Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your sister who is cursed with loving
Speaker 1: Arnold Palmer's but cannot say Arnold Palmer's ally ward back
Speaker 1: with an episode of ologies that none of us saw coming,
Speaker 1: because this isn't an ology that you probably knew existed.
Speaker 1: In fact, only one other ologist before this may have
Speaker 1: used the title, and we will cover why. But I
Speaker 1: met this ologist back in March and we chatted for
Speaker 1: a while. I was up in San Francisco doing a
Speaker 1: panel at the California Academy of Sciences, and then we
Speaker 1: saw each other again and we recorded more when we
Speaker 1: were both on Catalina Island. She was selected for the
Speaker 1: USC Wrigley story Makers Program, and I was on the
Speaker 1: island teaching these climate scientists, including herself, about all of
Speaker 1: the ups and downs of podcasting. So I got to
Speaker 1: corner her again and ask her more questions because she
Speaker 1: is cool and I like her. So she did her
Speaker 1: undergrad in environmental studies at NYU and got a PhD
Speaker 1: in ecology and evolutionary biology from a place called Cornell University,
Speaker 1: and then a post doc at UC Berkeley, and she
Speaker 1: also worked at the California Academy of Sciences in San
Speaker 1: Francisco as a research scientist in critical ecology, and this
Speaker 1: year she won the National Geographic Society Wayfinder Award. She's
Speaker 1: also developed this new field of critical ecology and founded
Speaker 1: the Critical Ecology Lab, which is a nonprofit research center
Speaker 1: that focuses on how systems of inequity are messing up
Speaker 1: the planet. So ecology comes from a root meaning about
Speaker 1: who's live and wear, and critical in this sense has
Speaker 1: roots and social philosophies that look to figure out and
Speaker 1: understand and critique societal power structures and just get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of why some shit is fucked up. And
Speaker 1: those are my words, not hers, But yes, critical just
Speaker 1: means let's look at this, shall we? But we will
Speaker 1: get into it Before we get into it though quick.
Speaker 1: Thanks to all the patrons who make the show possible.
Speaker 1: At patreon dot com slash ologies, you can support for
Speaker 1: a dollar a month and submit questions for theologists before
Speaker 1: we record.
Speaker 2: And thank you to.
Speaker 1: Everyone who just uplifts the show by subscribing and rating
Speaker 1: and leaving reviews for me to see. I see them all,
Speaker 1: including this one by ladybird Eggs, who wrote, thanks for
Speaker 1: making us all better, smarter, weirder, and more interesting.
Speaker 2: People. Honestly highest praise I could ever ask for it.
Speaker 1: You are welcome Lady Bird Eggs, whose name is hard
Speaker 1: to say is Arnold Palmers.
Speaker 2: Anyway, onto the show.
Speaker 1: Which despite the tough topics that we cover in this
Speaker 1: it's one of the goofyer just wore down to Earth
Speaker 1: chatty romps that we've had in a while. You're gonna
Speaker 1: love her. So get ready for biogeochemist, soil microbial ecologist, scholar,
Speaker 1: principal investigator, National Geographic Explorer, and the world's foremost critical ecologist,
Speaker 1: doctor Suzanne Pierre. Okay, so heads up, this interview started
Speaker 1: before the interview even started, so our mics were still
Speaker 1: on the table.
Speaker 2: I googled it recently and I was like, oh, this
Speaker 2: phrase has been used once before. In nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2: There's one paper that a guy was writing about it
Speaker 2: and he wrote this kind of treatise about moving from
Speaker 2: critical theory to critical ecology, like that was the title.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, that's what I'm doing. I
Speaker 2: had never seen this paper at all. I'm not polagiarizing
Speaker 2: this man. I will credit him, but I read the
Speaker 2: appstrackt and I was like, that's what I've been saying,
Speaker 2: but no one ever followed up on his work since whatever.
Speaker 2: I think it was like seventy four that it was published.
Speaker 2: So I'm a little bit biting off this man, but
Speaker 2: I'm also like a little bit his black brainchild of
Speaker 2: the distance. And you know, it's so interesting the way
Speaker 2: that two ideas can come together independently or come up independently,
Speaker 2: but like speak to each other.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I.
Speaker 2: Want to credit that man. But other than that guy,
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone else is talking about critical ecology.
Speaker 1: His name doctor Vincent Denarsia, a Toronto based philosophy professor,
Speaker 1: and I found his paper. It's titled from Critical Theory
Speaker 1: to Critical Ecology. It was published in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: which was almost half a century ago.
Speaker 2: And if you are a gen xer, take a minute.
Speaker 2: That's difficult.
Speaker 1: I know the math, but the abstract explains that quote
Speaker 1: man's mastery of nature has always been double edged and ideology,
Speaker 1: which often extended to the domination of men and vintage
Speaker 1: sexism for the period aside, it continues. The increasing evidence
Speaker 1: of the ecological problems attendant to advanced technology successes also
Speaker 1: demands the development of a non repressive standpoint toward our
Speaker 1: natural habitat. So doctor Pierre saw this abstract was like,
Speaker 1: who is this guy? Why do we have the same
Speaker 1: mission but including more genders?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's actually just start this discussion. Anyways, we're
Speaker 2: not in the interview yet. No, that's amazing, though. First
Speaker 2: thing I have to do, Mike check. Yeah, Mike check.
Speaker 2: If you could just say your first and last name
Speaker 2: and your pronounce My name is Suzanne Pierre, and my
Speaker 2: pronounce or she her doctor Pierre, doctor Pierre. That's right.
Speaker 2: Let's go over a little bit of what is critical ecology?
Speaker 2: What is critical ecology? A question no one's ever asked
Speaker 2: you ever vote before. It is so new, it's very confusing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so let's start with what is ecology? Okay, that's really useful.
Speaker 2: So ecology is the study of how all living and
Speaker 2: non living things in a system in nature interact with
Speaker 2: one another, how they exchange matter and energy, and how
Speaker 2: matter and energy is organized in living and non living
Speaker 2: parts of an environment. So that means from the rocks
Speaker 2: to water, to all of the animals, plants, and kind
Speaker 2: of how they all are interconnected and rely on each other.
Speaker 2: And ecology includes lots of other things, like the behavior
Speaker 2: of those plants and animals and how they have evolved
Speaker 2: to interact with one another. And la la lah okay,
Speaker 2: so very science, la la la. So critical ecology is
Speaker 2: looking at that basic ecosystem and thinking about how when
Speaker 2: we measure changes in that ecosystem, we need to be
Speaker 2: thinking about the particular ways that human behavior, decision making,
Speaker 2: and ultimately power dynamics have come to shape the ways
Speaker 2: that those living and non li link things interact. And
Speaker 2: the kind of premise of critical ecology is that where
Speaker 2: there are disparities in power between groups of human beings,
Speaker 2: we're looking at what patterns emerge from those disparities in
Speaker 2: power for all elements of ecology. So I hope that's
Speaker 2: a good start. No, that's a great start. Okay, it's
Speaker 2: so big, Yes, tell me about it.
Speaker 1: So everything from excess nitrogen in waterways because of giant
Speaker 1: agriculture companies planting monocultures, down to did your mayor decide
Speaker 1: to pave over part of the park for a tennis
Speaker 1: court that no one uses and now there's fewer butterflies.
Speaker 1: That could all be under the critical ecology umbrella. So
Speaker 1: you just saying huh dang, that's critical ecology. Every neighborhood
Speaker 1: council meeting is teeming with critical ecology. One could argue,
Speaker 1: we just didn't really have a term for it. But
Speaker 1: let's back up a little. How long have you been,
Speaker 1: doctor Pierre?
Speaker 2: I got my PhD in twenty eighteen, so I think
Speaker 2: that that is four years. That feels like four years.
Speaker 2: Did you get it in critical ecology? Not at all.
Speaker 2: I got my PhD in biogeochemistry and ecosystems ecology, and
Speaker 2: I focused on forests and soil and kind of thinking
Speaker 2: about how microbes in terrestrial environments. Have I already used
Speaker 2: too many words that I should like? Peel back? Oh,
Speaker 2: I love this, So we love these words? Okay, great,
Speaker 2: So I apply microbial ecology and biogeochemistry and ecosystems ecology.
Speaker 2: I love this to understand how plants, soils, and microbes
Speaker 2: exchange nutrients and how that pretty much shapes when you
Speaker 2: look at a forest, how that forest functions, and why
Speaker 2: it is the way it is.
Speaker 1: Did you gravitate toward that because you liked dirt or
Speaker 1: because you like plants?
Speaker 2: What led you to that particular niche? All of the above.
Speaker 2: I love soil. I like decided I loved soil. I
Speaker 2: think around like sometime in high school, like late in
Speaker 2: high school, and that was before I thought I was
Speaker 2: going to do science.
Speaker 1: I was just.
Speaker 2: Like like a quiet fan of dirt, and I was
Speaker 2: just kind of like, wow, we just walk around on
Speaker 2: this extremely complicated medium that at that point in high school,
Speaker 2: I had just found out that it was also alive.
