy on Netflix and I am questioning everything in my life. This MOOvie hit real close to home because I feel like everything I believe in and support is a complete and UTTER hoax. (I will try to keep my cow puns to a minimum, but no promises). The most interesting and shocking thing in the moovie did not even concern beef; it was about fish! Fish makes up a large majority of tropical nation's diets as well as a good portion of other countries' diets. But fishing in our oceans is unsustainable because no amount of fishing can be supported by the current production. Or at least in the way that fishing is being done today. Most of the fishing that is done today is indiscriminate, meaning that people go out with trawlers and large nets and catch whatever swims into their nets. These nets often catch unwanted fish, including sharks, whales, and dolphins, and these marine organisms often become bykill. Even though sharks, whales, and dolphins are not targeted by fisherman due to international agreements, they still do a whole lot of damage to these populations because they accidentally catch them and are not able to release them before they die. A shocking statistic that the moovie shared was that for every one pound of sustainably caught fish, about five pounds of large marine organisms are also killed. At the rate that fishing is being done, there will be nearly zero fish left in the ocean by 2048. That is insane because the ocean is humongous and most of the fish in the oceans have not even been discovered. This is a crazy problem and is making me reconsider eating fish, even if it says that it was sustainably caught.

Healthy food is not quite the same thing as sustainable food. Eating healthy means getting all of your required nutrients and calories. Eating sustainably means eating food that has small environmental impacts and can support the population for many years to come with minimal environmental degradation. Cowspiracy touched on this indirectly, but nonetheless focused on how cows and other domesticated animals use a lot of resources for a considerably small amount of nutrients. It is not very sustainable to base  your diet on proteins that require a significant amount of resources. It's important to have protein in your diet, but there are other foods that require less inputs that have just as much or more protein than beef. If you think about it, it should be a lot cheaper to live on a sustainable diet because all of the food that you would eat would require less inputs for it to grow. If everyone were to stop eating beef, there would be huge economic losses for people in the agricultural sector. But there does need to be some kind of change that will allow for people to continue to prosper, even while diminishing the amount of cows that they produce. Environmentally, it would be most ideal for the cow industry to die out, but this will never fully happen. People like meat, so it is going to be hard to convince them to stop eating just for the environment. It's definitely going to be hard for me to consider eating meat after that movie, but its also hard for me to not eat meat because it makes up a large part of my diet. What's going to be even more difficult for me to not swallow is less dairy. Dairy uses so much water and grain to produce and is just as bad as eating meat. The vegan doctor in the movie described milk as baby calf growing food because it is designed to make small calves into large cows. We don't necessarily need dairy, it's just one of human's best tasting cultivations.

After watching this moovie, I am seriously reconsidering my diet. I don't feel like I eat a whole ton of meat, but I think I am going to seriously cut down my consumption of meat. Eventually, I'd like to be a vegetarian who enjoys some meat on a rare occasion. Even further down the road, I hope to become a vegan who enjoys cheese every now and again. I don't want to fully cut meat and dairy from my diet because they are delicious. Also, it's unrealistic for me to entirely cut out any food while I'm living at home and not buying my own food. I will be suggesting to my mom to reduce the amount of meat that we have in our house because of the things that I have learned from this moovie. Once I fully mooooove out, I will take serious steps towards becoming full vegetarian and possibly vegan. Until then, I will be focusing on reducing my meat consumption to at least once every two weeks.

Ride into our future

Adonia Lugo is an urban anthropologist who studies the social and environmental impacts of bikes on society. During her research and life, Adonia has influenced communities to increase their reliance on human infrastructure (i.e., walking, riding bikes, etc.). Her main focus has been on advocating for bike transportation in multi-cultural hubs such as in Los Angeles and Seattle. Her advocacy is backed by research and fellow anthropologists who have also been researching similar topics. Adonia has founded and is a member of various groups that promote the idea of biking amongst races and social classes.

One of her ventures is a consulting company for sustainable transportation. Unlike many consulting firms, Bicicultures is run by researchers, professors, and PhD students and/or graduates. Using research, Bicicultures can be hired to provide alternative methods of transportation to local governments, developers, and individuals. One of the most interesting things about Bicicultures is that it was formed by Adonia and two other graduate students. They felt as though what they were researching was not well represented in the literature and wanted to reach out and spread its reach. After starting this initiative, they received inquiries and scientific papers on human infrastructure and sustainable transportation. This place of interconnectedness has really helped them all improve their advocacy and consulting efforts.

