People living near shale gas oilfields have reported striking a match and turning the water flowing from their faucets into flame. Desperate families have watched children’s hair fall out and pets grow mysteriously ill. In Oklahoma and Kansas, earthquakes have cracked the foundations of buildings that have stood since the pioneer days. At the same time, the new oilfields have brought prosperity, reversing decades of outmigration from small rural towns. Industry executives and the president of the United States believe that cheap shale gas could create an energy-independent United States. These are just some of the narratives in today’s fracking debate.

In a book by the same name, The Fracking Debate, Daniel Raimi raises and attempts to answer the biggest, most frequent questions about fracking. They range from the seemingly basic: “what is fracking?” (a more complicated answer than you’d expect); to the more complex: “Will fracking spread around the world?” (“Slowly,” according to Raimi).

Raimi explained that the definition of fracking changes depending on who you talk to. To critics, “fracking” is a new form of energy extraction and refers to the entire process, from the first truckload of sand to every gallon of gas pumped from a well. Therefore, all the problems associated with oil and gas development, including leaks, pollution, and earthquakes, can be blamed on “fracking.”

But Raimi reminds the reader that fracking has been around for more than six decades. It’s just recently that companies have been able to do it profitably. To these companies involved in extraction from shale rock formations, fracking is the specific step of hydraulic fracturing, when hydraulic fluid is pumped underground at high pressure to fracture the tight shale rock to allow gas and oil to eventually flow through. This step is just one of many steps before the well is finished and sealed like nearly any other oil or gas well.

From Raimi’s perspective, it makes more sense to differentiate between fracking, which he considers just one step of the process, and the entire process of extraction central to the shale boom. For example, when discussing water pollution, he asserts that only one study has ever found fracking chemicals in groundwater, which is far from the widespread problem of water pollution that anti-fracking activists warn of. But, he adds, chemicals and gasoline from the rest of the extraction process, like stray gas that migrates up wells and through bedrock, are a larger threat to drinking water and cause many of the high profile cases of flaming faucets.  This story – that the actual fracking process is relatively unproblematic while the rest of the oil and gas extraction industry causes problems – is what ties this book together.

In fact, that’s what I found to be the most striking implication of Raimi’s work: maybe fracking isn’t the problem, but simply one part of a much larger issue. Instead of focusing the attention and blame on fracking, perhaps we should condemn the fossil fuel extraction industry as a whole. All of the problems associated with fracking – stray gas leaks, earthquakes from wastewater disposal, and odors – are actually side effects of the rest of the extraction process and all fossil fuels. So why the focus on fracking when the problem is really much larger?

Fracked wells, Raimi answers, are often just much more close to areas with high population than traditional oilfields. His interest in the topic came, in fact, from years traveling to these communities near shale gas oilfields –  the communities often singled out in the narratives that link fracking and fracking alone to problems associated with the entire fossil fuel industry. And this is where I believe the book’s largest flaw lies.

Raimi talks about how he listened to the local chatter and “talked with hundreds of locals and out-of-towners, pipeliners and frackers, drill-baby-drillers and no-fracking-wayers” about the oilfields and fracking. Yet what is most conspicuously absent from The Fracking Debate were their voices.

One of the questions Raimi tries to answer is whether people living near fracking “love it or hate it.”  In no more than five paragraphs each, Raimi briefly introduces six communities central to the fracking boom. Fairview, Montana, population ~900,  is packed with “old trucks with bulbous hoods…lined up next to nearly new…F-150s covered in dust,” and the diner was “woefully understaffed.” Raimi’s descriptions are superb. In each of these sections, I could feel the town around me.

Though Raimi referenced conversations with people and integrated their thoughts into his summation, he included no quotes. I left these sections feeling like I knew the place but not the people. So when he tries to answer the question of whether people love or hate fracking by asserting that “the balance of conversations [he’s] had lean towards the positive side of the ledger,” I have difficulty believing it because the book didn’t include the reader in these conversations. Bringing in their voices may have helped me understand why we talk about fracking, and not just fossil fuel extraction.

