When Yvonne Taylor first heard about Greenidge Generation’s plan to reopen a closed coal-fired powerplant as a natural gas-powered plant, she didn’t even know what Bitcoin was. But pollution from the Greenidge’s facility increased tenfold as it expanded electricity generation to power newly installed Bitcoin mining machines.  Taylor knew from experience that the pollution would be just one of many potential problems for her community. Now she’s at the forefront of a battle that could set the standard for sustainable cryptocurrency mining across the United States.

Yvonne Taylor, Seneca Lake Guardian.

Yvonne is the Vice-President of Seneca Lake Guardian, an all-volunteer grassroots organization dedicated to protecting New York’s Finger Lakes and its residents from environmentally destructive projects. She started Seneca Lake Guardian, then called Gas Free Seneca, with two friends in 2009 when an oil and gas company bought an abandoned salt cavern, with plans to use it to store liquified propane gas underground. The problem: even the company acknowledged that the cavern may have leaks, risking the health of Seneca Lake and nearby residents.

“It started with three people sitting around a kitchen table saying, ‘somebody has got to do something about this. Who’s doing something about this?’” Yvonne said. “And it turned out it would have to be us.” 

Yvonne’s connection to Seneca Lake goes back seven generations. She learned to swim in its waters before she even learned to walk. Now, as a full-time speech-language therapist, Yvonne works for young people with disabilities in the community that has always been her home. More recently though, she has become one of Seneca Lake’s fiercest advocates.

She didn’t seek to become an environmental activist. Environmental activism found her.

This is why Yvonne refers to herself as an “accidental activist.” 

In a “true David and Goliath battle” against the oil company, she rallied locals, businesses, and even former Governor Andrew Cuomo against the project. Eight years of activism helped bring the project to a halt.

But, Yvonne didn’t rest.  She knew that there would be more threats to the “Heart of the Finger Lakes.”

And so she continued to organize, transitioning Gas Free Seneca to Seneca Lake Guardian and making it a local affiliate of the national Waterkeeper Alliance. This connected Gas Free Seneca to a larger and faster-growing nonprofit focused on clean water nationally, helping her build up the organization and expands its mission

All of this led Yvonne to the current fight against Greenidge’s Bitcoin mining facility. This mining facility, located on the shores of Seneca Lake, was supposed to supply extra power for the NY electrical grid for New Yorkers. But in 2020, instead of selling electricity onto the local electrical grid, Greenidge installed thousands of Bitcoin mining machines, hoping to turn that electricity into virtual currency.

Greenidge Generation Facility.

Yvonne stressed that she’s not anti-cryptocurrency, she just wants it to be more environmentally conscious. She stresses Bitcoin should adopt a different mining model.  Some new cryptocurrencies use less computationally intensive mining practices that can reduce energy demand by 99.9%.  At Greenidge, that could substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions.  If you want to know more about the specifics of the different mining strategies, Blockgeeks has a helpful video explaining the difference here.

Transitioning the less computationally intense mining would be a huge improvement. Once Greenidge installs the remaining machines, it will produce nearly 1 million tons of CO2 per year powering them. New York’s ambitious climate plan directs the state to reduce all of its greenhouse gas emissions to at least 35.43 million tons per year by 2050. This Bitcoin mining facility and the nearly 30 potential others in upstate NY alone could tank NY’s climate goals.

It’s not just cryptocurrency’s carbon footprint that Yvonne and other locals are worried about. Greenidge also poses a threat to aquatic life in the lake. The power plant depends on Seneca Lake for cooling water, but it lacks the filters needed to keep aquatic life out of the plant. As Yvonne puts it, “it’s acting like a giant fish blender.” There are also noise pollution and electronic waste concerns if this facility expands. These problems would only get worse in different communities if more facilities were to be built.

Yvonne Taylor in front of NY DEC, Kelly Marciniak.

What is happening at Seneca Lake has implications that go far beyond this one natural-gas power plant.

Yvonne has been working hard to stop this facility so that those other 30 power plants cannot follow the Greenidge model. She’s attended public hearings, reached out to NY Senators Gillibrand and Schumer, and created networks across the country, to advance this fight. She even rescheduled our initial interview because she was called to testify on cryptocurrency in front of the New York State Assembly. 

Her immediate goal is to stop Greenidge from getting a required air pollution permit renewed, but her broader goal is a statewide temporary ban on Bitcoin mining pending a complete study of its environmental impacts. Yvonne calls it the top environmental issue facing NY.

Greenidge knows she’s a threat. The company sent its first intimidation letter in June 2021. When she didn’t stop after the first, it sent her another, threatening to sue her if she continued to speak out.

This type of SLAPP Suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) isn’t uncommon. Corporations will file lawsuits against groups or activists they deem a threat. Yvonne felt intimidated and scared for her family’s and her own safety. But, she “already poked the bear” and feels it is her duty to continue speaking out.

Yvonne Taylor in front of DEC, Kelly Marciniak.

