Food deserts are often associated with the absence or shortage of grocery stores in an area.  One food source, however, is often overlooked: school lunches. School lunches provide the main source of food for thousands of children in the U.S., and shape their perception of healthy eating for years to come. Due to a lack of focus and funding, the school lunch system is not entirely effective. School lunches can/could play a pivotal role in addressing food deserts, if we can transform an industry and operation that accounts for nearly five billion meals annually. Being both a problem and a solution, school lunches have become an important tool in fighting food deserts.

In 2012, Cornell University conducted a study at a New York high school and found dramatic shifts when they made healthier foods more convenient for students. Their sales were increased by 18 percent and the grams of unhealthy foods consumed decreased by nearly 28 percent. Making such improvements in an industry of this size will have far-reaching and lasting impacts. 

Improving lunches served to students across the country benefits their families too. For families living in food deserts, this new focus will allow children to bring this knowledge of healthy food and routine back to their families. Then, if grocery stores with healthy foods continue to open in food deserts, residents will be able to combine both approaches to effectively combat food access issues.

The school food system is as complex as the American education system. It is full of obstacles that make it difficult for schools to source healthy food for their students. While the need for industry-wide change is needed, the many systems involved complicate a simple solution: to put healthier food on a child’s tray. Not all school districts are alike. Several factors affect access to resources: size, number of students receiving free or reduced-price meals, and geography. These indicators create challenges in streamlining and collaborating with school lunch programs nationally. 

Despite being a $15 billion enterprise nationally, some schools lack the resources to serve high-quality food. The National School Lunch Program provides low-cost or free school lunches to 31 million students at more hundreds of thousands public and private schools per day. Participating schools receive a mere $1.30 for each child’s lunch. School food programs also depend on income from families in the school district, often creating a wealth disparity between public and private schools. Where does the rest of the billions of dollars go? It funds the operations such as labor and supplies. 

The typical school lunch in America has come a long way since the 1980s, but it still has a long way to go. Initiatives of people and organizations, both big and small, have highlighted gaps within the food system and push for healthier school lunches across the country. Former First Lady, Michelle Obama, implemented the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 which contributed to a win for school lunches and the students who ate them. It requires cafeterias to offer more produce and whole grains in all school meals. Additionally, programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture started to provide students with access to meals by reimbursing schools for providing healthier meals to students. In 2012, they began strengthening their school lunch guidelines, requiring schools to meet a set of nutrition standards in their cafeterias and vending machines.

Strikingly, some of these guidelines had not been updated in 30 years. 

A University of Buffalo 2014 study explored the relationship between food deserts and academic achievement in school children. It concluded that there is no significant correlation to poor academic achievement within regions of low-income students living in food deserts. School lunches, however, are making the difference. A 2018 University of California Berkeley study did find that switching to a healthy meal vendor raised test scores in California public schools. 

Many children living in food deserts rely on their meals at school. Greater funding, research, and focus on school lunches is vital to improve the lives of children and those living in food deserts. The benefits of a good school lunch program are not just about delivering high-quality nutritious food but about cultivating a healthier food culture. As school lunches improve, children and families around the world will become more accustomed to healthier ways of eating. These meals becoming healthier will shape their perception of healthy food for the rest of their life. 

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City centers on the freethinking New York urbanist Jane Jacobs and details her most public and important battle with infamous city government official Robert Moses. This documentary is another entry into the myriad films, books, and even operas whose subject matter is their heated and consequential relationship but is most importantly a testament to the legacy of her thinking.

The first and most famous political dispute between the two took place over Washington Square Park in 1952. As part of the city’s slum clearance program, the adjacent neighborhood, Greenwich Village, had been designated a slum and consequently in need of renewal. As part of that effort, Moses advocated for an expressway extending from Fifth Avenue across the southern part of the Park, in an attempt to relieve congestion.

Scene from the TV show Marvelous Mrs. Maisel when Mrs. Maisel is invited by Jane Jacobs to speak at a Save the Square rally.  

Jane Jacobs, a resident of the neighborhood, received a flyer on her doorstep to support the Committee to Save Washington Square Park. Not only was she a resident with kids, Jacobs was also an architectural journalist and urban observer who was finely attuned to the significance of the park. Washington Square Park was (and still is) a well-used open green space for families and performers and was also historically significant as it was sanctuary for artists and labor marches. The Fifth Ave expressway would relegate the iconic Washington Square Archway to a dusty overpass.

