[Alana Siegner, ERG MA]

Working on a school garden in Boston 

On a typical day walking to class, my eyes are caught by the sight of persimmon trees arching over the sidewalk offering their unusual fruits, small backyard gardens bursting over fences and property lines, and lime bushes camouflaging their green citrus offerings in a cloud of bright green leaves. Urban agriculture seems to be very much alive and well in Berkeley, especially by my East Coast-rooted standards. But, I believe there is more to the story than the superficial pleasure. I take in the fact that these food production centers exist; scattered among city and residential streets in the Bay Area. In my first semester out in California, I’ve made it a mission to learn more about and participate in the movement that is urban agriculture.

Me with some enormous collards from the Oxford Tract

My direct experiences in the urban agriculture scene have been universally positive; my research into policy and land use disputes has shown the controversial nature or flip-side of the urban-ag coin. Tuesday mornings at the Claremont Middle School garden in Oakland, and Friday mornings in the UC Berkeley Student Organic Garden (SOGA) often have me up to my elbows in compost, soil, or over-sized collard plants. I teach a weekly lesson in the Claremont garden to boisterous groups of 6 to 8th graders with the help of a volunteer garden manager who coordinates the garden lessons during an elective period at the school. The students at Claremont, as well as students I used to teach in Boston, have responded in meaningful and often hilarious ways to their first hands-on experiences with certain plants, which hopefully will make their way increasingly into school lunches.

I was inspired to explore more school garden projects in the area, and made it out to the Edible Schoolyard at MLK Middle School, the famous Alice Waters-backed project. The level of organization and productivity at that site was amazing: orderly rows of flowers and vegetables integrated into gazebo-like structures, a toolshed cleaner than my apartment, a wood-fired pizza oven, solar panels, and chickens wandering freely.
Also part of the Urban Garden Ecosystems class I’ve been taking this fall are the weekly lab sections in SOGA, where I’ve been learning the agroecological principles of soil building, intercropping, and seed starting. The harvest yields have often sent me back to ERG bearing trash bags full of basil, greens, and kale. These experiences led to the enthusiastic re-writing of the popular country song “Cruise,” as “baby you a song, you make me wanna roll my shirt sleeves up, and plant” -- a song my group and I performed at our final project presentation last week.

Chard harvest one day this Fall from SOGA

Behind these rosy experiences is a larger debate on competing land use claims -- development vs. environment. San Francisco made headlines earlier this fall for its trailblazing urban ag bill, AB 551, the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act, but also for worsening the housing crisis with this policy. The author of the Atlantic Monthly article argues that urban agriculture on vacant lots is more appropriate to a city like Detroit, rather than SF where rent prices are sky-rocketing and there is a need for increased urban density; leave the gardens for the rooftops, he argues, not on developable lands. A controversy closer to home is the Gill tract redevelopment plans by the University. Starting in 2012, students and local organizers have been “occupying the farm” and arguing with the university over the proposed redevelopment of this land in Albany, part of a land-grant university system that they argue should become a center for urban agricultural research rather than a grocery store and affordable housing development. The fight for the land was featured in a recent documentary that premiered in Berkeley, “Occupy the Farm.”  

While these debates are far from settled, I believe decentralized centers of organic food production are the best way forward for building food security and resiliency in any community. As a solution to climate change, I see great potential in organic soil carbon sequestration, and eating locally grown produce reduces food-miles traveled that in turn reduces transportation-related emissions. I will continue arguing against the injustices of the current industrial food system, the consequences of eating a diet saturated by high-fructose corn syrup, and in favor of the merits of integrated systems like aquaponics structure. Growing food in small spaces, whether for a tiny home or urban restaurant like the soon-to-open Perennial restaurant in SF, is the way of the future.

A flower from the Spiral Gardens community gardening center

Some day my sister and I hope to open a farm-school where gardens and environmental education are center stage, where students learn in outdoor and real-world classrooms. We want to have lavender bushes, goats, and honeybees, among other things. Until that day comes, I will keep learning from urban farmers and tasting hybrid persimmon varieties at the Berkeley farmer’s market.



Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

[by Zubair Dar] 

If there is one challenge that California would have wanted to avoid facing this decade, it is the drought.
Having taken upon itself the leadership role in carbon emission reduction through clean energy development, the state would rather invest its energy in fulfilling the 2020 and 2030 targets than worrying about its water security. It is not to say that the state was unaware if its water availability, and management practices are not being intensified, but little can be guaranteed about their effectiveness after the worst drought in the recorded history has hit California. The bad news is that the drought is here to stay.

Despite recent rains, precipitation in 2013 and 2014 (so far) is nowhere close to the annual average. Lack of sufficient water is putting the $45 billion agriculture sector that produces a third of all vegetables and two thirds of all nuts in the United States at risk. Experts predict inflation, loss of income and related distress as a few of the impacts on the residents of California. Coupled with the fact that no guarantees can be made about future water availability either, California has to instigate a water management revolution along with the energy revolution it has set off.

