Midterm 2 Flashcards
What is a memory dish?
Even under the harsh conditions of slavery, enslaved populations in the Americas began making “home” in the new location by reproducing familiar smells and tastes, remedies, celebrations.
What are survival cuisines?
Cooks who could create pies out of whatever children brought back from the woods and satisfying meals from animal parts rejected by white plantation owners.” “Make do” cooking.
What are migrant gardens?
Gardening and cooking as a way to hold onto cultural traditions and to recreate home.
What is a cuisine and what does it require?
A style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques, and dishes, usually associated with a region or culture. Requires “people who eat and cook it”— an on-going community that reproduces the cuisine through first-hand knowledge.
What aspects of American life work against having a cuisine?
- We have become accustomed to year-round availability. 2. We are wedded to convenience—to minimize time invested in cooking.
- We are eating fewer meals and more snacks.
What are the forces undermining the Karuk food system?
- Genocide
- lack of recognition of land rights
- forced assimilation
Why did genocide undermine Karuk food systems?
Legalized murder of Native people in the 19th century under California law. Bounties offered to gold miner sand settlers. 2/3 of Karuk killed.
Why did lack of recognition of land rights underming the Karuk food systems?
Karuk did not have a concept of private property and did not hold title to the lands they used, so white settlers were encouraged to claim it. Once the Karuk gained title to small parcels under the Dawes Act, it was easy to lose the land through debt.
Why did forced assimilation undermine Karuk food systems?
When institutions within the dominant culture force a person or group to take on that culture’s practices, including things like language, diet, and religious traditions. Many Karuk were sent to boarding schools. They were not allowed to practice traditional techniques of hunting, fishing, gathering, and selective burning.
What is the nutrition transition?
Replacing grains and beans with: meats, sweets and processed foods.
Shift from malnutrition based on scarcity of food to malnutrition based on too few nutritious foods in diet
Marion Nestle: “the greatest change in global diets since the invention of agriculture”
_____ is an important component of “industrial agriculture.” We consume it in “whole products” (such as canned), “fractionated products” (such as flour, cereals, oil and meal), as starch, and as a sweetener. It is used in cleaning products, cosmetics and paper products. Its most important use is for animal feed. It is increasingly used in fuel production.
Corn! There’s a multitude of uses for it
Corn production in the U.S. is supported by what?
agricultural subsidies. Corn dominates the top 10 agricultural subsidies
A _____ industry is made up of lots of small firms that each contribute a small part of total production. Meanwhile, a highly ______ industry is dominated by a few firms
competitive, concentrated
What are C4 and C8?
ways to measure agricultural concentrations. C4 is amount produced by top 4 firms ÷ total production, and C8 is amount produced by top 8 firms ÷ total production.
0-50%=low concentration; 50-80%=medium; 80-100% =high.
What is a commodity chain?
All of the activities, from conception to end use and disposal, involved in bringing a product to market.
Includes all processes and infrastructure involved in: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, and disposal.
What is a food system?
The set of intersecting commodity chains required to feed a population. We can talk about a food system at the regional, national, or global level
What are the average food miles for American food?
The average food item consumed in the U.S. travels 1500 miles and changes hands 6 times.
What is driving the trend of increasing food miles?
- the desire/expectation of year-round availability of products
- the search for lower cost production locations
What are durable foods?
manufactured foods with a long shelf-life, made of complex combinations of ingredients.
How are durable foods produced?
by breaking food down into its basic elements so that they can be combined and interchanged. For example, you can get carbohydrates and protein from corn or soy, depending on price and availability, without changing the texture or taste. This is sometimes called “substitutionism.”
What is Engel’s Law?
As income rises, the proportion spent on food declines
Because of this, food companies need to create higher “value added” products to increase profits.
What are some advantages of industrialized agriculture?
-Cheaper food
•Longer-lasting food
•Greater variety
•Year round availability
What are some downsides of industrialized agriculture?
- High energy cost of transporting food
- Dependence on cheap water and oil
- Health risks of industrialized agriculture (producers)
- Health risks of highly processed foods (consumers)
- Vulnerability of system to disruption (“all eggs in one basket”)
- Quality issues
- Environmental externalities
- Lack of diversity in varieties, knowledge
- Puts local farmers, processors, merchants out of business
What are some challenges in having locally organized food systems?
- Products are expensive
- Challenges scaling up to the level that major cities require.
- Lack of regional trading networks.
- Impossible in regions not hospitable to agriculture
- Can’t have year-round access to everything
Define Food security
when “all people, at all times, have physical, [social] and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (USDA)
(hunger as biological, experienced at the individual level)
Define food soverignty
The right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. The right to define our own food and agricultural systems.