Raimi is very careful with his words to avoid co-opting the language of either the anti-fracking movement or the industry surrounding it. And while he consistently championed balance and myth-busting, I wasn’t entirely convinced. A skeptical reader – one who comes in with strong opinions of “fracking” – might  say the book leans too generously to the side of the fracking companies.

But if the book is to be read as an expose not just of fracking, but of the whole industry, then this is both understandable and excusable. This is, I believe, the most valuable way to approach The Fracking Debate. Raimi does a wonderful job blending obscure science and economic concepts with a lively voice and real-world examples into a readable, engaging text. This book was uniquely informative and despite some faults, a read recommended to anyone wanting clarity and answers about fossil fuels.

Featuring a dramatic black cover with blood-red font, Andrew Fisher’s 2017 book, Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups, grabs your attention from the start, and runs with it. Big Hunger is an eye-opening exposé, densely researched academic publication, and progressive anti-hunger manifesto all in one. Fisher hasn’t just written a book; he has laid the foundation for a movement.

The book builds on itself, each chapter exploring a distinct facet of America’s relationship with hunger. In one chapter, Fisher calls into question what kinds of food we feed hungry people and why. In another, he investigates exactly who sits in boardroom and legislative meetings, holding the real power in anti-hunger work. Fisher also gives space in his book to the voices of activists silenced by the mainstream anti-hunger movement. He celebrates innovation within the anti-hunger community and highlights innovative models from other fields too. He ends his book with a vision for the beginning of a new anti-hunger movement that eradicates, rather than perpetuates, the problem of hunger in America.

Fisher’s boldest claim is that mainstream American anti-hunger groups are in the pocket of big business. America’s donation-based food assistance system – or, the “charity trap,” as he less-than-affectionately refers to it – has a long history that Fisher refuses to ignore. He begins his story in the Great Depression, nearly 60 years earlier than what most scholars point to as the birth of the modern donation-based food assistance system. At this time, the food industry threw away its surplus crops and food in an attempt to keep farm prices high. Indignant at the thought of so much food being wasted at a time when hunger plagued America, people criticized the food industry for its heartlessness and started questioning their own commitments to capitalism.

Fisher uses this historical context to set the stage for the 1980’s. Reagan’s vast cuts to social services left hungry people in need of more support, and this time the food industry readily offered its “waste” to feed the needy. Tax cuts and strategic corporate giving developed in tandem, allowing the food industry to dump its excess food on the poor and look good doing so. The American anti-hunger system is entirely based on donating food to “feed the hungry” but ignores – even perpetuates, as Fisher argues – root causes of hunger such as poverty, debt, and underemployment, and thus fails to “shorten the line” of hungry people.

In “The Politics of Corporate Giving”, Fisher describes an economic cycle where rural farmers are forced into debt and poverty. Our current food system makes it much easier for farmers to connect with consumers if they “contract” for a larger company. For instance, chicken farmers might contract with Tyson to guarantee that they have a market for their product. But Tyson requires farmers to buy the latest, most expensive equipment and to reach extremely high monthly production quotas. Many farmers struggle to keep up with such demands, and lose their farm and livelihood. Those who manage often do so by running up debt, which strains family budgets and leads farmers to seek out cheaper sources of food for their families.

Rural communities then have both a high demand for new jobs and a high demand for cheap commodities and foods. Enter Walmart. Unemployed ex-farmers are hired to work minimum wage retail jobs, but Walmart refuses to give them full-time hours to avoid paying their benefits. Desperate for any job at all, rural community members work odd shifts at subpar pay, but they still can’t make ends meet. Their family often wonders how they’ll pay for their next meal.

Feeding America comes to the rescue, establishing a new Food Bank in town and providing free food to the now hungry community. Fisher actually went undercover as a recipient at one of these food banks, and offers a heart-wrenching discussion of the humiliation of waiting in long lines to get food you can’t afford to buy. But even after community members get home from the food bank, there’s more shame. The products they brought home seem oddly familiar, because they are the rejects from Walmart down the street – sometimes the same Walmart where they work. Dented cans and stale bread comprise Walmart’s $2 billion dollar “anti-hunger” effort, but actually just function to keep underpaid employees and farmers working below living wage for yet another week, generating massive profit for a company determined to keep its costs low and profits high.

