The Food System: Environment, Health, and Ethics

The course has three units. In the first, students learn about the environmental, health, and ethical costs of animal agriculture (with a global focus though the United States is highlighted). Topics include: animal agriculture's impact on climate change, as well as other less well known planetary boundaries like biodiversity loss, nitrogen/phosphorus cycles, water use, and land use; animal agriculture's impact on health, including both communicable and non-communicable diseases; animal agriculture's ethical costs, with a focus on marginalized black and brown populations who disproportionately bear these costs. In the second unit, we turn our attention to the lack of attention on these costs in policy, with a focus on the United States. Here, the topics include: subsidies (highlighting the lack of public investment in alternative proteins, in contrast to the approach taken by other countries like Singapore, Israel, and China); regulation (explaining how factory farms are virtually unregulated due to exemptions and lack of willingness in the US); legislation or proposed legislation (including the Green New Deal, the Biden Plan, and the Paris Agreement). In the third unit, we showcase the vast array of actors who are part of the food systems shift. The course aims to show students that they have opportunities to be part of the change by connecting them with other actors in the space including policymakers and staff, industry leaders in the plant-based sector, health professionals, academics, and advocates and activists.