Category Archives: Uncategorized

From Risk to Empowerment: Strengthening Voices, Capacities and Resilience for Those on the Frontlines of Climate Change

Posted on by
Impacts of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

Impacts of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

With warming temperatures, rising sea levels and more extreme weather events, the impacts of climate change are already unleashing a swath of disruptive and often catastrophic changes to many areas and communities around the world. But many populations–namely low-income, minority, the elderly and children–are especially vulnerable to climate change since they often lack adequate housing, supplies and infrastructure to effectively respond and move out of harm’s way in the case of a severe weather event. In the United States, a number of extreme weather events and disasters have overwhelmed communities, underscoring the need for states and the federal government to make smarter, long term and sustainable investments to ensure that these communities will become more resilient. In 2005 and 2012, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, exemplified just how the rising costs of climate change are disproportionately high for low-income and minority populations. In both communities, local, state and federal officials were largely ill prepared in the aftermath of the storms as many people struggled to receive essential supplies, housing and assistance. Similarly, along the Alaskan coast where melting sea ice, severe storms and flooding are quickly eroding the coastal lands under which many native communities live, villagers are facing imminent risk of both physical and cultural destruction despite piecemeal state and federal efforts to provide temporary solutions. While these three examples are from distinctly different regions of the U.S., they share the same lesson: cities, towns, and villages, particularly along the coast, must become more resilient to climate change. Specifically, these communities and low-income groups must not only be able to withstand physical damage after a disaster, but must also have the capacity to bounce back even stronger. With successful efforts at supporting resilience especially in these communities, the U.S. will not only save money, but will also be saving lives as well.

Over Here: The Environmental Consequences of American Militarization

Posted on by
Image via the National Parks Service

Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado ca. 1960, photo courtesy of the National Parks Service

The environmental impact of war is often discussed in terms of the consequences of physical conflict and the deployment of weapons, but the process of preparing for war can be damaging to a country’s own environment as well. The compounds developed and stored on U.S. military bases, in depots, and in weapons development facilities can harm the people who work and live there without ever being deployed. Together, the various branches of the military are responsible for 87% of federally owned sites on the EPA’s national priorities list, which consists of contaminated sites deemed a risk to public health. The compounds involved range from jet fuel to explosives, from volatile organic compounds to heavy metals like arsenic, chromium, and lead, and even include radioactive residue. In some cases, cleanup efforts have been complicated by differences between the Department of Defense’s view of what contamination levels constitute an unnecessary risk to the public and local or federal EPA recommendations. Furthermore, because of the nature of the sites, the full extent of contamination is often only revealed to the public after the sites have been decommissioned. What happens to these bases once they are no longer useful to the military, and can their contamination ever be remediated? How can we ensure that efforts to keep the United States safe from external threats aren’t harming our domestic environment? Can a military operation ever really be considered “green”? Answering these questions will require integrating political interests, scientific data, and public health efforts in order to evaluate what national security means in the 21st century.

Just Food: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Eating

Posted on by
A group of white customers sit on a patch of grass in front of farmers' market tents, with a black women walking in the foreground

Most of us know a little about what eating sustainably looks like: just head to your local farmers’ market and tote your fresh, organic produce home in a reusable bag. Easy enough, right? But what else are we serving up alongside our sautéed kale and fair-trade coffee? As environmental awareness becomes more widely and visibly practiced in the American food system, what — or who — is mainstream food advocacy leaving behind?

Photo of a farmers' market showing a table of plants and customers

A bustling farmers’ market in Missoula, Montana — the future of food? (photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

As global climate change progresses, the challenges of feeding a rapidly growing population grow increasingly complex. From square-foot gardens to large-scale agroecosystems, sustainable agriculture opens a variety of promising pathways. Yet alternative food systems can just as easily uphold profound – and profoundly unsustainable – inequality. Urban agriculture has been called a new form of gentrification. Short-lived consumption trends among alternative foodies may disrupt cultivation, diet, and social cohesion for indigenous peoples. And we all know that making conspicuously “green” food choices means paying significantly more green. In an increasingly globalized world, how can we balance issues of scale with the need for community autonomy? How can we manage natural resources while respecting food as a vessel of heritage? And how can we ensure that food access does not come at the cost of workers’ rights and environmental quality? Such an intimate and essential act as sharing a meal carries complex implications we cannot always see — yet our approach to food also offers great opportunity for a world transformed. By complicating popular approaches to food sustainability, we can see where the cultural baggage of alternative food outweighs its benefits. More importantly, we can find and learn from movements that deliver eco-friendly food options with a side of justice.

The Vilest Green: How Excess Phosphorus Ruins Our Water

Posted on by

by Rebecca Matteson

Water on the Potomac river is green with algae. Image courtesy of wikimedia commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Potomac_green_water.JPG

Eutrophication on the Potomac river Photo credit: Alexandr Trubetskoy

Phosphorous, a component of DNA, is essential to life on earth. However, humanity is quickly turning it into an example of what happens when you have too much of a good thing. In nature, phosphorous is cycled relatively quickly in biological systems (plants take it up from the soil, animals eat plants, excrete the phosphorus back into the soil, and so on) while on the geological level phosphorus moves slowly, entering biological systems as phosphorus-containing rocks weather. Now, however, phosphorus enters biological systems more quickly, since humans mine phosphorus from rocks in vast quantities and use it in detergents and fertilizers. Since the 1940s, the worldwide production of phosphate rock has increased by 140 million metric tonnes. While the EU has banned phosphorus-based detergent and parts of the USA have placed regulations on cleaning agent phosphate content[3] other sources of phosphorus, including agricultural runoff can cause problems as the nutrients gather in bodies of water. A 2012 summary showed that 45% of tested rivers and 76% of the tested lakes in England did not comply with phosphorus standards, though the full extent of the problem is still unknown. These excess nutrients can cause algae blooms that can deplete oxygen, limit biodiversity, and cause dead zones in a process called eutrophication. Once this eutrophication begins, it can be hard to correct, since aquatic systems recycle nutrients and even without new inputs, the phosphorus that is already there continues to impact the system. Nutrient runoff also hurts the quality of drinking water and makes bodies of water less suitable for recreational use. In addition, researchers predict that we could reach peak phosphorus before 2040, a disastrous proposition considering our current dependence on this resource. I would like to spend this semester exploring the problem of eutrophication and finding alternatives to our current unsustainable use of phosphorus.