By getting serious about limiting global warming, the world could save itself more than $20 trillion
ESPM professor Scott Stephens, a fire ecologist, was a featured panelist at the Bay Area premiere of the documentary "Wilder than Wild: Fire, Forests and the Future" at the David Brower Center Monday night. The film addresses the ways that fire suppression and climate change have exposed not just our forests and wildlands, but also our urban areas, to devastating wildfires. It also explores mitigation strategies.
ESPM grad student Vera Chang authored this article for Civil Eats on worker-driven social responsibility (WSR), which seeks to protect human rights for low-wage workers. A central mechanism of WSR is the enforcement of its standards through the application of strict market consequences for the most egregious human rights violations. Cheng notes that the advent of CIW’s Fair Food Program has changed commercial agriculture's "hustle culture" significantly; alongside the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, the Fair Food Program is sparking change for workers and women in many industries.
Commenting on Planting Justice, a nonprofit in East Oakland that hires former inmates, giving them a "family sustaining wage" and other significant benefits, ESPM CE specialist Jennifer Sowerwine, says that the organization has "shifted the conversation around food justice." She notes, "It's not just about food security, but the security of providing living wages."
ESPM professor Neil Tsutsui was the featured guest for May's Ars Technica Live, where he talked about his work studying the behavior and commucations strategies of ants. There are many different kinds of ant colony behavior and there is a huge range of survival strategies among ants. Tsutsui also discussed his interest in citizen science and his work with Backyard Biodiversity and iNaturalist. Video available in the link.
A new policy in China leaves huge amounts of the US's recyclables without a destination, directly impacting San Joaquin Valley recycling collectors. But these policies have consequences beyond just recycling companies. Here in California, if too many recyclables end up in landfills, entire cities could end up in violation of state laws that require waste be diverted away from dumps. O’Neill says this is an opportunity to redesign the entire recycling industry. “It means they have to get a lot more creative and really start pushing for better infrastructure at home to recycle a lot of the paper and plastic that we produce,” she says.