What would a water management revolution mean in practice?
As Prof. Lynn Ingram at University of California Berkeley will tell you, that the precipitation of the past 150 years in California has been a ‘wet anomaly’ in California’s deeper history of aridity. And it is in the last 100 years that California framed its water policy, developed its water infrastructure and through legislative instruments distributed water rights. Allocations to agriculture and other industries shaped according to these known patterns of precipitation. In this new phase of aridity, which climate-scientists predict can be worsened by the climate change-induced variability, California needs to rework the whole system. While the impact of the drought might not be homogenous, there is little chance that any sector of the economy can ignore any measure of efficiency.

With few precedents, however, the challenge becomes even tougher. But that is where the opportunity lies. The crossroad where California today stands with respect to its climate history has taken away any uncertainty about the impact climate disruption could have on consumptive and non-consumptive uses of water. And as many thought leaders have suggested, California can take a queue from its energy policy to implement same practices of efficiency and renewability for the most efficient use of its water resources. No doubt the task shall mean a major shift in infrastructure development, irrigation practices, domestic use and industrial water allocations. The state shall need to employ best available technology in combination with most innovative ideas laid out by thought leaders in water management. Yet, the opportunity cost will not outweigh the gains of the new age integrated water management practice.

Past droughts are generally seen to have set off policy rethink as well as technological innovations. The current drought will also trigger innovations and, at the same time, speed up the adaption of the technologies built over the past few years. Already, a range of public dialogues and policy revaluations are underway in the state to find the beat way forward and create a synergy between research, policy and practice of water management.

This year, the Resources Roundtable by Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) brings together thought leaders, climate scientists, water managers, rights activists and businesses to engage in focused discussions on the topic “California in Drought: Challenges and Opportunities”. As the subtitle puts it, we aim to understand how responding to water crisis today will help develop resilience for tomorrow. It is a unique opportunity for students to understand where the frontiers of water research in California lie.

[By Pierce Gordon]  

A packed house for Inequality for All screening, with Reich, Kornbluth, and Brady on the stage, fielding questions.

In a way, Robert Reich has been trying to do so for his entire career, as a Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, and previous secretary of labor in the Clinton Administration. His recent movie, Inequality for All, which was shown on February 5th, 2014, to a sold out crowd of 700 people in the Wheeler Hall Auditorium. The director Jacob Kornbluth, and the Dean of the Public Policy School, Henry Brady, moderated the after-movie discussion.

After the movie, the crowd asked Reich about many questions about the many different social intersections of economic inequality: racial inequality, the true potential impact of labor unions, the presence of inflation, and many other concepts. One thing was apparent during the question-and-answer portion of the night; even off the big screen, Reich can command a room, even one as large as Wheeler Auditorium.

Over his experienced profession, Reich has used many tools at his disposal to get out his message about fixing the American economy. If you visit his website, you’re instantly bombarded with his blog posts, his television appearances with the Colbert Report and the Daily Show, and his own personal explanatory videos about low wage workers, inequality, immigration reform, and many other topics.

The movie, which won both the Special Jury prize at the Sundance film festival and the Audience Award for the Best Documentary at the Traverse City film festival, deftly mixes Reich’s expert economic opinion about the current and historical state of the political economy, with the teaching of the Berkeley class, Inequality and Poverty, alongside aspects of his own personal memoir.

What’s the most artistic part of the movie? In fact, it’s the way these three seemingly unrelated topics come together to tell a whale of an economic tale. To the average movie goer, Inequality for All might contain more graphs, develop more relationships, and explain more about money, than any event they've seen. And yet, somehow the movie fits it all together using Reich’s natural stage presence and their constantly evolving storyline. These separate parts of the narrative become deeply ingrained cogs of an economic engine: economic inequality, labor unions, tax policy, globalization, technological development, and many other parts. Interestingly, the confluence of Reich’s experience, his life story, and his Berkeley course functions just as effortlessly.

Such quality, however, is not due to Reich’s life work and nimble delivery; for this, the genius of the director cannot be overstated. Though it seems to be a party where Reich is the master of ceremonies, if one looks deeper, one can find out how much influence the director had on the movie’s progression. Kornbluth explains his main motives on the Inequality for All website: “I decided my goal with this film, first and foremost, was to take a conceptual and abstract topic and find a way to tell an approachable and human story about it.” In his words, during the question portion, he stated "You have to believe in the messenger to believe in the message." That belief is necessary, then, to incite a movement to jump-start our economy.