This issue is deeply personal to Yvonne. It’s bigger than her. It’s for the next generation.

“I’m a school teacher. I spend my days trying to help young people become successful,” she explained. “But, what’s the point of that if they won’t have a liveable planet in their future?” 

Yvonne wants to connect with people of all ages, especially young people to educate them on the environmental problems caused by Bitcoin mining. She also wants to expand on the network she’s established so that it’s not just a town-by-town fight, especially as Greenidge seeks to open an identical facility in South Carolina. 

As Yvonne sees it, if Greenidge gets its air permit renewed for Seneca Lake, it sends the message that this model is viable. But if they’re unsuccessful, it could stop many other copycat projects.

It’s a precedent-setting case and a lot of pressure for a grassroots organizer. When Yvonne looks at the road ahead, she thinks back to the youth she works with.

“I don’t have children, they’re my children and I will fight tooth and nail to provide a liveable place for my kids in the future.”

Seneca Lake Guardian logo.

You can keep up with Yvonne Taylor and the Seneca Lake Guardian by checking out their website and their Twitter! And, keep an eye out for news about Greenidge Generation’s Title V Air permit renewal status!

Tracking down a corn farmer in October is tough. It’s peak harvest season and if they aren’t in a tractor harvesting corn, they’re likely sleeping. That is, unless it rains.  Then the harvest stops and the chances of catching them are pretty good. This is exactly how I was able to schedule a meeting with Richard Syverson, a grain farmer in a small town in western Minnesota. 

Heavy rain in the forecast meant Richard and his harvesting team had to pull an all-nighter to finish their last cornfield, but he was happy to talk with me the next morning. Although we spoke over the phone, I could hear the bustling sounds of a kitchen preparing breakfast and the clink of his coffee cup on the table. From what I could hear, his home seemed warm and welcoming. And, as I would learn, if you add a splash of Midwest passive-aggressiveness, you’d get Richard. 

Richard’s been a farmer his entire life. He started as a dairy farmer and milked cows until the dairy market crashed in 2003. Now, he farms 1,200 acres of corn and soybeans, along with raising 150 sheep. 

Lambs on Richard’s farm

There are not mountains or many lakes where Richard farms, but there is the occasional rainbow

Richard’s passion for farming is still strong.  “I’m 65 years old,” exclaimed Richard, “and I’m still fired up about it!” The “it” Richard is most excited about is ethanol, a biofuel made from corn. It’s a major industry in the Midwest and a big source of revenue for many grain farmers. Ethanol also has social and environmental benefits. It provides stability for small farmers and reduces our dependence on fossil fuels. 

***

Richard serves as a representative for the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, a position he’s been honored to hold for nearly 20 years. Minnesota Corn Growers Association advocates on behalf of corn farmers across Minnesota. Although that means spending a lot of time in conference rooms, Richard also gets to meet with farmers from across the country. 

“What I really really enjoy is the people that I’ve met through corn growers,” Richard told me. “They are some of the greatest people in the world. They absolutely believe that there’s something significant that happens after the product leaves their farm.”

 Richard is extremely knowledgeable about what happens “after the product leaves the farm.” And, as I learned, the harvest is only the beginning.   

Corn has two potential markets: the grain market and the fuel market.  Richard sells about half of his corn into the fuel market via a local ethanol plant, the Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company (CVEC). Having two potential markets is helpful since grain and fuel prices fluctuate annually. 

Corn from Richard’s farm: “What we work hard for all year long!”

Having multiple markets for corn helps farmers stay afloat. This is the “best investment we’ve ever made,” Richard said. “When [grain] prices suck, we’re gonna be okay…Gives our farm business more stability.”  Ethanol provides an alternative source of income. 

Ethanol is a fuel additive, meaning it is blended with gasoline. Most cars already run on a blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline. Yet, there is an ongoing debate about whether or not we should continue blending ethanol into our fuel. The question is whether it is environmentally sustainable.

Corn plants do sequester carbon, but some (the ethanol opponents) argue that growing corn and producing ethanol – because they are so energy-intensive – actually increases greenhouse gas emissions, even though corn is a renewable resource. Over the last decade, many scientists, environmentalists, and even some politicians have strongly supported removing it from our fuel system entirely. 

This point of view doesn’t sit well with Richard or the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.  Richard thinks cars should use more ethanol as a way to transition away from fossil fuels. He firmly believes that ethanol does have environmental benefits and can play a key role in mitigating the consequences of climate change. 

 “I call them ‘solar cars’” he said. I was a bit confused by what he meant. My mind rushed to flying cars or even solar panels on top of cars, but I was certain that wasn’t where he was going. 

Cars that run on ethanol are, in Richard’s view, running on sunshine captured by the corn. He imagines a world where hybrid cars run on a combination of electricity and ethanol — largely eliminating gasoline consumption.

Ethanol is a controversial topic but ethanol opponents are lacking one key thing. “What they [the ethanol opponents] don’t have are advocates, farmers, [and] small retailers that believe in ethanol…and telling our story directly to our representatives.” The product may make a profit but the people give it meaning. 

