Environmental Justice...Discussion Forum Post #1

As I post things for the discussion forum in my environmental justice class, I plan to repost them here. Expect something weekly!

(It should also be noted that I just got back from another fabulous weekend in Boston in which we embarked on the subject of urban environmental history. This trip involved a visit with the city's archaeologist at a burial ground from the 1600s. It is currently located in the middle of Roxbury. It was once located at the base of a peninsula, surrounded in ocean water. WHAT?! Not knowing ANYTHING about Boston's history makes these classes so much more fun. Who knew that the "Back Bay" is actually a FILLED IN BAY?! When you run out of land, I guess society's solution is to just build more. I actually read in "Something New Under the Sun" that, in total, man has "made land" approximately equivalent to the land area of Spain. Why didn't I realize this happens...? Midwestern biases...?

Also, for my environmental history class, I am currently creating a poster and a paper on the history of the Chicago River, and conducting interviews to document the history of C3. Fun, fun, fun. I am such a nerd.)

This week's EJ post:

I spent some time this evening perusing the Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) website. While I am very impressed by their work and efforts, I also find myself feeling overwhelmed. This group is well-organized into subcommittees and smaller groups (e.g., youth leadership, transit justice, legal services, etc.), but the over-arching theme goes against my "focused take home message" nature. They state their mission as "[to build] the power of communities of color and lower income communities in New England to eradicate environmental racism and classism and achieve environmental justice." WOW. Talk about lofty goals. I find that any ONE of their initiatives probably justifies an organization unto itself, yet they seem to be tackling every issue simultaneously.

I think this is, personally, my greatest challenge in approaching "environmental justice issues." The problem is so massive and systemic...where do you begin and where do you end? To "eradicate environmental racism" requires change on so many levels, and many of them aren't even directly addressing environmental issues, but those of policy, education, health, etc. What I wonder is, by trying to tackle all of these issues at once, are organizations like ACE actually diluting their impact? Would they be better off focusing on one issue (e.g., transit justice) and making measurable progress in that arena? Or, by working with everything at the same time, are they building a cycle of change that perpetuates itself?

I realize that all of these issues eventually need to be addressed (you can't really break them apart from one another), but I think my confusion/concern arises in thinking about thematic messaging. After looking at ACE's website, I know they are an "environmental justice organization," but I'm not entirely sure what they focus on or why. For example, when you go the the "Take Action" part of their webpage, they are currently asking people to lobby for youth jobs. That is a VERY important aspect of keeping youth off of the streets and in positive environments...but how does it fit in with the rest of the work ACE is doing? Would ACE obtain youth employees through that funding? Is it an issue of concern identified by the community? How will citizen action in that realm help ACE reach its goals?

I will be interested in learning more about other EJ organizations and their role within communities. Do most organizations tackle it all in response to communities' needs and interests? Or do they recognize their limits and really key on the "most significant issue" in their communities? Hmm...

Chicago Wilderness: Climate Change

I went to a really great conference on Tuesday hosted by Chicago Wilderness's education team. It was basically an introductory conversation regarding climate change education in Chicago, how we all might collaborate, and what resources are still needed. It was one of the best conferences I've been to in a LONG time, and I'm very excited that I will be serving on the Education Team's Climate Change Task Force for the next several years.

Some interesting resources I wanted to share:

Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences
This is a very nice distillation of the basic tenets someone needs to understand in order to fully comprehend climate change and its impacts. I believe it comes from NOAA.

Climate Communications and Behavior Change
This resource from the University of Oregon (yeah, Daisy!) and the Social Capital Project focuses on some research conducted re: climate change education, primarily language. They use the term "climate disruption" to convey a greater sense of urgency, and talk about "apocalyptic fatigue" in regards to how people tire of being warned of their impending doom. Teehee.

EPA's Climate Change, Wildlife, and Wildlands Toolkit
Nifty resources for people working with youth.

Chicago Wilderness Climate Action Plan for Nature (CAPN)
This resource really focuses on the preservation of biodiversity despite climate change, and its role in climate change mitigation and adaptation in Chicago. It parallels the...

Chicago Climate Action Plan (CCAP)
...which is the focus of a lot of C3's work. CCAP focuses more on the built environment, energy efficiency, and people than CAPN which looks much more at the greenspace and the areas directly surrounding Chicago (going into Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan).

I also had the opportunity to visit the Field Museum's new Climate Change Exhibit. I think it did a GREAT job of explaining the issues without being TOO doomsday-y. I definitely want to visit again if anyone wants to go with me. It's only here until November 28th, though, so we'll have to get moving...

Maybe some of that might be useful to my cohort and/or colleagues!

