K-cups, single serve and use packaged coffee, are generating a lot of waste.

All day, everyday, we do it without really thinking about it. Pull that coffee filter full of spent grounds out of the machine after your morning cuppa, and toss it into the kitchen trash. Grab a paper towel from the office pantry to serve as a napkin for your lunch break, wipe your mouth and hands, and then toss it in a bin. Pull apart the plastic packaging or wrapper from a newly purchased tube of mascara, and discard it. Open a purchase delivered through the mail, then break down the box for recycling and place the foam padding into the garbage can. All day, everyday, we generate waste. But consider this: what if this wasn’t the case? What if nothing was disposable? In this third installment of our series on stepping back from consumerism, I offer some suggestions for how to creep toward this ideal in your everyday life.

By Nicki Lisa Cole

Conducive October/November 2011

What if nothing was disposable? I know this question reads as ludicrous to some, and overly utopian to others. I do not think it is realistic to expect that all goods would be made for durability. What I question is the concept “disposable”; the very idea that something can be used once, and then discarded. To achieve sustainable lifestyles we must revise our expectations and daily behaviors; we must shift paradigms out of “disposable” and into “reusable.” A world in which nothing was disposable would also be a world in which everything was reusable. In this world, all that we purchase or create would have use value beyond its initial function.

When Karl Marx wrote about commodities back in the 1860s, he pointed out that they have both exchange value and use value. Exchange value is the equivalent of whatever you might successfully exchange an item for, whether that be money, other goods, or favors owed. Use value is the value something presents to you as far as you have a use for it. When we work within a paradigm of disposable, we tend to overlook both types of value after first use. In this article I offer a three point plan for moving away from disposable through appreciation of the use value of all things, and toward sustainable living. The three points are as follows: 1. Eliminate consumption of disposable items and packaging. 2. If you cannot eliminate disposable, reuse typically disposed of items, including packaging. 3. Repurpose what you cannot reuse.

Though I addressed in depth the connection between consumption, waste, and global climate change in the first installment of this series, let’s review briefly why eliminating disposable is important. Annie Leonard pointed out in her film The Story of Stuff that each person in the United States generates four and a half pounds of waste per day. While a small portion of that might be composted or recycled, most of it ends up in landfills and oceans. The ubiquitous plastic shopping bag causes a lot of trouble in both places. According to the Santa Monica Office of Sustainability and the Environment, the average American uses 500 plastic bags per year. Californians use 19 billion annually, of which less than five percent are recycled. And, each year about 300 million pounds of plastic dry cleaning bags find their way to landfills too. This level of usage and disposal has contributed to a massive 7 billion pound floating collection of plastics in the Pacific Ocean that is about twice the size of Texas.

Contemporary norms of hygiene facilitate a lot of waste too. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported in 2008 that nearly 3.5 million tons of tissues and paper towels went into landfills. In the bathroom, an average woman will use up to 15,000 disposable menstrual products over the course of her life, and will spend about $4,000 doing so. And, when you think about the products that fill your bathroom and that compose your cleaning supply, there is an immense amount of disposable plastic containing them. While recycling has been championed for decades now, it is not a solution to the problem of waste. For starters, the by the EPA’s records, only seven percent of all plastics in the U.S. are recycled. Secondly, Dean Kubani, Environmental Programs Division Manager for the City of Santa Monica recently reported that there is not much of a market for recycled plastic because of the cost of collecting, cleaning, and processing involved in producing it. For most manufacturers, virgin plastic resin is cheaper. Of course, we should all recycle the materials that we no loner have a viable use for. But also, let’s consider some simple solutions that will help us reduce our reliance on disposable items.

Reusable Bags

A reusable bag the size of a standard plastic single use bag packs up neatly to the size of a tennis ball, so it is easy to keep one on you.

Santa Monica recently banned single-use plastic bags from distribution at points of sale, and Los Angeles is now proposing to ban both plastic and paper bags city-wide. Throughout major cities in Europe a tax for the use of paper or plastic bags in grocery stores is not uncommon, which prompts many to rely on reusable bags. Regardless of whether the issue has reached the political realm where you live, carrying a reusable bag is a simple solution to a huge problem, and is something that you can change about your daily routine with almost no effort. Reusable bags are readily available for sale in a range of shapes and sizes, and many fold into a tiny ball for ease of travel. When you think about it, they often come into our lives free of charge too. As I live the life of a traveler, the cloth, drawstring bag that encased a pair of shoes that I bought this spring is now keeping my adapters, cords, and small electronics together in one place. If you dry clean regularly, you might consider investing in a reusable dry cleaning bag, or repurposing a bag from the purchase of a suit or dress.

Cloth Napkins & Towels

Switching from paper napkins and towels to cloth is incredibly easy. Once you make the switch, you will be amazed that you ever felt the paper versions were necessary, and will find the thought of spending money on them ridiculous. Some would make the case for using recycled paper products instead of cloth because of the energy cost of laundering reusable items, however if one uses a cloth napkin for multiple meals, then washes in an energy efficient manner (for example, with cold instead of hot water), cloth wins the sustainability contest. Don’t be dissuaded by the germaphobic critics either. Cleaning with cloth requires just three rags, and a bit of common sense.

Reusable Menstrual Cups

As a devoted user who switched about a year ago, I can personally attest, as do many other women, to the excellent nature of the reusable menstrual cup. The the cup has been in use for over 150 years, but it was not until the 1990s that it became more readily available. Today, menstrual cups come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. With just a little bit of practice, they are easy to insert and remove. Besides the reduction of waste, the cup provides more freedom in daily life because it needs to changed only every 8-12 hours, offers health benefits, and is more comfortable than its disposable counterparts.

Other Simple Solutions to Reduce Waste

• Carry a reusable water bottle or canteen.
• Keep a mug and reusable to-go cup at work for coffee and tea.
• Pack your lunch in reusable containers and wraps, and bring a reusable utensil and napkin.
• Use containers that you can reuse instead of foil and plastic wrap to preserve food.
• Use a reusable recycling container in your home instead of paper bags.
• Don’t put liners in smaller trash cans around your home. Instead, empty them into one larger, lined bin.
• Buy bulk and refillable products instead of their counterparts that come in single-use packaging.
• Avoid unnecessarily packaged produce.

The second of the three point plan focuses on reusing items that we typically view as disposable. Adopting the paradigm that nothing is disposable automatically endows everything around you with use value, even if that value isn’t immediately obvious. There is no need to purchase food storage containers when you realize the number of them around you in the form of plastic take-away containers, and the emptied containers of store-bought food items. These are great for refrigerating or freezing home cooked food, and help to accomplish a no-waste packed lunch, as do plastic utensils, which can be washed and reused just as well as their more durable counterparts. You can wash and reuse plastic zip-lock bags and aluminum foil too. And, if you find yourself with the dreaded plastic bag, reuse it for whatever might be convenient. I have made a habit of keeping some in the canvas bags I use for farmers market shopping. That way, I never have to take additional plastic bags at the market.

