vice president of the accokeek foundation anjela barnes, executive assistant at stop ecocide international margherita birri, george washington university professor, author, and philosopher barrett pitner, and board member of the potomac riverkeeper network brenda richardson all lend their voices and expertise to this podcast.

the music is titled “zion” by user salmonlikethefish from freemusicarchive.org. 

(in)vironmental justice is hosted by jing-ning hsu and adam esrig. alejandra puente also contributed to the production of the podcast.

written, produced, and edited by hannah loder.

eleven years ago, unity college, a small environmental college tucked into the woods of rural maine, became the first institute of higher education in the country to divest, scrubbing their finances clean from fossil fuels. with the help of climate activist bill mckibben and activist groups, unity college’s story started a movement. today, over 100 schools are divested or in the process of divesting from fossil fuels. from private, wealthy goliaths such as harvard and yale to the entire california public college system, fossil fuels are out the door. 

on this planet forward audio story, i talk to the former president of unity college about how divestment works and the story of how his school became the first to do it. also, he happens to be my dad.

in my podcast, i explore the benefits of multifaceted and cross-sectoral approaches that bridge sustainability and environmental policy. i argue that environmental sustainability should not be an after-thought to economic or social development, but instead a foundational intention in the mission of global development.

i explore ways that we can achieve the trifecta of environmental sustainability, economic prosperity, and support for local communities through creative and collaborative pursuits. to do this, i interview three female leaders from ikea, syngenta, and the recycling company, mr. green trading africa, kenya.

we discuss the initiatives and progress that these organizations have made. as all three leaders share, efforts in sustainability have trickle down effects on the economy and the social ecosystems of their respective regions. it can be argued then, that the future of sustainability and creating better policy in this space, relies on shared accountability – not just from ngos, policy makers, and environmentalists, but from corporations, community leaders, and individuals.

i truly believe that pivoting the way we approach sustainability issues such as climate change and food security to prioritize the fair treatment of local actors in support of local economies can act as a bridge that brings people together. happy listening!

full transcript below:

samyudha rajesh: welcome to the bridge, where we explore stories and showcase solutions that connect our people our prosperity and our planet. environmental issues, climate challenges and ongoing food security threats, when seen as standalone issues, perpetuates the impact that they have collectively on our planet. our global economic history has enough examples, where we have taken a siloed approach to development, mainly economic development, through which we have neglected the after effects of unsustainable production standards, haphazard waste management, and violation of human rights, all in the name of productivity, we need a paradigm shift that allows for more multifaceted and cross sectoral solutions to sustainable development across the globe.

today’s story shows us that this is possible. in the next few minutes, we will look at how three different corporations from three different industries are achieving economic and environmental aspirations by investing in integrated sustainable solutions. these businesses and their efforts are making a case for people and communities, profit for companies, and care for our planet. we will hear from three distinguished leaders who will touch on the following questions.

first, what actions are their companies taking to be champions for environmental sustainability. and second, how does their company improve social and economic wellbeing in the regions that they work with, through their environmental initiatives. our first guest is christina niemela strom, head of sustainability at ikea.

christina niemela strom: well, first of all, we have such a very clear sustainability strategy that goes for the entire brand and where we actually are targeting healthy and sustainable living, we’re targeting to become climate and circular, positive. and we’re also aiming to be working in the fair and equal agenda. so that we also see the social aspects of what we do. we are a global company, but we have local presence, and the difference you make on a local level, and then that will be aggregated to become global, but it’s actually very, very local and regional. and when it comes to working with farming communities, you will need to work what we call in a systemic way.

so it’s ikea is the government is ngos is other brands. and we work that together all of us wanting the region to flourish because it’s good for business, it’s good for people, and it’s good for environment. so we try to tackle climate, nature and people at the same time. that is a triple kind of dilemma that we can also solve together. so not to go only thinking about climate or only about biodiversity loss, we’re only thinking about labor, do the three at the same time. and then we can get the best return on investment and actual results on the ground.

so for instance, what we do, we put goals to all of our suppliers what kind of energy sources they can use to try to go more and more to renewable energy, we put demands on our product development that they use the right materials go into more and more recycled materials, we also develop and secure that we have value chains for more recycled materials. and then we also secure that we do responsible sourcing, for instance, through working with our supplier code of conduct to secure that working and social and environmental conditions and also animal welfare is on the right level.

so by actually securing livelihoods for the local communities securing that to have decent a meaningful work with also a fair fair income and fair pay. so we are monitoring all those things and trying to secure that we haven’t improvement from year to year. so this is not any area that you’re once you’re done, you’re never done. you need to be there. and we do it very much through our presence, and also taking in the expert etc. social partners who can also help us with this, who has the competence that maybe we don’t have yet.

and by that we can actually have an entire region flourish. it’s not a short term thing, you have to go in there with a long term. and you have to be stay put, for instance, we don’t great work when it comes to the cotton farmers, for instance. so we work with better cotton initiative, where we’re helping the farmers to learn how to cultivate cotton and using less water, less pesticides and less fertilizers. and by that also actually getting more money to themselves to the farmer or actually being empowered.

and we also working if i continue on the cotton piece working in pakistan and india, for instance, helping the the cotton farmer to launch more things than just cotton so they also have fruit, and so on so they can get more money out from their picture of wood. so we are working with our wf, for instance then planting 400,000 seedlings in pakistan, and very much actually helping the women for them to get their own economy decides to cotton harvest also on the running gear with the fruits and vegetables cetera.

samyudha rajesh: now we will hear from pamela gonzalez lennon, head of asia group at syngenta.

pamela gonzalez lennon: my company is in the industry of agriculture. so the angle i will take for that is, is in agriculture. and normally when people think about sustainability and myself in the past, you think about large farmers, climate change, and like the typical sustainability things, but when you look at asia pacific, small farmers are the backbone of the economies in the whole region. so sustainability can mean many different things, for instance, to get higher yields in their production. and just to give you an example, why this is so important, asia pacific wheel home 250 million more people by 2050, which is a full indonesia, and only with 1/3 of the land of the planet.

so that means that to be sustainable, we need to be able to produce more in less land, we work with farmers across the region, this is small farmers, we have more than 450, millions of small farmers that have less than one actor, each one of them, which is a very small amount of land. so we work with them, giving them protocols of products have practices, training them giving them medication in the in, in field activities. giving them tools i can i can give you some examples like access to credits, just to give you an example, because farmers face many challenges in this production, small farmers, for instance, they don’t have access to formal credit. so the interest rates are very high.

