The Bad, the Good, and the Oysters
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson
I'm now a little over halfway through my time in California; there are only three more days of "classes", and then I leave for Vietnam on Friday. Now why was "classes" just put in quotation marks? As it turns out, my study abroad program, IHP, plays a little bit fast and loose with the idea of what class periods really are. As it turns out, I had only the third class period today, after being here for 10 days. Instead of sitting in a classroom and listening to lectures by the professor, most of our academic learning instead takes place outside, using experiential learning and various guest lecturers to educate us, rather than simply our teachers. It's kind of nice in a way (less homework!), but at times I feel like there's so much raw information for me to absorb and to learn that it would be nice to have a little more traditional learning thrown in.
I might as well clear up one thing right now: the purpose of this study abroad program is to study climate change. More specifically, we'll be looking at the political and economic effects of climate change, its impact on natural resources (particularly food and fresh water), and potential policies of mitigation and adaptation. Climate change, it would seem, is a very polarizing topic within the United States, in a way that is really found nowhere else in the world. Europeans are apparently astonished about how little acceptance there is of it here, and of how much of an industry has built up around its denial.
It has suddenly become a political, rather than scientific issue here, and that bodes ill for reaching solutions in a timely manner (as anyone paying attention to Congress recently could probably guess). Having certain political figures act as the original advocates probably never helped things, but the inconvenient truth (see what I did there?) is that such a serious problem requires deep structural changes, something which nobody really wants to have to deal with. In order to avoid thinking about this, there has been a lot of deliberate misinformation spread around, such as really bad science or nitpicking on small details. However, the science is unfortunately pretty undebatable. Even a study commissioned by the Koch Brothers (outspoken deniers of climate change) says pretty unequivocally that it's a real, pressing problem. There is a huge, sweeping consensus among scientists that climate change is real, and caused by humans, and I'm going to have to defer to the experts on this one. Therefore, from here on out I'll be working on the assumption that the core science is valid. I understand that not everyone reading this blog will agree; if there are questions or quibbles, I encourage comments or personal emails to debate it. I think it's too important an issue to simply shrug and ignore.
Anyway.
What classes we've had have been pretty good so far. Perhaps my only misgiving is the fact that my class on political economy is not taught by an economist or political scientist (the professor is a sociologist), and my climate science class isn't taught by a climate scientist (that one is a social geographer). This isn't to say that they aren't extremely knowledgeable about their respective subjects, but these are two particular issues I want to educate myself in a lot more, and I was kind of hoping for experts in the field. But I should withhold judgement until we've really gotten into the swing of things.
So far, the approach seems to have been coming from a fairly radical perspective, which is interesting for me. I suspect I'm a little to the right of most of my classmates, and certainly my professors, politically (something I never thought I would say), and a lot of the reading material and lectures I've been exposed to so far have challenged a lot of my preconceived views and ideas. That's definitely not a bad thing though; I think we all have a bad habit of surrounding ourselves with information that confirms our worldview, rather than challenging it, and that's not a good way to educate oneself.
As I said, most of our "class time" has not been actual classes, but instead field trips and site visits around the Bay Area. It can be a little exhausting at times, but I'm learning a huge amount through it, and getting to see many areas I would never visit otherwise.
The first outing was somewhat off the beaten path for Bay Area tourists: Richmond, a city on the northeastern shore of the San Francisco Bay. It's very much a low-income, working-class city, quite a bit different from many other communities in the area. It reflects many of the structural inequalities you can see anywhere in the country: a mainly black and Latino population, and comparatively little political representation. It also happens to have an enormous Chevron oil refinery squatting on the edge of it.
We weren't actually able to get inside the refinery, because for some reason they weren't too hot on the idea of a group of college students studying climate change to come in and get a tour. However, we did get a decent look at it from a park just outside. Our lecturer there was Azibukie ("Ozzie") Akabe, a scientist and environmental policy analyst who has done a lot of advocacy work in the area, including in Richmond. He knew quite a bit about the refinery and the issues surrounding it, so we got a good social perspective on the whole thing.