Rubber bands, plastic and wire ties, and plastic plant containers are examples of items that come into our lives that are typically disposed of, but present much use value if saved. When you receive that boxed online order, keep the box and bubble wrap instead of disposing of it. Doing so will result in a valuable stock of boxes for your own mailing and gift-giving needs. If you are a careful receiver of gifts, you can repurpose wrapping and tissue paper, gift bags, ribbons, and bows. In the office, saving printed documents that you no longer need quickly leads to a pile of paper that can be reused for your internal printing needs.

In a culture of consumption and disposal we often forget that things can be repaired instead of replaced. Having shoes mended is a great way to save money and reduce waste. A good cobbler can replace just about any broken or worn down heel, and resoling can vastly extend the mileage of your shoes. Many rips or frays in clothes are easily repaired or patched, and super glue and tape can fix many a busted household item. Having recently moved and sold most of my possessions, I can attest to the fact that people are eager to buy your used appliances and household goods, no matter how spent you think they might be. This may be the digital age, but I had no problem selling my VCR. And, while we’ve already covered this, it bears repeating that composting is easy, and rewarding.

Repurposed glass bottles make a chic table setting.

The  final element of the three point plan is repurposing goods that you would normally throw away. This differs from the second point because it is not simple reuse, but rather the creative revision of the possible uses of an object. An example that many of you likely do already is the repurposing of glass bottles as vases and candlesticks. The variety of shapes, sizes, and colors of glass wine, beer, and water bottles on the market makes for a great low-cost home décor. In addition, larger beer bottles that have built-in stoppers are easily turned into shabby-chic still water vessels for a dinner party.

Ottomans made from repurposed olive tins for sale in Zurich.

Recently in Zurich I came upon a great example of a repurposed good, in the form of olive tins converted into ottomans  at a little shop in the old city.

If you make home made salsas, sauces, hummus, salad dressings, iced tea or coffee, or infused spirits, emptied glass jars from purchased foods are fantastic for storing them. The wide mouth of tomato sauce jars affords ease of pouring liquids in and out, and bottles for goods like balsamic vinegar and olive oil translate well into containers for home made dressings. Glass food jars also repurpose well into food storage for pastas, grains, and other dry ingredients, like sugar and flour. Smaller glass jars are also great for illuminating with tea lights. Don’t forget that food can be repurposed too. If you are bored by the repetition of leftovers, consider converting that food into a different dish. Already roasted vegetables provide a delicious base for a savory egg scramble, and leftover meats and rice can add both taste and nutrients to a freshly made green salad.

The Butterfly, the Beetle, and the Bee. Made from found objects, by Jami Joelle Nielsen.

Repurposing  goods is an affordable way to create art and décor for your home, and gifts for others too. In fact, there is a thriving community of professional artists who work primarily with found objects, like Jami Joelle Nielsen, who made the piece of art seen here.

Earrings made from dried tomatillo husks, by Stefanie Stauffer.

Dried flowers can easily become art too. Before a bouquet has wilted, press them between books, then mount on a piece of cardboard or thick paper, and pop them into a frame. If you are feeling particularly ambitious about your dried plants, consider how you might repurpose them into earrings. Stefanie Stauffer, a committed urban farmer, has made (and sold!) earrings made from dried tomatillo husks and dried red peppers.

Purse made of pull tabs and yarn.

Pull tabs from aluminum cans can be repurposed into a variety of things, like this purse made by my friend Tiffany Hall. Tiffany is currently working on a quilt made from her collection of t-shirts with sentimental value.

The greeting cards you receive, and wall calendars you buy are also great candidates for repurposing into art, whether singularly framed or collaged. In fact, I have even used pages from a Rothko calendar as wrapping paper. The recipients loved the art, and appreciated the ingenuity. Instead of chucking candle stubs, consider keeping them until you have a sizable amount. Melt them, and then pour the wax around a string in one of those glass jars you have saved. Add a drop of an essential oil, and you’ve got a home made scented candle.

Interested in learning how to do something that isn’t listed here, or curious about sustainable living in general? Check out this great wiki designed to facilitate knowledge sharing on the topic.

Please join the conversation to share your tactics for reusing and repurposing. Together, we just might make “disposable” a strange chapter in history.

Conducive Magazine‘s new issue is on the topic of land and farming. We look at the power of possessing land and the power of entities with not enough land to posses it.

Why You Should Care About Land Grabs

The recent phenomenon of aggressive land takeovers, also known as land grabs, has resulted in the taking of enormous portions of land throughout Africa. In 2009 alone, nearly 60 million hectares of land was purchased or leased throughout the continent for the production and export of food, cut flowers, and agrofuel crops.

Liberalizing the Economy May Crush the Culture of One Small Island

Jeju is a volcanic island located half way between the Korean mainland and the western tip of Japan. It is an island set apart from the rest of Korea in many ways. When you ask a Korean about Jeju, most will say: Jeju people are different. There are many reasons for this, but two main reasons are particularly evident: It’s a volcanic island where many of the crops grown on the mainland do not fare well in the poor soil and lack of surface water. Secondly, its isolated location has formed a people fiercely independent and proud.

New Book Argues that Environmental Degradation is Slow Violence

Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard University Press 2011) explores the slow, steady, and often ignored violence of socio-environmental degradation around the globe, and the writer-activists trying to bring it to light.

Education Is in the Streets

When students took to the streets in Rome last November to demonstrate against proposed budget cuts to the university system, they introduced something new to the vocabulary of protest. To defend themselves from police truncheons they carried improvised shields made of polystyrene, painted, on the front, with the names of classic works of literature and philosophy: Moby Dick, The Republic, Don Quixote, A Thousand Plateaus…. The practice caught on.

The recent phenomenon of aggressive land takeovers, also known as land grabs, has resulted in the taking of enormous portions of land throughout Africa. In 2009 alone, nearly 60 million hectares of land was purchased or leased throughout the continent for the production and export of food, cut flowers, and agrofuel crops.

By Agazit Abate

August/September 2011 Conducive

Land grab was in part spurred by the food and financial crisis of 2008 when international bodies, corporations, investment funds, wealthy individuals, and governments re-focused their attention on agriculture and food as a profitable commodity. As outlined by the  Oakland Institute reports, land grabs increase food insecurity, environmental degradation, community repression and displacement, and increased reliance on aid.

Meet the investors

While media coverage has focused on the role of countries like India and China in land deals, the Oakland Institute’s investigation reveals that western firms, wealthy US and European individuals, and investment funds with ties to major banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are also implicated in the grabs. Investors include alternative investment firms like the London-based Emergent that works to attract speculators, and various universities like Harvard, Spelman, and Vanderbilt.

Several Texas-based interests are associated with a major 600,000 hectares South Sudan deal, which involves Kinyeti Development, LLC, an Austin, Texas-based “global business development partnership and holding company,” managed by Howard Eugene Douglas, a former United States Ambassador at Large and Coordinator for Refugee Affairs. A key player in the largest land deal in Tanzania is Iowa agribusiness entrepreneur and Republican Party stalwart, Bruce Rastetter.

US companies often orchestrate these deals below the radar, using subsidiaries registered in other countries, like Petrotech-ffn Agro Mali, which is a subsidiary of Petrotech-ffn USA. Many European countries are also involved, often with support provided by their governments and work with embassies in African countries. Swedish and German firms have interests in the production of biofuels in Tanzanian. Addax Bioenergy from Switzerland and Quifel International Holdings (QIH) from Portugal are major investors in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone Agriculture (SLA) is actually a subsidiary of the UK based Crad-1 (CAPARO Renewable Agriculture Developments Ltd.), associated with the Tony Blair African Governance Initiative.