Speaker 2: Like I was like, side note actively alive, excuse me,
Speaker 2: And so that was thrilling. And I found out about
Speaker 2: the cycle of the elements, like the global cycle of
Speaker 2: carbon and nitrogen, and somebody I believe my like, all right,
Speaker 2: shout out mysterick heart, wherever you are. My high school
Speaker 2: biology teacher showed us like a diagram and it's like
Speaker 2: all of the arrows that are like the soil, the atmosphere,
Speaker 2: the vegetation. And everyone else was like this is exhausting.
Speaker 2: Why are there so many arrows? It does not need
Speaker 2: to be this many arrows. And I was like more arrows,
Speaker 2: Give me more arrows, and like actually, like biogeochemistry loves arrows.
Speaker 2: We just fucking love I want to very much. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm just truly like that is my main question actively
Speaker 2: in life is like what's going in and what's coming out?
Speaker 2: I'm serious, Like, you can boil so many things down
Speaker 2: to literally just what's going in and what's coming out.
Speaker 1: For more dirt on forest soils, you can see the
Speaker 1: Forensic Ecology episode with doctor Tierra Moore from November of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one and Soiler Alert. There's an upcoming Pedal
Speaker 1: g episode on soils and I'll pronounce that better when
Speaker 1: it comes out, but it'll explain more that's coming up.
Speaker 1: Calm down, calm dow ask gon me be exciting. But
Speaker 1: the title of Sue's dissertation, that's a great question.
Speaker 2: What was my dissertation?
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if people were so sick of their
Speaker 1: own dissertation title that they're like, I never want to
Speaker 1: hear those words again.
Speaker 2: I googled it right there when we were sitting together. Wait,
Speaker 2: I literally haven't thought of that.
Speaker 1: Here we go below ground carbon and nitrogen cycling and
Speaker 1: forced ecosystems in response to mean annual temperature and nutrient limitation.
Speaker 2: How could you forget that? I'm actually I don't. I'm
Speaker 2: not like fading it, Like I'm literally crying right now.
Speaker 2: That's so funny. So it's been four years since that
Speaker 2: was your dissertation.
Speaker 1: Yes, bring me back a little bit to the process
Speaker 1: of getting a PhD.
Speaker 2: Is not a simple process. No, I was exhausting. I'm
Speaker 2: still tired. That's why I forgot.
Speaker 1: Now nowhere in there is there critical ecology? I would
Speaker 1: love to know in that dissertation. What's the TLDR on that?
Speaker 1: And how did that sort of ignite which is torrible
Speaker 1: term when you're talking about the climate, but how did
Speaker 1: that leapfrog you into critical ecology?
Speaker 2: Gotcha? So the TLDR on the dissertation is basically I
Speaker 2: was interested in this idea that people kind of think
Speaker 2: of plants as not really having like agency or like choice.
Speaker 2: We think we know that for now TBD. And what's
Speaker 2: really interesting is that plants actually do respond to their
Speaker 2: environment by changing how they allocate their resources within their bodies,
Speaker 2: within their tissues. And so they can basically put more
Speaker 2: carbon above ground in like their stem and leaf and
Speaker 2: flower parts than their root parts, depending on what's going on.
Speaker 2: And so we know that this kind of decision making
Speaker 2: system of like put your carbon up top, put your
Speaker 2: carbon down below is a response to resources. And so
Speaker 2: I'm with climate change, knowing that temperature is increasing, knowing
Speaker 2: that environments are becoming drier, so much is changing with
Speaker 2: both the plant and the microbes. And so I became
Speaker 2: really interested in this idea of like this dance between
Speaker 2: plants responding to climate, microbes responding to climate, and then
Speaker 2: plants and microbes responding to each other. What did your
Speaker 2: field research look like? So my dissertation work was in
Speaker 2: Hawaii on the Big Island. Yeah, it was really difficult
Speaker 2: in that I had like primarily fun No, it was,
Speaker 2: I mean, I wish I could have spent more time there,
Speaker 2: but I was super fortunate to get to work there
Speaker 2: on the Monaca volcano, like the forests that grow on
Speaker 2: that volcano. And I also worked in New Hampshire in
Speaker 2: the White Mountains. Yeah, and so I got to kind
Speaker 2: of compare like a temperate forest ecosystem like in New
Speaker 2: Hampshire to the tropical what forest environment of Hawaii?
Speaker 1: Did you find that in Hawaii because it was a
Speaker 1: forest on a volcano, was the soil newer and less diverse? Well?
Speaker 2: You know your stuff. I mean, I'm just you're showing off. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's no, that's exactly right. That's why Hawaii is this
Speaker 2: perfect system because usually, like my dissertation was asking this
Speaker 2: question of like with increasing temperature, that is inevitable at
Speaker 2: this point. Thank you so much, climate change, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, fossil fuels. We know that trees are going
Speaker 2: to be responding differently to nutrient availability, but we don't
Speaker 2: actually know how nutrient availability is going to change, and
Speaker 2: so we can use space as a substitution for time.
Speaker 2: As you go up in elevation, it's colder, as you
Speaker 2: go down in elevation, it's warmer. But with in Hawaii
Speaker 2: because of the volcanic soils that are pretty much started
Speaker 2: from the same material at the same time because of
Speaker 2: one lava flow, you can compare a high elevation site
Speaker 2: to a low elevation site because they've got the same stuff.
Speaker 2: And so we could do this study that compares the
Speaker 2: high elevation cool site with the low elevation warmer site.
Speaker 1: When did you start to think about the intersection of
Speaker 1: climate and social justice and climate justice? Was there anything
Speaker 1: at all like jarring between going from New Hampshire the
Speaker 1: is it freedom or die?
Speaker 2: It's live free or drafts or die. They really do that,
Speaker 2: they really do live free and die.
Speaker 1: The first time I went to New Hampshire, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, that really is on the license plates.
Speaker 2: And no one's playing. No one's playing. Okay.
Speaker 1: Side note, I just need to tell you what other
Speaker 1: state modos are to put this in context, Indiana's Crossroads
Speaker 1: of America, All for our Country, chirped, Nevada, may Idaho,
Speaker 1: Endure Forever. And then the Texas motto is simply friendship.
Speaker 1: But back to New Hampshire's live free or Die. So
Speaker 1: that motto has only been the state motto since nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five, and in the seventies they were like this
Speaker 1: modo rips, this is so bad ass. We're going to
Speaker 1: change all the license plates. Let's get the word scenic
Speaker 1: out of there. Let's go hard here in New England,
Speaker 1: everyone's plates say live free or die now. And some
Speaker 1: people are like, whoa, yikes, I don't really like that.
Speaker 1: It's a little too hardcore. And they covered up the
Speaker 1: motto on their license plate with like some masking tape
Speaker 1: and the cops are like, no, you don't. And then
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court had to step in to be like
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, dude, you cannot scream live free or die
Speaker 1: and then tell someone that they don't have the freedom
Speaker 1: to cover up, live free or die on their license plate.
Speaker 1: Come on, it's embarrassing. But New Hampshire, good on you
Speaker 1: for being an abolition estate and sending tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of troops to fight for the end of slavery in
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 2: That was cool.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling every tattoo artist in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: does like five live free or Die tattoos every day now,
Speaker 1: from the literal white mountains of New Hampshire to to
Speaker 1: you know, to kind of a sacred volcano site in
Speaker 1: an island that's been recently colonized by one of the
Speaker 1: world's biggest superpowers. When did critical ecologies start to kind
Speaker 1: of crop up for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it actually cropped up before I got to grad school.
Speaker 2: There's kind of this this idea in science that science
Speaker 2: is objective and that is its virtue essentially, that that's
Speaker 2: the only way that we can know truth is through
Speaker 2: objectivity and through rationally approaching questions. Right. I guess to
Speaker 2: answer your question, I never really bought that as I
Speaker 2: am a black woman. For those of you listening here,
Speaker 2: I am black, and when I was an undergrad, I
Speaker 2: was actually not a science major. I was really interested
Speaker 2: in the idea that the way that nature functions, the
Speaker 2: way that we interact with it is so much, has
Speaker 2: so much to do with our values, and has so
Speaker 2: much to do with power. I wanted to go get
Speaker 2: a PhD pretty much because I didn't see anybody else
Speaker 2: making that connection between actually doing like the measurements and
Speaker 2: the analyzes of forests and soils through the lens of
Speaker 2: power being an important control, an important variable in why
Speaker 2: forests are where they are, how they grew, h the
Speaker 2: way they grow, how they function.
Speaker 1: I think that that's so fundamental what you said too
Speaker 1: about the assumed objectivity. The questions that are asked and
Speaker 1: answered depend entirely on who's asking them precisely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, I'm the second black
Speaker 2: woman to graduate with a PhD from the department that
Speaker 2: I graduated from, and that's not by accident, you know.
Speaker 2: And so the kind of elephant in the room is
Speaker 2: that the reason that we're not asking these questions through
Speaker 2: the lens of humans making decisions that enrich sum and
Speaker 2: to poperate others is because oftentimes the people who have
Speaker 2: come from lineages of power and who are white, and men,
Speaker 2: for the most part are the ones who then have
Speaker 2: the platform, the resources, and the opportunities to do science
Speaker 2: and lead science.