Richard’s story is just one of many that get pushed to the sidelines of the ethanol debate. These are the rich narratives that signify the importance of ethanol beyond federal policy, market pricing, or environmental debate. These are the types of stories, and people, that deserve more attention. 

And as Richard told me, ethanol is just one area of agriculture that is pretty exciting to know about first-hand. Even after decades of farming, it still makes him excited every single day.

Richard and his grandchildren, the sixth generation on their farm.

Trees have always been an important part of Rose Tileston’s life. Growing up in the hills of Pittsburgh, some trees stand out in her memory. A pine tree in her backyard once towered over her childhood home, until it succumbed to a strong gust of wind one morning before school. The earth shook and the sunlight shining through her window changed, no longer obstructed by pine branches. Rose’s wistful description of this fallen tree sounded like she was mourning the loss of a childhood friend.

Rose Tileston is the Senior Manager of Urban Forestry at American Forests. Image courtesy of Rose Tileston.

Now, Rose is the Senior Manager of Urban Forestry at American Forests. The nonprofit organization is based in Washington, D.C., and their mission is to conserve and restore healthy forests–including those in cities. She works with communities to achieve “tree equity,” bringing the benefits of urban forests to everyone.

I had the opportunity to chat with Rose over Zoom a few weeks ago about her role at American Forests, her professional journey, and why she does this work.

She’s come a long way from her roots in Pittsburgh, but her work in the city has played a big role in who she is today. Rose got her start in urban forestry with local organization Tree Pittsburgh while majoring in Environmental Science at Chatham University. She got her hands dirty learning about coordinating tree plantings, how to plant and prune trees, and the ins and outs of community-based nonprofit work.

Rose recalls, “I got to experience firsthand the positive impact that planting trees can have on a community.” Her work doing community tree planting events strengthened her connection with her city’s neighborhoods and helped spark her passion for urban forestry.

“I don’t know how to explain the feeling of being on a street that has no trees, that looks blighted, it’s just concrete and asphalt and buildings.” But once her tree planting team worked its magic, the impact on the neighborhood was incredible. “It’s just instant, the transformation. Instant! In just one day.” Even though I’m not physically on the street, the enthusiasm with which she talks about this event makes it so that I can almost smell the scent of sweet mulch and feel the cool of newly established shade.

Pittsburgh, PA, Rose’s hometown, is working on its urban forestry master plan with the help of community organization Tree Pittsburgh. Image courtesy of John Marino on Wikimedia.

Tree planting events like these are central to many US cities’ urban forest plans, including Pittsburgh. Like many cities in the US, urban development has put Pittsburgh’s trees at risk.

You can’t go into a community and say, ‘You need this.’

But these initiatives can’t succeed without community. “You can’t go into a community and say, ‘You need this,’” Rose emphasizes. “It’s not sustainable if the community doesn’t want what you’re offering.”

Serving as a Pittsburgh Public Ally with the public service organization AmeriCorps taught Rose the importance of fostering community buy-in. “It really taught me how to connect with all the stakeholders within a community.”

Though she enjoys working at American Forests, Rose does miss the feeling of being a part of communities she works with. Now she does her work from afar in Washington instead of being on the ground in different neighborhoods. “I don’t have a personal connection to the community that I am supporting, and so even though I am supporting other communities, I don’t get the same sense of satisfaction as when I was supporting my community.”

Even though Rose gave up working in Pittsburgh, what she gained was the chance to support communities across the country through American Forests’ Community Re-Leaf program. She gushes to me about the team of urban forestry colleagues she works with, who do everything from organizing tree planting events, to writing urban forest master plans, to doing tree inventory assessments, to creating college curriculum, to increasing diversity in the urban forestry field.

Tree equity is bringing the benefits of trees to all people.

Their goal is to help US cities reduce tree inequity through community-based urban forestry. Tree cover distribution in cities tends to mirror distribution of racial and class privilege: low-income communities of color have far fewer trees than wealthy and white communities do. Historical and ongoing oppression is responsible for environmental injustices like the treeless street Rose described so clearly. Achieving tree equity through urban forestry means creating better environments for everyone. Rose explains, “Tree equity is bringing the benefits of trees to all people.”

You can tell Rose is excited by the topic.  Her voice rises as she rattles off said benefits of urban trees: “Air purification! The reduction of the urban heat island effect! Shading buildings! Bringing wildlife to urban communities!” Rose and I proceed to geek out for a while over the myriad of benefits that urban trees bring us, and one thing is clear: achieving tree equity is good for everyone.

Watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth as a teenager was a turning point for Rose. Afterwards, she asked, “Why aren’t we doing more about this? Why aren’t we taking action on climate change?” Her bubbly tone belies the anxieties that many people in her generation and mine can relate to as we witness governments failing to do anything meaningful to address climate change.

Planting trees means nothing for climate change without also cutting carbon emissions–but they’re still a valuable tool to keep communities safe. “Forests are not the be all solution, we know that. Collectively, globally, as a collective global community we need to cut our carbon emissions.”