The End of Days (just kidding...kind of)

I’m acclimating to life apart from my fellow grad students, but it surely is NOT easy. I expected grad school to be very time-intensive and challenging. I mean, I’m earning a Masters in two years WHILE working full-time (often 50+ hours per week, at least for the next few months). Plenty of people told me I was nuts, and I was prepared for stress and a packed schedule. But you know what I WASN’T prepared for?

This weird isolation! I feel ENTIRELY out of sync with every person in my life. And I have some wonderful people in my life – it’s nothing against them. By way of a better explanation…

I was crazy busy during my undergraduate program, working and conducting original research and taking more credits than I probably should’ve. BUT I WAS SURROUNDED IN OTHER, EQUALLY CRAZY PEOPLE! If I was cramming for an exam, odds were good that I had another friend in the class who was cramming along with me. I had a regular study group that met for 20+ hours per week when I was taking organic chemistry. My closest friends held my hand through physics. We were all dedicated, over-achievers and we socialized THROUGH our academics. No one was intent to drag me away from my studies. Everyone understood if you said for the umpteenth time, “Sorry, I’ve got to go work on a paper – maybe next time?”

Even aside from being on a different schedule than everyone I know and not having any good study buddies, I am ALSO struggling because I can’t find a SPACE to study. If I’m home, all I want to do is sleep. I’m not on a college campus, so coffee shops don’t stay open past 10pm (even in Chicago). If I want to do some late night work (which is the only real time I have), you want to know what I’m resorting to? STUDYING AT THE BAR.

So, in conclusion, I WAS expecting a packed, stressful schedule…I was NOT expecting to become an unintentional alcoholic/social outcast.

A saving grace is certainly the rest of my cohort. I think we’re all feeling it; in response, we have organized conference calls on Skype on Monday nights. It’s a way to talk through the work we’ve been doing and also to commiserate over our challenges. It’s like a long-distance, weekly “you can do it!” hug.

That said, IS THERE ANYONE IN CHICAGO WHO NEEDS A STUDY BUDDY?!?!

Anyway, my research is proving very interesting. I’m working on my research paper (due in mid-October), and I have chosen to focus on a topic with which I have less familiarity in an effort to really challenge myself on an urban ecology subject. Looking back over my journaling activities, I can say with great authority that Peter Del Tredici and his crazy vendetta against the native/invasive plant distinction got me the most fired up…and so I’m researching plant ecology in Chicago. I’m looking at whether or not Peter’s argument holds water in Chicago, considering the natural history of the area, ecosystem services, and human connections to plant life. And, so far, Peter’s faring pretty well…maybe all this native/invasive business IS malarkey in a city. Oh my.

In addition to writing this paper, I plan to present my “findings” to a bunch of my co-workers to get their response as regional experts. Surprisingly, that part makes me the most nervous. I work with some very intelligent people, and I’m not sure I’m ready to write a paper and get it torn to shreds. But it’ll be good for me. So, my goal is to finish a fairly fine-tuned draft by Labor Day so that I might present to them, do some minor revisions, and then report on their response to the ideas.

If any of you know of any great resources relating to this subject, please let me know!

Final Reflection on Ecology and the Urban Environment

To wrap up our last day of class for this session, we talked a bit about some of the “big questions” we’re taking away from this experience. I thought my classmate, however, raised a very profound point: if we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that there’s a great deal of uncertainty in this field. SO TRUE. Her follow up question, however, was how do we present a unified front if we can’t all agree? “What are the tenets of this field?”

Well, I can’t say that I know. She’s right. Who can provide a definition of sustainability that’s achievable AND that everyone can agree with? In an integrated human-ecosystem framework, humans and ecosystems are intertwined…but, for decision-makers, a lot of choices need to be made which often prioritize one over the other – how do we deal with that? I mean, we can’t even decide if invasive plants are really invasive! There isn’t a common enemy, there isn’t a mantra or a motto.

But I guess I don’t see that as a major problem. This is science! If I learned nothing else from a decade of intensive science education, it’s that science can’t prove anything…it can only disprove. That often means that we have a lot more theories than certainties. As scientists, we can only share the best evidence we have to offer and ask people to keep it in mind while making decisions. And scientists aren’t alone! I think about the other fields that kind of function the same way (e.g., religion, economics, politics, medicine, education…OK, pretty much everything) and get some solace that NO ONE HAS ANY ABSOLUTE TRUTHS. We all kind of run on faith, best guesses, and individual interpretation. The challenge is to remind people (a.k.a. the public) that it’s unrealistic for us to have all the answers; we’re learning along with them! The best we can do is NOT to preach, but to share information and teach people how to process it. Does that count as a tenet?