Reich stated that he understands that economic change of which he advocates for requires conversation with, and motivation from, diverse communities. In the same breath, he goes from lecturing to his UC Berkeley course, to conversing with Republican laborers about the importance of worker lobbying, to chopping it up with venture capitalists. In a way, it’s a visual example of one particular thing; for our economy to work, we need buy-in from each of these disparate groups, to move forward towards common goals.

Even if one doesn’t agree with Reich’s suggestions, you must agree that inequality has become a massive issue in our society. Reich includes conversation about the passionate Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party protests, and adds such protests are symptoms of our communities being upset with inequality on large scales. Even President Obama recently stated in his recent State of the Union address, that 'Inequality is the defining issue and challenge of our time.' Needless to say, this isn’t an issue to take lightly.

The solutions to these issues, however, won't come as easy. He states: "The issue is at a point where there is a possibility...It can be tackled. It's not an easy answer; there has to be a movement..."

Well, one thing can be made for sure: whether Democrat, Republican, or otherwise, the points made in the new movie are hard to put down. Watching the movie, might be your first step.

Interested in learning more about Inequality for All? Check out the website here.

The views expressed here belong solely to the author of this entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

[By Dimitry Gershenson (ERG Grad Student) and Brian Edlefsen Lasch (MicroEnergy International)]

Village Mini-Grid

Symposium: UC Berkeley, April 10 – 12, 2014
Innovating Energy Access for Remote Areas: Discovering untapped resources

Flying out to San Francisco, the hills look like waves of mountains, rolling toward inland California farms. Situated within this amazing landscape is one of the world’s most innovative communities working on inclusive and sustainable energy. Numerous universities, start- up entrepreneurs, financiers, technology companies and consultancies address distributed and affordable energy markets in myriad countries. In less than two weeks, prominent researchers and scholars in this field will arrive in the Bay Area, and spend two days discussing pressing issues in expanding energy access: policy, finance, implementation, technology innovation, and more.

On April 10th, MicroEnergy Systems (MES) and the Berkeley Rural Energy Group (BREG) will be holding the first joint MES/BREG symposium on Innovation in Energy Access for Remote Areas. Hosted by Prof. Dan Kammen (Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab) and Prof. Martina Schäfer (Technische Universität Berlin), BREG and MES have invited over 50 Presenters, academics and practitioners, from around the globe to focus on the special theme of 'discovering untapped resources'. Select papers will be published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, and will also be considered by Springer Press for addition to a special edition book. The local Bay Area Energy Access community, notably through networking organizations such as Energy Access SF, are invited to register their attendance and represent their organizations. For Day 3 of the symposium, attendees are also encouraged to book their ticket for an optional day of exploration and networking. A driving tour will take you across three bridges of the San Fransisco Bay, including a guided visit to the California Academy of Sciences and an outdoor picnic in a Golden Gate Park museum courtyard. RSVP only (to Dimitry Gershenson (d.gersh@berkeley.edu), limited tickets available (cost: $60/person or less depending on demand.)

April 10th and 11th
2 days of presentation and discussion, including light workshop sessions.
30 new papers, presented in concurrent sessions and plenaries.
20+ poster topics, presented during an evening mixer at the Blum Center for Emerging Economies.
4 different venues, explored by participants across campus.

Support this good event by registering at:  http://www.microenergysystems.tu-berlin.de/conference/registration/  (Please Register by April 2nd)

See you soon,
with our best regards,

Sebastian Groh, MES, Dimitry Gershenson, BREG, Jonas van der Straeten, MES, Brian Edlefsen Lasch, MicroEnergy International (MEI), Liisa Andersson, MEI

Op-ed by Dan Kammen
Published in Daily Californian

Today, UC Berkeley and most institutions are financially invested in destroying our future.

This may sound a little bit surprising to some — even unfounded. Let me explain. When it comes to climate change, the scientific community has presented a clear, unambiguous message: Human burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — is putting our world at risk.

And this, in fact, is a needless risk. By immediately reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we can reduce the damages that we are currently on the path to creating. Typhoon Haiyan, Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina and many of the costly recent fires and droughts around the world have been exacerbated — caused, to one degree or another, by the changes in the climate that our reliance on fossil fuels has caused.

Credit: Graham Haught, Daily Californian.

Though UC Berkeley and the UC system are leaders in addressing the climate crisis through groundbreaking research and education, the companies they have invested in continue to leave a significant “carbon signature” on the environment. Many of these investments were made before the full impact of these choices on the climate was clear. Continuing the financial investment in companies like Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips — even though some of these companies have made a start in greening their portfolio — sends the wrong message. These companies, and many more, have the capacity and the opportunity to evolve from stalwarts of the old energy order that must change, into supporters of a new clean-energy system that California and the world desperately need.

The 200 largest fossil fuel companies hold, in the form of projects and assets, about five times the amount of carbon in their reserves that the scientific community has deemed responsible to even consider burning in order to avert runaway climate change. The several thousand researchers on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change have determined with greater than 95 percent certainty that human activity is currently causing climate change. Researchers from across the entire UC system and our state government are critical leaders in efforts to advance both climate science and climate solutions, as well as the adaptation side of the equation.