Trees can help every community across the country.

It’s true. Planting trees won’t save us. But that work still matters. Rose explains, “Forests are the best nature-based solution to mitigating and adapting to climate change.” Most importantly, “Trees can help every community across the country.”  And, as Rose’s work at American Forests shows, urban forestry is a solution every community in the nation can benefit from.

Forest carbon credit is one of the most popular forms of nature-based solutions (NbS) for climate change. Essentially, countries pay other countries to leave their forests untouched, and the protected trees reduce carbon dioxide emissions and provide biodiversity benefits. In theory, it’s a win-win for all.

But implementing it?

“We have this issue of how to monitor what’s happening,” Jon Pierre says. How do we know what’s actually taking place? Are we taking [landowners’] word for it?”

Luckily, Jon has the solution.

Jon is the Chief Business Officer (CBO) of Mantle Labs, a London-based start-up using satellite imagery and artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor agricultural conditions like soil moisture and human activities. By closely monitoring the land, Mantle Labs’ clients—from banks to tech companies—can get a head’s up on projected crop yields and soil conditions.

As global agricultural vegetation is closely monitored, any changes to the land are detected. Information about land use shifts can be used to ensure that NbS commitments are being met. Satellite imagery presents an innovative solution to the monitoring and verification issues that NbS projects traditionally face.

Jon hasn’t always been working in the tech and climate space. A native of Trinidad, Jon pursued his interest in development through the Master’s program in Economics for Development at the University of Oxford. He then spent a decade in finance working for banks and hedge funds as an agricultural crop commodities trader.

Working with a group using AI for crop modeling piqued his interest in technology’s role in agriculture. A contact recommended he reach out to Mantle Labs. Though he had originally reached out to the startup as a customer, he ended up joining the team.

Mantle Labs’ clients receive information about the condition of their land based on satellite imagery. This information can be used by landowners to make informed decisions. Source: Mantle Labs

Another big issue for NbS projects is funding. From Google’s reforestation efforts in the U.S. and Australia to Apple’s partnerships with environmental organizations to manage over 1 million acres of forests, it’s easy to see that the corporate world is catching on to the potential of NbS. While Jon couldn’t disclose specific client names, big tech companies that need to meet their sustainability commitments are approaching Mantle Labs looking for ways to integrate NbS into their operations. Satellite imagery opens the door for any company to leverage its private finance in support of NbS

Farmers especially benefit from satellite imagery. Satellite imagery plays a role in precision agriculture, the practice of using data related to weather, soil, and water conditions to make informed decisions. Working with Mantle Labs, farmers can access a digital platform with reports and charts of all sorts of land condition indicators, such as crop stress conditions. Access to this knowledge allows farmers to make more better, more informed decisions.

Though Mantle Labs’ service can have a high up-front cost, Jon believes it’s all worth it. “Being more targeted with irrigation and different interventions—thereby being more efficient with your resource usage, being less wasteful, and incurring less cost as a farmer—that’s a huge component where satellite imagery plays a role,” Jon says.

Helping farmers adopt sustainable farming practices supports progress towards addressing climate change and promoting biodiversity. It also promotes economic development – something that’s important to Jon given his Trinidadian roots and background in economics.

With his background in finance and developmental ecoomics, Jon couldn’t have anticipated that he’d be working in agritech. But oddly enough, working with a tech company on its NbS projects has allowed Jon’s interests to come full circle. Much of development work today involves engaging with farmers, who make up more than a quarter of the world’s population. It’s important that more people are finding this link between smallholder agriculture, addressing climate change, and achieving sustainable development goals, Jon says.

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to experience Woodland Harvest Mountain Farm on a Wellesley Alternative Spring Break and be surrounded by the beauty the land and the owners’ generosity. That week was memorable to say the least: a week of being nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, learning the ropes of a farming lifestyle, and witnessing the unsparing ways that this rural community navigates finances, conservative neighbors, and access to food. Now, COVID-19 has put all of that at risk.

Woodland Harvest is wrestling with the tension between trying to live off of the farm and their dependence on outside support. Amid the pandemic, life at Woodland Harvest is both entirely normal and deep in crisis at the same time. The land remains giving and the farm fruitful. But the farm’s finances, which depend upon outside visitors, are in jeopardy.

Settling in Appalachia for the will to slow down, Lisa and Elizabeth find themselves with an abundance of time throughout these months for what they are best at: farming, family, and reflection.

Sitting across from me on the Zoom gallery view are two hard-working women — Lisa and Elizabeth. In their self-made Appalachian farm, Woodland Harvest, they have just gotten in from their morning animal chores.  Located in the North Carolinian mountains, Elizabeth and Lisa have built a school, farm, and home for themselves, their two teenage sons, and the hundreds? Of visitors who also are drawn to their “dreamstead.”