As the media has reported, Indian firms are involved in land grab, particularly in Ethiopia. Food insecure nations like those of the gulf region are also participating in these land deals to secure food to feed their home countries.

Economic development?

A major argument by land grabbers is that these schemes will lead to economic development for the host countries. The Oakland Institute reports reveal however that the land transactions are either for free (in the case of Mali) or very cheap (in the case of Ethiopia and Sierra Leone). These transactions are largely unregulated with no stipulation or guarantees that they will help the local populations or create infrastructure. While land grabbers focus their rhetoric on foreign direct investment as justification, there is no evidence to show that no substantial foreign direct investment will come in to the countries.

Most of these deals come with huge tax breaks and other investment incentives, a great deal for the investors, but this means less money coming into the country that could possibly go to infrastructure or social services. For instance, Sierra Leone allows 100 percent foreign ownership; there are no restrictions on foreign exchange, full repatriation of profits, dividends and royalties and no limits on expatriate employees.

Another justification for the land deals includes the idea that they will increase employment. Again, research reveals that this is overstated at best and completely untrue at worse. The Emvest Matuba investment project summary and staff at Emergent and Em Vest promise job creation with majority employment from the local community. Emergent’s recent head count reveals that currently only 17 permanent positions are in security (36 staff). In Mali, the area targeted by recent large land deals could easily sustain 112,537 farm families (over half a million people, 686,478). It is instead in the hands of 22 investors and will create at best a few thousand jobs.

To make matters worse, the limited employment created by these land deals are low wage, seasonal and primarily benefit the investors who want cheap labor to compliment cheap land.

Community displacement

While those involved firmly contend that communities are not being forcibly removed from their lands and if they are asked to moved are being compensated, the opposite proves true. Ethiopian government officials, for instance, have stated that the lands being leased are unused or abandoned. Meanwhile, 700,000 indigenous people who lived in a land that was targeted for land investment were relocated.

In 2010 in Samana Dugu, Mali, bulldozers came in to clear the land and when the community protested, they were met by police forces who beat and arrested them. In Tanzania, AgriSol Energy is setting its sites on Katumba and Mishamo refugee settlements. The MOU between AgriSol Energy and the local government stipulates that these settlements, which house 162,000 refugees that fled Burundi in 1972 and have been farming the land for 40 years, have to be closed. In June 2009, Amnesty International reported refugees being pressured to leave camps. Some of them lost their homes to a fire set by individuals acting under the instructions of the Tanzanian authorities to get them to vacate the camp. Refugee leaders who have attempted to organize have been arrested and detained.

Investment sites in various African countries visited by the Oakland Institute revealed a loss of local farmland where the lands held a variety of different uses and social/ecological value. Some of the lands that are claimed to be unused are those where the communities use the land for pastures, and considered communally used areas.

Forests and national reserves, that are home to vital animal, fish and plant species and where communities have found alternative sustenance in times of food scarcity, have been burned and cleared out. These lands are being destroyed without an understanding of their local significance.

Many of the communities interviewed stated that there was no prior notification of the land investments. They only realized what was happening when the bulldozers arrived in their communities.

Food insecurity

While most of the countries and regions targeted suffer from food insecurity, these land deals focus on producing export commodities, including food, biofuels, and cut flowers for foreign consumption. In Mali, half of the investors with large land holdings in the Office du Niger intend to grow plants used to produce agrofuels, such as sugarcane, jatropha, or other oleaginous crops. In Mozambique, most of the investments are geared to growing timber  and agrofuels rather than food crops. Food crops represented only 32,000 hectares of the 433,000 hectares that were approved for agricultural investments between 2007 and 2009.

In Ethiopia, much of large scale land deals are for the purpose of growing food for a foreign market. Because land grab throughout Ethiopia has cleared communal lands and plots used for cultivation as well as forests, the communities primary sources of sustenance are threatened. Additionally, commercial farming on these lands will affect fish habitats, wildlife, and grazing lands leading to even more food insecurity.

Water is of a particular concern as runoff from commercial farms will contaminate and reduce of water supplies. Dam construction, such as the proposed Alwero River dam, spark additional concern about access to water for local and downstream communities. No clause has been found in the lease agreements that discuss water use and there is no evidence that water use from commercial agriculture is managed, monitored, or regulated.

In Ethiopia, not only is there no clause in any of the lease agreements that require investors to improve local food security conditions or make food available for the local populations, the federal government has actually provided incentives for those investors that grow cash crops for a foreign market. Abera Deressa, federal minister for the ministry of Agriculture stated, “If we get money we can buy food anywhere. Then we can solve the food problem.” A major concern of the communities the Oakland Institute interviewed is that they believe the government is intentionally creating a situation where communities must rely solely on the government for their food, in an attempt to marginalize and disempower them.

The environmental factors

Environmental degradation is a major concern in these land deals because they have limited transparency and environmental impact regulations.

Forests have many uses for the local communities including as food, medicine, fuelwood, and building materials. Forests also hold cultural and historical significance. Expected outcomes of clearing the forests include, loss and degradation of wetlands, decrease in wildlife populations and habitat, proliferation of invasive species, and loss of biodiversity.

These environmental concerns are exemplified in Ethiopia’s Gambela National Park where the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA) estimates that 438,000 hectares of land have been leased in the vicinity of the park. While the park boundaries are not set, lands that the local population considers a part of the park have been cleared by large-scale investors, including Karuturi and Saudi Star. Wetlands have been altered and forests have been cleared. According to recent surveys, the Gambela National Park is home to 69 mammal species, valuable wetland habitat, hundreds of bird species, and 92 fish species.

To compound matters, industrial agriculture will increase toxicity, disruption of its system of pest control, create new weeds and virus strains, decrease biodiversity, and spread of genetically-engineered genes to indigenous plants. Additionally it will put these countries at a disadvantage to adapt to climate change.

For many of these land deals, Environmental Impact Assessments are not widely used or enforced, making this situation all the more alarming.

The verdict and a way forward

Investment in agriculture is crucial to combating hunger, fighting climate change, and ensuring the livelihoods of farmers. However, as pointed out by Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to Food, the issue is not one of merely increasing budget allocations to agriculture, but rather, “that of choosing from different models of agricultural development which may have different impacts and benefit various groups differently.”

In December 2010, the United Nations came out with a report  stating that the benefits of agroecological methods over traditional industrial farming. It added that we can double the world’s food supply if we support small farmers. The research of the Oakland Institute echoes the same conclusion. For instance, in Mali, where the System of Rice Intensification has been adopted along the Niger River near Timbuktu, farmers have been able to attain yields of 7 to 15 tons per hectare per year, for an average of 9 tons per hectare. This is more than twice the conventional irrigated rice yield in the area, and more than the previsions of the Moulin Moderne du Mali, one of the major investors. This irrigation system involves plots of 35 hectares of land, shared by as many as 100 farmers, meaning each household has access to only one-third of a hectare. Still, from that piece of land, they are able to earn $1,879 – more than double the average annual per capital income of $676.