they don’t have access to training or education of what are the best practices to get better yields. they have lack of infrastructure and lack of power of embarking with their production, there are many middlemen in between. so what we are doing is creating an ecosystem of solutions. so farmers can have access to that. it’s a big challenge because it reached them. it’s it’s not easy, it’s 450 million, so one company cannot do it alone. partnership and all the stakeholders working together is critical to solve this issue for food security in the region.

so just to give you an example of a specifically what we’re doing partnerships, one of these example is in rice in basmati rice in india, we are working with small farmers now piloting full protocol, end to end protocol from the variety, the crop protection protocol with the products, but also looking for the soil, the health of the soil, the soil health, because in the soil, many of the carbon can be captured. so this is one of the important part of how agriculture can help in sustainability in the future, or actually now.

so they are putting in place many practices like the management of the residue of the rice on the soil, water management, and all of these elements will help us to add less carbon like that to food protocol help farmers to produce more sustainable with better yields. so it’s just a small example. so now i think the team in india is working with around 50 farmers him i’m not wrong, but the idea is to keep doing that we work with many institutions coming back to my point of nobody can do it alone.

so with universities, with ngos, and even with other companies in some countries, we work with fertilizers company, so we can do soil health as samples to put the right fertilizers on the on the soil. so maybe if i can summarize my answer in three points, there are basic needs the sustainability, nature, pacific life, food security, and higher yields. but at the same time, we are putting some tools to make sure we also are fighting against the climate change with the carbon emissions with the soil health. so we help them with protocols, but we are also trying to reach them through digital so we can make information more. i call this democrat ties seeking for rich or poor farmers.

when purpose and profit meets is when things really happens. because if a company or an organization are only focused on on profit is good for the short term, you get your numbers, but it’s not sustainable in the long run. on the other extreme with ngos or organization only meet on purpose is also not sustainable because you need to fund the initiatives. right. so this is why it’s so important that all the partners, all the stakeholders work together to make these tools available, in our case for small farmers, right. and that’s why one company cannot wait alone. and it’s so important that everybody plays a role.

samyudha rajesh: to finish we will hear from sonia orwa, general manager at mr. green trading africa, kenya.

sonia orwa: i think so maybe just a quick brief mr. green africa works in the plastic recycling space. and we are a force for good company, the first b corp recycling company to be rated. so in africa, and what makes mr. green what steps we have taken is at the core of our business is working with waste pickers, as being the solution to collecting plastic from the environment, and then manufacturing the same and converting it into a valuable resource.

that could be when used for plastic packaging. so replacing the virgin plastic, right. and so for us having a circular solution, and working with the people locally to solve a critical problem globally, is one of the ways we are really addressing and using sustainability in everything that we do from the collection, to the recycling and to the off taking of the same locally. the plastic that we actually use in our manufacturing process is collected from streets from oceans.

so from an environmental perspective, we’re already addressing the environmental impacts, obviously, because making a cleaner environment, a more vibrant environment, but more so the fact that we use waste pickers in our value chain is really a great contributor to the social impact in the fabric of for example, kenya, where we’re currently based, because then we’re using a group of people that normally is very under under supported, and are also not really valued in the community to pick what other people think is that an invaluable resource and making it valuable and that way, the socio economic impact on the person who is picking the waste, they get to directly get impacted from their collection activities in a fair manner, where they are given an opportunity to earn a minimum wage, and then hopefully when they are living wage from their collection.

and on top of that, they’re really the heroes that are cleaning up the environment. so overall, i think mr. green’s business model really just uses the people that require the help right, to clean up the environment, which is really needed. and obviously you making sure that the benefits from the sale of the plastic are trickled back down to the environment as well and to the people that we work with.

samyudha rajesh: as our three leaders shared, the future of sustainability lies in accountability, not just from ngos and policy makers, but from corporations who can be allies in this journey. to achieve the environmental, economic and social progress trifecta demands a holistic approach to sustainability issues, such as food security, climate change, and pollution. better policies and initiatives are community centric. they are receptive and respective of local communities and farmers.

these policies are partnership focused, bridging communication and coordination between different but equally important actors such as governments, ngos, corporations, and community leaders. lastly, these policies are flexible and creative. they adopt new technologies, perspectives and approaches to sustainability. together we can bridge the gap between the world as it is and the world as we want it to be. we can 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 . this is samyudha rajesh reporting from washington, dc.

in this podcast, planet 世界杯欧洲预选赛免费直播 katie perkins sits down with asheley landrum, ph.d., a media psychologist and associate professor of science communication in the college of media & communication at texas tech university, to find out the answers to these questions and more. listen in for a short deep dive into the research surrounding science communication and why we, as communicators, should be paying attention to it.

full transcript below:

asheley landrum (00:00:04) i study sort of how science is communicated through the whole system of science, scientist to scientist, scientist to public science through intermediaries like journalists, museums, and other types like that.  

katie perkins (00:00:19) my name is katie perkins, planet 世界杯欧洲预选赛免费直播 from texas tech university, and today we’re gonna dive into the science behind scientific communication. joining me is dr. ashley landrum, a media psychologist and associate professor of science communication in the college of media and communication at texas tech university. her research investigates how values and worldviews influence people’s selection and processing of science media. so i have with me dr. ashley landrum, thank you so much for joining me today! i went through a lot of your research and i found a lot of it so interesting. and one of them i wanted to talk about was, you have an article that talks about conspiracy mentality and the denial of science. so can you tell me a little bit more about why the public tends to disagree with the science that they read in the media?  

asheley landrum (00:01:10) it is not that every issue of science is rejected by the public, or any one issue of science is rejected by the whole public. different groups of people are more receptive to messages of science about different topics depending on their own worldviews, their values, and their belief systems. so for example, we might see or hear about when we’re growing up that there are people who reject the idea of human-caused global climate change because it conflicts with their deeply held political beliefs or with the beliefs of groups that they are affiliated with or things that are important or core to their identity. conspiracy mentality is the other sort of element of that. when people are more prone to distrusting authorities or institutions, maybe they have full reason to distrust based on some things that happen in their background or things that they’ve read about.  but when you’re more open to, in some senses, distrusting authorities and institutions, it makes it a lot easier to believe that they would engage in certain types of conspiracies. so that government agencies would hush or hide or cover things up. whereas people who are less likely to have that sort of worldview or are more trusting of authorities and institutions, they’re less likely to sort of buy into some of the conspiracy theories that exist. so there are sort of several different worldviews and beliefs that can contribute to rejecting any one specific point of science. but the public as a whole generally accepts most of what science tells us. we just tend to focus on the ones that aren’t.  