Speaker 1: Did you know that most Ivy League schools didn't admit
Speaker 1: women until the late nineteen sixties. Oh no women on
Speaker 1: juries either until nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Little sketchy. But Harvard University, Oh yeah, they were around
Speaker 2: for two hundred and fourteen years before they admitted their
Speaker 2: first black student. History. This is a basic, basic question.
Speaker 1: Maybe not so smart, but does critical ecology examine how
Speaker 1: inequality shapes the decisions we make or the impact that
Speaker 1: it has or both? Is it on the front end
Speaker 1: or the back end or is it all one big cycle?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I think you can't thoroughly look at the
Speaker 2: impacts without looking at the why, and so critical ecology is,
Speaker 2: I would say, leans towards looking at the impacts because
Speaker 2: what I'm really interested in and what I think the
Speaker 2: field of ecology in general lax is kind of this
Speaker 2: particular frame to look at how the natural environment is
Speaker 2: getting shaped by these human conditions of inequality or equality.
Speaker 2: And I like to talk about it in terms of
Speaker 2: oppression versus liberation in situations where society is more oppressive.
Speaker 2: There are particular types of patterns that also kind of emerge.
Speaker 2: We use excess resources, we're very extractive. There isn't a
Speaker 2: factoring in of the cost for taking resources out of
Speaker 2: the environment at a really unsustainable rate or getting rid
Speaker 2: of our waste, be it actual you know, trash or
Speaker 2: pollution from different industrial activities. It's just kind of like
Speaker 2: it's left, right, it's just enters the environment and it's
Speaker 2: no longer our problem.
Speaker 1: And do you have to look at the sociology of
Speaker 1: things like why do some cultures perhaps not live in
Speaker 1: the same harmony with nature as opposed to maybe dominating it.
Speaker 1: Are there deep, deep cultural and sociological things where you
Speaker 1: need to be like, get on the bat phone and
Speaker 1: be like, I need someone, I need a cultural anthropologist
Speaker 1: for this.
Speaker 2: Totally, even though I'm trained as an ecologist and biogeochemist.
Speaker 2: When I realized that, oh, I need to become a
Speaker 2: student again and really think about and talk to people
Speaker 2: who are in sociology and cultural theory and fields of
Speaker 2: thought that explain how and why inequality comes up and
Speaker 2: what it does, right, Like, inequality is not this random
Speaker 2: thing that just crops up. It's constructed, it serves a
Speaker 2: purpose for certain groups of people to have more power,
Speaker 2: more agency, and more resources than other groups of people.
Speaker 2: And what Critical Ecology is doing is saying these structures exist, right,
Speaker 2: They're in our governments, they're in our social systems, they're
Speaker 2: in our economic systems, and they really kind of set
Speaker 2: up what our behaviors in society will be. And so
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get in between the gap of our
Speaker 2: Earth system is changing, our planet is not doing so great,
Speaker 2: and all of these dimensions of ecosystems are responding to
Speaker 2: that change. But what is it about these particular systematic
Speaker 2: inequalities in society that brings about the conditions to let
Speaker 2: those changes be possible? What about the lab?
Speaker 1: Could you tell me a little bit about the Critical
Speaker 1: Ecology Lab and like what projects were important for you
Speaker 1: to start with, because I imagine you're just getting started.
Speaker 1: You must have a list of shit that you want
Speaker 1: to look into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so long and I'm playing like extreme patience game
Speaker 2: because it's like these things take a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but thank you for asking that.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: Critical Ecology Lab is a nonprofit research lab. What that
Speaker 2: means is rather than being a lab group that is
Speaker 2: based out of a particular university or another research institution.
Speaker 2: I've chosen to form the Critical Ecology Lab independently. And
Speaker 2: the reason is because kind of along the lines of
Speaker 2: what you're mentioning, that histories of alienation and lack of
Speaker 2: opportunities for people of color, queer people in science have
Speaker 2: led to a real narrowing of the perspectives that are
Speaker 2: included and supported and brought forward. And so that's part
Speaker 2: of the culture of academia, that's part of all universities
Speaker 2: and their histories for the most part, and it's true
Speaker 2: for science and museums as well. And so it's really
Speaker 2: difficult to be asking critical questions and asking questions about
Speaker 2: power when you're actually within the institution that has facilitated
Speaker 2: those power imbalances. I don't know if folks like realize this,
Speaker 2: but science institutions, even though they're unfortunately not as well
Speaker 2: funded as they should be relative to the global poor like,
Speaker 2: science is as an institution super rich, and a lot
Speaker 2: of times that money that comes from grants, that comes
Speaker 2: from domnations endowments, can get funneled right back into the
Speaker 2: power systems that Critical Ecology is trying to question. An
Speaker 2: upend So that's a really roundabout way of saying that
Speaker 2: critical ecology is a nonprofit and independent laboratory because we
Speaker 2: want to operate outside of these really entrenched cultural norms
Speaker 2: that we see in academia and so forth.
Speaker 1: So doctor Pierre explained that a lot of systems environmentally
Speaker 1: are built on the notions that some people's lives are
Speaker 1: more important than others, and that some people's lands can
Speaker 1: be exploited while others are protected. So she is drawn
Speaker 1: to a multidisciplinary approach, kind of like using a microscope
Speaker 1: and a telescope and a UV light to look at
Speaker 1: what is happening and how it happened.
Speaker 2: And so the whole idea of critical ecology is saying,
Speaker 2: could we take ideas from critical theory, which is kind
Speaker 2: of a social theory that holds that the world is
Speaker 2: unequal and that much of the world is shaped by
Speaker 2: that inequality, and that our work should be towards making
Speaker 2: the world more equal, Like fundamentally, our academic work should
Speaker 2: not just stay in the ivory tower, that it should
Speaker 2: go out and make the world more just Can we
Speaker 2: take those theories from the humanities and apply it to ecology.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't seeing that being done elsewhere. So I'm
Speaker 2: not the first person to use the phrase critical ecology,
Speaker 2: but I am, i guess, the first person to talk
Speaker 2: about it when it comes to actually measuring global change
Speaker 2: and the massive climate crisis that we're experiencing right now.
Speaker 2: How do you determine what questions to chase first? Such
Speaker 2: a good question. So okay, it's it's actually like so
Speaker 2: hard because I feel like I'm being pulled in a
Speaker 2: lot of directions. Because some of this is about the past, right, Like,
Speaker 2: inequality didn't start yesterday, and has it always existed? Yes,
Speaker 2: So critical ecology is drawing me towards asking questions about
Speaker 2: patterns of inequality in the past, patterns and systems of
Speaker 2: oppression of the past. But it's also happening right now,
Speaker 2: and so there are these contemporary issues as well. Sue
Speaker 2: says that a community of researchers is stronger working together,
Speaker 2: and that collaborators inspire questions that she never would have
Speaker 2: thought to ask. And so an example of that is
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen or so, I had the pleasure of
Speaker 2: meeting some archaeologists who study plantations, so they do archaeological
Speaker 2: digs on former sugarcane plantation sites. This is an amazing
Speaker 2: team of folks associated with the Society for Black Archaeologists
Speaker 2: and the organization Diving with a Purpose. And so these folks,
Speaker 2: including doctor Justin Dunnovant and doctor Ayana Fluellen, they were
Speaker 2: just incredible speakers. I met when I was a postdoc
Speaker 2: at UC Berkeley, and I was like, wait a second,
Speaker 2: you're doing archaeology on plantations. I want to do ecology
Speaker 2: on plantations. I want to ask questions about how the
Speaker 2: ways that colonizers stole people, put those people to work
Speaker 2: on plantations and completely transformed landscapes, completely transform nutrient cycles
Speaker 2: because of that forced labor. That is what I want
Speaker 2: to study in ecology, and y'all are already doing it
Speaker 2: in terms of understanding where these people lived, how they lived,
Speaker 2: how many people were brought on these ships. And so
Speaker 2: through a collaboration with archaeologists, we've started looking at the
Speaker 2: ecology of plantations through a critical ecology lens, and right
Speaker 2: now we're focusing on the US Virgin Islands, Saint Croix
Speaker 2: in particular.
Speaker 1: So this project is called the Ecological Scars of Slave Plantations,
Speaker 1: and the work is being done on a former Danish
Speaker 1: sugar plantation called a state Little Princess, And part of
Speaker 1: the reason work can be done there is that the
Speaker 1: land was gifted to the Nature Conservancy in nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: and several different research projects are underway on that land,
Speaker 1: from archaeological to nidariological which is corals, thank you very much,
Speaker 1: and of course critical ecological. And if that land hadn't
Speaker 1: been given away to an organization using it for this research,
Speaker 1: a lot of the science and the history of that
Speaker 1: island would go undiscovered.
Speaker 2: So that was just one way that I got drawn
Speaker 2: into a particular place and a particular set of questions,
Speaker 2: kind of by happenstance and like the fortune of meeting
Speaker 2: really awesome archaeologists.
Speaker 1: What kind of data gets collected and analyzed if you're
Speaker 1: a critical ecologist, because I'm sure that there are people
Speaker 1: being like, I didn't know this was an ology, I'm
Speaker 1: all for it, signed me up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it matters what kind of ecology you're interested in,
Speaker 2: because critical ecology is just really a framework for folks
Speaker 2: who go out and ask questions about ecosystems in general.