While research proves one thing, government officials and investors do the opposite. Instead of supporting small farmers, these land deals support industrial agriculture while displacing and disempowering the very people that have the ability to shift their communities from insecure to sustainable . Land grab puts these countries on a path that will surely lead to increased food insecurity, environmental degradation, increased reliance on aid, and the marginalization of farming and pastoralist communities. The issue at stake is not only one of increased food insecurity, but an attack on food sovereignty or peoples right to produce their own food.

Land grab is irrational at best and violent at worst. It’s a violent act to take away peoples right to food, access to their ancestral land, their social and historical ties, and their overall right for human dignity. It’s a violent act to strip them of their future and the land of its fertility.

While land deals are going on behind closed doors, communities are resisting. The 2008 food uprisings, the revolt in Madagascar against land grab, and the recent protests in Guinea, all show communities who are standing up for their right for food sovereignty. In fact, in all of the countries visited, the land deals were met by community organizing. Knowing what we know, resisting these land deals on all fronts and working towards investments in sustainable agriculture and empowering local populations points to the only rational and humane way forward.

Agazit Abate, is a 2010-2011 Intern Scholar at the Oakland Institute and based on the research and publications of the Oakland Institute. She received her BA in International Development Studies and MA in African Studies from the University of California Los Angeles. Her areas of interest include food sovereignty, farmers’ rights, climate change, sustainable development, social justice, cultural production, and narratives of resistance. To learn more about land investment deals in Africa, visit the Oakland Institute website, www.oaklandinstitute.org.

Numbers on a blackboard

When students took to the streets in Rome last November to demonstrate against proposed budget cuts to the university system, they introduced something new to the vocabulary of protest. To defend themselves from police truncheons they carried improvised shields made of polystyrene, painted, on the front, with the names of classic works of literature and philosophy: Moby Dick, The Republic, Don Quixote, A Thousand Plateaus…. The practice caught on. A couple of weeks later, another “Book Bloc” appeared in London as students and public-sector workers demonstrated against rising tuition.

By Scott McLemee

August/September 2011 Conducive

A memorial for the victims of the Bhopal disaster. photo: Luca Frediani/Creative Commons

Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard University Press 2011) explores the slow, steady, and often ignored violence of socio-environmental degradation around the globe, and the writer-activists trying to bring it to light.

By Christine Shearer

August/September 2011 Conducive

In “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor” (Harvard University Press 2011), Rachel Carson Professor of English, Rob Nixon, explores the gradual and often ignored violence of environmental degradation, toxins, deforestation, and oil drilling in the Global South and Persian Gulf. The book is a well-written overview suggesting many years of thought, research, and analysis of many important ongoing socio-environmental crises, and the attempts by writers and activists to bring these “slow” issues to light.

I will begin with my academic quibble. The book’s title and thesis, slow violence, is clearly drawn from the research on structural violence — i.e. problems like hunger and malnutrition, inequality and poverty, and unequal access to health care that cause harm indirectly, rooted in the policies and practices of a society. Ignoring these issues or not addressing them therefore becomes a form of structural, rather than personal, violence. Nixon attributes the concept of structural violence to sociologist Johan Galtung, and writes: “Galtung’s theory of structural violence is pertinent here because some of his concerns overlap with the concerns that animate this book” (10). “Some” — really? Structural violence seems like a central organizing principle of the book.

But, OK, Nixon wants to differentiate the concept of structural violence from his slow violence to stress that in a society increasingly focused only on sensationalism and spectacle, how does violence that is slow—rather than immediate—cut through the noise and get the attention and action it needs? Nixon wants to therefore focus on the “attritional devastation” that takes place gradually over time and space. Slow violence may be less visible and get less attention, Nixon argues, but can still exact a lethal toll — maybe more so precisely because it is slow and out of sight.

To explore this, Nixon examines writer-activists affiliated with the environmentalism of the poor in the global South and Persian Gulf, many of whom “exemplify in their work the versatile possibilities of politically engaged nonfiction” (25).

The book focuses on a number of ongoing environmental crises, and their entwinement with politics and power: the Bhopal disaster in India, oil drilling in the Persian Gulf and Nigeria, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, megadams in “developing” nations, and the effects of depleted uranium in Iraq. Nixon takes a particular look at the literature and writer-activists that have emerged out of these struggles, such as Ken Saro-Wiwa, Wangari Maathi, and Arundhati Roy, as well as fictional books such as“Animal’s People” and “Cities of Salt”.

Nixon is a great writer: his writing is clear and at times almost poetic. This made me somewhat uneasy, as if the way he was writing about slow violence was so beautiful as to undercut its horror. On the other hand, the writer-activists themselves tend to strive for hope and beauty in the face of so much despair. The book is also informed by political, economic, sociological, and cultural theory, which Nixon weaves seamlessly with his discussion of literary texts and the writers who penned them.

The final result is a comprehensive overview of many different streams of environmental injustice, which can serve as a primer for those not familiar with these particular issues, while its discussion of both well-known and more obscure texts may offer something new to even those well-versed on the topic. In that regard, I can see how this would be a good book for both undergraduate and graduate studies across a broad range of humanities, social science, and environmental studies classes, as well as for those just interested in good writing on socio-environmental issues.

At the conclusion Nixon wonders if the growth and quickness of the Internet may offer a path toward making slow violence more visible and immediate. (Although in the Conclusion I have another quibble: Nixon ponders some of the potential pitfalls of the Net by suggesting that the “Climategate” emails were [initially] released by Wikileaks, which is just not true.) Maybe the Internet does offer a way to draw more attention to slow violence. Yet slow violence may be a relative term — the effects of rapid resource extraction and industrialization seem to be giving way more frequently and readily to sudden disaster. In an age of climate change, peak oil, and growing water scarcity, is slow violence really as slow as it used to be? If not, it might be fruitful to take the lessons from Nixon’s book to lay out a global map for not just attention to these issues, but quick and widespread direct actions, before it’s too late.

Jeju Tangerines

The flight from Seoul to Jeju Island is only 45 minutes, but in Korea this is as far from mainland Korea you can get geographically and mentally. Jeju is a volcanic island located half way between the Korean mainland and the western tip of Japan. It is an island set apart from the rest of Korea in many ways. When you ask a Korean about Jeju, most will say: Jeju people are different. There are many reasons for this, but two main reasons are particularly evident: It’s a volcanic island where many of the crops grown on the mainland do not fare well in the poor soil and lack of surface water. Secondly, its isolated location has formed a people fiercely independent and proud. I have come to Jeju to discover its food because Jeju cuisine is as particular as the people and environment of this rocky island.