katie perkins (00:02:53) do you think that journalists can play a role in changing those people that tend to reject science? or do you think that those beliefs are so deeply held that it’s gonna be very difficult for us to talk to them in a way that will hopefully change their mind?

asheley landrum (00:03:06) so in my view, it’s, it’s hard to say that journalists could make it better, but they could at least not make it worse. and so, i think that regardless of your profession, right, everybody in this world has beliefs. they have a worldview. they have, you know, a system of values that influence the way that they see the world. if journalists are using their platform in a way to try to stick it to certain populations, that could only make the problem worse. so we had a study that i collaborated with dan kahan and kathleen hall jamieson, and it was out of the annenberg public policy center at the university of pennsylvania. we showed that journalists could end up sort of creating a politically polarized environment over the issue of the zika virus simply by framing that study as an issue connected to one that is politically charged.  so we had sort of three different message groups that people were randomly assigned into. they could have just read a public health message about zika. we had a second message that had that public health message, but then connected the issue to climate change that said something like, if you’re concerned about zika, you should also be concerned about climate change because… and then we had a third condition that said, if you’re concerned about zika, you should be concerned about immigration because we have people immigrating to areas of the us from areas where it is habitable for these mosquitoes. and you know, the virus is, is bloodborne, sexually transmitted, and mosquito-transmitted. so we showed that in the public health condition, regardless of your political beliefs, you generally were concerned about zika. you believed the science that was presented. but in the condition where we presented it and tied it to climate change, we found that people who were more politically conservative were more likely to say, well, maybe i’m not that concerned about zika. and you know, we hear that a lot. “oh, you know, political conservatives reject science.” well, we also made liberals reject science because then in the third condition where we had attached it to immigration, then we had people who are more on the progressive or liberal side of the political spectrum saying, “oh, well maybe zika’s not that big of a deal and i don’t believe that it causes microcephaly.” so we could, you know, basically by tying it to an issue that’s already politically charged. we ended up polarizing that issue when it wasn’t one that was polarized before. and we refer to that as polluting the science communication environment. but when i’ve talked to journalists, i think many of the journalists that i’ve talked to think of themselves as storytellers or you know, artists or their sharing perspectives. and when i brought this up at a panel at a conference where we were talking to some science journalists and i said, to what extent are you paying attention to science com research or having it inform, you know, the way you communicate science so you can communicate more strategically right?  what we ended up finding or what those journalists told us was, well, it’s not our job to do that. and i was like, “oh, okay.” i had used that example that i just shared with you as the example when they were asking me like, “wait, i don’t understand what you’re talking about. what do you mean pay attention to science com research?” and i was like, “oh, we did this thing.” you know, one of the potential implications coming from this recognizing it’s one study, right, is that science communicators could inadvertently pollute the science communication environment by attaching something that’s not embedded with political meaning to something that is. 

katie perkins (00:06:36) i think that is just a really great example of why we need to, you know, look into the research that you’re doing and understand the science behind scientific communication, like you said earlier, because we play a big role in how the public perceives it and we can really be super divisive as journalists in scientific communication. 

asheley landrum (00:06:54) well one of the other things that we’ve talked about before is the way science journalists are trained compared to other types of journalists, and i can’t remember the exact numbers, but one of the researchers in science com was sort of counting and published the number of actual people who are hired as science journalists and how much it’s decreased over the past decade or even longer. instead, the people who are covering science are the ones who are covering politics or the ones that are covering other issues. and so they’re looking at science through that political lens already that can make – that can kind of complicate the issue, right? because they’re already kind of coming at it from this political perspective. and so the norms of communicating science as a journalist may need to be different than the norms of communicating politics or the norms of communicating, you know, economics or other types of issues. and when colleagues of mine and i do presentations on, you know, tips for communicating science and more frequently we do these with scientists, but these are also true for actual professional communicators. one of our first things is to really know what your goal is. and that seems silly because people know what their goal is, but do they? you know, it’s like, scientists might say, “well my goal right, is to communicate my science”. it’s like, okay, well if your goal is to communicate your science so that members of the public understand it, then you need to strategically design that message in order to do that. your goal might actually be to get people to think like you do – and that is a goal, but that’s a different one, from getting the public to understand it.  

katie perkins (00:08:36) i wanna talk a little bit more about your flat earth research. so you have a research article called ‘flat smacked converting to flat earthism’. and you talk about the role that youtube played in converting flat earthers. so what has your experience been in how different social media platforms contribute to how people accept science or like, digest theories that are controversial, things like that? 

asheley landrum (00:08:58) you know, social media platforms are communities now. some of them have a bunch of like, are broader used, especially at the beginning. i remember in its heyday, everybody was on facebook regardless of your age. you know, my grandmother who is 80 years old created a facebook page. you know, so you, you have pretty diverse audiences, but as platforms age or as there are more available, then you end up having different communities on them. on youtube, there’s a community of conspiracy theorists sharing videos about any conspiracy theory that you can think of. from there, it was either eric dubay or somebody around the same time who had sort of created a flat earth video sort of making an argument for flat earth. what was interesting is that almost everybody that we talked to said that they were first exposed to the flat earth conspiracy from watching videos on youtube. the only exceptions were people whose family members did and then introduced them to it. so it started off on youtube and then came off the platform to start bringing in family members and friends of those who are on youtube. they would start by watching conspiracy videos and then they would be suggested other conspiracy videos. and when they would present these facts, and i’m using quotes, air quotes there, right, “the facts of flat earth” to other people, they called it getting flat smacked because you’re just smacked with all this information at once. and so that’s where the title of that came from. and if you do watch eric dubay’s video, it’s like 200 proof that the earth is not a spinning ball or something like that. i think it’s been pulled off of youtube a bunch of times. but if you watch it, you’ll see it’s just like sort of argument after argument, and they’re so fast that you don’t really have, if you’re just watching it in real-time, you don’t have time to actually critically evaluate it. you just feel like you’re being overwhelmed with information that’s like, wow, like this is, this seems really legit when it’s not at all  

katie perkins (00:10:45) and so, is that kind of how you see that misinformation coming in over social media platforms regarding scientific communication? it just comes at you so fast that you don’t have time?