Speaker 2: Right like, right now, I'm working on a project where
Speaker 2: I'm asking about how the Transatlantic slave trade has been
Speaker 2: influential in shaping the structure and chemistry of soils in
Speaker 2: the Caribbean, and soil is really important for vegetation, right,
Speaker 2: like what plants grow, where, how well they do, and
Speaker 2: how they change over time. In like a traditional kind
Speaker 2: of soil ecology and biogeochemistry framework, I would be like, okay,
Speaker 2: soil erosion is a function of land use. Right, we
Speaker 2: would just say land use blanket term, and we would say,
Speaker 2: this is the duration of time you know that this
Speaker 2: land was used to grow sugarcane. And we would say,
Speaker 2: let's look at how soil structure, soil carbon and nitrogen
Speaker 2: and so on and so forth were affected by this
Speaker 2: particular land use given this amount of time that it
Speaker 2: was happening.
Speaker 1: So some ecologists might tackle the whats of the data,
Speaker 1: like what is growing here and what kind of vegetation
Speaker 1: took over after that land use, which is great, it's
Speaker 1: good to know, But.
Speaker 2: Critically ecology would say, let's start from the premise of
Speaker 2: this island was colonized for the express purpose of producing
Speaker 2: a certain quantity of sugar for Europe that had an
Speaker 2: economic value, and how many enslaved people were required to
Speaker 2: make that happen. So there's this component, this variable of
Speaker 2: free labor, right, and that land use goes hand in
Speaker 2: hand with it. So there's this consideration that we can
Speaker 2: make that says, this amount of freedom had to be
Speaker 2: taken away from this number of people over a certain
Speaker 2: duration of time to produce the particular biophysical outcomes on
Speaker 2: this soil. And so if I'm looking at a field
Speaker 2: right that used to be a plantation, which is what
Speaker 2: I do now, and I know based on records from
Speaker 2: the Danish who colonized Saint Croix, the island where I'm working,
Speaker 2: I be able to say, these people, these enslaved Africans,
Speaker 2: had to work this amount of time for us to
Speaker 2: see the particular change in soil carbon, which we can
Speaker 2: kind of compare to a control right where the land
Speaker 2: was not used for sugar cane production, which was left alone, right.
Speaker 2: And so critically ecology adds this variable and looks for
Speaker 2: different variables that express a level of oppression or freedom
Speaker 2: that would not otherwise be accounted for pretty much. And
Speaker 2: so then we can say, why do Caribbean forests look
Speaker 2: the way they look? Right? Why are Caribbean forests structured
Speaker 2: in a particular because so much of the Caribbean was
Speaker 2: colonized right cut down completely, and then monocultures were put
Speaker 2: in place and worked by enslaved people. So we can
Speaker 2: start to look at whole regions differently, and so I
Speaker 2: want to start to get ecologists and other environmental scientists
Speaker 2: to to think about that when they go in and
Speaker 2: make a plan to understand a changing landscape or seascape,
Speaker 2: depending on depending on where you work.
Speaker 1: It reminds me almost of if you were looking at
Speaker 1: tracks or footprints and the idea of just saying there's
Speaker 1: a footprint here or there's a track here, and not
Speaker 1: asking what kind of animal is it?
Speaker 2: How big is that? Like where is it going? What?
Speaker 2: You know? Like, yeah, how often does it come here?
Speaker 2: Will it come here again? And if it stops happened,
Speaker 2: what grows back where the tracks used to be? That's
Speaker 2: exactly right.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Well, speaking of footprints too, the
Speaker 1: carbon footprint fallacy promoted by oil companies or something that
Speaker 1: everyone should take, yeah, very very seriously, especially if they're
Speaker 1: living in a society and a culture that over consumes resources.
Speaker 2: How important is it? Oh my gosh, So I think
Speaker 2: that the carbon footprint, like the first thing that you said.
Speaker 2: Is it a fallacy? Is it just like made up
Speaker 2: by companies? Yes? Also no, wait, what two things can
Speaker 2: be true? I think that if individuals pay attention to
Speaker 2: their carbon footprint, it's an opportunity for behavioral change, right
Speaker 2: as individuals, like we need tools to think about what
Speaker 2: our day to day behaviors are connected to on a
Speaker 2: bigger scale, it's really hard for us to do that.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that individuals are all the way responsible
Speaker 2: for the massive changes that we're seeing in terms of
Speaker 2: the way the climate is changing and the way that
Speaker 2: ecosystems are responding to that climate, be it fire or
Speaker 2: drought or flash floods and so forth. I think that we,
Speaker 2: as individuals, as part of a culture and a society,
Speaker 2: are responsible for nudging our culture to be different, to
Speaker 2: be mindful and to be responsible, and to feel more
Speaker 2: connected to what's happening on earth. But also like, let's
Speaker 2: hold those fuckers accountable. I'm actually so sick of it,
Speaker 2: and I think that, like the actual manipulation and gaslighting
Speaker 2: has to stop. And so the fact that you ask
Speaker 2: the question is amazing because it's like, let's like remind
Speaker 2: one another that we are being gas lit by corporations
Speaker 2: that have known as long as, if not before independence,
Speaker 2: University scientists have known that the activity of extracting fossil
Speaker 2: fuels and burning them will cause climate change. They knew
Speaker 2: that shit, Okay, so that's been part of their backroom
Speaker 2: conversation forever.
Speaker 1: You know, what's fun is that when someone gaslights you,
Speaker 1: they're metaphorically burning fossil fuels. Lol, Like at least make
Speaker 1: me question my own perception with like an LED bulb,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And so I want there to be like the edge
Speaker 2: of resistance, but have that edge of resistance hold hands
Speaker 2: with like our culture on a fundamental level needs to change.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned something about being so interested in both
Speaker 1: the past and the future. Do you feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of what people suppose you do is just about, hey,
Speaker 1: can you figure out how to fix this?
Speaker 2: Points to Earth, to Earth, what happened here? Yeah? I
Speaker 2: think folks often make this like totally reasonably, Like they
Speaker 2: think that what I'm talking about is just like environmental justice,
Speaker 2: which is a really important area of work, but is
Speaker 2: different from critical ecology. Environmental justice is responding to really
Speaker 2: immediate harms that people are experiencing in their communities. Right now,
Speaker 2: and they're trying to say, like, first of all, this
Speaker 2: is happening, this isn't right, And environmental justice is trying
Speaker 2: to transform the conditions for those people as well as
Speaker 2: for the planet.
Speaker 1: And doctor pr says, environmental justice is it's more forensic.
Speaker 1: It's more about redress or setting things right, like with compensation.
Speaker 1: And for example, one environmental justice issue is the disparity
Speaker 1: between asthma rates in black and Puerto Rican children versus
Speaker 1: white kids. One study found that black children in New
Speaker 1: York were forty two percent more likely to have asthma
Speaker 1: and that asthma related illnesses increased school absences in those populations,
Speaker 1: which has lifelong effects. And there was a twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: Princeton study titled is it Who You Are or Where
Speaker 1: You Live? Residential Segregation and Racial Gaps in childhood Asthma,
Speaker 1: And those researchers found that it's not race, but neighborhood
Speaker 1: pollution and ongoing effects of segregation that can nearly double
Speaker 1: the risk of asthma and lead to higher asthma related
Speaker 1: deaths later in life. So that would be environmental justice
Speaker 1: work and epidemiology. But what's the even bigger picture?
Speaker 2: But Critically ecology is saying that's super important, and that's
Speaker 2: influencing humans, it's influencing ecological patterns. But what about if
Speaker 2: we zoom out. Critical ecology is asking questions about systems
Speaker 2: of oppression, and that gets to the heart of the
Speaker 2: ideologies that will allow certain patterns of unfair treatment to unfold.
Speaker 2: And then we're interested in, well, what are the environmental
Speaker 2: consequences if we look at plant communities, if we look
Speaker 2: at the quality of soils, if we look at nutrient cycles.
Speaker 2: Our ecosystems today in twenty twenty two really being shaped
Speaker 2: on this larger scale by forces that we couldn't even
Speaker 2: notice if we weren't thinking about these patterns of haves
Speaker 2: and have nots right that come from unfair systems. That's
Speaker 2: a little bit about redress, like getting people their justice,
Speaker 2: but it's also about everyone right because it's saying the
Speaker 2: way that ecosystems are evolving and changing into the future
Speaker 2: depend on either us getting it now and really seeing
Speaker 2: these patterns and figuring out what about us drives it
Speaker 2: right ecology and then course correcting like what can ecosystems
Speaker 2: start to look like and patterns of nutrient cycling and
Speaker 2: vegetation assemblages and animal trophic interactions look like when we
Speaker 2: course correct towards more equitable interactions with nature and patterns
Speaker 2: in society.
Speaker 1: So if you clicked on this title of this episode
Speaker 1: and thought critical ecology, here we go. It's going to
Speaker 1: be controversial. Just know that in the US there's been
Speaker 1: blowback of the word critical in favor of more quote
Speaker 1: patriotic education. But just the word critical and critical theory
Speaker 1: pretty much means how is old stuff still affecting new stuff?