By Anders Riel Muller

August/September 2011 Conducive

Mount Halla (Hallasan in Korean) appears in the horizon as we begin the descent to Jeju.  This 6400 feet tall extinct volcano at the center of the island rises majestically over everything else. Hallasan is a major hiking destination here and reaching the peak is something that most people in reasonably good shape can handle thanks to the well groomed trails, but I am not here to climb the volcano. I am here to discover how living underneath this massive lava mountain has shaped the local cuisine. Jeju food reflects the harsh conditions of the island. Rice is only grown in very small quantities because of the lack of surface water needed for rice cultivation. Instead, traditional Jeju cuisine is based on other grains such as millet and barley, vegetables, and meat including the famous Jeju black pig and pheasants. One thing in abundance here is seafood and fish. The nutrient rich waters and coral reefs surrounding this island make it a haven for seafood lovers. The fruits of the sea are often enjoyed raw such as the priced (and pricey) abalone and yellow tail. As such Jeju cuisine reflects both the abundance of the sea and the harshness of the volcanic rocks.

Having messed up my schedule I rush out the airport to meet with activist Sung Hee Choi who has arranged a meeting with the Chairman and Chairwoman of the Korean Peasants League (KPL) and Korean Women’s Peasant Association (KWPA) the same evening. We meet at the headquarters of the two organizations, most famous outside of Korea because of their fierce resistance to global trade liberalization. They explain to me how Jeju farmers are particularly under pressure due to trade liberalization and in particular from the upcoming free trade agreement with the U.S., something that Jeju farmers have highlighted several times during the negotiations, most notably when free trade negotiations (FTA) between the U.S. and Korea took place on Jeju in 2006.

Gangjeong

Jeju farmers and local government issues felt that holding the talks on the island were an insult to farmers here who stand to lose their livelihoods because of the proposed free trade agreement.  Jeju farmers are the main producers of citrus fruit for the Korean market and the importance of tangerines to the local economy cannot be underestimated. Agriculture accounts for 18% of the island’s economy and of those, 70% comes from tangerine cultivation according to the grassroots organizations, KPL and KWPA. Citrus have enabled Jeju rural communities intact compared to the rest of Korea where rural areas are depopulated at a mind blowing pace. Opening up the Korean market to cheap US citrus imports would simply wipe out most of the farm economy here. While citrus have been grown here for centuries, commercial production took off in the 1960’s when the Korean government heavily promoted domestic production of citrus fruit to reduce imports of food and thus improve the country’s trade balance.

Today Jeju tangerines are famous across the country and the pride of Jeju farmers. It has proven to be a generous fruit, well suited for the climate and provided economic security for thousands of families.  On the southern part of the island tangerine groves are everywhere, but they a far cry from the huge plantation style citrus groves found in California and Florida. The majority of tangerine farms are family run, less than two hectares, and relying solely on a little bit of seasonal workers during harvest season. The tangerine groves are an integral part of Jeju’s cultural landscape and remind me of small citrus groves around the Mediterranean with their stone fences, nothing like its industrial American counterparts. The pressure from trade liberalization however may soon see the end to citrus production as the U.S. is pressuring the South Korean government to open up for its imports through the Korea US Free Trade Agreement.

On Jeju the response to the neoliberal trade agenda is to go local. Food sovereignty is at the heart of the peasant organizations’ current strategy at the national and local level, but it is an uphill battle. First of all, the government is more concerned about food security by expanding overseas production rather than supporting the country’s own farmers. Secondly, in order to promote exports of Korean electronics and cars in the U.S., the Korean government is willing to sacrifice its domestic agricultural production. Thirdly, farmers must transition much of its agricultural infrastructure from single cash crops to a more diversified agricultural model, but the farmers here are determined to make the transition and preserve their livelihoods and communities.

Korean farmers have long protested the market liberalization, which does not mean free competition, but more resembles a wipe out of South Korean agriculture and farmers at the hands of American subsidized food imports. In Jeju, and in many other parts of Korea, farmers have realized the futility of competing in a market where quantity and price are the deciding factors. By advocating for Food Sovereignty Jeju farmers are attempting to develop a new market for healthy sustainable local food that can counter the free trade logic and at the same time preserve the islands agricultural heritage.

Jeju Black Pig

During my visits to Jeju, I have heard many people tell me that Jeju food is not so interesting. That it is coarse and basic because of the harsh growing conditions on the island, but my experience of Jeju cuisine is the opposite. Local food on Jeju is fresh, and as delicious as the landscape is beautiful. Jeju specialties such as blackberry wine (Bokbunjae), Sushi (Hue in Korean), black pig, pheasants and of course tangerines are high on my list of favorite Korean food. Even those things that are grown and produced on the mainland as well seem to taste differently if it is grown and processed on this island. The Makgeolli, Korea’s traditional rice wine, benefits from the clean water coming from deep under snowcapped Mount Halla giving it a distinct taste.

It is this food heritage that the peasants of KPL and KWPA are seeking to preserve through their Food Sovereignty initiative. One of the most interesting projects is the native seeds cooperative founded by KWPA. Through the cooperative, women peasants protect and improve on native seeds used by farmers for centuries thereby not only protecting an important heritage, but also breaking free from corporate seed control. Cooperative members each grow and preserve seeds and exchange varieties amongst themselves. In this way, farmers preserve long held knowledge about the characteristics of individual seed varieties, preserve seed diversity, and thus the distinct knowledge and food culture of Jeju.

One evening I meet Professor Kim Jakyung of Jeju National University for dinner. Kim Jakyung is a young professor who returned to her native Jeju after earning her PhD in Japan in agricultural economics. Upon her return, she began to work with various local groups on ways to promote local food consumption on Jeju

Jeju Local Food Certificate

Island. We meet at a small restaurant in the middle of Jeju City, the largest city on the island. What makes this restaurant so special is that it is the first restaurant to be certified as a local food restaurant, Jakyung explains to me. Working on the certification system has been one of Jakyung’s biggest projects. For a restaurant to get certification, they need to document that at least 70% of the ingredients are sourced from local producers. The restaurant is Buddhist and we are served a delicious vegetarian meal consisting of a soup with homemade buckwheat noodles, greens in a sesame seed broth along with the obligatory side dishes called panchan. While eating, Jakyung tells me that she was inspired to go local as a response to the increased liberalization of agricultural trade. By promoting local and sustainable food she wishes to support local farmers. She is working to organize local distribution channels, build awareness campaigns and to help strengthen the sense of community on the island. Apart from the restaurant certification, the local food movement also started a local farmers market once a month in Jeju city. As the project progresses, she envisions to establish more processing facilities on the island to also ensure that what is produced locally is processed locally by locally owned businesses. At the current time, much of what Jeju produces is shipped to the mainland for further processing. Another area of focus is the provision of free school lunches at elementary schools on the island. Jeju was one of the first provinces to introduce free school lunches in Korea back in 2004. Jakyung wants to have more locally produced food served at school cafeterias, but a major problem, so far, is that the local government has handed over management of the school lunch program to agricultural cooperatives affiliated with their own party. However, she sees great potential in promoting local food through the school lunch program.

Jeju Local Food Certified Restaurant

Having been encouraged by my meetings with peasant representatives and Kim Jakyung, I head down to the southern part of the island to visit the village of Gangjeong where things are less hopeful. Choi Sung Hee who volunteered as my translator during the previous days is an activist who has been living in Gangjeong for the past eight months to support the villagers in Gangjeong against the construction of a naval base that will destroy farming and fishing in the area.