asheley landrum (00:10:55) so some cases, so that was, i mean that was the case with that. i think in addition to that, and probably more frequently for other types of science communication on platforms, things through memes or articles or shared stories. it’s people who are seeing misinformation that resonates with their worldview. so again, this is a, it’s an all-person thing. the acceptance of misinformation or acting in a political way is not something that’s true only for specific populations. it’s true of all populations. and the question is, is it something that’s gonna interact with your values or beliefs in a way that’s gonna make you respond in a way that’s not consistent with the evidence from science?  

katie perkins (00:11:32) so do you think that there is a way to not make issues like these political or is it just in their nature that in science media the science is gonna get polluted like you said earlier by political agendas?  

asheley landrum (00:11:45) right. so we can try to do what we can, we can’t control what everyone in the world says. and so, you know, political actors are gonna probably step in at some point and make things political. but we can at least try to not, you know, we can ask communication professionals who are doing this for a living to not make the problem worse. and it’s not, like i said, it’s not always predictable, it’s not always something we can stop. but there are circumstances where we know based on prior work, based on history, how something can happen. so, you know, we can do what we can, but once it’s like, once it’s really polarized like climate change, it’s very hard to come back from that without really strong messaging from a variety of different sources that tries to counteract that. and only over time, so trying to get younger generations to stop seeing climate change as a political issue and instead as a global and a human one.  

katie perkins (00:12:46) the last thing i have is, i was reading your most recent article about awe-inspiring scientific communication. could you tell us just a little bit more about awe and how it affects people?  

asheley landrum (00:12:56) yes. well, so we don’t know yet, right? so this is actually really exciting work. the paper you were referring to is one that we were looking at to see if we could measure people’s experiences of awe when engaging with, and in this case, it was reading science news stories and the stories that were, like several of them were written by ed yong because he writes in a very awe-inspiring way. but you know, other types of stories as well to see if we can measure awe. then the later goal will be to see – is this a style or a way of writing that might help increase openness to accepting science? but the aforementioned graduate student i told you about alex olshansky, his dissertation is also looking at how experiences of awe might limit people’s ability to counter-argue when being confronted with things like conspiracy theories.  

so if you are, if you are reading about a conspiracy theory or if you’re watching a video which seems to be more, more frequently the case and you have this experience of awe, is it taking more of your cognitive resources away from then being able to question what it is that you’re, that you’re watching? and it’s sort of a resource allocation question. and he has not done his analysis yet, but all of his data is collected. so it could have, it could be a double-edged sword, right? it could be a mechanism through which to get people excited and engaged with science, but it could also be a mechanism through which misinformation is spread.  

katie perkins (00:14:25) that was all super, super interesting and i think is really gonna interest a lot of people on planet forward. so yeah, just thank you so much for joining me today!

asheley landrum (00:14:33) thank you for having me.

candace clark is a ph.d. candidate at tuskegee university and an impressive voice in the environmental justice space. learn how she built climate-sustainable housing out of recycled trash, why her community-given name is kandeaux the farm plug, and why she cares about climate change in the first place.

sometimes, before a call to action, we need a call to inspiration. come get inspired!

learn more about candace’s mission by visiting her website.

full transcript:

krantz: hi there, i’m hannah krantz.

fayaz: and i’m aleena fayaz. we are two students at the george washington university who care about the environment. but we know how easy it can be to fall into a negative doom spiral when reading the news about climate change, trust me, i’ve been there.

krantz: when we think about our futures we worry about access to clean water, food, climate resilient homes, combating the excessive heat and extreme weather and so, so much more. so we wonder: what’s being done about this, what real changes are being made so that we can have a safe future? and most importantly, how can we solve these issues through the lens of environmental justice, acknowledging what groups are disproportionately affected by these disastrous effects of climate change?

fayaz: our generation needs a flood of innovative ideas and new mindsets for surviving and thriving in the climate crisis. we can ground ourselves and hope for the future by looking at young people who are not only making a difference in their communities right now, but also whose ideas truly have the potential to 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 .

krantz: in this episode, we bring you one outstanding voice in the climate space: candace clark. candace is going to teach us about the importance of black voices in climate solutions, how she learned to build climate sustainable housing out of recycled trash, and why she even cares about climate change in the first place. let’s get inspired.

fayaz: candace, thank you so much for coming to the show. if you wanna give us a brief intro just about who you are, what you do.

clark: for sure. so i’m candace clark, better known throughout the hood as kandeaux the farm plug. i am a beautiful black woman from the south side of chicago. i’m now currently a phd student at tuskegee university and my research specifically is anchored in agricultural policy, and even more specific than that, land use policy around the intersections of land use policy and sustainable, affordable and efficient housing.

krantz: that is outstanding! when were you first aware of the climate crisis, to get on the really specific path of education that you’re on?

clark: almost immediately i’m called to, you know, pay homage to my ancestors. there was also a really beautiful natural space, called the japanese garden, and it’s inspired by yoko ono. and it’s one of the places that makes chicago a sister city to osaka, japan, and it’s a place that you know, my father and my brother and i, we would ride our bikes and we would just spend a lot of time at this garden. and i know one year i came back and you know, of course i’m trying to walk around, i went to the garden and it was like totally flooded. you know, i’m saying like the little waterfall was damaged, algae blooms all over the place, the fish and aquatic life was not as vibrant. it was just a moment that was really shocking for me, because i’m like, oh my god, these are my real childhood memories. and i think about all the young people on the south side or the east side, who you know, may want to go to the beach or may want to relax or may find a sense of meditation and rejuvenation by going to the water, but what are they going to be seeing when they get there?

fayaz: so candace, you mentioned this term “farm plug,” and that you’ve been bestowed this name? what does that mean? what is the farm plug?

clark: so every time i try to say what it is, the next time i say that it changes a little bit. i’m not gonna lie. because it’s as real and true as i’m sitting here in front of you. it is a living thing and it’s dynamic. on a foundational standpoint, a farm plug is an intersectional advocate of the environment, of the community, and of earth, that sees agriculture and farming in like everything that you may do. it’s kind of wild right, but people call me farm plug because i will be outside and i would hear people talking about things and i would almost always connect it back to agriculture, right? so when i say outside, i mean in places like, for example, when trayvon martin happened, everyone’s protests and everyone’s marching, and i’m sitting here. i remember being outside, i remember feeling all of these feelings and looking around. i’m like, man, all these people are marching and we’ve been marching, and we’ve been doing this, and it’s not i’m not seeing the type of change that i would like to see. right. so i started doing more research and i’m like, well, every single form of discrimination in the history of discrimination was always connected to a natural resource, no matter what it always comes back down to the land. if we want to be free, right, if liberation is our end goal, then our liberation as humans is deeply deeply invested in the liberation of earth as an entity.