News of the proposed roadway sparked anger amongst the diverse set of people who had a stake in the park and inspired organizing that produced the leaflet that landed on Jacobs’ doorstep. Despite being relatively inexperienced in activism, Jacobs became a key leader in the protests. She is credited with naming the Joint Emergency Committee to Close Washington Square Park to Traffic and formulating many of the committee’s protesting techniques, from flooding public hearings to spirited rallying in the streets. The movement became so vocal and effective that it even attracted the support of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Robert Moses, not used to this kind of focused, persistent opposition, was infuriated. In a public hearing, Jacobs recalled him saying, “There is nobody against this – NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY but a bunch of … a bunch of MOTHERS!”

As the tide began to turn in the protesters’ favor, Jacobs made the strategic decision to ask for a 3-month trial for a ban on automobile traffic, convinced that it would be successful and extended. Caving to public pressure, city officials abandoned the expressway and agreed to the trial, eventually making it permanent. Today, Washington Square Arch stands tall amidst crowds of people, not a car in sight.

This incredible story of activism could have been told thrillingly by Citizen Jane. However, the documentary has a bad habit of skipping details and presenting half-baked narratives. Much of the film showcases talking heads who discuss the importance of such events but tell little of how those events actually transpired.

Despite the film’s flaws, the story of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses on New York City and urbanism across the world cannot be overlooked. More than advocate for new singular design elements, she espoused a design philosophy for how to study urban space and people.

Robert Moses was best known for being one of New York’s most productive and ruthless Parks Commissioners, serving on a variety of public positions from the 1920s to the 1960s. He was responsible for the construction of almost 700 miles of road and numerous public amenities (like the Central Park Zoo, the Rockaways, the Henry Hudson Bridge, and the Lincoln Center). However, Moses was notorious for the heavy-handed way in which he brought them about. Wielding the power of his position and eminent domain, he led an unbridled and uncompromising slum clearance campaign as a way to cure the city of its problems. Low-income neighborhoods that bustled with vibrant street life and close-knit communities were often dismissed as lost causes in need of razing, a sacrifice he justified: “I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettoes without moving people, as I hail the chef who can make omelettes without breaking eggs.”

Cover of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, both a biography of Robert Moses and a history of the city of New York

It should be noted that Moses’s approach was hardly unique, as similar renewal was happening in other major cities. Via the U.S. Housing Act of 1949, cities could buy land that was designated as slums and receive substantial sums of federal subsidies to rebuild. Moses, as chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Slum Clearance from 1949 to 1960, completed 17 renewal projects and got $65.8 million in funding.

Jane Jacobs offered a more democratic attitude toward urban planning through her organizing and writing, which was irreverent and sharp. Without a credentialed background in urbanism or architecture, she had the advantage of viewing the city without pretense. She was an urban anthropologist, an urban ecologist, receptive to how the city actually worked, not how she thought it should. She embraced the city’s complexity, likening it to the life sciences, instead of trying to mold and simplify it.

For example, in her pièce de résistance, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she offered an insightful take on the use of streets: the “eyes on the street” concept. She observed that a well-used and vibrant street will protect its constituents via the eyes of its “natural proprietors”. This is not the result of a duty that they feel, but because a healthy street is interesting to look at for everyone. She writes,

“You can’t make people watch streets they do not want to watch…. The safety of the street works best, most casually, and with least frequent taint of hostility or suspicion precisely where people are using and most enjoying the streets voluntarily and are least conscious, normally, that they are policing.” Moses’ urban renewal projects threatened these benefits that came with healthy, interconnected communities.

Jane Jacobs centered people at the heart of urban planning and placed the authority of the city with the residents themselves, a significant departure from planning’s traditions of credentialism and totalitarian rule. She wrote that we ought to design the city according to how it already works, not by forcing abstract theories onto the urban landscape and getting frustrated when people don’t respond the way they were expected to. As with the Washington Square Park protests, Jacobs paved the way for activism and community engagement in the design of public spaces. The impact of her work, which reinvigorated communities and informed urban design for generations after, has and will continue to make a mark on cities today that will far outlast any building.

For many vulnerable communities, no preventative laws are in place to protect individuals against environmental harm. An initiative in Los Angeles may offer a solution.