As I approach Gangjeong, nothing seems extraordinary about this little sleepy village of 1500 people, but Sung Hee Choi tells me that Gangjeong means the “Village of Water” referring to the abundance of surface fresh water in the area, a rarity on this island of porous volcanic rock. The clean water from the Gangjeong stream is what makes the farmland some of the most fertile on the island. Greenhouse after greenhouse and citrus orchard after citrus orchard confirm that farming here is a good way of life for residents. Much of this will soon be paved over if the Navy and central government get their way. While the government claims that the planning process was transparent and according to democratic principles, villagers disagree. They claim they were bribed, intimidated and cheated and that the navy’s strategy has torn the village apart.

Gangjeong

As we walk down to the beach, we pass bulldozed fields with cut down wilted citrus trees and collapsed green houses. The Navy contractors from Samsung and Daerim are not wasting any time despite the villagers’ protests and attempts to halt the construction through the court system. It is quite obvious that the physical destruction is part of the Navy’s strategy to eliminate resistance in the village. Some residents have already given up the fight and sold their land because they are afraid that they will be fined if they do not sell. In recent months the clashes between police and villagers have intensified with several hundred policemen descending on the tiny village on a regular basis. The struggle emphasizes that the threat to farmers and agriculture does not only come from international and transnational trade agreements, but also from the South Korean government itself. The Gangjeong struggle is only one of many land struggles going on right now between farmers and the government that is attempting to “modernize” Korea by paving over farm land with so-called “eco-parks”, science parks, and in this case a huge naval base that will destroy the livelihoods of local farmers and their communities. Thankfully, committed activists and villagers have been able to reach out globally and an international movement against the naval base is building up because it threatens the security of the entire region. With Shanghai only 300 miles away this naval base will serve a significant strategic role in the ballistic missile defense system that the U.S. is building up around China. While the Korean government highlights the economic benefits from the naval base, most locals know that the naval base inevitably will destroy their farms and their way of life, all because of political thousands of miles away in Washington DC.

Before I return to Jeju City, Sung Hee and I have time for some delicious fried black pig pork belly strips at one of the local restaurants. This is my third visit to Jeju Island and every time I leave I think of the delicious food one can find on this rocky island. For those who say that Jeju cuisine is course and uninteresting, I can only think that they have stayed in the big tourist resorts that the island has plenty of. If you venture to the small alleys and the countryside, you will be able not only to visualize the beauty of this island. You can also taste it.

Jeju Sushi

*To learn more about the struggle of Gangjeong villagers against the naval base visit www.savejejuisland.org

** I would like to thank everyone at KPL and KWPA, Hae Sook Kim of Via Campesina, and Sung Hee Choi.

Why People are Living in Denial

Kari Marie Norgaard helps us understand how and why societies fail to act on climate change in Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life (MIT Press, 2011)

How Scientists Became “Merchants of Doubt”

Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway uncover the history of a small group of Cold War scientists and advisers who battled anything, including scientific research, that might threaten their vision of American free enterprise in Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Bloomsbury Press, 2010).

The Revolution is in the Dirt

Writer Nicki Lisa Cole argues that much of the problem with food habits in the United States “is largely a result of the concentration of power in the hands of buyers and multinational supermarket chains” and provides healthy, local alternatives to eating fast food and getting necessary fruits and vegetables.

A Big Step for Science, a Huge Step for Argentina

Claudio Fernández returned to Argentina in 2006 with a clear goal in mind: to continue his research on neurodegenerative disorders in the country where he was born, grew up and studied.

By Christine Shearer

Conducive June/July 2011

Don’t be fooled by the title of Kari Marie Norgaard’s Living in Denial - this is not a book about people who reject the basic science of climate change (I’m looking at you, Koch brothers and Exxon). This is a book about many of us, and how we to varying degrees live in denial. Although focusing on a small rural community in Norway, Norgaard sheds light on how people systematically interact in ways that serve to downplay or ignore climate change, and avoid the unsettling emotions it raises.

In the Introduction, Norgaard says she is looking at climate change to build a model of socially organized denial, where denial is not just an individual, psychological process, but one that occurs through social interaction. By denial, she means Stanley Cohen’s three varieties of denial: literal, interpretive, and implicatory. Literal is outright dismissal of information (i.e. climate change deniers). Interpretive means reinterpretation of information (perhaps thinking climate change is natural, or will not be that bad).

Implicatory is Norgaard’s main focus, meaning the information is not rejected but the psychological, political, or moral implications are not followed. This is the heart of the book: why those who know about climate change fail to act on that knowledge. In that sense, Norgaard is not interested in climate change activists, but why so many who accept the science don’t act, and how this inaction becomes a cultural norm (similar to what political theorist Antonio Gramsci calls hegemony).

Norgaard explores the topic of social denial through interviews and ethnography in Bygdaby, Norway, from 2000-1. Bygdaby is a small rural community of about 14,000 people, with many farms and a strong sense of tradition, yet also firm roots to the modern world, including the fact that 34% of Norway’s national revenues came from petroleum in 2008.

Although gaining so much of its wealth from oil, Norgaard tells us that neither the country nor the town of Bygdaby has the well-financed climate denial operations that other countries have, most notably the U.S. That makes Bygdaby an interesting case study, since most of the residents, Norgaard tells us, accept the science of climate change, meaning much of the inaction here is apparently not due to simply literal denial.

In exploring the topic, Norgaard makes use of many different bodies of research in the social sciences and psychology. The work is nicely blended with her ethnographic research to illustrate the subtle ways in which individuals engage in social norms of selective attention to avoid uncomfortable feelings, crystallizing as cultural nonmobilization on climate change.

Much of these processes are not necessarily conscious nor deliberate, so in focusing attention on them, Norgaard helps make them conscious. In doing so, the book offers insights into underlying social and psychological barriers to action that – to my knowledge – have not been widely considered or discussed, yet arguably represent some of the biggest challenges to addressing climate change.

Norgaard notes many different ways that the social organization of denial works – she later calls it a kaleidoscope. Among them is the sheer enormity of the problem of climate change, one that can leave people feeling powerlessness, as individual actions appear insufficient and political actions seem so untenable. Thus bringing up climate change can feel like it accomplishes little more than bringing down the social mood of a group, kind of like Debbie Downer from Saturday Night Live: “Sure, it’s a beautiful, sunny day, because the planet is cooking us alive.” Wah-waaah!

Acknowledging climate change also immediately invites questions over how you live. Unless you have a zero waste home run by solar power with an organic garden and a bike, then you probably use fossil fuels, which invites criticism about hypocrisy – criticism that is somehow null and void if you just do not bring up climate change at all.

The result is that climate change is often only discussed during socially sanctioned times and settings, like classrooms. Yet it is in the fabric of everyday life that the problem is woven and changes need to be made.

Though focused on denial, Norgaard’s work indirectly raises the question of how and why people become active and push for social change. Norgaard says that most people in Bygdaby probably understand at least the basics of climate change science: increasing greenhouse gases trap heat and warm the planet. But does level of awareness – both cognitively and emotionally – make a difference in individual response? What if more people connected increasing greenhouse gases with daily weather events? (How to change the minds of people who deny the science outright is an entirely different matter, as science writer Chris Mooney recently laid out.)