clark: okay, well, what is the history of black people in agriculture? so when i started to uncover more and more research, it became clear to me that during the freedom rides in the south when people were going to try and register all these black people to vote, that these black people were not welcome in the south. they couldn’t stay in hotels. they didn’t have diamonds that they could go to. the green book, there were only specific places that they could stop and be safe. it was the farmers and the land owners, the black land owners who had the capacity to support the civil rights foot soldiers as they matriculated through the south. and so literally, if we did not have black people who own land, there would not be a civil rights movement. if there was no civil rights movement, there would be no environmental movement, which was deeply deeply based on the civil rights movement, the decade right before it. when i started to see what it really meant to be a black person, let alone a black woman in agriculture, it just became everything that i talked about, everywhere that i went, to the point where people are like, “alright, i farm plug we heard you.” 

fayaz: when you say farm plug, your primary role is connecting, then? what is that problem you’re trying to solve, or who are the people, moreso, that you’re trying to serve?

clark: farm plug has three main pillars, right? and those three main pillars are educate, thrive and connect. each one of those pillars is deeply inspired by a theory or a person. i’m really really really deeply invested in this idea of not settling for survival, because that’s something that we’re going to do anyway. we should be fighting and advocating for the opportunity to thrive as black people in this place.

krantz: that is a really important reframing.

clark: if you are committed to a thriving lifestyle, your next goal, the next thing you really got to do, your charge, is to go out and connect with other people to make these things a reality. we need to make science cool. we need people to care about the information that is going into the policy that are deciding the fate of everybody on the face of the planet. and what farm plug is doing, what i’m doing as a farm plug is, i’m really kind of just living my life really, really loud. and i am telling stories of other people who are earth cultivators, earth workers, who are in policy and all these things doing things that black people don’t typically see. my solution is: nothing is really cool without black people. so we need to get more of us in these spaces, telling these stories and bringing our culture into the solutions that people are vying for in the face of climate change.

fayaz: so, i saw that statistic from the food and agriculture organization that states by 2050 we’ll need to produce 60% more food to feed a world population of around 9.3 billion. that’s a lot of people. so how does your role as a farm plug help us reach that goal? what are your thoughts on at that point? i mean, it’s pretty stark.

clark: we educate, we drive and we connect shawty, that’s what we do! right? so another kind of scary and wild statistic to add on to that is that it’s been projected that the united states only has about 60 harvests left. so the state of our soil is so depleted that if we continue doing what we’re doing, we will only be able to quite literally grow food across the country for the next maybe 55 to 60 years. to combat all of these things— education is the key to everything. if a person does not know, they will not do right. you can’t inspire someone if you can’t connect with them, right? and so for me, when we think about regenerative agriculture or sustainable agriculture, my job is to first of all remind all of my white allies in the space that they’re not the first people who said these things, right? you have the whole indigenous native american population who were in the united states for hundreds of 1000s of years. we don’t know how long. but they managed, quite literally managed and stewarded in this place in a way that maintained a form of harmony and balance that we have totally obliterated. and not only just indigenous people here, but really indigenous people all over the world. for black and indigenous people to really see ourselves in that and to enter this space, unapologetically, by reclaiming our culture.

krantz: so you said science needs to become cooler. i am very blown away by the coolness of earthships.

fayaz: it sounds utopian, almost like it’s part of some alien jetson you know, futuristic model. so please tell us everything we need to know about an earthship and how your role in the earthship makes it possible.

clark: so earthships are essentially, what i call a 21st century post apocalyptic dwelling that is made from upcycled tires, cans, and bottles. it is a house that is fully sustainable and self-sufficient on its own made from trash! this super cool dude, his name is michael reynolds, he saw an article that was talking about aluminum cans and how you know, as we enter the microwave age, more single use items, trash is gonna be a bigger issue. so he shifted his entire architecture model to figuring out, well, if this is going to be an issue in the future, how do i capitalize on this to make it not an issue? in april of 2021 with all of the uprisings and george floyd and black lives matter, they decided to roll out a bipoc scholarship, which was basically: if you’re a black indigenous person of color, if you could get to new mexico, and you’ve received the scholarship, you don’t have to pay for anything. typically it’s around like 2500 to $3,000 to participate in the academy. and so i had the privilege to be the first recipient of that scholarship.

clark: i was like, i shouldn’t have to pay rent. i shouldn’t have to struggle, nobody should have to struggle when we have this technology, right? they (earthships) are the embodiment of six key main points. it’s water, food, electricity, waste, comfort and garbage. the house catches water, so it catches rainwater, it has a greenhouse in the front of it where you can grow your own food. it does waste management. so every time you flush the toilet, it literally runs through the botanical beds and your boo boo is basically feeding your plants. 

fayaz: woah!

clark: yeah! it embodies it utilizes geothermal dynamic heat. it’s an earthship, it’s a home that’s basically in the ground. so you don’t have to worry about, you know, paying for an h-vac system because quite literally the warmth of the earth is what will support you. it also talks about solar energy. so we have solar panels on it. and again, with food, you can grow your own food in those in that greenhouse in the front and then garbage right garbage is a problem. but it’s a house made from garbage. so you’re turning that problem into a very, very real solution.

krantz: earthships are one of the coolest things i have ever heard of in my entire life. only 21 years of life so far, but i feel that few things will beat it. what did these look like? when you walked in there, what did you see?

clark: i mean, they are gorgeous, you know what i’m saying? so imagine, you know, you got different color bottles. if you got a don julior or a bombay bottle, you know, it’s that sapphire gives you that blue hue. well imagine that, in a wall at times, with the sun blasting behind the siding behind it into your living room. you know what i’m saying? like that’s what it looks like. that’s why i say 21st century post apocalyptic, because it can definitely go anywhere from super luxurious or to super super rookie. there is an earthship on every continent except antarctica. you can build it yourself, but if no one from earthship biotecture academy is present and guiding you through that build, you can’t legally call it an earthship. so my dissertation will be building one in tuskegee, but i will be doing the first all black cohort.