In neighborhoods around the country, poor, black, latinx, and immigrant communities suffer disproportionate levels of pollution. The Los Angeles chapter of environmental justice group Communities for a Better Environment has been on the frontlines for years, fighting to expose environmental injustice and racism in urban neighborhoods that are overburdened by environmental issues. Since the 1970’s, the group has been pivotal in bringing together vulnerable Los Angeles neighborhoods to fight the environmental threats in their backyards. They have mobilized residents of these communities and the greater population of Los Angeles to demand higher standards of air quality, and created “toxics tours” that highlight the close proximity of freeways, oil refineries, and recycling plants to the daycares, schools, and recreational spaces in poorer neighborhoods. 

They also championed a historic piece of legislation— now law— that sets a precedent for protecting vulnerable communities from environmental harms before they take place, rather than after. In 2016, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance called “Clean Up Green Up” (CUGU). The ordinance created a structure in which neighborhoods deemed to be “toxic hot-spots” would be identified as “green zones,” and the businesses in those neighborhoods would be held responsible for “cleaning up” the messes they made.

A key piece of the ordinance is its focus on cumulative impacts. The term “cumulative environmental impacts”, or cumulative impacts, is often used to describe the persistent and interconnected nature of environmental injustices. Because a neighborhood could be dealing with noise pollution from freeway traffic, air pollution from construction, proximity to a power plant, and increased housing prices due to gentrification among many other challenges all at the same time, the issue is not one-dimensional and needs to be solved by government regulation and protection. Defined by the EPA as the “total effects on a resource, ecosystem, or human community of that action and all other activities affecting that resource”, cumulative impacts seeks to look at environmental injustices as interconnected, therefore showing the need to address such issues on a systemic level.

Cumulative impacts are exacerbated in communities of color, and in Los Angeles’s case, communities with predominantly Latinx immigrants. By codifying cumulative impacts, CUGU recognizes the need to document, study, and adequately address the intertwined issues occurring in affected neighborhoods. CUGU established a process through which companies wanting to build in “green zones” would have to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of a project on the neighboring residents.

The CUGU ordinance defined new development standards to govern both new and expanded industries to protect the communities in green zones. Diesel trucks at warehouses and other industrial facilities in these neighborhoods now see signage saying “no idling”, lessening gas exhaust emissions, and there are 500 ft “buffer zones” between points of emission and homes. Additionally, small measures like compliance with noise standards, adequate trash enclosures, fencing, and outdoor lighting are educating polluting industries about their impacts on neighboring communities.

Currently on the federal level, the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requires the consideration of cumulative impacts in their reviews. In EPA reviews of the environmental impacts of projects on the environment, they are also currently expected to consider how the development of the project would directly and indirectly affect the people who live in proximity to this project. 

There has been a recent push from the Trump administration to remove considerations of cumulative impacts from federal environmental impact statements. Seeing any slowdown in the already-long process of permitting as a hindrance to the creation of jobs from development projects, the Trump administration believes it is in the country’s best interest to exclude cumulative impacts out of federal legislation. 

As a critic of this move, I see the removal of cumulative impacts from NEPA’s reviews as yet another example of Trump valuing the economy over human lives. Without considering the impact of development on the communities in the immediate proximity of the projects, the federal government is opening the floodgates for more health issues caused by environmental harm, and ultimately choosing to turn a blind eye to the real and visible effects of pollution on vulnerable communities. They are choosing to create a problem rather than proactively take steps to mitigate environmental injustice.

Meanwhile in Congress, there is a bill on the House floor that is also addressing cumulative impacts. This bill, H.R. 5986 “Environmental Justice For All Act”, acknowledges the lack of and need for information and data on environmental injustices, especially in the case of communities that are exposed to multiple pollution sources. Section 7 of the bill requires considering cumulative impacts and the violation of community health standards when granting permits for development. Basically, if a developer wants to build in a neighborhood that already suffers the effects of environmental pollution, they would have to adhere to very strict building and operating guidelines in order to obtain a permit. This legislation seeks to implement on a national scale what CUGU accomplishes in Los Angeles. 

The effort to hold developers, businesses, and cities accountable for pollution and air quality creates much-needed obstacles to development in neighborhoods suffering from cumulative impacts. While these safeguards are being put in place for the betterment of public health, it is understandably a shift from the norm: a norm which holds the importance of the economy above human lives. The Trump administration sees this as reason enough to eliminate cumulative impacts from permitting processes, whereas in the House and on the local scale with laws like CUGU these obstacles are a necessary part of addressing environmental racism. While the Trump administration is working to uphold a history of systemic injustice, it is important that the public pays attention to cumulative impacts and works to implement local, state, and federal-level policies to address cumulative impacts and improve the health of communities disproportionately affected by toxic pollution.