Day Seven: The Boston Harbor Islands and Citizen Science

WHO KNEW that there is a National Park a hop, skip and a jump from Boston? The Boston Harbor Islands were a mere 30-minute boat ride from the coast, and are a really neat example of science in your own backyard.

For me, the most noteworthy part of this day was the VERY apparent importance of volunteers. On a beautiful Saturday, we met more than a dozen individuals who donated their time to the preservation of these wonderful open spaces. Volunteers (including some youth!), with VERY limited staffing assistance from park rangers, not only do some hard labor (e.g., pulling invasive plants like pepper weed) on the islands, but they also spearhead a fair bit of citizen science. The island we visited participates in two major scientific studies.

One, called MIMIC (Marine Invader Monitoring and Information Collaborative), focuses on tracking the spread of invasives (like certain crabs, seaweed, mollusks, etc.) along the Atlantic coast in an effort to contain the invasives where they are currently located, and to know VERY quickly if an invasive species has moved to a new area so that they might stand a chance at getting rid of it. However, because inventorying is such a time-intensive task, they REALLY depend on volunteer support not just on this island but everywhere along the coast to collect data. I think this is a great model, but I do worry at the quality of the information being collected. They don’t really have an environmental education program to accompany the implementation of these studies, so (at least based on my morning participating in the study) it really seems like a lot of the volunteers are out of their depth. They are basically handed flash cards and dropped into the task to sink or swim. (I promise I will stop with the unintentional, bad puns).

I don’t expect every volunteer to become a marine ecologist, but some basic instruction like “This is how you pick up a crab,” or “This is where these types of creatures tend to live,” or “This is how you should methodically sample the area,” might have been worthwhile. I know that other citizen science programs (like dragonfly or frog monitoring in Chicago) require that you attend a training session before your data is counted; I wonder how a similar requirement might affect MIMIC’s participation rates. I also recognize that there was a HUGE crowd for the park ranger’s to monitor on the day of our visit, so I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that this was not how things are normally run. I would be interested to see how MIMIC is run at other sites, however, before I make a final judgment on the program’s efficacy.

The other citizen science activity going on looked at phenology on the island. I didn’t get to see that program in action, but I’m excited that I’m hearing about SO much of that research these days.

Some of my other ponderings prompted by the day included:

• Interpretation. I was thrilled at the mention of the field of interpretation. I’m a Certified Interpretive Trainer through the National Association for Interpretation, and I’m ALWAYS glad to hear of others tying conservation to interpretation. They really do go hand in hand! Some of the most intelligent scientists I know can’t explain themselves to laymen to save their lives; they spend so much time in academia that they lose touch with public understanding. So, interpretation focuses on synthesizing take-home messages and thinking about your audience as you craft a presentation, exhibit, etc. I might go so far as to say that any scientist with access to the public should be required to take a course in interpretation (because scientific findings are not especially useful unless people can understand them), but I DEFINITELY think that tour guides and educators should be well-versed in these concepts, and it seems like NPS and the Boston Harbor Islands have that covered.

• Dow Chemical and the weird relationship between chemicals and conservation. So, we watched a park ranger apply small amounts of an herbicide on the base of the most MASSIVE buckthorn TREES (yes, trees) I have ever seen. Someone asked where the chemical came from, and it’s DOW CHEMICAL. So, having spent a lot of time in Michigan, I have a bit of a personal issue with Dow. They’re basically perpetuating a Love Canal-esque level of water pollution in Midland, MI, and I flat out refuse to support their company with my dollars. That said, what do you do if the only way to control an invasive is to use one of their products?! I hate it when my values can’t seem to keep themselves straight; “black and white” is nice every once in awhile, you know?

Key questions:

• How are data from citizen science (like MIMIC or other programs) used? How much credibility can they have?

Day Six: Water Reclamation, OK?

Something you should know about me: as a Great Lakes gal, I get really geeked out about water. The opportunity to spend 4 hours at the Deer Island water reclamation plant with an EXTREMELY knowledgeable tour guide? Yeah, I've been dreaming about this for a long time. And today was the day! I took about 15 pages of notes, but I won't bore you with every minute engineering detail and piece of historical context. However, here's what stuck with me the most:

• The Boston area produces an average of 350 million gallons of sewerage per day, and can produce up to 1.3 billion gallons on days with heavy rainfall. Like Chicago, they have combined sewers (meaning that stormwater and sewage go into the same sewer), but Boston is nearing completion of sewer separation projects that will prevent combined sewer overflows (which only happen at 5 or 6 sites now, and very rarely).
  