Elizabeth’s bought the land in 1998, beginning her lifelong pursuit of permaculture practices and self-sustaining living. Permaculture is an agricultural method of intentionally designing harmonious landscapes that maintain diversity, stability and resilience. Since growing up in Louisiana, at the time of the environmental movement in the 1990s, Elizabeth always yearned to live off the grid. Her job as an Outward Bound guide first drew her to the North Carolina mountains. Lisa was a local.  She grew up only two counties away, and a young pregnancy kept her in North Carolina’s Appalachia.

Woodland Harvest Mountain Farm

Their roles as environmental and social justice activists is unusual in West Jefferson, NC. Beyond being two lesbian and progressive women amidst a conservative and patriotic rural community, economic inequalities are obvious to them.

Rural North Carolina is a hardscrabble region, despite its natural bounty.  Many of their neighbors consider the Dollar General their grocery store. That frustrates Lisa and Elizabeth, since their neighbors could be more self-sufficient.  Lisa explains that they have “so much opportunity for food self-sufficiency.” While she doesn’t consider West Jefferson to be an extreme example of a food desert, she does explain that “because of the poverty in our culture, we are in some ways [a food desert], and there is hunger. People are going hungry around here. People shouldn’t go on hungry.”

Even on their thriving vegetable and animal farm, however, even Lisa and Elizabeth worry about access to food. “You know we love coffee here” Elizabeth jokes with a hefty mug of black coffee in her hand. One of many things that they don’t grow is coffee trees. While they have plentiful access to veggies and meat, they still need to make weekly trips to the closest grocery store thirteen miles away for staples like sugar, flour, milk, coffee, and the occasional bottle of wine.

Seeing how they sustainably source the majority of their food, it may come as a surprise to learn they’re living under the poverty line, receiving food stamps that only actually last them two weeks rather than a month. Running a farm is always hard and unpredictable. Since Rarely do they feel comfortable financially, and the past few months has only heightened that worry.

The COVID-19 crisis canceled Wellesley’s Alternative Spring Break annual trip to Woodland Harvest in March 2020. The family relies on visitors and workshops to supplement its income. The cancelled trip, one of three college trips that had been planned, left a deep hole in their budget. Woodland had already stocked up on food in anticipation of what would be a total of forty visitors during the month, what they refer to as “March Magic.”

To make ends meet, Lisa and Elizabeth are going to have to leave the farm for work at some point. They’ve already fundraised to cover their mortgage. But they don’t have enough money to buy supplies, run the farm, and cover their mortgage.  “It’s happening to real people. It’s going to get worse,” Elizabeth says, describing the realities of the pandemic.

A few days ago, they took their first visit to the grocery store in six weeks. Typically, it would be a weekly run, but since they were fully stocked on goods, there was no need. In addition to their grocery store purchases, they got seven more ducklings, four turkeys, nine small Guinea hands and six rabbits. They’re also open to the idea of breeding their goats for dairy. They’ve planted 300 feet of potatoes and close to 200 feet of onions. With their recent planting of plentiful amounts of greens, squash, cucumbers, and asparagus, they are counting on what they can grow on the farm. Their youngest son, Aidyn, has also developed a new talent for hunting squirrels, mastering his great-great grandmother’s squirrel soup that was featured in the New York Times in 1907.

Lisa and Elizabeth’s story makes clear that COVID-19 isn’t just affecting big cities. Rural communities are being hit hard too. Lisa and Elizabeth have built a home for themselves, and they’re relying on their land and passion to help them through these difficult times. As they reflect on their drastically different lives from the 1990s when they met, Lisa proclaims how expansive their love has become.  What sprung from their relationship, she explained, is “the love that we put into our space here at woodland harvest and the space that we create for people like you to come and be.” For Elizabeth, Woodland Harvest and living in Appalachia has had a profound impact, an escape of their past everyday life and a rapidly-moving world: “It saved my life. Probably a number of times. I don’t think I can live in that world anymore.”

Whether or not you’ve seen Parasite, 2019 Academy Awards Best Picture, you can probably imagine a rainstorm. When it rains, a person with an umbrella is more likely to stay dry than a person without one. I bring this up because Parasite sharply displays the difference between a family with resources and a family without. When a torrential storm hits Seoul, South Korea, where Parasite is set, the wealthy Park family stays inside their house on a hill, protected by high-walled fences and security cameras on a pristine street. They have returned early from a camping trip and their kids have pitched a tent in the front yard. For them, while disruptive to their camping, this storm is just another storm. Posing no real threat, the rain almost seems romantic.

Meanwhile, across town in a basement unit with only one street-level window, the Kim family is experiencing a devastating flood. They run through streets rushing with runoff and sewage water back to their home, only to find that it has already been infiltrated by the water. They wade around in dirty water and sewage overflow that rises up to their armpits collecting their belongings as best they can. Flooded out of their home, they spend the night on the floor of a communal shelter. 

The entire film makes clear the differences between the Parks and the Kims, but the rainstorm scene gets to the heart of why these difference smatter. Climatology and the class struggle are intimately related. In the face of an ecological disaster, not every person is affected equally. This is not a new phenomenon. Climate change has always been an issue that transcends economic, social, and racial differences. 