Adonia is also an advisory board member of Multicultural Communities for Mobility, which is an organization in Los Angeles that is working with local low-income communities to create bike share programs. These bike share programs are aimed to help mobility through the city so transportation throughout Los Angeles is available to every person, which will increase the ability for people to get to their jobs and social engagements. They also focus on better walkways, bike lanes, and access to all forms of transportation in areas where they are inadequate. Many low income areas are deprived of adequate sidewalks, which is very unsafe and does not promote walking and or bike riding. With the help the Multicultural Communities for Mobility, low income areas can have access to safe transportation methods and will be able to do so in  a sustainable manner.

Tragedy of the Waters

Water is one of the earth's most precious commodities. It is often one of the most abused resources on earth as well. Which doesn't make sense if it is so precious and is the only reason that life can exist. If water means life, then why is preserving and using it responsibly such a huge issue in the sustainability playing field?

Many people don't think about how their water reaches their tap because they don't have to. Water districts in developed societies provide water to their people in managed and mismanaged manners. But municipal water isn't the hugest impairment to sustainable water use. It is in fact, agriculture that uses the largest proportion of water world wide. This makes a good deal of sense since everyone need to eat and all food is dependent on water to grow. Agricultural centers in California and around the US receive huge discounts on the water that they use for their crops and nearly have unlimited access to water. This kind of mentality has led commercial and small farmers to over exploit their resources. In their defense, food is so cheap that they have to grow much more food or grow water intensive cash crops. The agricultural industry is proving to be our generations major Tragedy of the Commons.

We can't stop growing food just because agriculture uses a lot of water. That would be ridiculous. As population continues to rise, more resources are going to be needed to sustain the population. Or at least at our current use and evaluation of resources. Relying on only technical solutions to solve our problems is almost as ridiculous as stopping agriculture. The biggest challenge to the sustainability challenge with water is the fact that people are so set in their ways and would rather find some complex, expensive, scientific way of fixing their problems instead of evaluating what they could do to change their consumption. Like I said earlier, municipal water supply is not a huge proportion of water use. Ideally, the agricultural sector would just start growing less water intensive crops and crops that suit the regions where they are being grown in. That is not going to happen fast enough to help the problems at hand. What would help is changing consumption patterns of the average consumer. Instead of buying almonds grown in Central California, they could buy fresh asparagus from their local farmer's market. There are so many solutions if we really take the time to think about it and try to change our habits. But it's hard and that's why we always desire a technical solution. Unfortunately, the Tragedy of the Commons has struck our water supply and we need to find ways to change society so we do not run out of fresh water.

I think that there are some great and ideas for mutual coercion to help shape our consumption patterns regarding water. Grocery stores could drastically raise the price of water intensive crops compared to crops that require less water. The option of buying food like almonds is still available, but at a much higher price. People will be more likely to purchase lower priced goods especially if they learn that they have a smaller water footprint. This coercive action would reduce consumption of water intensive crops in a sneaky way that will also send messages to water intensive farmers to grow less. And growing less of these foods will continue to make the price rise and make these foods even less appealing. As for municipal use, some water districts are starting use graduated scale for rates for their users. You can use as much water as you want, but you will have to pay a higher price for it. It would be wise for people to not use water so they can save money and the precious resource that is water. Mutual coercion is actually a great idea for water management.

WATER you going to do to help reduce the common tragedy that water supplies face?

Carbon first, what next?

The law of diminishing return refers to the idea that as supply increases, the value or return diminishes. Richard Heinburg explains this concept with espresso. He said that with one cup of espresso, he would be able to get his work done with high quality. If he had two cups, he would get more work done, however, the quality of work would not be as great as if he were to have just one cup. And it all goes to hell if he has three cups because it would cost him more to do that work since the quality would be so low. The law of diminishing return definitely applies to sustainability. We cannot keep using the unsustainable means of energy just because they are easy to produce. The more we produce of it, the lower its value to us. There is only so much that oil can do for our society. It has created and devastated our economies and eventually will no longer be of use to us. Although our lives currently rely on oil, there must come a point where the production and use of oil will no longer offer the same return that it did in the past. Richard also mentions that societies that have invested in complexities often reach a point in their society where their specialization does not give them any profit to society, often leading to their demise. We should not wait for the oil and carbon way of life to reach its diminishing return for us to turn to new means of energy production and consumption.