  
• This new facility has made great strides towards greater energy efficiency and sustainability by using energy produced from methane gas (from the 3 million gallon, egg-shaped digesters - SO COOL!), wind turbines (which produce 25+ MW of electricity, which is roughly the equivalent of 850 homes), and solar installations. In Chicago, some basic calculations have shown that for every gallon of water used (starting from when it's removed from Lake Michigan and ending with the effluent dumping in the Chicago River), 1.65 pounds of CO2e are released into the atmosphere. I wonder how Boston compares given their efficient technology.
  
  
• Upgrades in the treatment methods (and in methods nation-wide) were spurred on by the Clean Water Act in 1970. This created a unified set of standards for water quality, preventing industry from flocking to the communities with the lowest standards. When we inquired about whether or not there is any current motivation to improve treatment standards, we were told in no uncertain terms that the Metropolitan Water Reclamation Authority (MWRA), as the entity in charge of operations at this treatment facility, is NOT an advocacy group, but is only responsible for following the law. If they went above and beyond (which often costs more money), the tax payers would certainly object. So, unless the EPA forces them to remove more than 50% of the toxic bacteria from the effluent (the "clean" water dumped 9 miles off-shore), it won't be happening any time soon.
  
  
• This VERY new facility is ALREADY running at capacity. This SHOCKS me. Every climate change report I've ever seen has suggested that an important adaptation strategy is to prepare for more sudden, large storms. Even assuming that they do successfully split out all of their sewers, what about population growth? It seems very short-sighted to me that they only built for what they would need to handle in the near future. When I asked if the current facility could be expanded, the response was less than encouraging. So, was the Deer Island facility a $3.5 billion stop-gap measure? EEK!
  

Quotable quotes:

Regarding reuse of effluent (instead of dumping it into the ocean):
"We could, but why would we?"

Key questions:

• How does Chicago's water reclamation process (e.g., energy use, effluent disinfection) compare to Boston's?
• Even though Chicago is diverting water from Lake Michigan, Boston is also diverting water from their drinking source (everything gets dumped in the ocean where it is no longer freshwater). Are there any estimates on the recharge rates and/or when that supply might run out? Is that a concern that no one mentioned?
• Which other countries reuse their effluent, and how?
  

Day Five: Boston Indicators Project and Water Treatment

Boston Indicators Project:

This morning, we heard a presentation by Jessica Martin of the Boston Indicators Project. The basic gist is that, for nearly a decade, this group has been collecting data from a wide variety of sources (e.g., the Census Bureau, State Board of Education, tax returns) and creating a massive database that looks at "community indicators." They are tracking this data to focus on how community success can be facilitated in different areas and to facilitate networking between agencies (by looking at broad, sweeping trends that involve multiple aspects of communities). The indicators align with those of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and the Community Indicators Consortium. (Note: Through those organizations, I was excited to learn that Chicago has a similar program called the Metro Chicago Information Center.)
How did I not even know that this was a field of study?! It makes PERFECT sense, and is exceptionally cool. Their list of indicators includes:

• civic vitality
• cultural life and the arts
• economy
• education
• environment and energy
• health
• housing
• public safety
• technology
• transportation

You may then cross-reference the data in those areas with these filters:

• Boston neighborhoods
• children and youth
• race and ethnicity
• sustainability
• fiscal health
• competitiveness

So, depending on your area of interest, you could cross-reference, for example, public safety with Boston neighborhoods to find out about the relative safety of a specific area. You could also cross-reference environment and energy with fiscal health. This is a very useful tool not only for identifying key issue areas, but also potential partnerships and important data for grants.

This is not an especially easy feat given that many data sets don't match up well; there's a lot of background research that often needs to take place. For example, if you're looking at several data sets involving teen pregnancy and those data sets define "teen pregnancy" differently (e.g., teens are 15-19 in one data set and 13-18 in another), how do you combine the data? This project is really providing a great service by creating vetted data sets, assembled by experts, for people who do NOT specialize in data processing. It's also setting standards for how units/metrics/standards/guidelines for others when they are COLLECTING data so that people can communicate in a more common language.

I asked Jessica flat out how she would like to see us using this data...and she didn't really have a great answer. I mean, I can certainly appreciate the context that the data can provide; it really helps you define your audience and target your programs appropriately. That said, there is not really any cool environmental data being collected. She DID suggest that, if we felt the environmental indicators needed to be beefed up, that we might attend a convening to influence the data that is collected.

Quotable quotes:

"How can you measure quality of life beyond GDP?"

"The Chinese word for crisis shares a character with the word for opportunity."

Key questions:

• What should I do with this information?
  

