Food apartheid – or the lack of access to healthy, affordable food in low-income communities of color – is at the intersection of social, political, and economic discrimination, making it one of the nation’s most pressing social justice issues. According to a 2009 USDA ERS (Economic Research Service) report, roughly…

Although The World We Made describes several dismal turning points, such as the Great Famine and the Age of Wars, Porritt presents an optimistic solution to our current problems. Throughout the chapters, Porritt uses illustrations, doodles, and the story of Alex McKay to outline various inventions that helped us overcome…

We’ve all heard the horror stories – starving turtles chasing after plastic bags, mistaking them for nutritious jellyfish; dead birds washing up onshore, bellies full of microplastics, bottle caps, and various other contraptions; entangled seals suffocating, six pack rings around their necks. However, the environmental consequences of plastics are not…

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – Shakespeare 1914 Or, in the case of the Black Belt in Alabama, injustice by any other name would still smell like raw sewage flooding people’s bathrooms, exposing them to tropical diseases often associated with the…

I’m a little surprised at David’s blog this week – he mentioned that it was harder for him to relate to the events of “Green Earth” than those of “Ecotopia.” As I was reading about the aftermath of the flood on Washington, D.C. (and on the nation as a whole),…

The principles behind permaculture and its numerous benefits give it a significant role in designing nature’s future. Like the class video mentioned on several occasions, permaculture is about working with what we already have, whether it’s suburbs, city roofs, or old houses. Rather than tearing down entire cities and building…

(May 24) Wow, what a day… I have finally arrived in Ecotopia – a trip that I’ve been anxiously awaiting for the past couple of months. After crossing the border into Ecotopia, I was expecting to stumble upon a pleasant utopia – people riding their bicycles, children playing in crystal-clear…

Last semester, I studied abroad with the School for International Training – we analyzed the causes, impacts, and politics surrounding climate change in Vietnam, Morocco, and Bolivia.1 This program was simultaneously one of the most depressing and yet one of the most inspiring experiences I’ve had. Our lectures, discussions, and…

During this week’s discussions, the importance of absence really stood out to me. Although most of my previous literature classes have spent hours analyzing every detail in a book (i.e. “the curtains are blue because the protagonist was depressed”), I’ve never been asked to look at the importance of things…

First of all, I think that fiction itself is shaped by what we, as a society, value, fear, or are simply fascinated by. For example, before the turn of the millennium, science fiction primarily focused on emerging technologies that would soon take over every aspect of our lives.1,2 As the…