For example, a recent Yale study found significant differences in how groupings of people respond to climate change, suggesting more variation between individuals than Living in Denial explores. This could be a function of place (the Yale study looked at the U.S.) and also time, as the science on climate change grows more alarming, and its everyday effects become more apparent.

But Norgaard’s main point is showing how a group of well-meaning people can be both aware of climate change and not addressing the problem – how they interact in ways that push climate change out of the range of full attention and action. In that way, it speaks to many of us. As we become more aware of the subtle ways in which we collectively avoid the unsettling reality of climate change, will we change our actions to align with the knowledge? Or will we continue living in denial?
Implicatory is Norgaard’s main focus, meaning the information is not rejected but the psychological, political, or moral implications are not followed. This is the heart of the book: why those who know about climate change fail to act on that knowledge. In that sense, Norgaard is not interested in climate change activists, but why so many who accept the science don’t act, and how this inaction becomes a cultural norm (similar to what political theorist Antonio Gramsci calls hegemony).

Norgaard explores the topic of social denial through interviews and ethnography in Bygdaby, Norway, from 2000-1. Bygdaby is a small rural community of about 14,000 people, with many farms and a strong sense of tradition, yet also firm roots to the modern world, including the fact that 34% of Norway’s national revenues came from petroleum in 2008.

Although gaining so much of its wealth from oil, Norgaard tells us that neither the country nor the town of Bygdaby has the well-financed climate denial operations that other countries have, most notably the U.S. That makes Bygdaby an interesting case study, since most of the residents, Norgaard tells us, accept the science of climate change, meaning much of the inaction here is apparently not due to simply literal denial.

In exploring the topic, Norgaard makes use of many different bodies of research in the social sciences and psychology. The work is nicely blended with her ethnographic research to illustrate the subtle ways in which individuals engage in social norms of selective attention to avoid uncomfortable feelings, crystallizing as cultural nonmobilization on climate change.

Much of these processes are not necessarily conscious nor deliberate, so in focusing attention on them, Norgaard helps make them conscious. In doing so, the book offers insights into underlying social and psychological barriers to action that – to my knowledge – have not been widely considered or discussed, yet arguably represent some of the biggest challenges to addressing climate change.

Norgaard notes many different ways that the social organization of denial works – she later calls it a kaleidoscope. Among them is the sheer enormity of the problem of climate change, one that can leave people feeling powerlessness, as individual actions appear insufficient and political actions seem so untenable. Thus bringing up climate change can feel like it accomplishes little more than bringing down the social mood of a group, kind of like Debbie Downer from Saturday Night Live: “Sure, it’s a beautiful, sunny day, because the planet is cooking us alive.” Wah-waaah!

Acknowledging climate change also immediately invites questions over how you live. Unless you have a zero waste home run by solar power with an organic garden and a bike, then you probably use fossil fuels, which invites criticism about hypocrisy – criticism that is somehow null and void if you just do not bring up climate change at all.

The result is that climate change is often only discussed during socially sanctioned times and settings, like classrooms. Yet it is in the fabric of everyday life that the problem is woven and changes need to be made.

Though focused on denial, Norgaard’s work indirectly raises the question of how and why people become active and push for social change. Norgaard says that most people in Bygdaby probably understand at least the basics of climate change science: increasing greenhouse gases trap heat and warm the planet. But does level of awareness – both cognitively and emotionally – make a difference in individual response? What if more people connected increasing greenhouse gases with daily weather events? (How to change the minds of people who deny the science outright is an entirely different matter, as science writer Chris Mooney recently laid out.)

For example, a recent Yale study found significant differences in how groupings of people respond to climate change, suggesting more variation between individuals than Living in Denial explores. This could be a function of place (the Yale study looked at the U.S.) and also time, as the science on climate change grows more alarming, and its everyday effects become more apparent.

But Norgaard’s main point is showing how a group of well-meaning people can be both aware of climate change and not addressing the problem – how they interact in ways that push climate change out of the range of full attention and action. In that way, it speaks to many of us. As we become more aware of the subtle ways in which we collectively avoid the unsettling reality of climate change, will we change our actions to align with the knowledge? Or will we continue living in denial?

-Originally posted at Left Eye On Books

By Christine Shearer

Conducive June/July 2011

Merchants of Doubt is a very well-researched book about a small group of scientists and scientific advisers to the U.S. government who transitioned from their role as Cold War warriors supporting nuclear weapons to ideologically-motivated “contrarians” battling anything they saw as a threat to liberty and free enterprise, even if that meant the science on acid rain or the hole in the ozone layer.

While many books have looked at the misinformation campaigns around issues such as tobacco and climate change, Oreskes and Conway take it one step further, locating some of the key players in multiple issues and situating them as products of a particular history: defenders of the American way of life against its perceived enemies, whether it be communists and socialists or environmentalists and science.

The authors are well-suited for the task as both are historians of science – Oreskes at UC San Diego and Conway at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They bring together considerable evidence to support the argument that a very small group of people have been particularly influential in shaping U.S. public opinion and policy on a number of very important issues.

Oreskes and Conway particularly focus on physicists Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and William Nierenberg, as well as a few other contrarian scientists, many of them connected to the politically conservative think tank, the Marshall Institute. The book starts off by describing the efforts of some of these scientists in support of nuclear weapons and, eventually, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983,to strike down nuclear ballistic missiles in the air.

The book examines how these efforts split the scientific community, between those pushing for the phasing out of nuclear weapons (such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, founded in 1969) and the “political hawks” like Nierenberg and Singer who favored nuclear weapons and thought SDI was not only feasible but necessary for U.S. dominance. Oreskes and Conway lay out how the latter began to see those opposing the proliferation of nuclear weapons as traitors playing into Soviet hands. This set the stage for the contrarian crusade against science that threatened their worldview, from insisting that SDI was feasible (despite all evidence to the contrary, with SDI eventually derided by many in the U.S. as “Star Wars”) to challenging the research on nuclear winter.

The book then looks at how this small group of scientists went on to battle the scientific consensus on a number of issues, including the effects of acid rain,  the hole in the ozone layer, the dangers of cigarette smoke, and the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The authors also present some of the revisionist arguments against Rachel Carson‘s Silent Spring (1962), showing how contrarians are casting doubt on even supposedly settled issues such as the harmful effects of the synthetic pesticide DDT, as part of a broader attack on the legitimacy of the environmental movement and government regulation.

With all these issues, the authors demonstrate how these scientists – and their connections to think tanks and industries – show up again and again, playing a key role in the “deliberate obfuscation” of public understanding of science to try and prevent or weaken government policy. Yet how much actual scientific research did these contrarians conduct on the subjects in which they disagreed with consensus? Little to none. The authors are therefore also critical of the media for its increasingly “he said, she said” style of reporting that often promotes the appearance of authentic scientific debate where it does not actually exist.

In exploring the history, Oreskes and Conway reveal deeper underlying motivations for challenging scientific consensus. One might be excused for thinking that the small group of people who have challenged the scientific consensus on tobacco smoke, the hole in the ozone layer, and the existence of climate change are motivated by money or attention. Maybe many of them are. But Oreskes and Conway show that some were and still are motivated out of a deep sense of political ideology, brewing during the Cold War years and eventually displaced onto any efforts to institute government regulation of the “free market” within the U.S. – the internal Cold War.