Fresh Pond Reservation

In the afternoon, we went to the Fresh Pond Reservation. Fresh Pond is the reservoir that holds water before it is treated and provided to the Cambridge area. We were given a tour of the water treatment facility (which is much like Chicago's treatment...alum scum and all), even including the lab where the treated water is tested. The most interesting factoid I heard was that the water treatment facility uses 1/3 of the energy needed by the City of Cambridge. THAT IS INSANE. That number just seems SO extreme to me. Plus, Cambridge only uses 14 million gallons of water per day. Does that mean that Chicago's water treatment, with its 1 BILLION gallons per day, uses 71 times more ENERGY? The energy equivalent of 23 Cambridge's? Or does treatment become more efficient as volume increases? Or did I hear that fact wrong? In any case, I had never considered quite how energy intensive water treatment is. We throw around the fact that "for every 5 minutes you run the tap, that is the equivalent of burning a 60-watt equivalent CFL for 14 hours," but even that doesn't make you realize just how much energy our water uses demands.

I also found our conversations with Dave the Watershed Protection Supervisor quite fascinating. Essentially, his job is to focus on the health and protection of the water BEFORE it is treated. Major threats evidently include pesticides, fertilizer, and oil. I get the impression that he spends a lot of time off-site inspecting things outside of the the reservoir, but he does spend a certain percentage of his time on site, focusing on the management of a park that shouldn't be a park in his opinion. Yes, it is a beautiful open space in the city with shaded walking trails and a massive parking lot, but first and foremost it's Cambridge's fresh water supply, and I can imagine the challenges of that strange co-management scenario. I don't think it's all that uncommon, though. Again, Chicago's water comes from Lake Michigan; I think recreation is the FIRST thing people jump to when it comes to that body of water.

Anyway, I never realized that one could be a Watershed Protection Supervisor; it certainly seems like a super hero-esque job and a lot of responsibility!

Key questions:

• Is Chicago's water treatment more energy efficient than Cambridge's?
  
• Do people who visit the Fresh Pond Reservation realize that their drinking water waits in that pond to be treated? Would additional signage encourage people to use that area more respectfully?
  

Day Four: The Urban Ecology Institute

Today's adventures brought us to the Urban Ecology Institute (UEI), newly housed at Lesley University. The basic overview:

• UEI, formed at Boston University in 1998, is a hybrid organization that works to bridge the gap between academia and communities. They focus on 1.) urban natural science education, targeting middle and high school experiential education and 2.) the regreening of distressed urban areas.
• Their mission is to "help urban communities build healthy, vibrant cities by educating residents about their environment, connecting them to each other, and engaging them in the transformation of their neighborhoods into places where people love to live."
• UEI has a program called "City Roots." They accept applications from community groups in "environmental justice areas" (a term I can't quite define or abide by), interested in greening efforts. They are walked through a stakeholder analysis, and then (through a lot of capacity building) get organized and carry out amazing, community-focused projects with very limited resources. COOL!

Eric Strauss introduced us to UEI by very clearly explaining his perspective on the research to be done in urban ecology and its great importance. While he provided a lot of historical context for the growth of urban areas and very interesting statistics, I found two other pieces that he presented the most thought-provoking:

1. So, OK, great. We all agree - we need more ecological research in urban areas. BUT WHO IS GOING TO DO IT? In general, there's a serious stigma associated with ecologists who don't go to far off, untouched environs for their studies - that they couldn't get funding to do something cooler. So how do you convince ecologists to spend more time studying THEIR local environment at the cost of their reputation? That's a major social norm that needs to be adjusted, and I've never heard anyone talk about it in quite that way. It makes me wonder if perhaps city governments should be commissioning more of this work; who else might initiate the demand?
2. A human-ecosystem framework is desperately needed when considering urban ecology. Instead of treating people as a confounding variable in the study of ecology, this framework integrates humans into ecological concepts. Eric and his team support the "integrated, iterative conceptual framework for socio-ecological research" found below. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. It's a little too linear for me, and while they call it iterative (indicating that you cycle through this diagram over and over again, because it is constantly changing), I’m not sure that you have to go ENTIRELY through the cycle before it starts over. It’s like you could put infinite little loops inside of the diagram; the reverse arrows don’t quite do it for me.