If one of these rural community members became inspired and wanted work with the food bank to better their practices, they’d likely get an icy reception. It turns out that most food bank boards are staffed by Walmart, Tyson, and Pepsi executives whose interests lie in profit maximization, not ending hunger. Community members and food bank recipients aren’t welcome in the decision making process.

Big Hunger exposes a disturbing and heartbreaking system of perpetual poverty through stories like this. While chapters end with bullet-pointed suggestions for how academics, activists, and the general public can help make a change, Fisher refuses to give readers the answer or to solve the problem all on his own. He directs readers to a supplemental website (bighunger.org) where we can learn more about the book and the movement, and he encourages us to connect with each other. Big Hunger left me craving a big solution, and gave me the tools to join the movement fighting for it.

As the consequences of climate change continue to become increasingly apparent to the public, interest in nuclear energy is growing. Technical experts, government authorities, and some environmental activists are now insisting that nuclear energy can help combat climate change. Even so, nuclear power generation raises many concerns: nuclear weapons, nuclear war, nuclear radiation disasters. Nuclear power is so controversial that some avoid discussing it altogether. But given the desperate need for climate change solutions, no options should be left off the table completely. Charles D. Ferguson’s Nuclear Energy: What Everyone Needs to Know is a comprehensive overview of nuclear energy, describing its history and future while debunking alarming myths.

Ferguson is a champion of nuclear energy, having worked at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Nonproliferation and then going on to be a scientist-in-residence at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. He now serves as Director of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board at The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Although he is a big proponent of nuclear energy, Ferguson is up front about the validity of the concerns that many people have and the importance of adequately addressing them. For instance, Ferguson advocates for transparency following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident of 2011, saying “One of the clear lessons of the accident is that government and industry officials need to be much more transparent about nuclear operations and what needs to be done to protect the public.” He therefore does not merely advocate for nuclear, but addresses the opponents of nuclear and shows that he has a deep understanding of where they are coming from.

For nuclear power opponents, radioactive waste is one troubling consequence of nuclear power generation. Radioactive waste poses a threat to human health if it is inhaled or if it is consumed via contaminated water. Ferguson acknowledges the threat to health posed by nuclear waste, but clears up the common misconception that there is no safe storage of this waste. Impermeable manmade and natural barriers can be used together to keep exposure to people as low as possible. Ferguson also points out that radioactive waste makes up less than one percent of all industrial toxic waste. Worries about radioactive waste therefore seem to be disproportionate to worries about the other 99 percent of toxic waste. And what most people don’t know is that nuclear waste can be recycled to produce more nuclear power, thereby reducing the total volume of waste.

Ferguson also addresses safety issues and the risk of nuclear proliferation. The chances of a nuclear power plant being intentionally attacked by a terrorist group are low—no nuclear powerplant has ever seen such a fate. Despite this, physical security and protection of nuclear operations continue to improve. Plant operators are now training security guards more thoroughly. Most nuclear power plants have in place defense-in-depth mechanisms that force potential attackers to bypass multiple layers of security in order to reach the vital areas of a plant. Security measures for nuclear power plants are much more advanced than one might think.

Perhaps the most important takeaway from the book was that nuclear power is vital to fighting climate change because of its advantages over renewables. Opponents of nuclear power often assert that because we have the means to produce renewable energy, there is no need for nuclear energy. But Ferguson explains that nuclear power plants, unlike intermittent wind or solar power installations, can run at full power for months at a time. Nuclear energy can serve as a bridge that fills the gaps created by using renewable energy as a power source alone, leading to a 100 percent low carbon-emitting energy system. Now more than ever, we should be considering aggressive climate change solutions; Ferguson shows that nuclear energy is an ideal candidate that unfortunately flies under the radar.

Ferguson does an excellent job of laying out the interdisciplinary concerns surrounding nuclear energy, and explaining how they are inherently connected to each other. His ability to bring together different aspects of the nuclear energy story reflects his extensive work background. The book is surprisingly wide-ranging. Its question-and-answer format will help turn readers into unsuspecting semi-experts on nuclear energy. To those who are quick to dismiss the merits of nuclear energy, Ferguson’s book carefully explains that the nuclear energy debate is really not as simple as people ordinarily think it is.