Commercial whaling has been banned internationally since 1986 and for good reason – commercial whaling is a bloody affair. Consider this scene of Japanese commercial whaling, which resumed last year amidst international objection:

Off the coast of Japan, a minke whale comes almost vertically out of the water before crashing back down into the open ocean. She swims along before breaching again. This time she meets the sharp blade of a harpoon shot from a nearby whaling ship. The harpoon crashes into her head, burying itself half a meter deep. She struggles to free herself, but before she can the harpoon’s grenade explodes. Shrapnel pierces her body from the inside out. The awaiting whaling ship drags her body onto the butchering deck by her tail, blood mixing with sea spray and dripping into the ocean, true saltwater tears. Her body is rapidly dismembered and rendered. Her body, once 12,000 pounds and 18 feet long, has become a commodity.

The first whale to be caught from Japan’s resumption of commercial whaling (July 1, 2019). © EIAimage

To much of the Western world commercial whaling is morally wrong. Whales are considered to be beautiful and intelligent animals with complex social lives. From this perspective, their slaughter is unthinkable. But a whale is to many Japanese what a cow is to many Americans – food and an expression of culture.

Joji Morishita, Japan’s retiring IWC Commissioner, said on the topic of whaling, “The West are trying to force their values on us. It is cultural imperialism.”

A similar argument is used to defend subsistence whaling by Indigenous peoples, which is a permitted exception to the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 ban on whaling because it is seen as different from commercial whaling. It is not for profit, but for the preservation of cultural heritage and sometimes subsistence.

This is one of the main arguments of the Makah Tribe’s have advanced in their 20-year legal battle for their right to whale off the coast of Washington state. Here is a description of the Makah Tribe’s last whale hunt:

Off the coast of Neah Bay, another whale surfaces, this time a gray whale. It’s 1999 and daybreak. She is being followed by members of the Makah tribe who are on their first whale hunt in seven decades. She surfaces and disappears, but the hunters know what to expect. They paddle their wooden canoes to where they know from experience the whale will next surface and they wait. When she surfaces again, the hunters strike her shoulder blade with a harpoon to slow her down. She swims on, encumbered by her wound, and the hunters follow. Unlike the minke whale’s instant death by grenade, the gray whale suffers until the final kill. The Makah hunters tow the whale home with the help of fishing boats. The awaiting tribal members welcome the whale and hunters, both as family, praising the power that made the catch possible.

Members of the Makah tribe cutting up a whale on the beach in Neah Bay (1910).

On the subject of whaling, Nate Tyler, a Makah tribal council member living in Neah Bay, Washington, explained, “We’re talking rights here. It’s our identity.”

Both Japan’s commercial whaling and indigenous subsistence whaling call upon the cultural argument, but the Western world condemns one and is divided over the other. Yes, commercial whaling has decimated whale populations in ways that subsistence whaling never has. Yes, commercial whaling supports industry while subsistence whaling supports underserved Indigenous communities. But both are an expression of culture to their respective communities. Both bring the lives of whales to a cruel end. From this perspective, commercial and subsistence whaling aren’t so different after all, and if one is banned the other should be too.

While there are plenty of reasons to go vegan, there seem to be even more excuses to not go vegan.  One such excuse is that eating meat is essential to some cultures and traditions.  I often hear people say, “Eating meat is just such a big part of my culture.”  I used to say so myself, until I could no longer live with the inconsistency between my values and actions: I said I loved animals, but I was still causing animal suffering by consuming animal products.  Something had to change.  

My fondest memories of growing up in central south China are visits to my grandparents’ house in rural Yiyang.  On their farm I first observed how my favorite vegetables grow.  I learned that the best chickens eat a diet of grains supplemented with worms and vegetables they forage while roaming freely on hills shaded by bamboo forests.  The most robust ones could fly; they were the meatiest and tastiest, giving an intense umami flavor when made into chicken soup.  I found joy in chasing piglets around.  I somehow also learned to celebrate the annual pig slaughter for Chinese New Year—perhaps because I was supposed to. 

Fresh harvested spinach from my grandparents’ garden.