My thoughts:

Up front disclaimer: I LOVE this organization. They are doing some profoundly important work. However, I finished the day's experiences with a "foul taste in my mouth." And I don't blame that on UEI or our fabulous guest speakers; I think it's just the current state affairs that put me into a funk. You see, at least based on this cursory introduction, I don't think they're doing anything new! The Chicago Conservation Corps (my employer), a program of the Chicago Department of Environment, has a very similar mission: "to recruit, train and support a network of volunteers who work together to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods and schools through environmental service projects that protect our water, clean our air, restore our land and save energy." Essentially, we work with urban communities to connect them to each other and available resources to improve the places they live and work. Sound familiar? Greencorps Chicago is another program of the Chicago Department of Environment. They provide resources, training, and support to community gardens across the city, much like the City Roots program (although City Roots does focus more on trees), even down to training garden coordinators, offering design assistance, and looking at stakeholder analyses. So, OK. UEI is based at a university. They're focusing more on scholarly pursuits as they relate to communities. That's unique, right? Not really! How about Extension services offered through (I believe) all 76 land grant universities?! And those institutions, while they had an agricultural focus at the start, have certainly evolved and kept up with the times in many ways, expanding to urban areas.

I'm not saying that UEI isn't unique or important or worth studying. What I AM saying (and what frustrates me) is that we're all very guilty of shoving ourselves into silos, and while we're all happy to share our work with others (read: show off), how many of us in this field actively seek out other, similar organizations to see what we can learn? It's like we all want to tell others how it's done, but none of us want to compare. And that comparison is so important! It could help us answer questions like, what are the defined best practices for environmental education and service organizations that work to resolve environmental justice issues through applied/action research and community activism? What's the professional organization WE can join? It's not the environmental education organizations that are populated with nature centers and museums. It's not the environmental justice organizations (I don't think) who focus so closely on policy and righting wrongs (and, in my experience, often are NOT asset-focused). It's not really the social service/community organizing groups, because their funding, structure, and affiliations are often so different from ours that there's not a lot of transferable knowledge.

I posed this question to Gideon on the van trip back from the site, and he told me that UEI is a part of the Urban Ecology Collaborative, which has an education team...but they are based on the east coast (read: Chicago's not welcome). Not what I wanted to hear. I don't know. In short, I think I'm just sad to see a major missed opportunity and, if I'm honest with myself, I don't have the time or energy to fix that at this juncture. Sigh.

Quotable quotes:

"Urban ecology is another one of those terms that seems like it should be an oxymoron...like jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, or industrial park."

Key questions:

• How do you define/categorize UEI's work so that similar programs can be clumped?
• I mysteriously missed anything about funding in anyone's presentation. I don't have anything in my notes, and I don't remember anything...did I space out? Where do they get their money?
• How do you generate more interest in urban ecology among ecologists?

Potential follow-ups:

• Read the issue of Science focused on cities
• Read works by Jane Jacobs (Sticking Up for Cities in particular)

Day Three: Wonky Worldview Shift (or) What's a Native Plant Anyway?

Today's field trip to the wooded lot across the street from the Arnold Arboretum left me sputtering. Peter Del Tredici, our guest speaker who led the trip, is a Senior Researcher at the Arnold Arboretum and a professor at Harvard University. That said, first and foremost, I give the man credence. Although his ideas are not of the mainstream (at least in the river I’m in), I certainly wouldn’t consider him a quack in the world of ecologists. Here’s what he thinks (at least based on my interpretation):

There is nothing “natural” about an urban ecosystem. Urban ecosystems have many things in common. They:

• Are subject to a great deal of abuse and disturbance from construction and human manipulation. This makes them, in many ways, similar to an early successional environment (which is, by definition, an area which has recently undergone a severe disturbance). Essentially, since the disturbance never goes away in the city, cities are stuck at that stage of succession.
• Have poor soil that is mostly fill and construction debris…when they have soil at all are not paved over altogether. Soil is often polluted and compacted, resulting in little oxygen access at the roots.
• “Floodplain-ish.” Because of the impermeable surfaces and poor soil quality, water percolates very slowly. Water will often runoff before permeating the soil, or only reach the first few inches.
• Have varying temperatures (often significantly warmer than historic temperatures) due to paving and the urban heat island effect; temperatures may be very different near a parking lot versus 20 feet away under some trees.
  

So, even if a swamp or a prairie or a forest was the native ecosystem where a city is now located, can you really claim that the features of those historic ecosystems still ring true? The ecosystem features (like soil, temperature, precipitation, natural flora/fauna) that once drew a plant to that area are no longer present. Peter doesn’t think that native vs. invasive plant discussions have a place in the city because there ARE NO PLANTS NATIVE TO A CITY. You have plants that are pre-adapted to survive in a city (which are often early successional plants…and invasive). And, the “invasive” plants didn’t cause they degradation to the ecosystem – they are a symptom of that degradation. So, if you don’t have native plants to displace, how do you have “invasives”? According to Peter Del Tredici, the native/invasive argument is really a values statement and, in an urban setting, is a waste of time.