It is impossible to separate our lived experiences from our environments. Our environments are the homes we occupy, the neighborhoods we live in, and the cities and towns in which we reside. Having control over our environments gives us power and that power comes with the privilege of choice. Did we choose the spaces we occupy? Did we choose our neighborhoods? Did we choose our cities? Did we have any other options? The environments that marginalized people have been relegated to historically are ones with sub-optimal conditions–– outdated infrastructure, lack of grocery stores, close proximity to freeway traffic and factories. This wasn’t their choice; it was made for them.

While Parasite was widely celebrated in the U.S., there has been little focus on the environmental justice issues portrayed. The film clearly distinguishes the wealth gap between the Parks and Kims, something any viewer could pick up on. Looking closer at the environmental conditions of the families— the disparate impacts of the torrential rainstorm and exposure pollution — is easier to miss.  A family like the Kims that lives in poverty will experience less sanitary housing conditions, and be vulnerable to a plethora of health hazards like flooding. It is less likely that a family like the Parks that has the means to afford property in a nicer neighborhood on a hill with paid help would ever experience those same conditions. That few American reviewers have paid attention to the environmental dimensions of the film is hardly surprising —in the United States, environmental injustices like this have long gone unnoticed.

In the mid-twentieth century, people with the ability to choose their neighborhoods and homes (often white, middle-upper class) moved to the suburbs to escape worsening living conditions in cities. Much like the living conditions of the Kim Family, often unclean, close quartered, and unprotected to weather and disease, inner-city housing has long been a health hazard with the expansion of urban development and industrialization. At this same time, housing laws largely relegated Black people to those inner-city housing options and excluded them from buying valuable property outside city centers. 

Generations later, many Black Americans find themselves living in neighborhoods with a plethora of environmental issues. Compared to affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods, neighborhoods with vulnerable populations have historically been forced to confront issues they did not create. Parasite shows what happens in the face of extreme weather: the rich are relatively unaffected while the destitute are devastated. Non-extreme scenarios play out like this every day for those who live in poverty, or are affected by environmental racism. Even in the face of a massive storm, those who have the privilege to not be affected will rarely pay attention to the damage.

As the global climate crisis continues to escalate, the poorer communities on the frontlines, as portrayed in Parasite by the Kim family, will continue to disproportionately suffer the consequences. People with wealth and access to resources will experience the same rainstorms, but can raise their umbrellas for protection. It is because of this that governments must step up to ask who are the most vulnerable, address the systemic issues that disproportionately affect lower-resourced groups (and that people in dominant social groups can often overcome without assistance, and empower those vulnerable communities in the face of climate challenges. Access to adequate and affordable housing, universal healthcare, and jobs to bolster the renewable energy sector are all part of larger solutions needed to address structural inequality. When the rainstorm comes we need government resources to provide umbrellas for those who can’t afford their own.

Convincing individuals to change their diet hasn’t worked.  That’s why we need supply side change—from farmed animals to cultivated meat—to build a sustainable future of food.

I first met Annie Osborn at a reception after a panel on “The Future of Food: Growing Meat to Feed 10 Billion” hosted by Harvard’s Office of Career Services.  Featuring scientists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and movement builders, the panel addressed questions from “What is cultivated meat?” to diverse career pathways into the burgeoning field of alternative protein.  Given the abstract and futuristic topic of cultivated meat—something that most people have never heard of—I figured that I’d likely be one of the few attendees on a stormy February day in New England.  To my surprise, the conference room was jam-packed with eager students ready to make an impact.  Standing at the back, I had to stand on tip-toe to see the panelists through the gaps between others in front of me.  

Such a panel like this is one of the many ways that Annie, University Innovation Specialist at the Good Food Institute (GFI), is fostering engagement and collaboration between universities, students, and the plant-based and cultivated meat industries.  

A non-profit based in the U.S., GFI works with scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs worldwide “to make groundbreaking good food a reality.”  In GFI’s words, good foods are “foods that are more delicious, safer to eat, and better for the planet than their outdated counterparts.”

Simply put, cultivated meat is meat produced directly from animal cells in cultivators.  Adapted from a widely accepted technology used to regenerate organs for medical purposes, this innovative approach grows meat from just a sample of animal cells.  This is different from plant-based meats like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat.  Done entirely outside of an animal, cultivated meat requires no factory farming or slaughterhouses but yields a product that looks, cooks, and tastes the same as slaughtered meat.  The environmental benefits of this approach are many: it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, avoids manure and antibiotic pollution, and it conserves land and water, to name but a few.  

(Image source: GFI & Mattson.)

Annie did not start her career well-versed in the promise of cultivated meat. The combination of her education and research experiences led her to GFI.  While pursuing a B.S. in Earth Systems at Stanford University, Annie focused on sustainable fisheries as a way to explore her interests in marine biology.  Despite loving her research at the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, she gradually came to a realization: “There was no such a thing as a sustainable fishery at the scale you would need to feed everybody who wants to eat fish.” 

