Author Archives: dakotajh

Collective Action and Change: A Reflection

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2020 has been exhausting. Between murder hornets, escalating tensions among adversarial countries, a global pandemic, and racism, it’s getting harder and harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel – and the year isn’t even half over yet.

As tempestuous as the world seems right now though, I’ve gained levity in working with my Citizens’ Climate Lobby action group, to lobby for the passage of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. I’ve built on my collaborative work skills and gleamed valuable insight into the process of collective action and deliberation, and had the chance to work with a diverse coalition of people from across the country and the globe to relate the knowledge we gained in the course to the real world. This work has given me hope that systematic change is possible through collective action.

Citizens' Climate Lobby - take action on climate change solutions

Citizens’ Climate Lobby, via https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CCL-Logo.gif

Group work has, no doubt, been complicated by the fact that we’re living through a global pandemic. However, my group mates and I made the best of a difficult situation and flexibly scheduled our weekly Zoom and Whatsapp meetings. Arranging a time for a videoconference that worked for people in Washington State, Ohio, and France was not easy, but we made do. To ensure equal distribution of work, we collectively decided to finish one training per person, per week, and then summarize that training for the rest of the group.

Our work for CCL builds upon Michael Maniates policy prescription in “Individualization”. Rather than plant trees or ride our bikes to work, we will be lobbying for systemic change in policy. Our work will necessarily invoke systems thinking in this way. By considering the inputs and outputs of the act, as well as its potential downstream effects (both economic and environmental), we’ve taken a holistic approach to the understanding the act, systems thinking in essence.

Citizens' Climate Lobby | Our preferred climate change legislation

via https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/eicda-2019-benefits.png

Ultimately, I’ve walked away from this experience with a feeling that I can make a material difference in the world. Although my lobby session isn’t until June 17th, I am confident in my abilities to persuade my member of Congress, and look forward to being a force for real good in the world – something that I could not have accomplished without the hard work of my group mates, and the volunteers at CCL.

Rain, Thibault, Rachel, Alan, and Jess: thanks for a great quarter.

– Dakota

In response to “How Industries Individualize Responsibility Amid the Covid-19 Epidemic”

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COVID-19 has revealed fundamental cracks in the integrity of the food system. As outbreaks occur in meat packing plants across the country, the supply chain has broken down, revealing how reliant we are on just a few suppliers for our food. Indeed, in the face of a potential meat shortage, Costco, among other retailers, has limited members to three meat items per transaction. Kroger, and its local satellite chain Fred Meyer, temporarily placed restraints on the number of egg and dairy products available for purchase in a single transaction, as well. 

These examples are simply microcosms of the real issue at hand – a society lacking food sovereignty.

On the surface, this breakdown reveals how much agency we have been dispossessed of, as consumers. However, a more judicious inspection shows that those who produce and process the food we eat have also been adversely impacted. 

It’s true, as gstine9 writes: the burden of production and processing has been shifted onto majority minority communities (see Raj Patel:The Color of Food, “Workers of color comprised almost half of the workers in this sector… We suspect that the actual numbers may be higher”(12)). Diffusion of responsibility rides shotgun, while the protection of workers has taken a backseat, during the pandemic. A recent podcast by The Indicator from Planet Money evinces the food production paradox: low-wage farm workers (and meat packers) are essential workers, who are economically obliged to continue their work (not to mention holding the burden of trying to keep the ever fruitful American food cornucopia/system running); however, in doing so, they risk creating even greater contraction/transmission positive feedback loop (remember systems thinking?).  

My week with La Via Campesina | Global Justice Now

Via Campesina. Via Global Justice Now, https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.globaljustice.org.uk%2Fblog%2F2017%2Fjul%2F27%2Fmy-week-la-campesina&psig=AOvVaw1-9wdDaxQmpFXbEFW1clFN&ust=1589639795603000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCOCi4e-LtukCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

I think the messages of Via Campesina, and Monica White, ought to be heeded. A reclamation of food sovereignty is in line. Monica White’s prescriptions for minority communities are relevant too – regaining economic autonomy, by way of subversion of industrialized food. These might be realized in a switch to more community based farming, in which all inputs are known, and there are fewer middlemen in the production and processing of food.