On a main street in Lima, Peru, restaurants proudly display their traditional fare: ceviche, lomo saltado, ají de gallina. Beneath fragrant smells of roasting chicken and frying vegetables, however, light wafts of something suspiciously similar to soy sauce lurks. Although bizarre to tourists, Chifa restaurants, which sell Chinese-Peruvian fusion food, have become one of the most common restaurants in Peru.

What explains this distinct cultural combination? Stefania Paladini, an expert in Asian-Latin American from the Department of Business and Strategy at Coventry University, promises the reader answers in her new book, Asian Worlds in Latin America. In it, she attempts to present an outlook on Asian presence in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) from a geopolitical and economic standpoint.

While the exchange of people between the three Asian countries that Paladini focuses on—China, Japan, and Korea—have been occurring for centuries, only recently have they begun pouring money into the LAC region. While these investments take several forms, they all give Asian companies and governments increasing influence with Latin American governments, communities’ natural resources, and countries’ development plans.

Asian countries investing in resource-rich developing states isn’t new. China is now Africa’s top economic partner, but the relationship has yielded mixed results. Researchers found that China’s investment in Africa hurt Chinese migrant workers and African workers alike through poor pay and low safety standards. Chinese firms’ environmental practices have also been scrutinized.

Scholars have thoroughly explored questions about the effects of Asian investment in Africa. The impacts of these investments in Latin America and the Caribbean are far less studied. This book promised to fill some of these gaps in the literature.

Paladini brings some fascinating information and situations to light. In Nicaragua, a Hong Kong-based company has inked a deal to build a shipping canal worth four times the Central American country’s GDP. Ten percent of Guatemalan exports depend on the economic activity of Koreans in the country. A South Korean firm has signed an agreement with the government of Ecuador for US$260 million to build a mega-oil refinery in Ecuador. An average of two free trade agreements have gone into effect between Asia and LAC each year since 2004.

The author uses these examples to show how Korean, Japanese, and Chinese interests and investments in Latin America are changing the continent. What she doesn’t do is take the next step to answer the whys, hows, and effects of the Asian presence.

Paladini is at her most interesting when she reflects on Asian immigrants integrating into LAC countries. In looking at the number of immigrants from the three Asian giants to specific LAC countries, she shows another way that exchange across the Pacific has happened for centuries with little fanfare. The Chinese diaspora began arriving in LAC in the 1800s, when demand for low-wage labor was high. Japanese immigrants arrived in great numbers after WWII; Brazil is now home to the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan. Korean immigrants began coming to the LAC region relatively recently, but have already begun to have a big cultural impact on the region’s youth with K-pop music.

After she made a point of explaining the history of cultural exchange between the regions, I expected Paladini to link this to the foreign direct investment trends she highlights. For instance, how might chifa restaurants in Peru facilitate Chinese firms’ entry into communities? Are Guatemalans more likely to accept Korean businesses when there is already a Korean family living next door? Unfortunately, Paladini doesn’t complete her own analysis, and I was left with more questions than answers from her deep dive into statistics on immigration and its history.

Repetition and basic spelling and grammatical errors largely overshadowed what informative content the book had to offer. I was frequently distracted from Paladini’s main points by issues such as spelling the former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori’s name no fewer than three different ways throughout the book (Fujimari, Fujimory and then finally the correct Fujimori).

While there were some interesting facts concealed within the pages of this book, the net effect was unimpressive. As most scholarship around foreign direct investment focuses on the continent of Africa, I was looking forward to new insights on the LAC region. To prevent problematic relationships like those between Africa and Asia from reoccurring in LAC, the field requires more research to shed light on the effects of Asian investment in Latin America.

Recycling is the poster child of the U.S. environmental movement. There are over 9,800 curbside recycling programs in the U.S., each accompanied with snappy slogans (think: “reduce, reuse, recycle”, or “recycling plastic feels fantastic”). By most accounts, recycling is an environmental success story. That makes Samantha MacBride’s call to rethink recycling seem like environmental heresy. Why challenge something that, in her own words, is “now solidified into municipal practice and thriving private industry, and reflected in widespread general public support of recycling in general”?

