02 June
The benefits from reducing the harm to health are often calculated to add up to many times the cost of action.
The benefits from reducing the harm to health are often calculated to add up to many times the cost of action.
As my plane banked and headed toward the international airport in Mumbai, a staggering scene unfolded before me through my small oval window.
A sea of blue-tarp-covered shacks extended to the airport boundary, as if the fragile airport wall was holding back a tsunami of nearby informal settlements. The ubiquitous blue waterproof tarp, a symbol of the city, serves as the primary protection against – and poignant reminder of – the harsh annual monsoon season, underscoring the inequities in the city.
From this bird’s eye perspective to ground level, a more nuanced reality came into view. As an urban planner living and working in Mumbai, I saw how, contrary to popular media representations, not all homes in informal settlements resembled the shacks I first witnessed on the outskirts of the airport. Within the same neighborhood, housing can range from flimsy shelters made of low-cost materials to multistoried brick and cement structures, often part of informal rental markets.
The ‘favelas’ of Brazil, ‘bastis’ of India, ‘katchi abadis’ of Pakistan, ‘kampungs’ of Malaysia and the ‘barrios’ and ‘comunas’ of Venezuela and Colombia — these neighborhoods are as diverse as the names used to describe them. Despite their differences, informal settlements often face similar struggles. From poor air quality and inadequate housing conditions to limited access to water, sanitation and electricity, informal neighborhoods face environmental and social challenges that harm people’s health, affecting the poorest and most marginalized communities the hardest. Given that more than one billion people in the Global South – a quarter of the world’s urban population – live in informal settlements, this is no small issue.
As an urban planner and environmental health researcher, I am convinced that place-based approaches that take into account the physical complexities and community relationships of informal neighborhoods are essential to developing solutions that improve the wellbeing of residents while addressing the stigma associated with living in them. Unlike conventional approaches that rely on global “best practices” or impose top-down policies that neglect local context, community-led strategies involve active engagement with residents, seeking to improve the physical conditions of settlements while strengthening existing community ties.
Examples of types of houses in Indian informal settlements.
Credit: Julia King
The United Nations defines a 'slum household' (a term that might marginalize and homogenize the experiences of local communities) as a place where residents have limited access to clean water, lack sanitation, live in overcrowded and poorly-built constructions, suffer from an insecure housing tenure, or all of the above. Although I am using “informal settlements” as a synonym for “slums” here, I am aware of the continued debate surrounding these names as well as the usefulness of the “slum” label, which provides legal recognition to informal neighborhoods in certain countries, including in India. The urban research collective Urbz has coined “homegrown neighborhoods”, a name which gives agency to communities by emphasizing the labor and local expertise of residents that gave rise to these diverse places.
Often located in low-lying, flood-prone areas, hilly regions or near polluting facilities and landfills, informal settlements are disproportionately exposed to environmental pollution and health risks from natural disasters. Since cities do not legally recognize most settlements, they frequently do not have good access to water, sanitation and electricity, which creates a breeding ground for water-borne diseases like cholera, hepatitis, bacterial infections from poor personal hygiene and health risks from heat stress. And many informal settlements are also overcrowded, making them susceptible to the spread of both infectious diseases from contagion and noninfectious diseases from poor living conditions. Lack of resources and services like public transportation, schools or healthcare centers limits opportunities for residents. Despite these risks, policymakers and government welfare institutions turn a blind eye due to existing prejudice and the precarious legal status of these communities, deepening poverty and health hazards.
These inequalities became more salient to me when I worked with communities in Shivaji Nagar, one of Mumbai’s poorest and most underdeveloped informal neighborhoods. Shivaji Nagar borders one of the largest landfills in India, resulting in serious environmental health risks and air quality problems. It is overcrowded with approximately 600,000 people in about a half a square mile (a densely-populated city like New York, in contrast, has approximately 28,000 people living in one square mile). Access to clean water and sanitation is limited with only one toilet for every 145 people. More than a third of households have a monthly income of $100 or less, many of which belong to marginalized Muslim and Dalit (lower-caste) communities.
Commercial street in Shivaji Nagar, Mumbai.
Credit: Sabah Usmani
While I use the term informal settlement, working with communities I realized that there are formal systems of community and spatial organization within these places. During a workshop that brought community members, academics and architects together to design and test small-scale interventions for improving Shivaji Nagar’s street furniture (such as public benches or street lights), garbage disposal, water access and community gardens, it was evident that the neighborhood has its own “formalized” systems of organization. These systems manifest in various ways, from the gridded and numbered streets — a visual reminder of the neighborhood’s history as a government-planned resettlement colony — to the community groups and religious organizations that coordinate local worker groups, manage community gardens and public places, and provide financial and social support during times of need. Such self-organized community initiatives are characteristic of the informal, helping underserved communities improve their quality of life through self-determination.