fayaz: well, how much does this cost? how long does it take? can you kind of dig into the timeline and the process of making an earthship?

clark: i mean you it’s either one of two things: you either got a bunch of friends and a bunch of time, or a bunch of money. and even if you got a bunch of money, it’s still gonna cost more because of the labor. earthships can be anywhere from as cheap as $2,000 and majority recycled, upcycled and reclaimed materials to anywhere from anywhere to a hundred thousand to a million dollars. it can be beautiful, and you can use brand new everything if you want to. so as we started to face more issues with feeding ourselves, getting water, having electricity, a home that already has a rainwater catchment as a greenhouse in it, and has solar panel electricity hooked up to it is wanting to do nothing but increase in value. that’s why i say post apocalyptic because they can truly withhold these challenges that we’re about to start seeing more and more.

krantz: so you’re building the first ever earthship with an all black cohort, and you’re doing it in tuskegee. so, what black specific issues do you hope to combat by creating this community?

clark: i mean, so many things. but basically by the time i finished the earthship academy, i understood how my house was built. i understood how my water worked, i understood my plumbing. i understood electric loads, how to calculate them. i understood so much about building a house and owning the house, that i’m like everybody needs to know about this. everyone needs to know these basic principles. and then when i learned about how much wealth can be generated from your bare hands, it’s almost like you know, black people, we can afford to not know this information, especially when you have gentrification, people being pushed out of their communities left and right. you know, it’s real out here. nobody’s saving us, so we need to be equipping ourselves with the skills to build whatever new community, whatever new society, whatever new utopia, you know, we want to actually see. we have to be the ones who know how to work the drills, work the hammers, use those nails to build it.

fayaz: i’m a young person, hannah’s young person, and you are a young person too, working in this field, really pioneering this solution that inspires us to carry it forward. why should young people care?

clark: i think a lot of the time, we make it too much of an individual thing. this is collective. so if you care about your — even if you want to be selfish, and you want other people to care about you, you should care about climate. like in every regard. whatever you think is important, imagine it existing without clean water, food, or fresh air. if it can still exist, you’re in outer space and you are hella rich and i’m probably not talking to you.

krantz: sometimes before a call to action, people need a call to inspiration. you have just illustrated that so excellently. i want to go build an earthship.

fayaz: yeah, me too. we’re off!

audio story by chris zatarain

when was the last time that you really, truly listened to your surroundings? where were you? what did you hear? how did you feel?

we live in a bustling and noisy world, and i for one find that there is not much room left for stillness—to be present and to really stretch my ears out and listen, even though it seems like there is always something going on. it can be exhausting. 

maybe you can relate, but to me, a retreat into the wilderness is always a welcome reprieve from the constant boom and chatter that accompanies modern life. trekking on a desert trail through saguaro national park or in ponderosa pine forest on mt. lemmon gives me a new palette of sound to tune into: 

birdsong.

wind in the trees.

the trickle of a waterfall tucked into the back of a quiet canyon.

i find it healing.

our world is changing every day, and sometimes it seems that the sprawl of human life expands more and more, and nature can often feel farther and farther away. 

in today’s conversation, i speak to laura gianonne, a field recording artist and acoustic ecology technician whose entire job is to listen to the natural world. 

laura travels the world capturing the sounds of vibrant ecosystems from the island of borneo, to the jungles of ecuador, chichibu national park in japan, and the shimmering dawn chorus of the olympic peninsula, among others. 

her skills and talents are used both in scientific endeavors aiding research and organizations like quiet parks international and bornean bird conservation, as well as to bring the peaceful, natural sounds of the world to the ears of weary listeners. 

we discuss the ways that acoustic ecology can be used in conservation and land management strategies, as well as the ways in which the act of listening can bring us some peace as well.

you can learn more about laura and listen to her beautiful field recordings, such as those featured in this audio piece, at ebbtidesound.com.

full transcript below:

chris zatarain  0:00  
what types of things can we learn when we listen to our environment? today i’m speaking with someone whose entire livelihood is based on recording and listening to natural sound.

laura gianonne  0:25  
my name is laura gianonne and i work as a sound engineer who specialized in field recording. and i also have a background in studying acoustic ecology. my college degree is from evergreen state in washington, and that’s where i lived for a long time enjoying the sounds of the forest there. i grew up in southern california and moved up to washington a little while after high school and then lived in a rural area worked on farms for a while and got involved in acoustic ecology community projects out on the olympic peninsula. currently, i mostly work as a sound editor and recording nature sounds but i also volunteer or do projects for quiet parks international and i’ve done work with forney and bird conservation as a student and i’m hoping to continue doing more field work with acoustic analysis and helping with the acoustic studies with that project again in the future.

chris zatarain  1:23  
great, so what is your favorite sound?

laura gianonne  1:26  
oh, that’s not fair. it would have to be waves. i grew up surfing. i don’t get to surf very much lately, but the sound of waves is really means a lot to me kind of cuts through to the soul for me.

chris zatarain  1:41  
all right, can you in general terms describe what acoustic ecology is and how it relates to your work as a field recordist and as an acoustic ecology technician?

laura gianonne  1:53  
sure, acoustic ecology is the field in which we study how beings relate to sound and their environment through sound. so i think maybe initially, the research was more focused on humans and the environment, and sound and how that you know, plays into how we feel in certain environments and things but there’s a lot of research about how animals and birds use sound to communicate and also how different kinds of sound affect their behavior. so like if there’s a new development that brings a lot more sound into a certain area. there are some studies and research on how that affects species in the area. so it’s, it’s a lot broader than just how it affects humans.

chris zatarain  2:42  
so as a field recordist what are some things that field recordings can tell us about the environment around us and the health of ecosystems?