The importance of pigs in Chinese culture cannot be understated.  “家” (pronounced “jiā”), the Chinese character for “home” was created by adding the roof radical (宀) to the pig radical (豕).  Figuratively, a roof over a pig makes home in Chinese culture.  For thousands of years, the Chinese raised pigs primarily as a source of manure to fertilize the land for grain and vegetables. Pork was a rare treat for special occasions.  That has changed.  Over the last four decades, pork production and consumption has skyrocketed in parallel with China’s economic development.  Whether it is a symbol of home or a measure of progress, pigs have retained their primacy in Chinese culture. 

When I came to the United States for high school, I bonded with my host family as we fused Mexican and Chinese gastronomic traditions together.  I took pride in coming from Hunan, a province famous for its mouthwatering spicy specialties such as steamed fish head with red chili and stir-fried green peppers with pork.  I worked to recreate the taste of home while being thousands of miles away, both for a sense of connection with Hunan and to deepen my bond with my host family as we shared our life stories around the dinner table. 

Mexican-Chinese fusion: Chinese dishes served with Mexican rice.

Mexican-Chinese fusion: improvised buckwheat noodle soup topped with red chili pork from making Christmas tamales. 

Everything started to change after I took an environmental ethics class.  I left that class with a head full of questions: Is it moral for humans to kill other animals and inflict suffering upon them merely for our taste pleasure?  Does culture justify such killing and suffering?  If killing pigs could be justified by my culture, is it okay to kill dogs because it’s traditional in some places?  Just because something has been done for a long time or by many people does not mean it is the right thing to do.  

What about eggs and dairy?  Egg-laying chickens and dairy cows are often subject to cruel treatments including confinement, debeaking, forced impregnation of cows, and separation of newborn calves from their mothers. Their bodies have been transformed into small factories.  Males chicks are killed soon after hatching because they can’t lay eggs.  Male calves are either killed or raised to produce veal.  Chickens and cows are destined to be slaughtered when they stop being productive.  

Despite knowing that eating animal products caused these morally unjustifiable harms, I still tried to find excuses to maintain the status quo.  I conformed to the norm, because I was afraid of being alienated from both my newfound community in the United States and my ties to China.  I did not want to confront or inconvenience those around me who enjoyed animal-based dishes in our food culture.

Chinese New Year celebration feast at home.  7 of the 11 dishes have animal products.

But what exactly does it mean to connect to one’s culture through food?  In today’s food systems, the complex processes that mediate our relationship with food encompass institutional arrangements and political strategies.  Take dairy in China for example.  Milk had never been a staple in Chinese food until 30 years ago.  Even though 90% of Chinese are lactose intolerant, China’s thirst for milk continues to rise thanks to political and economic interests pushing campaigns to build a strong, modern Chinese population.  The story behind skyrocketing pork consumption is similar.

What has been forgotten is that China has a long tradition of vegetarianism that dates back as early as 1000 B.C.  Records mentioning imitation pork and mutton dishes date back to the 600s, revealing the centuries-old art of making plant-based meat long before the surge of Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger.  When we talk about connecting to our cultures and traditions through food, how far back in history are we talking about?  

As I thought more about the production of animal products, I couldn’t help but see dead animal bodies every time I saw meat, eggs, and dairy.  Eventually, I overcame my resistance to change and did what my morals urged me to do.  I stopped eating animal products to minimize unnecessary animal suffering and to boycott the commodification of other living creatures.  

The bonuses of the change were many.  The environmental footprint of my diet was reduced.  An adequate whole-food, plant-based diet has been the most healthful way of eating I have experienced.  

After going vegan, my family and I found new ways to enjoy food together.  After all, there are plenty of plant-based dishes in our cuisine.  My change has also introduced us to a whole new world of culinary possibilities and taste sensations.  Showing each other respect for our different food choices has even deepened our relationships.  

Home-cooked Hunan style plant based food.

Having lived abroad for eight years, I know firsthand the longing for the familiar.  I know how disappointing it can be to tell your parents you no longer choose to eat your favorite home-cooked meals.  But unless your current diet is composed of 100% animal products, going more plant-based will not mean abandoning the food culture you share with your loved ones entirely.  Don’t let culture tie you down to killing animals and consuming animal products.  Cultures evolve.  Your way of life can too. 