Shivaji Nagar informal settlement with a street grid.
Credit: Google Earth, 2023
As I conducted research in other countries, getting to know people living in informal settlements, I realized that the few successful solutions for these places center communities and respect the existing networks and systems of organization. An example is Lucha de Los Pobres (‘The Fight of the Poor’), an informal settlement that was transformed into a thriving neighborhood of Quito, the capital of Ecuador.
While filming a documentary about the inception of this neighborhood, I interviewed Rodrigo Gualotuña, a community leader, who told me the story of his community. In 1964, Ecuador’s Agrarian Reform Law abolished Indigenous forced labor and this, coupled with the petroleum boom, led to mass migration to Quito. Due to a lack of affordable housing and discriminatory land ownership practices, migrants were forced to seek alternative forms of shelter. This neighborhood came about through an organized occupation of a hacienda (estate) in southwestern Quito, where thousands of Indigenous community members self-organized and occupied underutilized land overnight and built homes. It was a haven for low-income families who lacked shelter through conventional means. With years of protest and negotiation, Lucha de Los Pobres was recognized by the Municipality of Quito and provided with basic infrastructure and social services. This story illustrates a community-led approach that relied on the self-determination and resilience of the residents, many of whom have worked to build and incrementally expand their homes from simple single story constructions to impressive multi-story structures.
Lucha de los Pobres original settlement, 1983 (left, credit: Rodrigo Gualotuña). Present day Lucha de los Pobres, 2016 [right, Credit: Gabriel Muñoz Moreno).
This incremental housing approach – where residents build and expand their homes over time – presents an affordable solution to the housing needs of low-income populations. As part of a study led by MIT’s Special Interest Group for Urban Settlements, I organized interviews with residents and workshops with children from the community to ask them how they felt about their neighborhood. Their responses confirmed that the many in the community had a sense of pride about incrementally building their own homes and public spaces to meet their needs, developing building and construction expertise and deepening community bonds in the process.
Residents building a roof in Lucha de los Pobres.
Credit: Gabriel Muñoz Moreno
So how can we improve people’s health and wellbeing in informal settlements? For policymakers and researchers, this means listening to communities that live there. It means including communities in all research efforts. It means understanding what is already working, elevating effective, homegrown solutions wherever possible, and integrating these into formal municipal governance. It means acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all answer and what works for one neighborhood may not work for another. It means building strong partnerships between communities and local governments to co-create and implement place-based policies and programs that upgrade neighborhoods where they are, instead of uprooting and forcibly evicting them.
By the middle of this century, up to three billion people are estimated to live in informal settlements, yet these places remain largely invisible to policymakers and neglected in policy decisions. There is a lack of data about the environmental factors, demographics, disease and health statistics for these neighborhoods, which limits our ability to understand public health challenges and focus resources on community health needs.
Informal settlements are complex and our efforts to understand them should reflect this complexity. Place-based research and policy will shed light on this intricacy and generate innovative solutions to physical infrastructure and legal representation, working hand-in-hand with communities.
Informal settlements are not a monolith. From Shivaji Nagar in Mumbai to Lucha de Los Pobres in Quito, they each have unique histories, contexts, challenges and people who have built the places that they call home.
This essay was produced through the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice fellowship. Agents of Change empowers emerging leaders from historically excluded backgrounds in science and academia to reimagine solutions for a just and healthy planet.
Alexa White joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss the importance of listening to small-scale farmers around the world.
White, a current fellow and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan, also talks about the field of agroecology, sustainable coffee farming, climate justice and jumping out of airplanes.
The Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast is a biweekly podcast featuring the stories and big ideas from past and present fellows, as well as others in the field. You can see all of the past episodes here.
Listen below to our discussion with White, and subscribe to the podcast at iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher.
Brian Bienkowski
All right, I am super excited to be joined by Alexa White. Alexa, how are you doing today?
Alexa White
I am great. How are you?
Brian Bienkowski
Excellent. And where are you today?
Alexa White
I'm in in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University of Michigan.
Brian Bienkowski
Ann Arbor – lovely. About five hours, about five hours south of me. Do you have a favorite coffee shop down there?