But as she demonstrates in her book “Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States”, this idealized view of the contemporary recycling movement warrants careful interrogation. It really isn’t easy being green: recent reports detail how many curbside recycling programs have become unsustainable, and only a small fraction of plastics are actually recycled. MacBride argues that these present-day concerns are not new for the recycling movement since its emergence in the 1970s. Although she takes no pleasure in critiquing the recycling movement, she tackles the recycling movement’s many assumptions head-on. How did we come to emphasize recycling as a civic duty, instead of it being a corporate responsibility? Is advocating for a zero waste society a valiant but ultimately misguided goal? MacBride’s sharp questions and engaging case studies provoke us to look beyond recycling as a feel-good action. Instead, she asks for us to view it as an elaborate social project missing its mark.

Glass recycling is an often energy intensive process. Collected glass products are crushed into smaller pieces. (Photo from Waste360)

Take for example her comparative analysis of glass and textile recycling. As she argues, it really isn’t clear why your glass bottle should be recycled over your old clothes: glass is of low environmental concern relative to fabrics that have severe environmental impacts at all stages of their lifecycle. But glass recycling has persisted in spite of its high cost, while textile recycling has not caught on at all. Her answer to how glass gained and retained its importance in the recycling movement? The surge of attention to glass as dangerous litter in the 1960s, the bottling industry trade group’s aversion to bottle reuse, and environmental groups’ fear of losing momentum for sustainable waste management if they admit bottle refill is a much better alternative to recycling glass. This is just one example of how MacBride deftly weaves a narrative of how social phenomenon, businesses, and government bodies have come together to frame certain materials as problems to be solved through recycling – even when it is not the best course of action.

It is MacBride’s sharp and often surprising critique of such hallmarks of the environmental movement that make her otherwise heavy book an engaging read. It is, after all, a book geared towards a more academic audience; she does not shy away from utilizing waste statistics and bolstering her narrative arguments with impressive detail. These statistics can be surprising for the everyday reader: who would have imagined that 7.6 billion tons of non-hazardous manufacturing wastes is produced yearly? MacBride uses such numbers not only to draw attention to how large the problem of waste is, but also to show how the recycling movement has gotten it wrong. For instance, she recycling advocates for often framing this statistic of 7.6 billion tons as stemming from wasteful personal consumption, instead of using it as a call for stronger and more direct regulation of corporate manufacturing wastes.

But MacBride – whose professional life straddles the spheres of academia and municipal government – admits difficulty in positioning herself as both ally and critic of the contemporary recycling movement. “I am deeply allied with those concerned about environmental and social problems involved in waste”, she writes, “But I can’t stay silent on the contradictions I have observed for fear of uttering a discouraging word.” Yet for the reader, it is precisely in the parts where MacBride grapples with this tension that her book is most compelling.

This is best seen in her examination of plastic recycling, where MacBride acknowledges the promise and power of extended producer responsibility (i.e. producers bearing the financial costs of negative environmental impact) and the enactment of material bans utilizing this concept. But MacBride also points out the unintended consequences to such legislation – when cities such as Seattle and San Francisco banned single-use Styrofoam food packaging, it only led to the increased use of heavier, more rigid, plastics. She also finds fault with government agencies over the sheer lack of support for consistent data collection about recyclable plastics. Her critique of plastic recycling is particularly prescient in contemporary times, where a new wave of bans against straws and plastic bags appear to repeat the same mistakes: enacted too quickly, limited in information, and with barely any consideration of how waste cycles through society.

Some cities have instituted bans against single-use plastics – for example, in 2015, foam cups and containers were banned in New York City. (Photo from Grist)

MacBride’s ally-critic balancing act is held together by her unwavering faith in the promise of recycling done right. Even after pointing out all of the recycling movement’s flaws, never once does she doubt recycling’s intrinsic goodness: MacBride ends her book by finding hope in human ingenuity and desire to better waste management. While her suggestions for fixing the recycling movement can be considered controversial (such as advocating for only paper and metal to be collected for recycling), MacBride prompts us to reconsider recycling in all its forms. And with a crash in the market value of recyclable materials forcing municipalities to reevaluate their recycling practices, such a reconsideration is more relevant than ever.