Speaker 1: And how can we make things more equitable? But by
Speaker 1: making it this hot button topic and contra cosial, some
Speaker 1: states have passed laws restricting even education about race in classrooms.
Speaker 1: If you're like, is that cool, consider the fact that
Speaker 1: Germany isn't forbidding schools from mentioning the Holocaust because that
Speaker 1: would be terrifying and a big problem. Right, we have
Speaker 1: to learn from history and examine systems that are harming people.
Speaker 1: It seems like that's what schools for. But this episode
Speaker 1: is about the science of critical ecology in an era
Speaker 1: of significant climate impact. What do you wish was taught
Speaker 1: alongside high school science classes? What do you feel like
Speaker 1: is so glaringly missing?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, my dream. The best thing that I
Speaker 2: could ask for is if history and social studies teachers
Speaker 2: had biology and chemistry and environmental science teachers that would
Speaker 2: sit down with them and that there was actually a framework,
Speaker 2: a language that let these different teachers talk to each
Speaker 2: other and come up with lessons and labs that relate
Speaker 2: to one another. Right, Like, imagine if we were teaching
Speaker 2: students about plantations in the US Southeast and they're learning
Speaker 2: about how cotton and tobacco and sugar cane were being grown,
Speaker 2: and then they go into their biology class and got
Speaker 2: to look at, well, let's learn about the actual physiology
Speaker 2: of sugarcane, right, like it's a grass. I don't think
Speaker 2: most high school students get to learn that when you
Speaker 2: process sugarcane, there's all of this refuse that's left behind
Speaker 2: after you harvest the sugar, and where does that go?
Speaker 2: And what if you could teach a biology lab or
Speaker 2: a chemistry lab that gets students to think about, like,
Speaker 2: what are the physical consequences of the fact that our
Speaker 2: country was run economically by plantations? And what if students
Speaker 2: had this holistic understanding, how much better would we actually
Speaker 2: understand the dicament our countries in like everyone's just kind
Speaker 2: of baffled about, like it's just so unfair and the
Speaker 2: world is unequal, and you know, slavery is bad, and
Speaker 2: now we're experiencing climate change and I'm kind of just
Speaker 2: like yeah, but if you put them all together, it
Speaker 2: really tracks like it all kind of adds up. The
Speaker 2: math is good.
Speaker 1: And as long as we're talking school, let's play a
Speaker 1: quiz game for fun. And please note the word fun
Speaker 1: is in air quotes. What other questions do you want
Speaker 1: to ask or answer about? Things like fish and so
Speaker 1: many I know, like name a thing, name a thing.
Speaker 1: We'll do a pop quiz. Tell me if this involves
Speaker 1: critical ecology? Okay, logging deforestation.
Speaker 2: Hondo p I'm one million percent. That's not a percent.
Speaker 2: Don't come for me. Logging deforestation. If we think about
Speaker 2: who had access? Okay, I love this question so much.
Speaker 2: Start from the basics, whose land was it right? Someone
Speaker 2: had to come and steal land from indigenous people? The
Speaker 2: fundamental principle of critical ecology would be start with that.
Speaker 2: And so if you're interested in forest succession, and you're
Speaker 2: interested in why we have secondary and tertiary forests in
Speaker 2: certain places that were logged. Why don't we start by
Speaker 2: asking the question whose land was it and what allowed
Speaker 2: it to be taken away from them? And that would
Speaker 2: go to the basic principles of removal of indigenous people,
Speaker 2: either by murder or by giving them reservations and moving
Speaker 2: them to parts of the country that were not their homes.
Speaker 1: So, in a May twenty twenty one Atlantic article titled
Speaker 1: Return the National Parks to the Tribes, a Jibwah author
Speaker 1: David Troyer writes, quote, the American story of the Indian
Speaker 1: is one of staggering loss. In fourteen ninety one, native
Speaker 1: people controlled all of the two point four billion acres
Speaker 1: that would become the United States. Now we control about
Speaker 1: fifty six million acres, or roughly two percent. Speaking of
Speaker 1: stealing things, and then.
Speaker 2: We think about like one critically qualite, don't scoop me
Speaker 2: you out there, But I'm so shady, don't scoop. I'm
Speaker 2: so interested in patterns of forest re growth throughout North
Speaker 2: America as they're related to the removal and movement of
Speaker 2: Indigenous people. And I'm sure that there are indigenous scholars
Speaker 2: who are maybe listening. Shout out to y'all who are like, yeah, girl,
Speaker 2: we already think about this, But until I have that conversation,
Speaker 2: I'm really curious about how does the cover of forest
Speaker 2: in the United States or in North America reflect the
Speaker 2: pattern of removal of Indigenous people and the accessibility of
Speaker 2: permits or deeds to land that were basically given out
Speaker 2: for fucking pennies. And I would love to do this
Speaker 2: kind of tandem analysis of the financial value of for
Speaker 2: rists now that are going to make somebody roll rich,
Speaker 2: and how they were given to people essentially for a
Speaker 2: comparably minuscule amount of money. But alongside this really unfair
Speaker 2: transaction is also just carbon and nitrogen, And so what
Speaker 2: is the amount of carbon and nitrogen that are stored
Speaker 2: in these forests relative to the amount of money that
Speaker 2: unfairly traded hands.
Speaker 1: So, as we discussed in the Indigenous Fire Ecology episode,
Speaker 1: the loss of knowledge and agency to practice cultural burns
Speaker 1: another land stewardship has led to catastrophic damage and increasing
Speaker 1: wildfire losses because that land was taken from a populace
Speaker 1: that knew how to.
Speaker 2: Care for it best.
Speaker 1: So, now as the nation finds itself in this ecological pickle,
Speaker 1: science is going back to that indigenous knowledge for answers.
Speaker 1: Speaking of answers, let's keep this quiz of sart going.
Speaker 1: What about this one over fishing air quotes for the
Speaker 1: consumption that we are demanding?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So what if I think of
Speaker 2: that and through like a critical ecology perspective, I think
Speaker 2: about consumption in terms of where demand is coming from
Speaker 2: and what is making that demand possible, Right, Like, people
Speaker 2: don't want things that are too expensive to want. People
Speaker 2: want things that are affordable, if not cheap. And what
Speaker 2: makes things cheap, What makes fish cheap. There's people who
Speaker 2: have to do the fishing and then access to the fish,
Speaker 2: and so it's a matter of who's doing it right,
Speaker 2: the cost or value of their labor, and then who's
Speaker 2: giving out permits right.
Speaker 1: In the Oceanology episode, doctor Ayana Elizabeth Johnson pointed out
Speaker 1: that for many coastal cultures, fishing is their livelihood and
Speaker 1: has been their core diet for tens of thousands of years.
Speaker 1: But the indigenous folks who are fishing there are likely
Speaker 1: not the same demographic as those who own the fisheries
Speaker 1: doing the least sustainable practices and catches. So from the
Speaker 1: mountains to the seas, to the air, to the ore
Speaker 1: in the earth. There is critical ecology everywhere, and doctor
Speaker 1: Pierre's Critical Ecology Lab has also helped facilitate a study
Speaker 1: on air quality and urban and rural settings, research on
Speaker 1: using incarcerated laborers in fighting forest fires. And because of
Speaker 1: so many factors, from rising temperatures to the loss of
Speaker 1: these regular cultural burns, these kinds of issues are likely
Speaker 1: just going to be on the rise. And just this week,
Speaker 1: the US Department of Energy reported that in the next
Speaker 1: thirty years, Californians will experience triple digit temperatures for four
Speaker 1: months out of the year. So right now you may
Speaker 1: be sweating for many reasons and wondering do we even
Speaker 1: have a chance. You know, we're talking a little bit
Speaker 1: about just environmental nihilism and just the idea of when
Speaker 1: do we give up? And is it equitable for anyone
Speaker 1: to give up at any time. But if we look
Speaker 1: at ourselves as a species and say, as a species
Speaker 1: we are doing not great things to the planet that
Speaker 1: might endanger all of us, how fightable is it or
Speaker 1: how much do you just have to say, well, I
Speaker 1: guess we're one of the ninety nine point nine percent
Speaker 1: of species to go extinct in this case because of
Speaker 1: a percentage of people who over consumed.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's unethical for us as human
Speaker 2: beings to like hang on in that way if we're
Speaker 2: not also actively and earnestly interested in being different.
Speaker 1: Doctor Pierre likens this like to an abusive partner that
Speaker 1: knows they're doing harm but has no interest in accountability
Speaker 1: or change. And maybe the resistance or fear of critical
Speaker 1: theory is kind of like a partner who's suffering with
Speaker 1: a problem in harming others but doesn't even want to
Speaker 1: go unpack that in counseling. Also, if you're just shrugging, thinking, well,
Speaker 1: we're all going to die, so what TikTok I thought?
Speaker 1: That was just called despair, But when taken to an
Speaker 1: extreme ideology, is that seek to just hasten our own
Speaker 1: extinction for the sake of the planet. That's actually called
Speaker 1: eco fascism. So there's a word for that, and it's
Speaker 1: not a good thing. So Sue says, to try to
Speaker 1: get involved on a human to human level, examine the
Speaker 1: power structures that keep things bad for some people, and
Speaker 1: don't shrug yourself into inaction.