(takes into account systems, where food comes from, autonomy over production)
Define Food Justice
Addressing race and class disparities in access to food and food sovereignty
What are the four pillars of food security?
availability, access, utilization, stability
In terms of food security, what does availability mean?
is enough food produced?
In terms of food security, what does access mean?
Is it in your neighborhood? can you afford it?
In terms of food security, what does utilization mean?
do you have what you need to prepare food appropriately?
In terms of food security, what does stability mean?
are you exposed to periodic hunger or insufficiency?
____ food insecurity is the result of persistent poverty, wheras ____ food security is can result from a natural disaster (hurricane, earthquake) or famine, short-term unemployment or economic disruption.
Chronic, transient
One variety of transient food insecurity is _____ food insecurity–in agricultural societies, this often occurs in the period right before harvest when last year’s stored crops are used up. Increasingly in urban societies there is patterned or “seasonal” food insecurity of another type–the hunger at the end of the month when food stamp benefits are exhausted.
seasonal
What region of the US has the most food insecurity?
south, especially MI
What percent of household are food insecure?
14%
An area is considered a food desert is considered a food desert (or food swamp) when it meets which two thresholds?
Low Income Threshold: census tracts qualify as low-income if they have: 1. a poverty rate of 20 percent or greater OR 2. median family income at or below 80 percent of the area median family income
Low Access Threshold: when at least 500 persons and/or at least 33% of the census tract’s population live more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (10 miles for rural areas)
What are some critiques of the concept of a food desert?
- An outsider’s view that characterizes poor urban areas as “deprivation zones.” A “deficiency model.” Perpetuates ideas about “culture of poverty.”
- Calling something a desert makes it seem like a natural occurrence, drawing attention away from the economic and policy decisions that cause an area to become a food desert.
- Presumes a corporate solution—to get a grocery store to locate in the underserved area, often by offering tax breaks or subsidies.
- Ignores a community’s own “food projects”—community gardens, farmers’ markets, coops, food pantries, smaller ethnic grocery stores.
What happened in the Bolivian water wars?
World Bank made privatization of Cochabamba’s water system a condition of further aid for water development, Bolivia passes Law 2029, eliminating guarantees of public water distribution and prohibiting traditional water practices. Government signs a contract with Bechtel. Popular uprising in Cochabamba. Bolivian government voids contract and returns water to local control. Bechtel leaves and files suit against Bolivian government. Bechtel drops its legal demands, accepting token payment of $0.30.
What caused the Flint water crisis?
Emergency manager appointed who switches water source from Lake Huron to Flint River. City finds lead contamination, and study finds lead contamination. Pediatrician finds high lead levels in children’s blood, City switches back to Lake Huron but pipes continue to dispel lead
the UN declared that water is a human right. What was their statement?
Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights.”
In passing resolution GA/10967, the General Assembly voiced concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.
What is Bakker’s argument concerning water as a human right?
most discussions of water as a right confuse two different issues.
Should water be a public good (managed by the state) or a commodity (managed by corporations and the market)?Should people pay for water, and if so how much?
What is Market environmentalism and what are some arguments for it?
water is a commodity that should be paid for.
Claim 1: Sustainable development cannot occur without proper valuation of the environment
Claim 2: This requires placing formerly “unvalued” resources on the market
Implication: States should auction off publicly owned natural resources to corporations, expand commercial land markets, and sell water resources to protect the environment.
What are arguments for water as a public good?
Water is part of our common heritage and should be a public good
•Private ownership is not necessarily more efficient and may be more expensive
•Private companies only want to provide water in urban (easy-to-reach) areas with existing infrastructure and dense, well-to-do populations, not in hard-to-reach (rural) areas where they have to build infrastructure from scratch, with low user density, and where people are poor.
•Private companies are not democratically accountable to all users.
What are some debates over the pricing of water?
Market environmentalists: Charging what the market will bear encourages conservation Allowing market forces to work will lead to greater efficiency in distribution
Public management advocates: Water is a basic necessity of life and should be accessible to all and should be subsidized for those who have few resources. This could be paid for through taxes or through charging for water on a sliding scale (the well-to-do pay more, the poor less)
Are the concepts or water as a public good and water as a commodity incompatible?
Nope! there’s alternative means of water provision. Some examples are Regional integration, Local (democratic) management, State support, Public-private partnerships Public-public partnerships
What three sectors should we integrate in order to address climate change?
State, Market, Civil Society
What is Naomi Klein’s thesis?
civil society plays an important role in rising to the challenge of the climate crisis
What are some of the arguments Naomi Klein makes in her paper?
Addressing climate change will require profound transformations
–These transformations are incompatible with market fundamentalism … in part because climate change is “the greatest market failure of all time”
-Deniers are not motivated by flaws in scientific facts, but the social implications
What is the carbon budget?
the estimated amount of carbon that the world can emit while still having a likely chance of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees celcius above pre-industrial levels.
