Signals from a Changing Planet

California’s nickname—The Golden State—calls to mind its sun-kissed coast, the literal gold that rushed through its river veins, and its rolling hills that shine like El Dorado every summer.

Our very idea of California wilderness would be incomplete without those golden hills. But the yellow grasses that blanket them are not actually part of the state’s native landscape. Like the Mission de Santa Clara Asís, the grasses came to the American West with the Spaniards. The invasive species from the Mediterranean pushed out the native perennial greens long ago.

“That replacement has really big consequences for fire [and] also a lot of important consequences for ranchers,” says Brody Sandel, an associate biology professor at SCU.

We Are What We Eat

Imagine visiting Seattle without a 10-buck pour-over as more than half the world’s coffee species are extinct due to deforestation, human settlement, and climate instability. Or strolling along the Champs-Élysées without a pain au chocolat because food scientists weren’t able to modify the DNA of the cacao plant to deal with rising temperatures in time to save the chocolate made from its beans.

This isn’t science fiction. Think of a banana. It’s bright yellow. Maybe you had one for breakfast. That banana is a Cavendish banana. It is the world’s most popular strain—practically the only one grown today. Increased temperatures and moisture make the perfect environment for a fungus lethal to Cavendish trees. While farmers diversify their crops, a shifting climate threatens our bananas.

Even if we do nothing, we will change. One thing we can do to protect our way of life is change food cultures.

“Food systems have a huge impact on the climate and the climate has a huge impact on food systems,” says Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences Christopher Bacon. Our diets depend on the unique balance of culture, environment, and technology that nurtured them into being. Shifting one thing could shift everything—remember the shells buried in dirt?

Eating habits that lean toward meat favor animal-based agriculture, one of the highest producers of greenhouse gases. A single cow produces 220 pounds of methane, hastening climate change. 

While a plant-based diet is better for the environment, thinking critically about what’s on your plate is key: Is the food grown in place with enough water, using technology that protects topsoil, or shipped over long distances, launching more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? It is a lot to consider.

“From the farm to the fork, there are power relations. Not only is eating an agricultural act and climate act, it’s also a political act and choice in terms of where we’re engaging,” Bacon says, who received a $285,722 grant from the National Science Foundation. “I encourage people to think about those relationships on an individual scale, on a household scale, and even on a community scale.”

Care a whole awful lot

Even the most resilient of trees can fall. The 2020 Castle Fire alone destroyed 10 percent of the world’s mature giant sequoia trees, according to the National Park Service.

English lecturer Melissa Donegan, who incorporates the natural world into her Critical Thinking and Writing classes, says these trees are far too precious to ignore their destruction. 

“Even if we didn’t set the fire on purpose,” she says, “our behavior is creating this cycle where we can’t get any of these wonderful things: We don’t get the seasonal changes, fruit, or the habitats for the animals. Even just waving in the wind, the trees are telling us to pay attention.”

During Donegan’s first summer in California, the landscape grabbed her attention. Out on a walk, the heat surprised her, and trees provided shady reprieve. That gift is now a deep connection. On hikes, Donegan has wondered at fledgling barn owls peeking past foliage and a bobcat perched in the fork of a tree. She aims to instill such awe in her classes—where students explore nature in words.

Place of Change

Busy bees bumble near flowers. Clucking chickens clip across peat. Stalwart sunflowers stand guard. This place is the Forge Garden, where shades of a changing food culture, policy change studies, and sustainability take root.

Here is a piece of green in a golden state, where food is understood, stories are found, and students dig in the dirt.

Madeline Pugh ’23, an apprentice at The Forge, begins each week walking through gardens with other volunteers. A low hum grows and soon a cloud of bees buzz overhead. Pausing work for the day, Pugh and the other interns learn, “You should never really expect a totally normal day at the garden,” she says. “There’s always surprises popping up and unexpected things to learn.”

The cascading impacts of ecology carry hope here. During the pandemic, the food grown at the garden fed students through the Bronco Pantry program and 22 families. 

Here, the smallest acts, like planting a garden bed, can have the biggest impacts.

While much of the work at The Forge involves upkeep, lessons may stray into hydroponic systems and recipe books. Creativity flourishes just as much as the plants. This is a place where students can become purposeful about the fingerprints they leave on the world.

We cannot turn California’s golden hills green again. Like Sandel says, getting to zero would be very hard. But we can respond to change better. The world is telling us that we need to act. And we can care enough to listen, and be mindful when we put our hands in the dirt.