Recycling Reconsidered by Samantha MacBride. Published 2012.

Stacey Haney, nurse and single mother of two, had just settled onto a farm near the town of Amity, Pennsylvania. Horses, goats, dogs, and rabbits roamed about the rolling green grass along the property. Stacy’s daughter Ashley was in her twenties, and her son Harley was entering seventh grade. This serene picture began to unravel when the fracking industry came to town in the early 2000’s. Trucks were everywhere, and houses and roads were crumbling. Sediment turned black, the water had gone grey, and dust and grime filled residents’ throats and lungs. What began as an optimistic boom of industry in the town of Amity, quickly became a long winding road of unintended consequences and mysterious illnesses.

In her new book, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, journalist Eliza Griswold portrays the destroyed lives of people confronting our nation’s hugely profitable energy extraction industry. She approaches fracking, which is a complex web of political, economic, environmental, and health issues, through a deeply human and compassionate narrative. Readers who know little about fracking or the law will emerge with newfound appreciation of how tough it is to fight the energy sector’s corporate interests that are protected by government regulation. Through storytelling, Griswold exposes the too-often hidden relationship between dangerous environmental exposures and human health.

Amity and Prosperity are the names of two towns in Washington County, Pennsylvania on the border of Appalachia. Amity and Prosperity both have long histories in the extractive energy industry; coal, iron, and oil industries have all left behind environmental and economic damage. But Griswold shows how fracking proved to be the most fatal.

A company called Range Resources came to Amity offering locals payment in exchange for permission to frack for natural gas. Natural gas was a bountiful, “clean” energy alternative that promised economic security for a poor coal mining town in Appalachia, and energy independence for America that would help end international oil wars. Everything sounded good. Residents, like Stacey, began signing leases without fully understanding the terms, knowledge of fracking, or consideration of consequences.

Fracking (or hydraulic fracturing) is a method of extracting natural gas from rock underground. At extremely high pressure, a partially unknown combination of chemicals, sand, and water is injected into the ground in order to create cracks that allow gas to come up. Imagine a plant that shoots out a root system to bring in water so it can live, but with chemicals that help retrieve gas so people can have energy. The process creates massive amounts of wastewater that is then stored in huge constructed pools.

In 2004 Range Resources fracked its first well in Washington county. Stacey signed a lease. By 2010 the fracking boom reached its peak. Range Resources became a billion-dollar company and Pennsylvania was producing one-fifth of America’s natural gas supply.

Fracking, however, quickly proved too good to be true. Griswold shares the gripping stories of hardship that followed. Stacey’s home crumbled, her health deteriorated, and the whole town filled with chemical waste and dying animals. Stacey’s daughter Ashley’s puppy had died: “Cummins’s insides had frozen up…as if he’d drunk antifreeze”. Stacey’s son, Harley, had become “a listless stick figure”. Harley got tested for numerous diseases, but there was no diagnosis. No one knew that fracking was the cause. The doctors’ only advice was to boil the water and go gluten free.

At the center of Griswold’s story is Stacey, who becomes an “unlikely activist”. She conducted her own water and air tests that found carcinogens, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), Acrotein (used in chemical weapons), hydrogen sulfide, and arsenic. Stacey pieced together connections, but at the time these chemicals and their health effects were unknown. One neighbor incorrectly called Arsenic “Arsenip”. The most horrifying part? All of Range Resources chemical tests were negative. After uncovering forged test results and poison leaks, she worked with attorneys to take on major agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency in a fight for validation of her reality. Crucial environmental health information had been withheld from the community, and the result was a dying town.

This is the story a mother who was forced to become a detective, activist, and educator to fight for the health of her family and community. This book will probably make you cry and rage, a lot. It’s a harrowing story that feels more like a dystopia than reality. Griswold’s masterful storytelling, showing rather than telling, makes her feel more like a poet than a journalist. Her words are compelling in making readers care for the people who stories she tells, and in motivating activism against the industry.