Resilience is ability to absorb shocks and be able to still function. Resilience has not been the focus of our lives because for the past hundreds of years, the focus has been on profits. But our financial institutions are making profits through speculation and debt, which is nowhere near resilient to environmental shocks. A more resilient society would use a more cooperative framework that would achieve goals for all opposed to just those who want to make profits.  Working together to decide what should be made or what services should be offered can have outstanding impacts on our society like increasing environmental health and slowing down population growth. There are so many aspects of life that are put into the hands of the people who just want to make money at any expense and we should take back our rights as humans to these aspects. There is no reason why we could not work together and be profitable, while also creating resilient systems. Our current economic system is unstable at best and is unpredictable because of the way that investments are made using speculation and piggybacking on other's debts. We need to reshape our society to become more resilient so that we can have a better future where more people feel like they have control over their lives and that the environment doesn't have to suffer at the expense of profits.

Reaching for the Starbucks: Making the Coffee Industry Sustainable

Starbucks, a global coffee phenomenon, is one of the most sustainable companies out there. When I think of Starbucks, I just think of overpriced, acidic coffee with no soul. After learning about their sustainable mission and achievements, I now understand why it is so overpriced (I'm still not keen on its taste, but will complain less about it). It's hard to believe that a company as large as Starbucks actually cares about its impacts on the environment and on society. Starbucks began its path toward sustainability in 2004 by focusing on renewable energy, energy conservation, and climate action and mitigation efforts. On Starbucks website, they mention that they have always been aware of their impacts on the environment and local farms because they depend on them for their business. Their awareness is what is making them a leader in sustainable business practices.

As climate change has become an even greater presence in our lives, Starbucks has increased its role in decreasing its impact on the earth. Starbucks works from on the farm level to the global level on how it should manage its resources from start to finish. Starbucks is dedicated to conservation and buys coffee base on the Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices that ensure that their coffee is coming from sustainable and socially responsible farms. Not only are their resources for their main source of revenue more sustainable, but so are their stores. Starbucks builds its stores based on the LEEDS standards which have high standards for efficiency. Many of their new stores are up to LEEDS standards and they have been working since 2008 on bringing more of their existing stores to these standards. Definitely a step in the right direction.

Starbucks is working towards reducing its impacts on the environment by changing packaging design guidelines, offering reusable cups, advocating for local recycling infrastructure and expanding our customer-facing and behind-the-counter recycling practices. Starbucks understands that the disposal of their cups is reliant on their consumers. They advocate for the use of reusable cups and for their consumers to recycle their cups in recycling bins opposed to trash bins. In their stores, many landlords promote the idea of recycling their plastic and fibrous materials, making the behind the scenes green as well as in the forefront. At the moment, Starbucks is working on programs that will make their manufacturing plants as green as their stores. There are a few more kinks to work out than making their stores greener.

"As a company that relies on agricultural products, we have long been aware that the planet is our most important business partner." -Starbucks

Starbs is ahead of the game. They seem like this massive company that is trying to take over the world, but they actually do some good while they are doing it. This financial powerhouse depends on natural resources to make its profits, so it only makes sense for it to work with instead of against the environment. Kudos to you Starbucks.

Gotta keep Standing

Standing Rock, like many protests, is one that needs to happen. After reading an article from the LA Times titled "The Protests at Standing Rock are Necessary," this idea is confirmed. The article compared the Malheur militia's protests last year on public land in the Northwest to the protests of the Sioux Tribe at Standing Rock to stop the creation of the Dakota Access Pipeline in their reservation. Coincidentally, the Bundy family had just received their court hearings the other week and received minimal punishment in comparison to the protestors at Standing Rock. The Bundy family were covered in weapons and ammo and were expressing their rights on public land and were not arrested as brutally as the peaceful protestors in North Dakota. This article examines the principle of white privilege in the world of protests. In comparison, the Bundy family, who nearly took over the state of Oregon, were almost just left alone during their protests while at Standing Rock, the protestors are being bombarded by SWAT level policing. In the Bundy family protest, they were fighting to stop government encroachment on western lands, which was seen as a minimal issue to the government at the time. The Sioux tribe have a concrete issue at hand where money is involved, so they are being faced with all that the US government can throw at them even though they are peacefully protesting. The unequal treatment of these two similar but different protests is mind boggling.