The overwhelming majority of major energy companies, however, has shown far too few signs of transitioning to low-carbon projects. The fossil fuel industry collectively spends more than $600 billion per year exploring for new hydrocarbons and, in some cases, very significant amounts of money on climate denial, lobbying Congress to maintain fossil fuel subsidies and other efforts that work against the needed and feasible clean-energy transition. These companies are publicly traded and investor-owned, supported in large part by institutional investors like UC Berkeley and the University of California.

Instead of funding the problem, we should be investing in solutions that at once aid the transition to a low-carbon economy and grow our university’s bottom line. There is no lack of financially and environmentally sustainable reinvestment opportunities; as of yet, there is only a lack of leadership.

UC Berkeley has played a vital role as a leader in financial and social accountability. When other institutions refused, the campus listened to its students and the international calls for divestment from companies tied to grave social harm and injustice. As was similarly expressed during the South Africa, Sudan and tobacco divestment campaigns, students at UC Berkeley believe that their campus’s investments should reflect its values of social responsibility and environmental sustainability.

In the case of fossil fuel investments, divesting is not only the moral thing to do but is also financially prudent. As fossil fuel companies continue expanding their search for more hydrocarbons, the world’s carbon budget is shrinking. From Canadian tar sands to shale oil, the ”bottom of the barrel” is proving to be increasingly dirty. When government regulation aligns with this reality — and it must — the vast majority of reserves will have to stay in the ground unburned, rendering them stranded assets. Remaining invested in fossil fuels is a bad bet all around.

With a new chancellor at UC Berkeley and a new UC president, both of whom are leaders in clean energy and climate protection, divestment at UC Berkeley and across the UC system will send a resounding message that the university takes all facets of its leadership position seriously. It will also encourage other institutions to do the same and build pressure for regional and global climate action.

As a faculty member who understands deeply the challenge climate change poses and the urgency with which action must be taken, I call on my fellow faculty to stand with the students of Fossil Free Cal and Fossil Free UC in calling on Chancellor Dirks, President Napolitano and the president of the Berkeley Foundation to be on the right side of history by moving our endowments away from fossil fuels and reinvesting in a sustainable future. Visit fossilfreecal.org and sign on if you are as concerned as I am.

The views expressed here belong solely to the author of this entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

By John Romankiewicz

“If it’s wrong to wreck the climate, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage,” Bill McKibben

Divestment Rally at UC Berkeley on Halloween 2013 (Photo: Zubair A. Dar)

Though I had been living in Berkeley for two years prior working at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, when I enrolled in the ERG Master’s program this fall, I looked for additional ways to get involved in the Berkeley community as a student, not as a scientist. Fossil Free Cal was one club that immediately caught my attention: a club rooted in climate change science but driven by student activists.

Sparked by Bill McKibben’s widely read expose on the fossil fuel industry “Global Warming’s Terrifying new Math” (which I had read a number of times), a campus-driven divestment campaign has taken root at over 300 colleges and universities across the country. These campuses are asking their institution’s endowment to divest from fossil fuels to show that our higher institutions of learning will not invest in the planet’s destruction. “If it’s wrong to wreck the climate, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage,” McKibben said on his latest “Do the Math” tour.

Building on the club’s success last semester in passing an ASUC referendum supporting UC Berkeley divestment (with 73% of student body voting in support), Fossil Free Cal has begun strategizing how to influence the decision makers for divestment, including Chancellor Dirks, Berkeley Foundation president Scott Biddy, and the UC Office of the President.

If you add up the total endowments for all of the UC universities, there is about $7 billion, of which we estimate 5-10% is invested in fossil fuel companies (we don’t know yet for sure, as there is no investment transparency). The UC Berkeley endowment is roughly $3 billion, with 1/3 of that managed by the Berkeley Foundation, and 2/3 managed by the UC Regents.

We have launched an online petition to continue building support on campus among students, faculty, and alumni. We have spoken at UC Regents stakeholder meetings, and had initial meetings with Chancellor Dirks and the UC Office of the President, in which we started these crucial conversations and gained useful feedback.

Please sign our petition if you stand with us. Sign here! We are also working on getting as much faculty support as possible, so please speak with your professors about our campaign.

Lastly, this campaign has given me an opportunity to continue to perform my eco-rap and spoken word in support of good causes. Here I am at our October 31 rally on Sproul Plaza, the “Fossil Fuel Haunting”, in which I perform as a conflicted oil rig and ghost of a fossil fuel future.

Also watch "Sustainable" John's Bike Shop / Climate Awesome eco-rap video.

The views expressed here belong solely to the author of this entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.