Oreskes and Conway note that, in delaying public understanding of science to prevent regulation, people like Seitz and Singer allow problems to fester, eventually resulting in exactly what they fear most: governmental regulation to prevent public health problems like runaway acid rain or ozone depletion, which might have been effectively dealt with if the science was acknowledged and measures were taken earlier.

But I would take it farther than Oreskes and Conway. As the authors note, the great irony is that most of these “merchants of doubt” oppose government regulation and yet have historically worked for the government. In other words, these scientific advisers have used their positions to stall or prevent democratic action on a host of serious issues, drawing upon their influence in government to try and impose their will. In that way, I think the book indirectly highlights that these scientists and advisers became what they claimed to hate most: government-connected bureaucrats deciding what was best for the people.

-Originally posted at Left Eye On Books

By Nicki Lisa Cole

Conducive Magazine June/July 2011

As Raj Patel illuminated in his 2007 book Stuffed and Starved, the global food system–dominated by large multinational corporations–does not work for most of us. Those of us who live in developed, Westernized nations are eating (on average) more than we should, while those who labor to produce the food we over-consume are starving. Millions in the U.S. are nutritionally deficient too, and this is not an exaggeration. This situation is largely a result of the concentration of power in the hands of buyers and multinational supermarket chains, as is illustrated by these diagrams created by Patel, who does not stand alone in this assessment. Scholars of global food systems articulate consensus about the role of multinational corporations in shaping availability of and access to food around the world.

While the dynamics are certainly shifting as more and more people around the world adopt consumerism as a way of life, historically those who labor to produce the food we consume do not have the same access to food themselves. Their labor and land are bought up by corporations and their products shipped to “consuming” nations. With most fertile land employed for an export economy, producers are left with little to no farmable land to meet their own needs.

For many of us living in the U.S. and other Westernized nations we have a seeming abundance and wide variety of food available, yet as Michael Pollan has observed, much of this is not “food” at all, but “food-like substances.” Over the latter half of the twentieth century consumption of processed food-like substances has lead to spikes in serious health problems including heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

The “food plate” recently announced by the USDA as a replacement for the “food pyramid” reflects new guidelines in response to the dietary and health problems that stem from the conditions outlined above. The key points of the guidelines are reminiscent of Michael Pollan’s three golden food rules: “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” But if one takes seriously the problems with the global food system, then it is not so simple as just eating plants. Where those plants come from, how they are grown, and the distances they travel before arriving in our communities are critically important points to consider.

In recent years e-coli, salmonella, and staph outbreaks have drawn attention to the conditions of industrial agricultural production. Beyond personal and public health risks, many food scholars, small-scale farmers, and activists agree that the toxic pesticides that are applied to mono-culture crops degrade soil, seep into ground water, pollute rivers, and ultimately kill marine life when they reach the oceans. Once they leave the fields, industrial agricultural products absorb natural resources and create pollution with shipping and refrigeration, and then are packaged in plastics that generate massive amounts of waste. This consumption of natural resources by industrial agriculture, and the pollution that stems from it are directly linked to the problems of global climate change. It bears repeating what Annie Leonard pointed out in her film The Story of Stuff–individual Americans generate about four and a half pounds of waste per day–an amount that is vastly disproportionate to our percentage of the global population and total planetary waste.

Given these troubling facts we must take time to consider where we get that thrice daily half plate of fruit and vegetables now recommended by the USDA. Of course we know they are available at our local grocer, and a higher quality, more delicious, and environmentally and socially responsible supply is available at our local farmers markets, farm stands, and through farm shares (click here to locate these options in your area). But, you can also grow some (or all!) of it yourself. Let’s consider some at home gardening options.

Gardening is a physically and mentally rewarding project. I can guarantee you will appreciate food grown by yourself more than any other. Those with even the smallest patch of grass or dirt can create a garden. Before you start, or even if you have already planted, it’s a good idea to perform a soil analysis so that you are aware of any harmful toxins in your environs. If planting seems unwise, or if you rent and are not allowed to transform the space, then a community garden or a home container garden are great alternatives.

I have kept a container garden for a year, and have noticed that there are benefits apart from the delicious produce. With a container garden, you do not have to weed, and have much less problems with pests, especially if your garden lives on a second floor balcony (like mine). Another benefit of a container garden is that you can put it in the optimum spot for sun without having to alter the landscape, and you can move it around as you wish. Surprisingly, you can grow just about anything in the right sized container. I have had great success with lettuce, mustard greens, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, carrots, and herbs. If you have never gardened before, start small with just a few plantings as you get your green thumb in gear.

Food Not Lawns is an organization that provides resources nationwide and great tips on their website for transforming your space and working with your fellow community members to achieve your growing goals. Other great resources for information and encouragement are found here, here, and here. If you produce more than you can consume, consider the ways in which you might share your yield through food collection and distribution programs. And, if you are going to garden, you can also consider composting your green and brown food waste in order to enrich your soil and keep such waste out of landfills. Consult your local government’s information on waste and recycling, and you may find that they offer discounted prices on personal composting bins, which come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and prices.

As someone who lives in Santa Barbara, California, I am often told by friends when discussing gardening that I can do what I do because of the climate in which I live, and that gardening is not an option for everyone. This statement is less true everyday. All of us living in the United States have growing seasons to take advantage of. Some last longer than others, but we all have them. Those who live in colder climates can start seedlings in-doors in early spring so that they will be ready to plant in the ground or in outdoor pots as the weather warms. In places that may surprise you, like the Midwest of the U.S., farmers and food activists are deploying season extension technology to grow organic, sustainable food nearly year round.

I encourage you to also think beyond gardening in terms of at home food (and beverage) production. Keeping laying hens is relatively little work for a daily bounty of fresh eggs. Check out this blog for great tips on raising and keeping chickens. Over the last couple of years I have been impressed by the quality of beer produced at home by friends of mine. A quick web search of “at home beer brewing” produces a variety of resources on the topic. After the start-up cost of buying equipment and ingredients (about 60 USD), this is a very rewarding pursuit, and is fun to make and share with friends.

You might also consider making some of the staple foods that you consume. Over the last couple of years I have transitioned out of buying and into making hummus and bread. Making hummus is incredibly easy and is tuned well to your own tastes through seasoning and flavor selection. One of my favorites is made with fresh dill and chives, and another with home roasted red peppers and fresh basil. Similarly, home baked bread can be flavored or seasoned in any way you see fit. If your yield seems like too much to consume before it would spoil, no worries, just freeze the excess. Both hummus and bread (and many other things) freeze and thaw well, so long as they are tightly sealed in a container or bag. You could also try your hand at pickling, creating sauces or salsas with, or canning some of your produce.

I am sure that some of you are thinking, “I don’t have time for this!” or, “This seems like work!” To which I would reply, “That’s kind of the point.” Stepping away from consumerism as a worldview and way of life means taking more responsibility for producing (and reusing) for our own needs and desires. To live healthy and fulfilling lives, and to take steps in the right direction for our planet, we have to exert some effort. Step away from the computer, get off the couch, and try one of these things. I will if you do, lest we sit ourselves to death. That’s a promise.