The main issue I have with Standing Rock is that it's not the government's nor the company whose building the pipeline's land to be building on. This event is our generations Trail of Tears if we don't decide to get on the right side of history. The way that this protest is being handled by the government is not alright. Instead of taking the side of the defenseless, the government, including Hillary Clinton, are taking the side of the oil company because it means more energy security. But at what price? I believe energy security is important, however, I believe people's health and prosperity rank higher. By building this pipeline through the Sioux's land, their groundwater is more than likely to become contaminated due to a leak, spill, or explosion. America wants energy security, but lacks the same wants for water security for people of all backgrounds.

These pipelines are not even sustainable. They are temporary routes of destruction. If as a nation we want to decrease our dependence on oil, then maybe we should stop building these pipelines and start creating alternative means of energy. But to do that, we would need large investments from somewhere to start a project like that. The only interest in mind for this pipeline is the interest of the oil company because they are paying for it themselves and they have to pay large fees to the government in the form of taxes and permits. Environmental justice is not evident in this protest because another minority group is being put at risk for a white man's pursuit. The pipeline was proposed to be placed near Bismarck on public land, but was moved to Standing Rock in mind of public interest. But Bismarck is white and the Siouxs are not. So that's why their protest is unsuccessful at the time being. This protest is so important because it is not just an environmental issue, but also a racially-charged political protest.

The sustainability community, including myself, should support the protestors at Standing Rock because of the environmental, social, and medical harms that the pipeline could cause. Promoting environmental justice is also another reason that it needs our support because it is unequal and unjust that just because the Sioux are not white that they should have to give up their right to their land for white men to endanger their lives (again). It's ridiculous that this protest is still going on because I am pretty sure that it is illegal for the oil company to do anything on the Sioux's reservation. Stand up for those at Standing Rock.

Agents of (S)influence

I don't know what we did to deserve this presidential election. I personally, do not feel represented by these characters. There are many people who feel this way, and, like me, are waiting for someone to come out and say that this is all a joke and that we are going to get new people to vote for next year. These agents of influence are dividing the nation into dangerous groups of ideas and thoughts. These groups are so dangerous because of the attacks that they cast on each other because they want to prove to the others that their ideas should hold more weight over decisions than the other group's. This kind of behavior is immature and honestly scary. There are so many tumultuous decisions that are about to be made and people are arguing and picking fights. The fighting stems from the immaturity that is seen on the public stage from our presidential nominees. No one is truly civil and it is setting a precedence for the rest of us to act in similar ways. I do not care for this behavior, and I am sure that many others feel the same as I.

Our wonderful presidential nominees have their opinions on global climate change, but have not focused their efforts on this subject as much as they should, in my opinion. But I guess its better that they don't so that people are not misled by some of their ideas. Some great contributors in the media for global climate change include Leonardo DiCaprio, Bernie Sanders, and President Obama, just to name a few. They address that there is climate change, which is a huge step in representing these issues. They reach out to others and represent the facts of the issues for the grand masses. These agents are great for the general public's understanding of the struggles that are facing our earth. However, many of my agents are my professors and fellow classmates. We explore facts in depth and look at causation and solutions. We are the people who provide the facts for these famous guys and that is incredibly cool. I definitely value my academic peers and masters because there is so much that can be learned from them that can be backed with so much knowledge. I am only able to trust the famous people because I have learned so much about the issues that are prevalent from my professors. It is entertaining and great to hear that famous people are addressing these issues, but for me, I don't really deem them influential in my life in this area. My academic community is so amazing because we share similar values and have a common purpose.

I feel as though I don't have too much influence yet to my main influencers because I am still on my way to achieving their level. However, the more I learn, the more I feel like that I can make a difference and help to spread the truths of our academic community. Tonight, I sat with my friends and I explained Mie scattering to them over beers and they thought it was so cool. If I can convince them that Mie scattering is cool and that I am smart, then there is hope that I can one day influence people in a positive way for our earth. My values are very important to me and I am trying to match my actions to them at all times because I feel like that is one way that I can influence people is through leading by example. If I practice what I preach and continue to learn, there is no telling how many people I could influence in my life, hopefully for the better. That is my goal.