It seems that there's a huge lack of regulation around the whole thing, leading to a some dangerous but fairly preventable accidents, and several more insidious, long-term side effects. Children who attend schools nearby chemical incinerators have been shown to develop much higher rates of learning disabilities, and the air quality has decreased quite a bit, not only in Richmond, but in the Central Valley region, downwind of the plant. Unfortunately, Chevron wields a huge amount of power as a large corporation and a large chunk of the tax base, so it has been very difficult to impose regulations that could make the whole thing safer. Residents of Richmond are understandably nervous about the existence of the plant, but often don't have the financial resources to move away. An interesting fact brought up was that our zip code predicts our death better than our genetic code. Unfortunately, the talk was cut short by the Chevron security guards, who decided we had been hanging around a little too close to the perimeter of the refinery.
Following the refinery, we had lunch in an interesting little warehouse in downtown Richmond and got to walk along the shorefront a little bit. During World War 2, there were a number of manufacturing plants built (including in the warehouse we ate) that employed local women. There was a museum there dedicated to Rosie the Riveter, the famous symbol of patriotism and feminism. It was interesting to see how the employment created by the war (as horrible as the war was) created so many opportunities for women and people of color, allowing many of them to rise out of poverty. The shorefront also had a beautiful view of the bay, and of people enjoying the constant wind.
The following day, we split up into groups to visit various sources of alternative energy. I managed to get into the group visiting a geothermal power plant, which was the most competitive (mostly because the plant was just outside of the Napa Valley). The plant we visited was about 2 hours away from Berkeley, up a winding mountain pass and in a seismically active part of Central California known as the Geysers. The friction created by the San Andreas Fault means that the ground beneath is warm much nearer to the surface, and heats up groundwater that shoots to the surface as geysers. This makes it the perfect location for a geothermal power plant.
Of all the forms of energy, geothermal power was that which I knew the least about. In fact, it's really, really fascinating. Though it's obviously very complicated, the basic structure is that of a U-shaped pipe running deep underground. Cold water is injected through one end of the pipe, then heated up to steam as it goes deep underground. The steam then rises to the surface and powers several turbines, which then create electricity. The great thing about geothermal power is its reliability; unlike the wind and sun, which can be temperamental, the earth is pretty much always creating heat. Iceland is currently powered entirely using geothermal energy, and there is enough heat stored under the Great Rift Valley of East Africa to power that entire side of the continent at European levels... forever. There are still limitations regarding storage of power (it's not like oil or natural gas, which can simply be put in tanks and shipped across the planet) and induced seismicity (it can cause small earthquakes), but it's a very cool new technology that's developing very quickly. I hope it catches on further, as it's a great way of reducing our emissions.
On the way back, we stopped at a winery in Napa Valley, just because we were passing through and it would have been silly not to. It was (as you could probably guess) a really beautiful area, and I'm sure the wine was wonderful too. Alas, I didn't think to taste any.
The following day, we did (in my opinion) our most interesting field trip yet, to the Drake's Bay Oyster Farm on the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was our first day really going to the seashore, so naturally it was the coldest, windiest day we'd had so far. However, the drive through Marin County, the peninsula north of the Golden Gate Bridge, was beautiful, and it was nice to spend some more time outside.
Drake's Bay Oyster Farm is unique because it was an industry before the National Seashore was created, leading to a bit of an awkward relationship between park officials and the management of the farm. The park had generally been tolerant of the farm, as it has a very limited impact on the environment and brought more visitors in, but it was recently decided not to renew the lease. As it stands now, the owners will have to vacate the premises very, very soon and allow the park to destroy all the infrastructure (and the oysters), while all of the workers on the farm (most of them Mexican workers) will lose their jobs. Not surprisingly, it's a very contentious issue, and we were hoping to get both sides of it. Driving through Marin County, nearly every home and business had hand painted signs stating "SAVE OUR DRAKE'S BAY OYSTER FARM"; it was very clear where local opinion stood on the issue.
At the farm, we got the story of one side of the struggle from Kevin Lunny, the owner of the oyster farm, and Toller Nolley, an oyster farmer from Virginia who had flown in to work on defending the farm from being shut down.