Alexa White
Ah, not really. I'm most of the time just I'm kind of cheap. And I take coffee to the library. I'm on a grad student budget.
Brian Bienkowski
There's, there is nothing wrong with that. I, my my wife is a fancy coffee drinker. And when I treat her, I cannot believe how much it costs. There just used to be a coffee shop down there. And my sister lives there called I think it's RoosRoast, something like that
Alexa White
Yeah. It's funny that you bring up coffee shops because I study coffee.
Brian Bienkowski
Oh, well, we will we will get into that. That is, that is perfect. I just remember Roos being a very vibrant, progressive hive of fun people and activities. So I figured I'd ask on the off-chance that you'd been there. But let's go back before Ann Arbor and all the way back to the beginning. So you are from Newark, New Jersey. And I know, I happen to know that your grandfather's life and his relationship with you had a profound impact on your upbringing and kind of eventual career. So talk about growing up there and a little bit about that relationship.
Alexa White
Yeah, so my grandparents, they were both sharecroppers from the American South. My grandfather came from North Carolina and my grandma came from Texas. And so all the the period of me growing up, I pretty much spent all my after school days with them. And anytime that my parents were busy, they dropped us off at my grandparents house, so they really had a big influence on how I related to nature because they would take us to parks and specifically in the backyard, we would grow a lot of gardens and things and I didn't, I didn't really have an idea of how significant that relationship was, how important those kinds of moments were until I got a lot older and understood where where that knowledge came from in terms of the history of America and them having to produce a certain amount of food to satisfy the white landowners that they used to live with when they were growing up.
Brian Bienkowski
And what was it about growing food and plants – because I know this is kind of merged into your career – What was it that spoke to you?
Alexa White
Yeah, it wasn't until I honestly got to graduate school that I felt empowered enough to bring my own history into my research. And so I used to be herpetologists, I used to study lizards and run around and collect them. And it wasn't until I got here to Michigan, I was in I'm in I'm in an agroecology lab. And I started to think about the farmers that I was meeting and really try to kind of put their lives into perspective. And it just was a moment actually I was in, I was in Mexico and I was still doing the lizard research and I realized like "my grandparents know a lot about this. Like why do I know so much about farms and how things are supposed to be grown and why is this intimate connection to food so ingrained in me?" and it was kind of just a moment of massive impact where it was like maybe I should go back home during Christmas and talk to my grandparents more seriously about where they came from and where I come from.
Brian Bienkowski
And were they having those conversations with you when you were, when you were a child?
Alexa White
Yeah, they were. Yeah, they would talk about having to grow specific crops and trying to, I guess, appease the landowner and how their siblings would all have to kind of get up early in the morning to either go pick cotton, or there'd be different fruits and vegetables, different animals that they lived with and were used to kind of like find different things, chickens, dogs. Yeah, they told me those stories all the time. And I feel like in a lot of African American homes, their grandparents tell them a lot of these stories, but the context doesn't really come until you're a lot older and kind of can see the world for yourself. So yeah, those stories were definitely part of my, my childhood.
Brian Bienkowski
Maybe you spoke to this in that last thing you said, and I don't want to kind of probe generational trauma. But were you aware of kind of the gravity of what they were telling you? Or were you thinking, Oh, they grew okra or something? Or was it? Was it there? Was the gravity lost on you at that age? Or did you were you aware of it?
Alexa White
No, I knew it was bad. They would talk about times where they would shift from stories about how they were putting in like seeds for harvest for next year. And then if they were to go to school, white folks would throw rocks at them from the buses, because they couldn't ride the buses, and they would have to hide in the bushes and how they had to go to different schools and how they noticed that there are differences in the books in the school houses that they were in. So they, they did not hold back. And I think that kind of is another reason why I have a part of my personality that I have. They were very much outspoken about the injustices that they faced. But they also, there was also always a bright side, they were also very, looked fondly back on those memories of them working on farms in some way.
Brian Bienkowski
Well, on the real bright side is that you have taken some of this knowledge and are running with it in a really cool way with your research. And we, i want to get into that. But we first have to ask Mike, my favorite question, which is what it's a defining moment or event that has shaped your identity up to this point?