Some pumpkins I’ve planted recently 🙂
Photo by me.

Feeling Hunger: an Exercise in Mindfulness (Contemplative Practice 5)

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Why do we eat? Your first instinct might be to say, because we’re hungry! I think I would have responded the same way, had I been asked that question before completing Contemplative Practice 5, Feeling Hunger. But after participating, I’ve come to a realization – I haven’t always been eating because I’m truly hungry, but often because I’m bored, or because it’s dinnertime –  or even because it’s (the food) there. I think that many of us (not all, though), in our mostly food secure society (especially during this pandemic) eat with these mentalities subconsciously buried in our psyche. We are bombarded with advertising telling us what to eat – and not why to eat. And so, we bored-eat, even when we’re not feeling hungry!

Science of Snacks: Thinking Makes You Hungry - Scientific American

Hungry?

Completing Feeling Hunger has made me think about privilege and equitable distribution of food. I think that food-secure people may not (or, at least, I did not) conceptualize hunger in the same way that the underprivileged do. The former asks, what will I eat, while the latter may simply ask, will I eat?

Our relationship with hunger, as people in a predominantly food-secure society is, perhaps, muted in a sense. Hunger is something that rolls around at certain times of the day, and is an annoyance. And, there’s often an easy fix – food is everywhere, really. For others, it is a material challenge; a choice between eating and paying rent; a constant reminder of their place within the system. 

 So, what’s the prescription? Systems thinking. It’s active cognizance of our place within the food system. It’s asking ourselves questions like, why am I eating – and am I hungry? It’s thinking about how our consumption might affect those around the world. Maybe most of all, it’s thinking about how what we consume when hungry might affect the hunger of producers of what we eat.

 

 

Photo via

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican.com%2Farticle%2Fscience-of-snacks-thinking-makes-you-hungry%2F&psig=AOvVaw3v2IG9R1FdkJSuXqwcn7kS&ust=1588554437219000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCND99MzAlukCFQAAAAAdAAAAABBO

Oh SNAP! Nutritional Assistance in the Digital Era

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For many of us, statewide shelter in place orders are inconvenient, yet important, aspects of the new normal: life in the era of COVID-19. Affected Americans are increasingly relying on home delivery services to get their groceries, and many take comfort in the ease of getting food delivered to their doorstep with minimal physical contact. However, the food insecure, who rely on federally funded SNAP benefits (food stamps, EBT), are not able to take advantage of online ordering in many states. This highlights a disparity in equity – the impoverished are made to put themselves at greater risk of contracting coronavirus in order to secure food, as they have to visit physical grocers, rather than virtual ones.

So how are states reconciling the parameters of SNAP benefit use with stay at home orders? Several states, including New York and Washington, have participated in a pilot program to

make SNAP benefits available online, with more states to follow. This gives those struggling with food insecurity the ability to order online, minimizing the risk of transmission or contraction.

However, SNAP beneficiaries are only able to order online from Amazon and Walmart in most states. Even these vendors have restrictions on the items that are available to buyers, with Amazon indicating, “SNAP EBT can be used on eligible items that are shipped and sold by Amazon.” (emphasis added) Amazon’s service necessarily precludes buying from other vendors, which gives the SNAP beneficiary less option to buy varied foods from sellers in their local regions. This, in effect, has a downstream effect on small local farmers who cannot compete with Amazon to sell their produce, especially under current catastrophic economic circumstances.

Sure, allowing online SNAP use on Amazon and Walmart helps – but is it only a bandaid on a systemic issue that requires more attention?

Sources:

https://thefern.org/ag_insider/most-snap-recipients-cant-buy-groceries-online-now-some-states- push-for-change/

https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/online-purchasing-pilot https://www.amazon.com/snap-ebt/b?ie=UTF8&node=19097785011&nocache=1586528626250

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program_logo.svg

https://www.amazon.com/snap-ebt/b?ie=UTF8&node=19097785011&nocache=1586528626250