We first got an explanation of oyster farming, something I didn't know much about before. I'll spare the full load of information under the assumption that not all those reading are terribly interested in oyster husbandry, but it really was very cool. Some salient facts are that oysters are an incredibly low-impact food environmentally, and are usually beneficial to the environment in that they filter water (about 50 gallons of water per oyster per day). About 12,000 pounds of water go into producing 1 pound of beef (an astonishing fact I've just learned), so it would seem that oysters are a very good alternative in that sense.
We also got some more information on the future of the farm, which looks pretty grim; the DBOF recently lost an important court decision on whether or not it will stay open, and is fighting tooth and nail to at least get an injunction on the destruction of the farm while they challenge the case. They have several important lobbies and politicians, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein, on their side, but the courts haven't ruled in their favor much. It was palpable to see the worry that the owners felt, and that was only magnified by the workers, who are facing even more uncertainty for the future.
Our coördinators were also nice enough to buy a case of raw oysters for us to try, which was great. I'd never had raw oyster before, and was pleasantly surprised. It turns out you just put some sauce inside the shell, and then eat the whole thing in one gulp like an oyster shot. They taste a little like chewy seawater, but it's inexplicably addictive.
Following our time at the farm, we went to a different part of the park to speak with Ignacio Chapela, a professor at University of California, Berkeley. He's a microbial ecologist (which apparently is different from microbiology), and a fervent opponent of the farm. We met him at an isolated trailhead in the National Seashore, and he insisted on taking us on a half-mile hike to a beautiful little estuary before speaking with us.
Standing in a tidal plain next to the estero (an estero is like an estuary but apparently with less movement of water), he explained to us his thoughts on the farm and its closure. I think most of us expected him to look at it from a more environmentalist standpoint, perhaps contradicting points made at the farm about its low ecological impact. However, he instead based his argument around a lot of legal technicalities, some of which made sense, others of which didn't as much. He also made the argument that allowing the farm to continue to function would open the door for all sorts of other economic activity within national parks, such as logging or resource extraction.
Overall, I walked away from it feeling very unconvinced; I think it's damn near impossible to have any sort of wilderness without a sign of human impact (humans are part of nature), and as far as that went, the oyster farm seemed to be doing more harm than good. It produces about 30% of California's oysters, and the state will have to rely on importing more and more oysters from East Asia once it has closed, something that isn't nearly as environmentally sound. Furthermore, legal technicalities to me don't seem like a good excuse to destroy a business with so much history and so many positive aspects. As for the "slippery slope" argument, it seems like a bit of a logical leap to me to say that this is equivalent to logging or mining in a national park; there are clear differences, especially the fact that the oyster farm has actually been around far longer than the park. Many, but not all of my classmates agreed with me, but it was certainly good to hear Ignacio's talk. I disagree with him pretty heavily on several things, such as the oyster farm or GMO's, but he's a very well-renowned scientist with quite a treasure trove of knowledge about the ecosystem of the area.
Finally, we finished our day with a trip to Limantour Beach, at the southern end of Point Reyes. Against my better judgement, I decided to go swimming in the ocean with most of the other students (and one of our professors!), despite the fact it was still bitingly cold and windy. And boy, was that water cold. Oi vey. However, it was my first time being able to ride an ocean wave into shore, and there was a seal swimming very near to us for a lot of the time. So it was definitely worth it. Not to mention the beach was beautiful.
I think this will be all for today, as it's getting very, very late here in California, and I have my second-to-last day of "classes" early tomorrow morning before we all head to Vietnam. It would seem that these novella-sized blog posts might be a permanent thing; there's just so much happening, and not enough time to cover it all! I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures, and I'll come out with another entry later this week!
Anyway.
What classes we've had have been pretty good so far. Perhaps my only misgiving is the fact that my class on political economy is not taught by an economist or political scientist (the professor is a sociologist), and my climate science class isn't taught by a climate scientist (that one is a social geographer). This isn't to say that they aren't extremely knowledgeable about their respective subjects, but these are two particular issues I want to educate myself in a lot more, and I was kind of hoping for experts in the field. But I should withhold judgement until we've really gotten into the swing of things.