Environmental exposures from fracking are at the core of the emerging health issues in Amity. As the fracking industry continues to expand – and is still protected by government policy from disclosing its toxic ingredients – Amity and Prosperity is a clarion call to communities who still have a chance to say no. As Stacey’s family and home are destroyed by fracking, Griswold recounts how Stacey felt like a refugee in a nightly search for medical care and a place to sleep. Amity and Prosperity exemplifiesenvironmental health literacy as Griswold deftly shows the lasting impact of environment on health, and the narrative power of creating human connection in conveying a message full of science and law to the public.

Photo Source: http://www2.philly.com/philly/entertainment/arts/eliza-griswold-amity-and-prosperity-fracking-marcellus-20180628.html

It was January of 1972. Jimmy Anderson, a three-year-old boy, was taken to the doctor by his parents. They thought he might have a cold. He did not. Instead, Jimmy Anderson was diagnosed with leukemia at Massachusetts General Hospital the following week.

“A Civil Action”, by Jonathan Harr, is a classic. It tells the true story of Woburn, Massachusetts, a town struck by environmental disaster. In the 1980’s, it seemed like this should be an open and shut case. Big corporations violated the Clean Water Act by dumping dangerous chemicals that reached the well water of Woburn. Children died from this contamination. Surely, government officials should jump to their defense and punish the companies. Yet what follows details a case that was litigated for over ten years- showing just how difficult environmental enforcement can be.

For years, families in East Woburn had complained amongst themselves, as well as to town officials, that something was wrong with their well water. Finally, a leukemia cluster was discovered in the area after many children fell ill with the same incurable disease that struck Jimmy Anderson. From the beginning, town officials doubted the possibility that corporations had contaminated Woburn water with their chemicals. It was even more unbelievable that those chemicals could have caused higher levels than normal of childhood leukemia in the area.

Yet Harr details how Jan Schlichtmann, a Boston-area personal injury lawyer without much experience, never gave up on the Woburn victims. Mr. Schlichtmann spares no expense in gathering information and evidence about the case. He and his team eventually file a lawsuit against two corporations in Woburn: Beatrice Foods and W.R. Grace. The plaintiffs accused the two companies of dumping the chemical trichloroethylene (now a known carcinogen) and allowing it to reach Woburn drinking water.

“A Civil Action” follows years of litigation between the corporations and the victims. Harr explains exactly how complicated environmental lawsuits can be, turning 10 years into page-turning drama. Compared to the two lawyers for the corporations, Mr. Schlichtmann’s firm does not have as much capital to invest into the case. This becomes a central problem throughout the story, as Schlichtmann’s firm takes on more and more debt in order to be able to aptly represent their clients and seek justice.

This story captures all of the drama surrounding the case as though it were written specifically for big screens across America. In fact, it was made into a blockbuster movie in 1988. Harr writes the accounts of the families in Woburn with painstaking attention to detail, making the reader feel as though they are sitting in the room next to a mother crying about her child being diagnosed with leukemia.

In the end, Mr. Schlichtmann risks everything for his clients in Woburn. The corporations’ lawyers are talented, and the judge is on their side most of the time. As the trial unfolds, it proves to be very contentious. The days are filled with expert witnesses from each side giving competing testimonies. The plaintiffs are forced to decide what they really want to get out of this case.

“A Civil Action” shows how difficult it is for injured parties to make giant corporations pay for environmental harms that they have caused, especially when human health and emotions are involved. Harr depicts the jury as being overwhelmed and confused by the evidence and the decision they need to make when it comes time for deliberations. The legal system is slow, and the corporate lawyers often have more money, staff, and time to put into a case. Although eventually the EPA concluded that both W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods were the source of the chemicals in the water, this finding came too late to benefit the plaintiffs in this case.

“A Civil Action” is an example of how complicated it can be to find a specific party liable for causing environmental harms. When environmental harm detrimentally affects people, like Jimmy Anderson, the stakes are higher, and fingers are pointed in every direction.  In this case, the harmed families of Woburn bring action in a civil case because they do not feel like the government is on their side. When they leave their decision in the hands of the jury, they risk everything. Harr eloquently shows the reader this complexity, and leaves you questioning the effectiveness of environmental regulations in the US.