“We have overfished the oceans far more than we have over-farmed the earth,” Annie explained.  “Almost every major fishery is in the state of collapse right now.”  Over the last 50 years, the number of fish in the world has halved.  According to the FAO, nearly 90% of the world’s fish stocks are overexploited, fully exploited, or depleted.  

Aside from issues of sustainability, Annie also became more concerned about the moral status of fish.  Three words from Finding Nemo capture it well: “Friends, not food.” 

When Annie continued to graduate school at Stanford, she shifted her focus away from marine research to studying sustainable agriculture.  Modeling commodity grain prices for her master’s thesis, Annie became aware of the inefficiencies of our agricultural systems.  Today, only 55% of the world’s crop calories are fed to people, while 36% are devoted to feeding livestock.  Meanwhile, only 17-30 calories of food is produced for every 100 calories of edible grains fed to animals.  This explains why animal farming takes up 83% of our farmland but provides only 18% of our calories.  “It’s a really imbalanced system,” Annie stressed.  

After graduating from Stanford, Annie spent a year researching micronutrient deficiency in rural China, another experience that reinforced her belief in “supply-side” transformation of our food system.  The prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in western rural children in China that she witnessed was deeply depressing.  Day after day, Annie met families who had anemic children.  “They were lagging cognitively and it was really affecting their development,” Annie said, “but we didn’t really have any ways to help them other than telling them ‘you need to feed them meat.’”  This made Annie realize that many people are not able to make thoughtful decisions about what they eat.  

“It’s very hard to motivate people to change their behavior if you don’t provide an alternative option—especially when it comes to food.  If we really want to precipitate a major quick change in our food system,” Annie reasoned, “it needs to come from the suppliers. It needs to be ethically driven as much as market driven, and it needs to happen quickly.” 

A market-driven, technology-based revolution of the food system is exactly what GFI is working towards.  “One of our theses is that the free market, while flawed, is an incredibly powerful resource,” Annie explained.  It is a system that can precipitate rapid change if you can harness it.  That’s why GFI is laser-focused on transforming the food system by leveraging the meat industry’s economies of scale, global supply chain, marketing expertise and massive consumer base.  

Under the market system, “you have to think about what consumers want,” Annie explained.  There are three main criteria consumers base their decisions on: taste, price, and convenience.  Consumers want palatable food that is cheap and easy to cook and to keep.  To precipitate a change in the food system through meat, dairy, and egg alternatives, they must outcompete their animal-based counterparts in the marketplace on all three criteria.  

Another aspect to consider is the ethics of meat production and consumption.  “People currently eat meat despite how it is produced, not because of how it’s produced.”  People are always horrified when being exposed to inhumane practices in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and slaughterhouses, “but because they have no other choice now, they are kinda just accepting it,” Annie observes.    

The supply-side reform to revolutionizing the food system is promising.  When cultivated meat becomes the default, a sustainable future will no longer depend on the careful choices of consumers.  “Supply-side change allows you to impact many individuals without having to tailor your message to each and every one of them,” explains Annie.  “Supply-side change allows individuals to preserve their behaviors for the reasons that are valuable and meaningful to them, which in turn vastly lowers the activation energy required for global change.”

The urgency of change is only heightened under the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has illuminated the myriad risks posed by our current food system.  While there’s no evidence of a direct causal link between CAFOs and COVID-19, pathogens do jump from factory farms to humans.  Globally in the past 30 years, 75% of new human pathogens have originated from animals.  In the U.S., 80% of antibiotics are used in animal agriculture, which contributes to increasing antibiotic resistance.  “Our food system is also a serious disease factor,” Annie remarked. 

It is uncertain how the current pandemic might shift the investment landscape in cultivated meat, which had been predicted to be commercially available in supermarkets in 8-10 years.  The challenge is to bring down the price of cultivated meat, which is currently very expensive to produce.  The severe economic impact of COVID-19 may delay the process, but it’s also possible that the crisis will alarm governments to shift away from animal agriculture and support cultivated meat research.  “That feels a little optimistic, even though it is reasonable,” Annie speculated. 

A large-scale supply-side transition to cultivated meat and alternative protein would be devastating for farmers and fishers.  GFI is attentive to the challenge.  While GFI primarily works with researchers and companies who are good food innovators, they remain committed to building connections with those who work closely with farmers so that livelihoods concerns can be addressed.  

Another unique fact about GFI is their strategic use of language.  Take a look at GFI’s publications, and you won’t find the word “vegan.” While “vegan” labels are helpful for consumers who do not want to consume animal products, that language also comes with a stigma that is not helpful for innovators who are recreating the components of meat in novel food products.  

To Annie and her colleagues at GFI, cultivated meat promises to revolutionize our current food system and mitigate the environmental impacts of animal agriculture without requiring conscientious effort from consumers.  

In her role as the University Innovation Specialist at GFI, Annie works to engage high-potential entrepreneurs and scientists with the plant-based and cultivated meat industry.  Across university campuses, she builds and supports student communities and departments centered around the future of meat. 