So far, the approach seems to have been coming from a fairly radical perspective, which is interesting for me. I suspect I'm a little to the right of most of my classmates, and certainly my professors, politically (something I never thought I would say), and a lot of the reading material and lectures I've been exposed to so far have challenged a lot of my preconceived views and ideas. That's definitely not a bad thing though; I think we all have a bad habit of surrounding ourselves with information that confirms our worldview, rather than challenging it, and that's not a good way to educate oneself.
As I said, most of our "class time" has not been actual classes, but instead field trips and site visits around the Bay Area. It can be a little exhausting at times, but I'm learning a huge amount through it, and getting to see many areas I would never visit otherwise.
 |
| Those round tanks barely visible on the hillside are supposed to be painted white; the refinery responded to local lobbying and painted them brown to be less intrusive (they aren't), which meant that the fuel inside becomes more heated and volatile. |
We weren't actually able to get inside the refinery, because for some reason they weren't too hot on the idea of a group of college students studying climate change to come in and get a tour. However, we did get a decent look at it from a park just outside. Our lecturer there was Azibukie ("Ozzie") Akabe, a scientist and environmental policy analyst who has done a lot of advocacy work in the area, including in Richmond. He knew quite a bit about the refinery and the issues surrounding it, so we got a good social perspective on the whole thing.
It seems that there's a huge lack of regulation around the whole thing, leading to a some dangerous but fairly preventable accidents, and several more insidious, long-term side effects. Children who attend schools nearby chemical incinerators have been shown to develop much higher rates of learning disabilities, and the air quality has decreased quite a bit, not only in Richmond, but in the Central Valley region, downwind of the plant. Unfortunately, Chevron wields a huge amount of power as a large corporation and a large chunk of the tax base, so it has been very difficult to impose regulations that could make the whole thing safer. Residents of Richmond are understandably nervous about the existence of the plant, but often don't have the financial resources to move away. An interesting fact brought up was that our zip code predicts our death better than our genetic code. Unfortunately, the talk was cut short by the Chevron security guards, who decided we had been hanging around a little too close to the perimeter of the refinery.
 |
| These guys. |
The following day, we split up into groups to visit various sources of alternative energy. I managed to get into the group visiting a geothermal power plant, which was the most competitive (mostly because the plant was just outside of the Napa Valley). The plant we visited was about 2 hours away from Berkeley, up a winding mountain pass and in a seismically active part of Central California known as the Geysers. The friction created by the San Andreas Fault means that the ground beneath is warm much nearer to the surface, and heats up groundwater that shoots to the surface as geysers. This makes it the perfect location for a geothermal power plant.
Of all the forms of energy, geothermal power was that which I knew the least about. In fact, it's really, really fascinating. Though it's obviously very complicated, the basic structure is that of a U-shaped pipe running deep underground. Cold water is injected through one end of the pipe, then heated up to steam as it goes deep underground. The steam then rises to the surface and powers several turbines, which then create electricity. The great thing about geothermal power is its reliability; unlike the wind and sun, which can be temperamental, the earth is pretty much always creating heat. Iceland is currently powered entirely using geothermal energy, and there is enough heat stored under the Great Rift Valley of East Africa to power that entire side of the continent at European levels... forever. There are still limitations regarding storage of power (it's not like oil or natural gas, which can simply be put in tanks and shipped across the planet) and induced seismicity (it can cause small earthquakes), but it's a very cool new technology that's developing very quickly. I hope it catches on further, as it's a great way of reducing our emissions.
 |
| Sunset on the way back; much better than I thought it would be considering I took this picture out the window of the van. |
The following day, we did (in my opinion) our most interesting field trip yet, to the Drake's Bay Oyster Farm on the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was our first day really going to the seashore, so naturally it was the coldest, windiest day we'd had so far. However, the drive through Marin County, the peninsula north of the Golden Gate Bridge, was beautiful, and it was nice to spend some more time outside.