The way diseases and natural disasters destroy communities does not discriminate against anyone. How people respond, however, does discriminate.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of Louisiana breaching the levee system. The collapse of a levee that had never been properly built in the first place flooded 80% of New Orleans. More than a thousand people died. Recovery efforts from the local, state and federal government were slow and failed many New Orleanians. Ordinary people turned into heroes following Hurricane Katrina, as they formed search and rescue teams, in a time when there were none, and stepped up in place of the government to save people from the flood. 

Fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina devastated black communities, the COVID-19 pandemic is a reflection of the same class and race issues that the collapsed levee exposed. It is a stark reminder of the structural violence rooted in inequalities that keep the poor and people of color from meeting their most basic needs 

In the years following Katrina, disaster recovery efforts were slow and ineffective. Individuals and families who managed to leave for safer locations before Katrina hit were affected differently when they sought to return to their homes. According to a Louisiana State University study, 70 percent of white New Orleanians were able to return to their homes within a year; in comparison, fewer than half of black New Orleanians were able to go back to their homes. 

Families who filed for home insurance, loans, or any type of relief aid to build back their homes and lives were routinely denied after months of filling out paperwork. Black families faced even longer delays. 

The Road Home Program was one of the many actors that distributed financial resources to help New Orleanians rebuild their homes. Grants were calculated based on assessments of home values, but these assessments were based on racial discriminatory assumptions that black neighborhoods had property values that were lower than white neighborhoods. Thus, black homeowners consistently received less funding than white homeowners due to an undervaluation of their homes. If not for the exclusionary implementation of the program, The Road Home Program was an important opportunity to lessen the racial wealth gap, yet it only perpetuated existing socioeconomic inequalities that made it harder for African-American communities to recover. 

Today, as the world faces a pandemic, the virus is tearing through African-American communities, as well as working-class families at faster rates than wealthy and white Americans. In Louisiana, for example, about 70 percent of the people who have died from the disease are black, even though only about a third of the population is black. In Illinois, black residents made up 43 percent of coronavirus deaths, even though only about 15 percent of the population is black. The reasons behind these great disparities can be a result of existing health conditions, such as asthma, heart disease, and obesity, and higher exposure to pollution that are rooted in structural inequalities. 

Working-class people and people of color are more likely to live in urban hot spots, to be uninsured and may lack the resources to stock up on food or other necessary items to protect themselves from contracting the virus. Or they may lack the ability to work from home, as many of them are grocery store, farm, or hospital employees to name a few. While the coronavirus did not create these issues, it brought to light the United States’ weak social safety net, just as Hurricane Katrina did. 

Relief aid, like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the CARES Act has already failed many small businesses as many of the loans meant to help them have been redirected to large corporations. More than 200 public companies have received more than $750 million in bailout loans. Money that should have gone to small business owners to pay their employees or rent. This relief aid was intended to help struggling Americans, but instead has highlighted the government prioritizing the wealthy. 

Minority owned businesses could be especially vulnerable to the economic devastation brought by COVID-19, as the PPP relies on large financial institutions to deliver loans. In a 2018 study, researchers found that mainstream banks approved 60% of loan applications by white small business owners in comparison to only 29% of loan applications approved for black small business owners. The way the PPP is set up would allow mainstream banks to leave out underserved people by authorizing them to review loan applications. 

As the United States considers the best way to reopen the country, all levels of government must take into account the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina. The safety of people must be put first to assure they can get back on their feet without having to do so alone. The government must ensure that federal money goes to workers and small businesses, rather than enriching large corporations. 

Speaking on COVID-19, New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo recently stated: “It always seems that the poorest people pay the highest price. Why is that?” The simple answer is the inequalities that are at the foundation of the United States. Policies and responses to disasters must change.

During the time of COVID-19, many things are falling by the wayside. Cherished events like the Boston Marathon and the Olympics are being postponed. Other events like college graduations are being moved online. Our daily routines have been disrupted, and we’re left with a looming sense that there is no ‘normal’ anymore. But while many of us are stuck quarantining at home, the Trump administration is going full speed ahead in dismantling important environmental protective measures.

In late March, the Trump administration stalled regulations that require companies to meet environmental standards and report water and air pollution. While the EPA cites that this is a temporary measure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Natural Resource Defense Council CEO Gina McCarthy calls it “an open license to pollute.” During this unspecified amount of time, factories can do their own monitoring, compliance, and reporting, while the EPA will not issue any fines for violations. 