laura gianonne  2:52  
a couple of studies that i’ve helped with setting up recording devices that basically can stay out on like a tree for days or weeks. in those cases, we were studying birds, so which birds are singing at which times a day and using acoustic data to see if certain species are actually present for one thing, especially if they’re threatened species or protected in some way? and then how often are they there? and so you can really get a lot of information about who’s there and when they’re there, basically, and what they’re doing from the acoustic data. and i think of field recordings in the same way. but for research you can glean a ton of information about which species are doing what at what times day, which is a great data set to analyze the ecosystem there. in the sonoran desert, when i was recording there, in the spring, i was hoping to record birdsong is migratory birds were coming through and it was a particularly dry spring. so because it was dry, there wasn’t as much food for the birds essentially, so not as many plants were blooming, fewer insects were present. and so i didn’t hear a big variety of migratory birds like i would have if there had been more rain and more water to produce, you know, food for the birds, essentially, birds being an indication of where people might enjoy being like, you can tell that it’s a dry period because, you know, there aren’t living things like passing through here in as much abundance as they would be if there was more precipitation. so in that way, it’s a sign that you’re not going to find as much water as you might other times of the year or after more rainfall. it’s an indicator of what’s happening. in the environment. so like that dry spring example, if the season is changing, or if there’s a lower more rainfall than usual that’ll affect the whole food chain and birds are really like striking and like, you know, audible, visible way to notice that you can notice plants flowering but if you notice that a certain bird that you normally see isn’t there regularly anymore, that can be a sign that something is shifted in the environment for that bird.

chris zatarain  5:18  
so in your knowledge and your experience, can you give a description of some ways that natural soundscapes are changing and what is driving some of those changes?

laura gianonne  5:28  
sure, there is a really cool study 2020 to 2021 in san francisco about white crown or white throated sparrows, and this study was about their vocalizations during that time. period, and showed that their songs became more complex during the time period when there was less traffic noise. so the city had experienced a significant shift in noise levels like a lot of cities had during that time. and birds were able to sing more complexly and be heard by other birds, i think is the assumption. so like, they won’t do it unless there’s a you know, purpose in it like if the other bird can’t hear them. it’s not working. so i think the idea is, basically there was fewer layers of noise to compete with and so the birds could revert to more complex song types, which was really interesting. so i think that was a really acute example of how the layers of noise that we create through various you know, industries and transportation can affect the soundscape by pretty pretty dramatically. i think that the massive amount of development all over the world really affects the acoustics of all of these natural spaces and our own spaces. so anytime we’re paving a road, it affects how species move through wilderness and also creates this noise corridor. so i’ve seen that everywhere, basically, just constant development, and then more and more air traffic a s well, that sound is very pervasive because of the altitude and the loudness of the jet. and i think that it’s mostly just that we continue to expand our development. basically, keep doing that everywhere. and in some cases, i think, you know, like, people need homes and, you know, industry and all these things. so i don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, that we’re developing spaces, but i don’t think noise is always considered or at a top priority over other things, i think, especially with certain kinds of air traffic, it’s pretty tough to restrict that in terms of the noise that it’s causing.

chris zatarain  7:42  
can you tell us a little bit about how the data collected in acoustic ecology can be used to help in conservation efforts or land management efforts?

laura gianonne  7:54  
yeah, there’s one example of a project that i helped with on the olympic peninsula, there’s been an increase of jet traffic because of a specific navy project testing a certain a certain technique. so people have been trying to figure out or have been actually implementing different ways to monitor this for years now because of the huge impact it’s having on the community there. and so one study the researchers lauren keaney. and she basically just recorded different locations in the operation area for these flights, and then sorted through all of that data to identify which types of flights are happening and how loud they are. and that data has been used in the community discussion of the situation, but also in actual litigation. so she’s got this acoustic data set that she’s spent also a lot of time analyzing. and so it’s not just the data collection, but her work, doing statistics on it and and studying the data from that, that demonstrates what exactly is happening in terms of loudness and frequency of flights and then that can be used to make rules basically. and then quiet parks international is a similar concept. when we do surveys we’re looking at which types of noise is present and how long and how loud is it and that can be used to designate areas as quiet parks or quiet trails, or quiet urban parks. and so that data is used to basically highlight areas people can go to enjoy a place that’s pretty free from human caused noise, which is hard to find. so that’s being used in that way to help bring awareness of wilderness basically, but acoustic is really helpful in that way as well. it kind of adds to the thoroughness of detecting whether something’s there and then you can use that to say, okay, this threatened species exists here. so we’re going to have this thinning process happen that’s going to bring in machinery and whatnot. it could affect the species and then that’s kind of a powerful way to adjust what’s being done with the land. and then in other ways it to us to document if a species is present, and if it’s a threatened or endangered species, and there are certain mandated protections for that species. so if you have acoustic data that proves that an endangered species is in a forest, and you also have that forest is slated to be thinned or logged. then you have some information there to work with. like you can detect species by doing visual surveys and, you know, there’s different kinds of methods for that.

chris zatarain  10:40  
so why do you think it’s important to designate these specific quiet areas that people can go to and what are the benefits of being able to listen in these environments?

laura gianonne  10:54  
i think that people have an opportunity to be in a place that doesn’t have layers of noise, where they can spend time hearing what a bird or an insect sounds like or a mammal or something or the wind through branches without having to listen over all this other noise. it just becomes a lot more clear what’s happening in the natural environment around you because you’re not having to strain to hear it over all the other stuff that we normally are exposed to. so i hope people can find places to go where they can have that experience and it can be a little bit unsettling at first because i feel like i get all of this, you know, if i’m in an urban environment where there’s a lot of sound sources that are quite loud like i get all of this information like that, and then i go into a space or a forest or something away from that, that doesn’t have it. and suddenly you have this whole different sensory experience. it’s very dramatically different than that kind of typical listening environment that i think most people are in most of the time. and then i mean, there are like natural acoustic environments like in tropical forests are really loud during the day. so or like heavy rain, you know, or in the desert out and storms and stuff. and there’s plenty of natural experiences that are very loud so it’s not all just like one wren singing in the tree or something. but i think getting to hear that without all of the layers is a pretty special experience that people can have by moving away from those places that are more dense, but it’s sometimes hard to access it because it’s a long drive or flight or something.

chris zatarain  12:38  
yeah, i think that’s a really good point. and i think that that’s why things like field recordings can be so useful because they make natural sound a little more accessible. where can people find and listen to more of your work?

laura gianonne  12:51  
i have a website for my business called https://ebbtidesound.com/. and i also have a soundcloud channel. so all of that you can access through my website.

chris zatarain  13:02  
awesome. thank you so much, laura.

audio story by joshua rosenstein

nestled in the eastern suburbs of sydney, australia, jesmond (jes) sammut lectures his students on topics in coastal resource management. sammut is an associate professor at the university of new south wales, and also leads the unsw aquaculture research group. aquaculture, which is the farming of aquatic organisms, is seldom discussed by most people around the world, yet it can lead to enormous benefits.