Drake's Bay Oyster Farm is unique because it was an industry before the National Seashore was created, leading to a bit of an awkward relationship between park officials and the management of the farm. The park had generally been tolerant of the farm, as it has a very limited impact on the environment and brought more visitors in, but it was recently decided not to renew the lease. As it stands now, the owners will have to vacate the premises very, very soon and allow the park to destroy all the infrastructure (and the oysters), while all of the workers on the farm (most of them Mexican workers) will lose their jobs. Not surprisingly, it's a very contentious issue, and we were hoping to get both sides of it. Driving through Marin County, nearly every home and business had hand painted signs stating "SAVE OUR DRAKE'S BAY OYSTER FARM"; it was very clear where local opinion stood on the issue.
At the farm, we got the story of one side of the struggle from Kevin Lunny, the owner of the oyster farm, and Toller Nolley, an oyster farmer from Virginia who had flown in to work on defending the farm from being shut down.
 |
| Kevin Lunny |
 |
| Toller Nolley |
We also got some more information on the future of the farm, which looks pretty grim; the DBOF recently lost an important court decision on whether or not it will stay open, and is fighting tooth and nail to at least get an injunction on the destruction of the farm while they challenge the case. They have several important lobbies and politicians, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein, on their side, but the courts haven't ruled in their favor much. It was palpable to see the worry that the owners felt, and that was only magnified by the workers, who are facing even more uncertainty for the future.
 |
| Removing oysters from the shells |
Our coördinators were also nice enough to buy a case of raw oysters for us to try, which was great. I'd never had raw oyster before, and was pleasantly surprised. It turns out you just put some sauce inside the shell, and then eat the whole thing in one gulp like an oyster shot. They taste a little like chewy seawater, but it's inexplicably addictive.
 |
| Yum. |
 |
| An alternative way of doing it. |
 |
| Some of the facilities. |
 |
| Those of you who haven't followed this blog for long will soon find out just how much I like taking pictures of birds. |
Standing in a tidal plain next to the estero (an estero is like an estuary but apparently with less movement of water), he explained to us his thoughts on the farm and its closure. I think most of us expected him to look at it from a more environmentalist standpoint, perhaps contradicting points made at the farm about its low ecological impact. However, he instead based his argument around a lot of legal technicalities, some of which made sense, others of which didn't as much. He also made the argument that allowing the farm to continue to function would open the door for all sorts of other economic activity within national parks, such as logging or resource extraction.
Overall, I walked away from it feeling very unconvinced; I think it's damn near impossible to have any sort of wilderness without a sign of human impact (humans are part of nature), and as far as that went, the oyster farm seemed to be doing more harm than good. It produces about 30% of California's oysters, and the state will have to rely on importing more and more oysters from East Asia once it has closed, something that isn't nearly as environmentally sound. Furthermore, legal technicalities to me don't seem like a good excuse to destroy a business with so much history and so many positive aspects. As for the "slippery slope" argument, it seems like a bit of a logical leap to me to say that this is equivalent to logging or mining in a national park; there are clear differences, especially the fact that the oyster farm has actually been around far longer than the park. Many, but not all of my classmates agreed with me, but it was certainly good to hear Ignacio's talk. I disagree with him pretty heavily on several things, such as the oyster farm or GMO's, but he's a very well-renowned scientist with quite a treasure trove of knowledge about the ecosystem of the area.
Finally, we finished our day with a trip to Limantour Beach, at the southern end of Point Reyes. Against my better judgement, I decided to go swimming in the ocean with most of the other students (and one of our professors!), despite the fact it was still bitingly cold and windy. And boy, was that water cold. Oi vey. However, it was my first time being able to ride an ocean wave into shore, and there was a seal swimming very near to us for a lot of the time. So it was definitely worth it. Not to mention the beach was beautiful.
 |
| Group picture! |
I think this will be all for today, as it's getting very, very late here in California, and I have my second-to-last day of "classes" early tomorrow morning before we all head to Vietnam. It would seem that these novella-sized blog posts might be a permanent thing; there's just so much happening, and not enough time to cover it all! I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures, and I'll come out with another entry later this week!
Comments
Post a Comment