Speaker 2: If you are just saying like woe is me. We
Speaker 2: are bad for the planet, bad for other species, and
Speaker 2: I'm just going to kind of wait for this like
Speaker 2: shit show to kind of play out. Then you are
Speaker 2: the harm, right, But if you allow the depressing reality
Speaker 2: to kind of make decisions for you about what you're
Speaker 2: going to do, like I mean, yeah, and you're probably
Speaker 2: more harm than good, then it is a toxic relationship
Speaker 2: on the story front. But yeah, totally don't just sit
Speaker 2: on your hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, do you ever just lay in bed
Speaker 1: at night and the like the jiff of the woman
Speaker 1: who just has.
Speaker 2: Like I hate my life for that, do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like the no geometry I'm thinking, like staring off thinking
Speaker 1: just when it comes to the not only consumption that
Speaker 1: we have, especially in a capitalist society, but just also
Speaker 1: the hoarding of resources. Gosh, another harmful thought that we
Speaker 1: have been fed, the too many humans one. I know
Speaker 1: that overpopulation is looked at a lot as like there's
Speaker 1: too many of us. I thought that for a long
Speaker 1: time too, And we have enough resources to sustain the
Speaker 1: number of people, but a lot of folks maybe are
Speaker 1: hoarding the resources.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and so this gets at like I love that
Speaker 2: you asked it because it gets at the question of scale.
Speaker 2: There are critical ecology questions that can be asked like
Speaker 2: very hyper local. But then they are like you're saying,
Speaker 2: like if we really zoom out, like when we think
Speaker 2: about global population, that there's this misconception, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it. It's just like an accidental misconception. I think
Speaker 2: you're kind of alluding to like we thought, but actually
Speaker 2: it's this line that overpopulation is like one of the
Speaker 2: main reasons that we're in the particular ecological crisis we're in,
Speaker 2: and that's simply not true. If all people had even
Speaker 2: access to the resources available, and if those resources were
Speaker 2: managed sustainably, we would not be in the predicament that
Speaker 2: we're in. Given that, I know, it's such it's a
Speaker 2: real bummer when you're like, oh, it's just what we're doing.
Speaker 2: It's just like because we like to be fucking assholes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is. Unfortunately it's really not much more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think a lot about where resources get hoarded,
Speaker 2: and I mean, like the countries that end up having
Speaker 2: like global wealth and wealth like though it's money is
Speaker 2: an idea, basically it represents stuff and stuff is made
Speaker 2: of carbon. Stuff is made of all of those nutrients
Speaker 2: I study, and stuff takes energy right to create. And
Speaker 2: so if we think about the fact that who keeps
Speaker 2: those resources and how they were collected in the first place,
Speaker 2: it really takes us to asking questions about racial capitalism.
Speaker 2: It takes us to asking questions fundamentally about colonialism and imperialism.
Speaker 2: And so if we're not able to do our science
Speaker 2: and study the distribution of resources or lack of resources
Speaker 2: and the ecological consequences of massive wealth or massive poverty,
Speaker 2: we're really kind of missing the point, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: But I think that really proves that I am that
Speaker 2: woman and that meme, Like that's my brain, Like I'm
Speaker 2: constantly just like I really need to find the actual
Speaker 2: words that are useful for human beings to know what
Speaker 2: the fuck I'm talking about. And I'm working on it. People,
Speaker 2: I have a lifetime out of me.
Speaker 1: This meme side note is known as math Lady, and
Speaker 1: the actress with the furrowed brow and the pensive gaze
Speaker 1: is often mistaken for Julia Roberts, but it's a Brazilian
Speaker 1: telenovella Superstar for not a Sora, and she's playing a
Speaker 1: scene in a jail, and then later that footage was
Speaker 1: overlaid with mathematical equations. But Sue gets to make all
Speaker 1: of these complex connections and ask questions that have not
Speaker 1: been asked about not just what is happening, but why
Speaker 1: and how?
Speaker 2: And honestly, the.
Speaker 1: Biggest takeaway about critical ecology in a nutshell is this.
Speaker 2: I don't think that I'm asking these magical, brilliant questions.
Speaker 2: I'm literally just like y'all. Have y'all ever noticed? Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the thing that's awkwardly like controlling all of our lives,
Speaker 2: shaping biology and chemistry and ecology. And then once I
Speaker 2: say it, everyone's like, girl, Yes, So what I think
Speaker 2: of critical ecology is actually just you know, when you
Speaker 2: see like a detective show or like a crime show,
Speaker 2: and then there's the wall with the lines and all
Speaker 2: the thumbtacks and it's just like a lot of string
Speaker 2: people are mired in. They're just like, it's all connected,
Speaker 2: but we don't have one approachable and reproducible system of
Speaker 2: thinking that helps us to guide us to then ask
Speaker 2: these questions all over the place, just like you're asking me.
Speaker 2: So critical ecology is like we're only confused because it's
Speaker 2: really hard to make those connections when science and social
Speaker 2: science and humanities don't talk to each other. And if
Speaker 2: we can figure out how to make them talk to
Speaker 2: each other and do it in such a way that
Speaker 2: we can pick it up and apply it in all
Speaker 2: these different areas, finally we're going to be explaining why
Speaker 2: we're at where we're at in a way that that
Speaker 2: might actually lead us out the door towards a better planet,
Speaker 2: a more equal and liberated society. Can I ask you
Speaker 2: patreon questions? Questions from people on Patreon?
Speaker 1: Of course they know you're coming on, And before your questions,
Speaker 1: a quick break, And before that break, we donate to
Speaker 1: a charity of the cologies choosing and naturally, this is
Speaker 1: going to the Critical Ecology that's Critical ecology Lab dot
Speaker 1: org and Critical Ecology Lab is a space to investigate
Speaker 1: and explain how the natural world, from soils to the
Speaker 1: atmosphere has been shaped by racial and cultural supremacy, natural
Speaker 1: resource exploitation, and social exclusion. So you can learn more
Speaker 1: at Critical Ecology Lab dot org. There's a link in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Thank you to sponsors for making our
Speaker 1: donation possible. Okay, so this first question was asked almost
Speaker 1: verbatim by so many people, including Amy Naramatsu, Michael McLeod,
Speaker 1: Riley Allison, Francesca Huggins, Lucy Kenny, Gabby Sweet and Mark
Speaker 1: Hulette and more. The most thumbed up question we got.
Speaker 2: I think it's a good one, Okay. Amy Naramatsu wants
Speaker 2: you hi, Amy wants just simple how fuck are we? Oh?
Speaker 2: I mean I appreciate Amy asking that question because a million,
Speaker 2: and by a million, I mean, like several hundred climate
Speaker 2: scientists have been asked that very question and their answers
Speaker 2: probably very and you know, like for the most part,
Speaker 2: like we're like fairly fucked. Like I'm not going to
Speaker 2: split hairs about that, but my real answer is that
Speaker 2: we are as fucked as people are unwilling to change.
Speaker 2: We are as fucked as individuals, like not just the
Speaker 2: systems of oppression, but we're as fucked as individuals are
Speaker 2: willing to look closely at how they behave and treat
Speaker 2: other people and admit that they are wrong in their
Speaker 2: regular individual lives. Because it is like our behavior and
Speaker 2: our ways of thinking and our ways of treating other
Speaker 2: people that metastasize into systems of oppression. And those systems
Speaker 2: of oppression have allowed us to indiscriminately toss people off
Speaker 2: of their land, to pull fossil fuels out of the
Speaker 2: ground at rates that make no fucking sense. And that
Speaker 2: all comes from like, yeah, people's willingness to just pause
Speaker 2: and be like, what am I willing to change about
Speaker 2: the way that I operate?
Speaker 1: So living in a state of inquiry, curiosity and the
Speaker 1: notion that all things are connected and maybe it's not
Speaker 1: a bizarre coincidence that the systems in place have the
Speaker 1: planet in a bind. That's a great start, So help
Speaker 1: other humans out think about the impacts of the system.
Speaker 2: Question it.
Speaker 1: So many choices we make seem to be justified in
Speaker 1: the moment, but in hindsight can be appalling, from the
Speaker 1: way we treat the land and the plants and the
Speaker 1: animals and the fungi on it to the most horrifying
Speaker 1: abuses of humans that continue unchecked today. And that brings
Speaker 1: me to operating Nelson's question, seconded by Kelly Brockinton and
Speaker 1: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Obviously, there are small steps.
Speaker 1: That individuals can take to help reduce their impact, but really,
Speaker 1: how can we make a bigger difference with so much
Speaker 1: seeming outside of our control. But there are so many
Speaker 1: eras of the past that are so shameful as a
Speaker 1: human and we're living in one of them. When it
Speaker 1: comes to the goal of critical ecology and how that
Speaker 1: work gets disseminated to the public, what things can people do,
Speaker 1: i'd be such a big question, such a big, giant,
Speaker 1: terrible question.