Laura: ____ ____ is an impetus for action
civil society
What can civil society do to encourage the state to take action against climate change?
pressure the state to 1. invest in research & public infrastructure and 2. Sign agreements 3. Intervene in markets–Subsidies (e.g. incentives for renewables)–Emissions regulations (e.g. clean power plan)–Creating new markets (e.g. cap-and-trade)–Taxes (e.g. carbon tax)
How could civil society influence markets to take action against climate change?
-Holding up fossil fuel infrastructure projects
•De-legitimizing the fossil fuel industry–Mini case study: divestment
•Creating new types of firms that embody climate justice values–Mini case study: Reinvest in Our Power
What is a just transition?
divesting and reinvesting in order to transition from an extractive economy to a living economy
What are common property resources?
resources managed collactively
What is the tragedy of the commons?
says that common property resource management systems will be plagued by a “free rider” problem—the idea that individual users of a shared resource will take as much as they can while ignoring the costs to others (and long-term costs to themselves).
Elinor Ostrom argues that the Tragedy of the Commons is solvable. How?
using: 1) rules and 2) incentives to motivate conservation and investment in the commonly held resource. She says that we have many examples of solutions, from societies around the world.
She argues that we face the greatest challenges in managing global common resources, but we can look to local management regimes for ideas.
Grazing lands in Mongolia, Lobster fisheries in Maine, Community forests in Nepal, and Acequia (irrigation systems) in New Mexico are all examples provided by Elinor Ostrom of what?
common property management at a small scale
How is climate change a “tragedy of the commons”-type problem?
You can’t be sure that if you give up profits to reduce your impacts, your peers will do the same.
Those who cause the most emissions are not necessarily those who feel the negative effects first or most. People in coastal areas, drought-prone regions are most vulnerable (what Klein calls “sacrifice zones.” Also future generations don’t have a voice.
Jane mentions that some potential obstacles to global solutions to climate change are differential distribution of harms. What does this mean?
The largest contributors to climate change may not be most affected (Bangladesh, the Maldives)
Poorer nations argue that developed countries have gained wealth through using fossil fuel resources and now want to block that pathway for them
Future generations—arguably the most affected—have no voice
What are some other obstacles to global solutions of climate change?
no mechanisms of democratic governance at global level/
ex: Pacts like the 2015 Paris Climate Accord are voluntary agreements with no binding enforcement mechanisms\
the need to change what Klein calls “the story” about our relationship to nature. Changing the story about growth, progress, and human mastery of the elements and the way it is built into our accounting measures, assessment mechanisms and economic models.
What is an example of rules being utilized to resist climate change?
the Paris Climate agreement
What are some examples of incentives being employed to resist climate change
Penalties. Jeffrey Frankel says it should be possible to use trade policy to enforce compliance with rules about greenhouse gases, by enacting penalties against countries that don’t participate or don’t meet their quota for emission reduction. (A penalty is a kind of “reverse-incentive”). He suggests that the World Trade Organization could monitor and enforce these rules, as it did when it required shrimpers to use turtle-safe nets.
What is environmental justice?
The fair treatment of people of all races, incomes, and cultures with the respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies, and their meaningful involvement in decision-making about these laws, rules, and policies.
__________________ formed in 1978 in Love Canal to encourage government action to relocate and compensate residents
Love Canal Homeowner’s Association
What are some challenges in establishing links between environmental toxins and health problems
- Health effects may take a long time to develop.
- People may have been exposed to multiple toxins in multiple ways.
- Chemical contamination sites often contain more than one chemical. This makes it difficult to link a health problem to a single exposure or chemical.
What is citizen science?
Scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists Public participation in scientific research. Communities taking scientific research into their own hands
Racial disparities in environmental health are caused by…
1) Residential segregation by race and income
2) Racial and income disparities in zoning
3) Racial and income disparities in economic development decisions (i.e. decisions that city and county planners make about what kinds of industries they want to attract and where they should be located. )
What are some strengths of citizen science?
- volunteer scientists can fill spatial gaps in knowledge
- volunteer scientists ask different kinds of questions and define problems differently
- volunteer scientists can make publicly available data that industry or government won’t gather or release
- volunteer monitoring of industry behavior may deter toxic releases
What are some concerns about citizen science?
- Some areas don’t have the human and economic resources to engage in these activities.
- There is no assurance that regulatory agencies will use or respond to volunteer-collected data.
- Because of the diversity of goals, there is no standardization in measurements by different groups. 4.Attempts to deter industry from releasing chemicals can only work if industry considers volunteer monitors to be credible and if there are effective and enforced penalties.
- Is it the responsibility of volunteers to gather this data, or is this just shifting responsibilities from the state to civil society?