sammut’s research has taken him to vietnam and indonesia to study shrimp farming, india to train local veterinarian scientists, and the philippines for fish farming. yet, some of his most impactful work has occurred in papua new guinea, where he trained a research team that subsequently worked with the national fisheries authority of papua new guinea to improve tilapia production and fish farming practices.

according to sammut, the work conducted by his team and partner groups has led to drops in crime, tribal war, and antisocial behavior, while also boosting self-esteem, cooperation, and financial and food security. his experiences have also come with challenges and lessons learned.

this podcast intends to introduce you to jes sammut and the power of his aquaculture research in papua new guinea.

audio story by chris zatarain

tucson resident charles collins’ backyard garden may be unlike any other home garden you’ve ever seen. he’s opted to grow aquaponically rather than in a traditional in-ground garden. 

aquaponics is a system of growing food in a closed-loop system that integrates live fish, a soilless medium, plants, and mineral-rich water. charles designed and built his aquaponics system by blending forms of traditional ecological knowledge and modern scientific understanding, as well as low and high technologies to grow an abundance of fresh vegetables and sustainable protein to feed him and his family.  

his work and influence continues to expand across his local community and around the world, with technologies he developed being adapted and used in cutting edge scientific  endeavors at nasa and the world health organization (who). his main mission, though, is in getting more people interested in growing their own food.  

according to charles, aquaponics is the answer to growing abundant, nutritious, and sustainably-sourced food in a changing climate for everyday people interested in taking more control of their food security. 

this piece is intended to acquaint you with the warm and wonderful charles collins, a man working to change the way that the world grows food.

full transcript:

ghana, an african coastal nation of over 30 million people, is a perfect destination for westerners –– especially those tracing their roots. yet, the cost of living in ghana is higher than most arrivals may expect. one of the main drivers for the high real estate prices is the expensive cost of building materials.

what if there was a solution that doesn’t only provide affordable housing, but helps to protect the fragile environment which is already vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change?

nelson boateng, founder and chief executive officer of nelplast eco ghana limited is a young ghanain entrepreneur, a leading voice that is repurposing and diverting tons of plastic waste from landfills and oceans into affordable building materials for the construction of low-cost houses in ghana.

“when the collected plastics are brought to us, we scale and pay the collectors according to the weight. the plastics are crushed, washed semi-dried and mixed with sand and sometimes, pigments to add beauty. the mixture is then fed into an extruder with 3 heating zones, which we build ourselves. since we are using all kinds of plastic waste at their right proportion, these plastics have different melting points. as they travel through the extruder, let’s say starting from 150 degrees celsius, 180 to 220 degrees celsius, the heating zones ensure that all kinds of plastic waste is well melted and mixed with sand. this mixer comes out as a paste, which is placed in a mold with a cooling system around it and then pressed under hydraulic press. between 60 to 70 seconds, we eject one product out depending on the size and shape of the product. this product would then be packed on the palette and ready to be installed. nelplast echo plastic houses are 30% to 35% cheaper than the concrete buildings that we have, and most of our clients are happy with our projects.”

for the longest time, plastic has been the material of choice for different kinds of packaging due to its lightweight, affordability and ease of use. however, the long run consequences of easy packaging on the environment are far reaching. according to a recent undp report, ghana generates over a million tons of plastic waste every year and only 2% to 5% of the plastic waste is being recycled, and project drawdown reveals that recycling could help reduce our carbon footprints by 2 gigatons come 2030. yet, more and more concerns on the negative effects of plastic use on health, raises questions on whether there are any negative impacts of living in a house constructed from plastic waste! and how solid and resilient are these structures to natural disasters? 

“nelplast bricks are not laid with cement. they are interlocked with each other and due to that nature, they are able to contract and expand when there’s uncertainty on the earth. it can also withstand earthquakes because the walls are not rigid. they have the ability to be flexible when there is any earthquake. also in terms of cracks, the wall with plastics doesn’t crack so easily. the bricks are cheaper and stronger than conventional bricks. they can withstand water lock areas and also avoid dampness to the walls. they are safe in terms of fire, because the high percentage of the sand makes the product fire retardant. it’s not easy for these bricks to just get burnt. the bricks are designed in such a way that there is a groove in the middle of the brick that heat from outside to penetrate into the inner part of the room and also maintain the temperature of the inner part of the bricks.”

reduce, reuse, and recycle! this is the recommended way of life that boateng is actively working to promote in his home country – ghana. nelplast eco ghana limited, born out of frustration with the disturbing amounts of plastic waste continuously buried in landfills is an initiative committed to rid the country of the gulf of plastic waste that is polluting the environment and water bodies, while securing economic opportunities for the unemployed youth in ghana.

“we have the problem of plastic waste, the problem of school infrastructure, housing deficit and  unemployment. nelplast is trying to use the problem of plastic waste to build affordable houses and solve the problem of housing in ghana. build schools, create jobs for unemployed youth to reduce social violence and clean the environment. currently, nelplast employees 63 workers directly and over 300 indirect workers and 98% of this indirect workers are women who go around the landfills, drainage and beaches to collect plastic waste and sell to us – and that’s how they earn their living.”

boateng’s drive to save the environment from plastic pollution does not go by unsupported or unnoticed. 

“we won ghana uk based achievement award as innovation and technology of the year; emy africa – the green corporate star award; african product and service award; ghana property award as best echo construction product; ghana industry award; seed low carbon award and the business executive excellence award.” 

however, his ability to scale the business is confronted by many challenges.

“ghana has a lot of challenges and one of them is the cost of electricity. there are no subsidies for recyclers in ghana and that is really discouraging others to join the line. i have passion with plastics because at the age of 13 i was already working with the plastic industry. i did computer network engineering but my passion is how to deal with plastic waste. also, because of our capacity issues we get a little bit scared of accepting more contracts. a lot of people are calling who want a house, but the problem has to do with our capacity. so because of that, this year we are handling only 15 clients, next year we can add on. if we can have subsidies from the government on electricity bills, soft loans to help us expand, i think it will go a very long way.”

a recent world bank report projects that waste will grow from 2 billion tonnes in 2020 to nearly 3 billion tonnes by 2050, and the effects may be more adverse for developing countries, where more than 90% of trash is either dumped in the open or burned, worsening the climate crisis. as many look forward to the un international climate conference – cop27 – just around the corner, boateng is curious to know where plastic pollution fits in the conversations.

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[editor’s note: this transcript was edited for clarity.]

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correction (9/7/2022): an earlier version of this story misidentified where in africa ghana is located. this version corrects it.