Speaker 2: No, it's a great it's a great question. And I
Speaker 2: feel like the answer is that when you see injustice,
Speaker 2: or when you hear or know about something happening that
Speaker 2: is a form of oppressing people for whatever reason that
Speaker 2: someone is oppressing a group of people, use critical ecology
Speaker 2: as a framework to think about how the harm that's
Speaker 2: being done to those people is enacted on the landscapes
Speaker 2: that we live on as well. That when you then
Speaker 2: go to vote, or when you then think about contacting
Speaker 2: elected representatives or going out and protesting, like right now,
Speaker 2: it's really hard to talk about related systems of harm,
Speaker 2: and I think that's kind of on purpose.
Speaker 1: Speaking of elected officials and such environmental policy student Ali
Speaker 1: Vessels and Natalie, an undergrad student in political science who's
Speaker 1: looking to make the switch into ecology, as well as
Speaker 1: first time question asker Maya Tcherobic all had policy questions,
Speaker 1: and in Maya's words, quote, even with the most progressive
Speaker 1: governments at all levels, we're not able to enact systems
Speaker 1: of change at the pace and scale needed, indicating that
Speaker 1: political systems need an overhaul or reorganization. What can we
Speaker 1: learn from ecosystems to help with this reorganization? So we're
Speaker 1: not all fucked quote, So it's kind of nice to
Speaker 1: see that across the political spectrum in the US. Literally
Speaker 1: no one is satisfied with environmental policy. We're all just
Speaker 1: united in being pissed, no matter what side you're on.
Speaker 2: So that's not.
Speaker 1: Good because I've talked to so many ologists who are like,
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do for the planet and
Speaker 1: for other people is vote, vote, vote small in local
Speaker 1: elections as well as the big ones. We have a
Speaker 1: majority of one party in the House and Center, we
Speaker 1: have a president in one party, and we just had
Speaker 1: some EPA things rolled back by the Supreme Court. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry to.
Speaker 2: Bring it up.
Speaker 1: N It's real when people say vote, vote with the
Speaker 1: planet in mind. Is there anything, as a critical ecologist
Speaker 1: that you have faith.
Speaker 2: In that sounds so bleef the way I asked it.
Speaker 2: But yes, there literally anything to believe, doctor Pierre. Our
Speaker 2: beliefs relevant. Now, no, Ali, come on, where can I
Speaker 2: put my shred of hope in your podcast? Oh god,
Speaker 2: So that's a big, huge question. But I really like
Speaker 2: that question because like this gets at what we actually
Speaker 2: believe needs to be different in society, which I keep
Speaker 2: harping on. Right, I'm not going to be the person
Speaker 2: that says, like, put your faith in voting. That's not
Speaker 2: me saying don't vote. I cannot imagine a reason to
Speaker 2: not vote. It doesn't matter if you think it makes
Speaker 2: a difference or not, Like, do the thing. Let's go vote. However,
Speaker 2: the most threatening thing to the systems in our society, right,
Speaker 2: the economic systems and the political systems and the social
Speaker 2: systems that are unfair and unequal and make this country
Speaker 2: and make our environment threatened, right, you know, less strong,
Speaker 2: less safe, and more divided and less sustainable. The most
Speaker 2: threatening thing to all of those things is solidarity, is care,
Speaker 2: is compassion. If you look at all of these things,
Speaker 2: it looks like I'm just opening like a giant Mary
Speaker 2: Poppins bag of death of just like, look at all
Speaker 2: of the bad things. But they all share something, which
Speaker 2: is they rely on division. And I don't mean like
Speaker 2: we all have to kumbayan be together, but I mean
Speaker 2: like people helping other people, people being in in genuine
Speaker 2: community with one another despite their differences. People saying that
Speaker 2: at a base level, everyone should have the things that
Speaker 2: they need, the safety that they need, the assurance that
Speaker 2: they will not be suffering in one way or another.
Speaker 2: And when we do radical things on a very like
Speaker 2: micro level to make make sure that compassion is available,
Speaker 2: that that mutual care is there, those little behaviors and
Speaker 2: those little decisions in our regular lives spiral up to
Speaker 2: become very problematic for the systems that want us to
Speaker 2: be divided, oppressed, confused, alienated from one another, and alienated
Speaker 2: from ecosystems full stop. When you make resources, care and
Speaker 2: support more available to people, it builds solidarity across groups
Speaker 2: of difference right, racial, class, and gender, where the division
Speaker 2: would have been very useful. Right to keep us kind
Speaker 2: of scrambling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it behooves exactly the wrong people to keep
Speaker 1: everyone at odds, driving humanity further apart.
Speaker 2: And at the end of the.
Speaker 1: Day, the polarization is getting less done faster, and the
Speaker 1: less that.
Speaker 2: We scramble the more that we join together in the
Speaker 2: sense that we're not the same and we don't need
Speaker 2: to be, and that is fucking fine. And actually, I'll
Speaker 2: still support you, and I'll still make sure that you're
Speaker 2: okay and your family's okay, and I will vote in
Speaker 2: a direction that makes sure that you're okay and your
Speaker 2: family's okay, regardless of our differences. That starts to really
Speaker 2: crumble the thing that the things that really suck, and
Speaker 2: critical ecology for me is an exercise in that, which
Speaker 2: is to say, ecology is fascinating and so thrilling and
Speaker 2: like I could cry talking about it. That is why
Speaker 2: I went to school to do it. That is why
Speaker 2: I'm here. But if I am an ecologist and this
Speaker 2: is my toolkit, and I also believe that solidarity is
Speaker 2: the only response to an increasingly divided, confused, and suffering
Speaker 2: society and ecosystem, then I have to use that tool
Speaker 2: belt to start making sense of why this is happening
Speaker 2: and what has happened in the past and what will
Speaker 2: happen in the future. So I'm trying to kind of
Speaker 2: throw this rope across from basic science to understanding how
Speaker 2: society assembles itself and how we can do that better
Speaker 2: and better and better, and how eventually I think ecosystem sustainability, functionality,
Speaker 2: and health can reflect what's going on in our society.
Speaker 2: So critically, ecology is saying, if you don't start with
Speaker 2: the ideology, you're never really going to explain this story fully.
Speaker 1: That's a great way to look at it. It's like
Speaker 1: a color on the spectrum that you've never seen before.
Speaker 1: And it's like, have you described something that you've never seen,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for saying that. That makes me feel
Speaker 2: like less crazy because like seriously, because folks are like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're a scientist. You can't be fighting for our lives.
Speaker 2: You're only concerned with like measuring and publishing. And on
Speaker 2: the other hand, it's like you're not a real scientist.
Speaker 2: You're only concerned with wishy washy like being a do
Speaker 2: gooder or like you know, into social whatever. And it's
Speaker 2: like you said, it's this color on the color wheel
Speaker 2: that we haven't looked at before. But I think that
Speaker 2: like I didn't make that color up. It's just there
Speaker 2: and it's been really hidden from us. And so it
Speaker 2: means so much to me to be able to have
Speaker 2: this conversation and try to get to a little bit
Speaker 2: more of understanding of what it really means and what
Speaker 2: it could mean for changing society.
Speaker 1: Oh what a what a great and maddening game to
Speaker 1: think of literally anything and think how does this the
Speaker 1: fall of critical ecology?
Speaker 2: Literally anything you look at you're like, oh, there's a
Speaker 2: critical ecology in there. Yeah, how about that? But also exciting?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one thing I mean I always ask, but I
Speaker 1: don't even know how you're gonna answer this. But the
Speaker 1: hardest thing about your job, where are you gonna start?
Speaker 2: One of the really hard things is because because like
Speaker 2: you're saying, it's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, but
Speaker 2: it's not something that's been like really named before. It
Speaker 2: exists in these little pockets of different fields, different ologies,
Speaker 2: but it's not like unified in one place. And all
Speaker 2: of that. There's not a lot of sources of support
Speaker 2: because folks are like, that's really cool. I hope that
Speaker 2: works out for you, and I'm like, no, but money.
Speaker 2: So the thing is about the thing that actually money,
Speaker 2: and so funding my research and getting the kind of
Speaker 2: institutions that normally give you the big amounts of money
Speaker 2: that allow you to do the scale of work that
Speaker 2: I want to do. They're not quite there yet. They're like,
Speaker 2: that's not a color what And I get why, but
Speaker 2: it's going to be slow going. I spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time talking to people and basically getting groups of
Speaker 2: the right people from different disciplines to get together and
Speaker 2: articulate a question and then go, what is the funding
Speaker 2: institution that is most likely to kind of understand what
Speaker 2: the fuck we're talking about, and let's go for that. Oh,
Speaker 2: they didn't like it, Let's let's take out the science
Speaker 2: and add up, you know, increase this. And it's just
Speaker 2: like pulling these levers. So that's one thing that's really like,
Speaker 2: god damn it. And another thing I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've talked about this on ologies, but there's this idea
Speaker 2: that white supremacy culture has these characteristics or norms that
Speaker 2: are invisible but are so normal in corporate culture, in government,
Speaker 2: in academia, and our day to day interactions basically recreate
Speaker 2: those systems and uphold those systems. So culture change is
Speaker 2: super important. And in my little cocoon of folks that
Speaker 2: I work with in critically ecology lab, shoutout Kunalpolawat they
Speaker 2: are an amazing graduate student that I work really closely with,
Speaker 2: along with a number of other team members. You know,
Speaker 2: we show up in our little container of the lab,
Speaker 2: but we also have full time jobs in normal institutions,
Speaker 2: and so when we're together, we have these like basic
Speaker 2: principles of how we interact, how we have conflict, how
Speaker 2: we care for each other, even though we're colleagues and professionals,
Speaker 2: and those principles don't hold up when we go out
Speaker 2: into our regular paid nine to five jobs. Now, one
Speaker 2: day I want to be fully employed by Critically Collegy
Speaker 2: Lab knock on wood. But until then, it's like, how
Speaker 2: do I hold up those values wherever I go. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: we're thinking about this, and we're also just like I
Speaker 2: have to collect data. I have to do stats. So
Speaker 2: it's a lot to be like conscientious of who you
Speaker 2: are and your values while also like just doing regular science.