What if the way to fix school food in America was by making it free for everyone?

This is exactly the solution that Janet Poppendieck comes to in her book, Free for All: Fixing School Food in America.

Free for All explains how school food has evolved throughout its history and details the problems that exist within the current system. Ultimately, it demands a revolution in the way we view school food and in the operation of the entire system. The cornerstone of Poppendieck’s vision for a healthier and more equitable school food system lies in free school meals for all.

The problems within the current school food system can be traced back to its history, which Poppendieck describes as a series of “wars:” the war on poverty, the war on hunger, the war on waste, the war on spending, and the war on fat. The battle scars from these wars have left their marks on the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs, making the regulations that govern nutrition and eligibility increasingly strict, but also increasingly inefficient and ineffective.

To understand what is actually happening in cafeterias across the U.S., Poppendieck worked in a school cafeteria in the Northeast and spoke with the cafeteria workers to learn about their experiences. Cafeteria workers have long been the most undervalued staff in America’s schools and their voices are rarely heard. In many schools, cafeteria workers do not need cooking skills at all, since their job is merely to reheat frozen pre-cooked products. The lack of skill required makes them easily replaceable and thus gives them little power to bargain for better wages or benefits.

How did cafeteria workers go from making scratch-cooked meals to reheating frozen pizza? The answer lies, at least partially, in the way the nutrition of school meals is regulated. Although they are carefully designed and well intentioned, the increasingly strict nutrition regulations for school food may not actually be improving it. By focusing almost exclusively on nutrients, these regulations allow and even encourage processed food companies to simply add the necessary nutrients to junk food and continue selling it at schools.

The burden of meeting the increasingly specific requirements while staying within a tight budget can cause those in charge to lose sight of the real goal: providing nutritious meals. School Meals Initiatives reviewers from the Mississippi Department of Education recommended offering low-fat but high-sugar desserts, such as low-fat pudding, as a way for a school to reach calorie minimums without exceeding fat allowances and staying within the budget. As Poppendieck explains, “Caught between calorie minimums and fat ceilings, more sugar appeared to be the most affordable fix.”

The availability of other foods that can be purchased on school campuses through the snack bar or a la carte line are doubly problematic. First, they encourage children to resort to less healthy, but perhaps more appealing options for lunch rather than the federally regulated meal. Second, these purchased foods become a status symbol in schools, causing the federally regulated meal to be seen as “welfare food.” This stigma can lead even those who qualify for free lunch to opt out, to avoid being known as poor.

Although the book is academic and can get bogged down in acronyms and confusing legislation and regulations, Poppendieck does a good job of mixing this with the personal experiences of the people involved in school food programs, from cafeteria workers to school administrators. The book largely focuses on outlining the problems that exist within the school food system, but it also calls attention to those who are changing school food for the better.

In Compton, California, where the majority of students are African American and the poverty rates are very high, assistant food service director Tracie Thomas began a farmers’ market salad bar. The students not only ate the fresh vegetables provided, but actually began to prefer the salad bar over the hot entree. Programs such as these provide hope that school food can be used as a force for good.

The conclusion of Free for All proposes big changes to school food. According to Poppendieck, we should stop thinking about foods in terms of nutrients and instead think in terms of whole foods. In order to do this, we need to retrain cafeteria staff how to cook food, instead of just how to reheat it.

Of course, the cornerstone of her proposal and perhaps the most controversial change she supports is making school lunch free for everyone. You’re probably wondering how she proposes to pay for that. Poppendieck suggests several viable solutions including: using proceeds from the federal income tax, a higher capital gains tax, a tax on sodas, and reducing subsidies for corn and soy.

Providing free food for all schoolchildren is a worthwhile investment in our future. It would remove the stigma of school food as “welfare food” and encourage more children to participate. Hungry children would be better able to concentrate, allowing them to excel in the classroom and escape the cycle of poverty.

Free for All ultimately argues that making school food free for everyone would change the perception of it from a welfare program, constantly having its budget cut, to a health program, an investment in our future that deserves more support.