At the same time, the administration also issued the Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule. It significantly lowers emission standards for vehicles manufactured from 2021 to 2026. Previously, the Obama administration required a 5% decrease annually. This new rule requires a drop of only 1.5% annually, which will set the United States back in our fight against climate change and cause severe health issues along the way. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that the new rule will result in 18,500 premature deaths, 250,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 other respiratory ailments, one million lost workdays,  and $190 billion in health costs by 2050. In the next 20 years alone, these standards will allow an additional 1.5 billion metric tons of air pollution, which is equivalent to operating 68 new coal plants for five years. During a time where many are developing progressive solutions to the climate crisis, this is a step backwards.

These regulatory rollbacks are occurring alongside an unprecedented collapse of the U.S. oil industry. Due to a lack of demand, oil prices have not only fallen, they even went negative in April – companies paid buyers to take their oil. While this may seem like a perfect time to invest in the renewable energy sector, President Trump is promising some form of financial aid to the oil companies. Though nothing is set in stone, last week Trump tweeted his intentions to support the industry

President Trump’s tweet about supporting the oil industry

It may feel like the administration is sneaking these deregulations through during the chaos of a global pandemic, but it should not be surprising. They are merely advancing an anti-environmental agenda that Trump has embraced since day one. The changes have been so plentiful that multiple organizations are keeping running list of environmental rule changes since he entered office. And he’s not exactly receptive to public feedback. In the past four years Americans have taken to the streets, demanding climate action and submitted millions of comments regarding proposed changes, but none of that has not swayed the administration. The most effective  opposition against comes from the states and the courts. Just last week, the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration’s decision not to regulate groundwater under the Clean Water Act.

So what does this mean for the coming months? Trump will likely continue to weaken environmental standards. With social distancing measures in place, we cannot gather in the streets in protest. And while there is much value in marches, rallies, and sit-ins, there are other effective avenues of resistance. We can still contact our representatives and support organizations that are fighting legal battles against the administration. We can also vote for politicians with pro-environment platforms. And most importantly, we can prepare. After the pandemic passes and lockdowns are over, the climate crisis will still be raging on. We must be ready to recommit ourselves to fighting for the planet with more urgency than ever before. 

When you think, “California water crisis”, most people imagine that the issue is simple — there just isn’t enough water. Lawns go brown. The agriculture industry struggles. Reservoir water levels decline. 

But there is a more subtle and insidious problem: many people are experiencing adverse health effects from poor drinking water quality, which is being exacerbated by the water shortages. 

That’s because the problem isn’t that there’s not enough water. It’s that we aren’t acquiring good water in the right way.

Consider what happened to the water supply in Compton, Los Angeles. Compton is an underserved city that is mostly low income and non-white. In 2018, residents found brown water flowing from their bath pipes. People began protesting over “unexplained stomach pains and skin so itchy it had scarred from the scratching”. How does a crisis of water shortage lead to a crisis of water quality? 

In these underfunded communities, water is supplied by small local providers who lack resources to perform routine inspections, necessary infrastructure updates, and water treatment operations. When a water shortage comes along, they send inadequately treated, haphazardly imported groundwater to their customers because they lack funding to purchase cleaner, higher-quality surface water, or to properly treat and transport the lower quality groundwater. 

While the larger providers that serve the wealthier neighborhoods of Los Angeles can afford to pay more during water shortages, these smaller companies that serve marginalized communities start piping second-class water into LA’s neediest homes.

This is exactly what happened in Compton. The outdated pipes used to transport water from far-away groundwater sources were leaching manganese, a contaminant county officials consider a “secondary violation” because though it is aesthetically unpleasing, it is not “outright dangerous”. According to them, the water in Compton was safe to drink all along– but others disagree. Research from the World Health Organization indicates that exposure to manganese in drinking water has been linked to harmful neurological effects. Regardless, the incident has brought to light that water shortages disproportionately affect small-scale water systems, because they can’t afford to treat or test the groundwater they are buying or the update the pipes that are used for transport. 

Pumping more water through deteriorating pipes isn’t going to make the bathwater in Compton any cleaner. What will improve the water quality is investing in updating and maintaining the water systems, especially in underserved urban and rural communities. 