Speaker 1: Yeah side note, just big news. As of August ninth,
Speaker 1: she is full time at Critical Ecology Lab.
Speaker 2: She did it.
Speaker 1: And it also must be like working really hard to
Speaker 1: dismantle the grind culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was napping. For those of you who
Speaker 2: can't see me, I'm like air snapping because literally you
Speaker 2: got I'm so happy that you said that, because a
Speaker 2: huge part of the idea of white supremacy culture is
Speaker 2: grind culture is like busy culture is valor, the idea
Speaker 2: that you don't ever sleep and you publish so much,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's really great if you're publishing a lot,
Speaker 2: but at what cost and for whom? And so it's
Speaker 2: really hard to live by these values while also still
Speaker 2: being seen as a productive, hardworking scientist. When it's like,
Speaker 2: I want to be seen as a productive, hardworking scientist
Speaker 2: even if I do not answer emails at you know,
Speaker 2: one am, and even if I'm not publishing all the time,
Speaker 2: and there are good reasons for that, including rest, including
Speaker 2: self care, including care for my community. So yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a clash of cultures. That's very awkward. And I've just
Speaker 2: gotten comfortable being like, that's all right, y'all, don't get
Speaker 2: me yet.
Speaker 1: What about your favorite thing? What do you get so
Speaker 1: excited about?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's even harder to answer because there's
Speaker 2: so many things I'm going to say that. Ever, since
Speaker 2: I was in undergrad and then grad school, I was like,
Speaker 2: I feel to be a scientist, you have to be
Speaker 2: like reading the literature that is in your discipline, and
Speaker 2: you need to be on top of it. You need
Speaker 2: to know like all the most recent papers, the most
Speaker 2: cutting edge techniques, and I care about all of that,
Speaker 2: but my job, Basically, I created a situation where I
Speaker 2: gave myself this area of research and it requires me
Speaker 2: to read outside of my discipline. It makes me talk
Speaker 2: to archaeologists and sociologists and black feminist theorists. I think
Speaker 2: at one point it felt like I'm doing the wrong things,
Speaker 2: and I've kind of just let myself accept that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're going to be wrong in some people's eyes, or
Speaker 2: it might feel a little uncomfortable that you're doing these
Speaker 2: things that are not normal. But there's so much growth
Speaker 2: and richness in just letting myself do it. So I'm
Speaker 2: so grateful to just get to like have these conversations
Speaker 2: and read the books that are never going to be
Speaker 2: associated with biogeochemistry until I make them associated with biogeochemistry.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Christina Sharp, black feminist theorist. Side note.
Speaker 1: Doctor Christina Sharp is the author of In the Wake
Speaker 1: on Blackness and Being, which uses the word wake in
Speaker 1: many meetings. From quote The Path behind a Ship Keeping
Speaker 1: Watch with the Dead and Coming into Consciousness and in
Speaker 1: the Wake is about the history and imagery of the
Speaker 1: slave ship and how that haunts contemporary black life. And
Speaker 1: it's about a social climate that quote produces premature black
Speaker 1: death as normative. That is in the Wake on Blackness
Speaker 1: and Being by Christina Sharp.
Speaker 2: So I love that. Also, if we are going to
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time working hard on something, we
Speaker 2: should do it with people we love. And I'm so
Speaker 2: lucky that Critical Ecology Lab is really like individuals who
Speaker 2: see me for who I am. There are people who
Speaker 2: like actually love me as as like a person as
Speaker 2: well as respect me and work hard with me as
Speaker 2: a colleague. And that's just like part of our culture
Speaker 2: that in every meeting we check in and make sure
Speaker 2: that everyone is well and if not, we talk about it,
Speaker 2: even if that cuts into like the work part, because
Speaker 2: we're better at doing our jobs if we are happy
Speaker 2: and well and cared for. Shout out to everyone working
Speaker 2: with Critically Ecology Lab right now or thinking about it.
Speaker 2: It's really a joy and like a privilege.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh shit, that's like a healthy ecosystem business
Speaker 1: wise that you're creating.
Speaker 2: Yess exactly exactly that and if you'd like to join
Speaker 2: that team. We're looking for someone who's interested in social
Speaker 2: media management and so that I can like let my
Speaker 2: brain alone and not do that. But so we won't
Speaker 2: be tweeting until we get a person. But I'm more
Speaker 2: on Instagram, So we're at critical Underscore ecology and you
Speaker 2: can follow us. Many of my ramblings and ideas are there,
Speaker 2: and you can also donate money if you want on
Speaker 2: the site. Hell yeah, I have a feeling you're gonna
Speaker 2: have a full inbox after this. I mean, help, can
Speaker 2: I help? Can I do something? Can I do something
Speaker 2: that I do that? I need all the help currently,
Speaker 2: I I'm so like, woefully bad at social media. It's
Speaker 2: so devastating. I'll post once and be like I'll post
Speaker 2: again next week and then you'll hear from me a
Speaker 2: year later. And so if anyone loves to think about
Speaker 2: social media strategy and messaging, amazing, like talk to me.
Speaker 2: And also I am looking to be on the committees
Speaker 2: of graduate students, master students, PhD students, And that's a
Speaker 2: role that can be a lot, but I'm willing to
Speaker 2: take on if the fit is right. So I want
Speaker 2: to support folks academically as activists and in their education,
Speaker 2: So lots of stuff coming down the pipe. But yeah,
Speaker 2: any support that folks want to offer, I can definitely consider.
Speaker 1: How exciting to get to interview you when you have
Speaker 1: launched an organization and a field that is so needed
Speaker 1: for this time in this place.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Alie. Of course you're the best.
Speaker 2: You're in the best.
Speaker 1: So if you are now amped up and you want
Speaker 1: to reach out, you can check out Critical Ecology lab
Speaker 1: dot org. They're also looking for someone in an admin role,
Speaker 1: so reach out links are in the show notes, and
Speaker 1: there's more links at alleywar dot com, slash Ologies, slash
Speaker 1: Critical Ecology. I'm Ali Ward on Twitter and Instagram and
Speaker 1: at ologies on both say hello. Links to sponsors are
Speaker 1: in the show notes, and alleyward dot com also has
Speaker 1: a list of all the organizations we donate to. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to put ologies merch onto your body, you
Speaker 1: can go to ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Susan Hale
Speaker 1: for managing that and doing so so so much else
Speaker 1: to keep the show going. And Noel DILWORTHWO who handles scheduling.
Speaker 1: Aaron Talbert admins the Ologies podcast Facebook group with assists
Speaker 1: from Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltis. Kelly ar Dwyer is
Speaker 1: on top of our website and she can help you
Speaker 1: with yours. Emily White of the Wordery makes our professional
Speaker 1: transcripts and Caleb Patten bleeps them. Those are up for
Speaker 1: free at alleyward dot com slash ologies, dash extras, and
Speaker 1: if you have small ologites, you can check out smologies
Speaker 1: episodes in our feed. Those are short, condensed and filth
Speaker 1: free episodes for all ages. There's more of those up
Speaker 1: at alleywoard dot com slash somologies. Thank you Mercedes Maitland
Speaker 1: and Zeke Rodriguez Thomas of Mindjam Media for being on
Speaker 1: top of those, and of course thank you to lead
Speaker 1: editor Jared Sleeper, who has the finest mullet in all
Speaker 1: of podcasting, and Nick Thorburn who wrote the theme music.
Speaker 1: And if you stick around to the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: I tell you secret, and this week's secret is that
Speaker 1: if you need to get right the fuck up in
Speaker 1: your course, Let's say maybe you have a problem with
Speaker 1: the contact lens, or you are on a tweezer chase
Speaker 1: with an errant whisker. Maybe you need to have a
Speaker 1: word with a black head. If you have one of
Speaker 1: those camping flashlights that straps to your forehead, wow, put
Speaker 1: that on your head, point that in the right direction,
Speaker 1: and the world will be revealed to you. I put
Speaker 1: on a headlamp to help get a thorn out of
Speaker 1: Grammy's paw, and then I looked in the mirror and
Speaker 1: turned it on and.
Speaker 3: Wow, it was is illuminating. So you're welcome by bye.
Speaker 2: Somehow, some way, it's all connected.
Speaker 1: H