“An overarching goal is to set up research centers,” Annie envisioned.  “A big dream is to have an alternative protein research center in Boston with experts from Tufts, Harvard, MIT—and Wellesley maybe—all working together to really propel the science forward.” 

Ultimately, GFI wants “to mobilize resources towards solving the technological issues around sustainable food production in an open-access way so that the whole industry can move forward more quickly.” 

The recent Climate Change Summit in Katowice, Poland, brought delegates from nearly 200 countries to address climate change. Many at the Summit pushed forth toward an  updated model that would meet emissions standards with stricter regulation and enforcement. However, this is just one example of collective action working to solve urgent environmental problems such as climate change. In a small village in Guinea Bissau, the Jola are also finding effective ways to help address environmental concerns such as climate change through rice and the power of community.

Dr. Joanna Davidson, a leading cultural anthropologist at Boston University, understands the connection between rice and people. She has studied the relationship between rice cultivation in a Jola village in Guinea Bissau for a decade.  However, Davidson did not always see the direct relationship between culture and the environment immediately. Over the course of a decade, Davidson saw how climate change was beginning to affect the Jola community as their rice paddies became increasingly dry due to climate change. Consequently, food insecurity also increased. This challenge sparked Davidson’s interest in furthering her research and increasing her focus on West Africans’ response environmental and economic changes occurring in this region. Rice is is not only an important part of the identity of villages such as Jola, it has also unexpectedly become a part of Davidson’s research as she points out, “ I, myself, did not go to the Jola region of northwest Guinea-Bissau to study rice. And yet I still find myself, more than a decade after my first Jola rice harvest, returning again and again to rice.”

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Shorter rainy seasons have threatened livelihoods and increased food insecurity, especially in Esana. Through her interactions with the Jola village in Esana, Davidson turned this into a research problem that aimed to capture these dramatic changes and explore further how the Jola people were reinventing themselves as a result of these complex challenges. It was particularly Davidson’s ethnographic research in Guinea Bissau that led her to discover the complexities of food security, gender, and climate change. Through her field research in this fascinating and understudied place, she began to gain a better understanding of how environmental problems may be present to a community and the actions taken as a result to help adapt to the changes. This work culminated into her recent book, Sacred Rice: An Ethnography of Identity, Environment and Development in Rural West Africa.   In her book, she stresses the importance of gaining a better understanding of environmental problems when viewed through a cultural lense. She explains, “Jola lives, like those of most rice-growing people in this region, are permeated by rice.” Rice cultivation is intimately connected to rituals and ceremonies in the Jola culture.

Davidson not only highlights the importance of localized efforts to address environmental issues such as climate change, but also the need to take a closer look at the “reconfigurations of women’s power” in the context of the Jola women. Jola women farmers in particular have had to respond to the environmental changes because of rice’s central role in their lives. Traditionally, there is gendered division of labor in rice cultivation as Jola women are responsible for transplanting rice seedlings and harvesting ripe rice. Climate change has presented challenges to agricultural cycles as well as women’s identities. For some, these challenges might seem insurmountable.

While environmental changes continue to diminish the viability of rice cultivation and economic stability of the Jola, they have also found strategies to address these challenges. For example, Jola women organized themselves, forming  gender-based work groups called societé, or societies as a way of adapting to these changes both socially and financially. These societies help women to share agricultural techniques as well as to create a social support network. Through these networks, cultural identity is preserved through their connection to their land and history.

And these groups produce results, specifically through financial assistance. Similar to the model of microfinance organizations, Davidson says, “the success comes from these women pooling their labor and funds to help each other out in the midst of environmental shocks.”  The financial assistance provides women farmers the capacity to Community collectives offer a new way to think about climate change readiness in rural areas. The model that Davidson documents is a promising one, although it is not without its challenges. Such mutual support is a shift in traditional practices, as the Jola strongly believe in self-sufficiency and autonomy. Thus, climate change is forcing them not only to modify their agricultural practices, but to shift their cultural identity too.

Th Jola illuminate a lesson in adaptation and hope. The example of the Jola village shows the importance of viewing climate change through a cultural lens. Davidson’s shows us that there are many complexities embedded in a community that scientific models cannot solely address. A multidisciplinary approach that includes a cultural dimension helps achieve better policy decisions because of inclusion of various perspectives and identities. Davidson’s own narrative and investigative skills shine light on innovative solutions to problems facing smallholder agriculture in Africa. Davidson poignantly remarks on the resilience of the Jola. She explains, “the Jola villagers exemplify dilemmas rural people throughout West Africa face as they try to keep their families together and as they continue to farm and live in ways that give them a sense of accomplishment in their own eyes and in the eyes of their kin and neighbors, but in a world of circumstances that make those efforts increasingly precarious.”  Rice and culture are inextricably linked for many people like the Jola, and only through looking at them through a cultural lens can we find solutions to the pressing challenges of climate change.