The benefits of doing so would extend far beyond just public health. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara, the Pacific Institute, and the National Resource Defense Council have found that the “invest and upgrade” strategy could kill two birds with one stone. It would solve water quality problems like those in Compton and help out the more obvious victims of water shortages, such as agricultural communities and endangered wetland wildlife populations. Not only will the water be safer, fewer leaks mean there will be more of it– an increase of as much as 14 million acre-feet per year. According to the researchers, the trick is asking the natural water supply to work smarter, not harder, in three different ways:

1. Update existing infrastructure to safer and more eco-friendly technologies, to mitigate public health concerns and conserve as much water as we can. Increase municipal adoption of water reuse and water recycling, as well as rainfall and stormwater runoff capture. This could save between 1.8 and 2.4 million acre-feet per year while reducing water pollution and saving energy in the process.
2. Subsidizing the adoption of modern irrigation technologies and practices within the agriculture industry. This could save 5.6 to 6.6 million acre-feet annually without sacrificing revenue or crop production.  
3. Increasing public education on simple home measures like fixing leaks, installing efficient appliances, and replacing water-guzzling lawns with native landscapes. This could save between 2.9 and 5.2 million acre-feet each year. 

We’ve reached the limit on the amount of safe water that current infrastructure can supply, as the crisis in Compton and elsewhere make clear. But current research suggests that we aren’t stuck at a dead end. If we improve our efforts and refine our approach, there is enough water to go around. 

The Green New Deal is an ambitious framework for legislation that aims to mitigate climate change by limiting global warming to less than 1.5º Celsius. Proposed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), the program would prospectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by half and focuses on transitioning to 100% renewable energy by 2030 by greening the transportation, manufacturing, and agricultural industries and investing in carbon sequestration technologies. The program would also create jobs and better social services for Americans.

Image Source: Raconteur

Despite all of its strengths, the Green New Deal omits one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions: food waste. This is true of almost all climate policy, which focuses almost entirely on renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and protecting forests. Although these solutions are necessary in the fight against climate change, they largely focus on fossil fuels and land use and omit other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as food waste. 

 This is also true of the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Under the agreement, nations are required to report and accelerate their emission reduction strategies, also known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), in order to keep the global temperature from rising 2º C. NDCs must be updated every five years. We are now in the second quarter of 2020, and the second round of the NDCs are rolling in. So far, Chile, Suriname, Norway, the Marshall Islands, and Moldova have submitted updated plans.  Despite ambitious plans to increase food security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, these plans overlook food waste. 

 A recent study discovered that global food waste, especially in developed countries, is severely underestimated. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, food waste accounts for 4.4 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, roughly 10% of global emissions. If food waste were a country, it would have the third largest carbon footprint after China and the United States.

 Greenhouse gas emissions linked to food waste come from a myriad of sources. The most obvious are the emissions that come from decaying food when it is landfilled. Other greenhouse gases associated with food waste come from the energy used along the supply chain, from on-farm use to transporting and storing food that is ultimately lost or wasted, and deforestation to produce food that is wasted.

Photo From Energy and Environment Leader

Moving forward, policymakers need to consider food waste in their discussions about how to tackle climate change according to a recent report from Project Drawdown, a nonprofit environmental organization that researches solutions for climate change. The report revealed that reducing food waste is the most effective solution for reducing greenhouse emissions, with the potential to remove up to 93.8 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere over a 30 year period (2020-2050). That is more than twice the amount of  CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2018 (37.1 gigatons of CO2 emissions).

 Food waste can become a renewable resource. It can be composted, used for biofuels, or used as animal feed.  Such strategies will reduce virgin materials consumption and energy consumption, leading to overall reductions in emissions.

 Addressing food waste is not only a solution for climate change, but a solution to global food insecurity which is expected to rise as the population grows and the effects of climate change advance. The majority of the countries that have updated their NDCs plan to undertake food security – mostly through increasing production in sustainable ways. However, reducing food waste is going to be essential in tackling global food insecurity.

Food waste reduction requires actions to be taken by the public sector, the private sector, and civil society across local, national, regional, and global levels. Improving infrastructure in developing countries would help reduce food loss and also improve food security. Solar Chill has invented solar powered refrigerators that are currently being used to store vaccines in Kenya and Colombia, while an MIT D-Lab researcher, has developed an evaporative cooler that relies on natural processes to cool the interior of a container for several days. Meanwhile, in developed countries, such as the United States and the UK, government mandated policies will be necessary to reduce consumer and commercial food waste.

As more countries in the Paris Agreement update their second-round NDCs, they must consider including food waste. Food waste reduction is a win-win solution: mitigating climate change and improving global food security. Any meaningful climate action will include a plan for reducing food waste.