WHOA. Talk about a difference in worldviews. That is kind of a slap in the face to all of the landscape coordinators and volunteers I know who are working (within city limits) on restoration ecology. I wonder (though I didn’t get a chance to ask) if Peter Del Tredici even believes in restoration or conservation ecology as valuable fields of work and study. And, if what he’s saying is true, should the Chicago Department of Environment encourage residents to plant native plants at their homes? Should Permitting and Enforcement be regulating potential terrestrial invasives in the city limits? Following Peter’s train of thought, ecologists and landscapers should be only be concerned with what grows well in the environment that we’ve been handed and what provides the beauty and the ecosystem services that we’re after.

Hmm. Remembering that Peter is not a quack (and understanding some of the arguments that he’s making as quite valid) I tried REALLY hard to keep an open mind, and to ask as many questions as I could throughout the course of our conversation. My thought was, “OK, if I buy into what this guy says and go back to Chicago and try to sell his points, what are the arguments I’m going to hear?” Unfortunately, I think I irritated the heck out of the poor man and my classmates…but we’ll all get over it because I do think it was worthwhile. At first, I kind of felt like he was giving us a canned spiel and that we should all just believe him because he said so. And I feel like many of the answers he gave to complex questions were flippant. Some of my major food for thought was:

• What about the borders between cities, suburban areas, rural areas, and natural areas. If we want to preserve our native spaces, how do you keep invasives OUT of those places? Couldn’t invasive species pose a risk to native species we WANT to preserve. Peter’s response: “There is no documented evidence of a plant extinction due to an invasive.” Um…OK. But, haven’t there been documented extirpations…and if enough extirpations happen…
  
  
• After a little more prodding, he encouraged me to “think of the intention of a space.” So, on a roadway, do invasives matter? Is sending crews to pull purple loosestrife along a highway a worthwhile endeavor? If we need to pull invasives, we should be targeting the natural areas that we want to protect. My qualm with this is that those highways then serve as corridors for the spread of that plant…which means you are essentially BRINGING invasive plants to the backdoor of areas we want to preserve. Are we just supposed to wait until those protected areas are in extreme risk? Rather than taking preventative measures, is he encouraging a model where we’re constantly on the defensive with an extreme sense of urgency?
  
  
• Part of the reason we tell folks to plant natives is because plants have evolved in that environment and have natural resistance to pests, are accustomed to the regional rainfall, prevent erosion, etc.
  
  
• My last question before I gave up was, “OK. So, another reason to encourage native vegetation is because it provides habitat for native wildlife. Do ‘urban wild plants’ (a.k.a. invasives) provide adequate replacements for that habitat? His response (greatly paraphrased): “Whatever.” Needless to say, Peter has a slightly anthropocentric worldview.
  

Quotable quotes:

With regards to the presence of invasive plants in Massachusetts:
“That can’t be changed.”
(His worldview might be a bit defeatist as well. Or maybe I am just dangling by the threads of my youthful naïveté.)

His key question regarding the evaluation of an urban ecosystem:
“Can it function as a native ecosystem should?”
(This is the part that really made me think. Why haven’t I considered that question before?!)

Key questions:

• Is there evidence of extirpation due to invasives? I don’t believe him.
• Do invasive plants decrease biodiversity?
• How do invasive species impact small world networks; do they pose a risk to keystone species?
• Who is currently asking these questions in an urban setting? And is there a school of thought with an answer?
• What about the other factors that contribute to a native plant’s range (which can often be very large), like temperature, day length, and other features dependent on seasonality or latitude – are those features significant enough to make a native plant “native,” even in a city?
• WHAT ABOUT WILDLIFE? What if you took Peter’s whole argument and reconsidered it with regards to native wildlife? Do the same points still hold? Wildlife is also ecosystem-dependent; they either cope, move, or go extinct, much like plants, in an urban ecosystem. So, what do people argue about native/invasive critters in cities?
• What are other common characteristics of a city? In hearing people talk about Boston and drawing comparisons to Chicago, I wonder if cities from the START were generally places that were “unproductive” land (i.e., not suitable for agriculture), so they became built environments. There’s a significant wetland history at least in these two cities…I wonder about other major cities.
  

Day Two: The "Study of Home" and the Boston Nature Center

Today's main activity was a visit to the Boston Nature Center. Some of my major take-home messages and ideas from the day involve:

The unique context and history of the site:

• The property was formerly owned by the state hospital system and was used as a hospital/home for those with mental illness. All such facilities nation-wide have since closed. In this instance, that decision resulted in a virtually untouched tract of 175 acres of land in the middle of Boston. The Massachussetts Audubon Association acquired 67 of those acres nearly a decade ago which now house the Boston Nature Center. For those of you who, like me, can't think in acres, that's roughly equivalent to a 3 x 3 city block area, or 9 Wrigley Fields, or 7 acres fewer than Dan Ryan Woods on the southside. It's not a huge land area, but in terms of open space in the city? It's pretty impressive.
• This site touches on 6 different neighborhoods and is less than 1/4 mile from "the death triangle," which is roughly equivalent to East Garfield Park from the sounds of it. Amazingly, the BNC's programs target the local audiences. It's not like the Center for Green Technology where all of the visitors come from outside of the community; BNC is a force WITHIN the community. It's essentially a community center with a natural theme. They even have a community advisory council to which they are held directly responsible. WONDERFUL.
• Most of the reason MassAudubon was able to acquire this site is because no one else wanted it. Literally, nothing could be built there and "no one had any better ideas."
• The building they created on the site is the "greenest municipal building in Boston." It is LEED certified, and has all of the usual accoutrements - solar panels, geothermal heating/cooling, materials made of a high percentage of recycled content, etc. (Disclaimer: I could/should say more about this, but as I said on the last C3 field trip, I think that if I tour one more green building, I just might lose my head. USGBC, I love you and your work is SO important, but I can no longer feign enthusiasm over low e windows and natural lighting. We have the technology, it's affordable, and everyone should be doing these things. I know we have to educate people to make that a possibility, but I will NOT be taking on that task. To each his own.)

The community gardens:

• They host 275 community gardens on site. Community gardens existed there prior to MassAudubon’s arrival, but have been greatly enhanced by the presence of this organization. MassAudubon spent $0.5 million installing an irrigation system and fencing, establishing plot borders, and more, which has obviously had a great impact.
• Because the gardens are in the center of the property, they are protected from vandalism – a MAJOR problem in urban gardening based on what I’ve heard from my gardening friends in Chicago. The gardens also have access to universities through MassAudubon’s relationships; students from Suffolk University come in to do soil and air quality testing and look at plant growth. How cool is that?!
• What is perhaps most exciting is that, despite MassAudubon’s role, this is still a COMMUNITY garden. The gardens are run by the community – they even seemingly have a board responsible for advertising, maintenance, and more.

Their youth programs:

• They work with teachers to develop thematic, integrated environmental education programs in local schools. They are very committed to providing continual support for these classroom teachers.
• They provide educational youth camps (for 720 kids this summer!) from 8:30am to 5:30pm every day over the summer, and have a sliding payscale. Some families only pay $25 per week! This is all in response to the needs of the local community.
• They have a Career Ladder-esque program for youth, starting their sophomore year in high school. These students have access to special scholarships and the opportunity to work every summer when they come home from school once they start college. This is perhaps my favorite program of theirs.

Their community focus:

• They work very hard to facilitate leadership within the community, and gain their input through things like focus groups, face-to-face conversations, and more. They "listen and respond" by reporting to community groups, being approachable, and asking people to evaluate their programs.
• They attribute a great deal of their success to the "trust building" they did with the local community. They had to prove that, as "an elite, white organization" they weren't using the local people for photo opportunities or to access specialized funding. They faced a lot of skepticism that wasn't overcome until construction started and staff from the local community was hired.
• There was also a lot of local concern that MassAudubon's involvement would be short-lived, but people are now convinced that they are there for good because the Nature Center has a track record of being very transparent about what they plan to do, then following through.

In addition to my experiences at the Boston Nature Center, a few other noteworthy items...

Random thoughts from the day:

• Scale can matter a great deal in the study of science. While some things are, by nature, defined by scale (e.g., ecological hierarchy), other things are independent of a set scale (e.g., ecosystems). Considering scale in every situation, though, can help you determine how to collect data and draw conclusions.
• Interesting thought exercise: Humans could be considered similar to cancer. Cancer, by definition, exhibits uncontrolled growth, lack of differentiation, metastasis, and is a part of the body. Humans have also exhibited uncontrolled growth throughout the world, lack cultural differentiation (e.g., WalMart and McDonald’s can be found everywhere and languages are being lost), travel via networks around the world, and are a part of the greater ecosystem.

Quotable quotes:

• Study the evolution of altruism. I’m pretty sure my friend Irvin has been exploring this concept. Is it evolutionarily valuable to do good for others? I’m interested in this because, if I fail to explain the ecosystem services and the selfish reasons that people should protect the planet, is there some aspect of human altruism that I can use to make the issues about which I’m passionate relevant and compelling?

Key questions from the day:

• There are so many environmental education facilities all across the country. Not programs, but facilities. Why isn't there a network for those people? They could learn so much from each other!