Alexa White
Yeah. So I would say that the biggest turning point in my life actually happened very early on. In high school. Well, actually, before high school, I really didn't talk at all, which is crazy, because now I talk all the time. And I was very shy. And my father really wanted me to get involved in an extracurricular and so I would join things and quit join volleyball, quit, join fencing, quit. And when I got to debate, I got in the car, I said I wanted to quit. And he said, No, you have to get out of the car, and you're gonna go to debate practice, and you're gonna go for a year and every single day, I will come back and complain about it. But it grew to be a part of me, I realized that I really liked like critical arguments. I liked talking about race theory, I really liked talking about the world and the the function of us as individuals within that and debate in high school, it changed the way that I talk every day, the way that I think. I think that kind of getting those international, those international and national experiences at championships was really important because most of the schools that we would debate against, they came from rich white neighborhoods. They... that's the kind of space that debate is, it's very posh. And you have a bunch of evidence and you kind of dress up and you talk in a certain way and you make an argument. And I kind of combated that. And I found my voice in high school by kind of taking notice of the way that the space was constructed in oppression and racism and arguing about it. And I kind of have been doing that for the rest of my existence. And it's fun. It's also really inspiring. It's kind of a way for me to feel optimistic about the future.
Brian Bienkowski
It has to be such a balancing act as a parent to want to push your kids into something because it altered your life for the better but not being a parent that's forcing the kid to do something they don't want to do.
Alexa White
I mean for a year I didn't want to do it and then I made friends and then it was fine.
Brian Bienkowski
Right? Yeah, once you get comfortable that I feel like that's I was a shy kid too. And once you get comfortable it's it's a totally different. Well that's great. Let's talk about your research. So you've mentioned agroecology, and I'm familiar with it because I actually run a small organic farm with my wife. And I'm really interested in what you're doing and others are doing but could you just define it for listeners who may not know what that field means?
Alexa White
Yeah. agroecology. The easiest way to remember it is agriculture and ecology. So farms are managed ecosystems. That's the best way to kind of sum up the statement of what agroecology is. And so it's the interaction between a managed ecosystem where people are having inputs and put in crops and things that work to the benefit of a human and try and work in synergistically operate within the system that is the unmanaged ecosystem. So forest edges and anything outside of a farm. And so there's different types of biodiversity within agroecology. So the managed biodiversity so for example, if you were to have a polyculture, that would mean that you would be growing many different things that you would grow tomato and kale and a bunch of different crops, and they would also interact with the associated biodiversity. So when you think of pollinators, you think of seed disperses like birds and bats and different mammals, all of that is included in agroecology and thinking about how the farm interacts with everything else.
Brian Bienkowski
So you're looking into the positive impacts that small scale farmers in particular have had on biodiversity and food security. So first, what are some of these positive impacts, and do you have some examples?
Alexa White
Yeah, so family farms, small-holder farms that's defined as a farm that is two hectares or less. And so the majority of the world's farms are small scale farms. So that's 98% of all farms. And so although they are 90% of all the farms that exist, they only manage about 50% of the agricultural land. So that just kind of leads you into the thought of well, who else is taking over this? So large-scale industrial farms have the vast majority or have half of the land in the world. And so the the family farm are producing the majority of the caloric requirements for us to survive, and they also produce the majority of the world's food, if we, if we didn't have small-scale farms, we would all starve, essentially. And so there are a lot of case studies that have been done, but particularly in Brazil, and in Malawi, those have the most kind of diverse range of like, policy approaches and ways that we can really think about how small-scale farms fit into our lives. But they're very, very important. If we did not have them, I just like to emphasize, we would all starve.
Brian Bienkowski
And I don't want to vilify one farm versus the other. But if we can just kind of set the stage since you kind of look at things through this ecological lens, when we think of kind of large-scale, very intensive agriculture, what are some of the ecological impacts that we can expect to see?
Alexa White
Yeah, so there's something called food regimes. And so these are basically the historical periods through which agriculture changed. And so we're currently living in the industrial food regime, corporate food, corporate farms. And so when you think about industrial-sized farms, there are a lot of inputs that are required, usually, it's only one crop that's being grown. So when we go back to that image of a polyculture, where there are different kinds of, different kinds of crops that are interacting with things from the outside. When you only have one thing on your farm, it's really susceptible to a lot of disease to spread very quickly, and a lot of pests to come in. So that's why there's a lot of use of pesticides in order to keep those things off of the crop. And there's a lot of needs for fertilizer, because there isn't really a diversity in the roots that are growing in the soil. And so if you were to think about livestock, for example, it's the same kind of thing, right? So disease can spread really easily among cows. And they usually take up a lot of swaths of land, as well as water. So industrial agriculture is really characterized by a lot of needs for inputs.
Brian Bienkowski
So it sounds like just like in most kinds of cases in life, diversity builds out resilience in systems. And so climate is another kind of big cloud hanging over all of this. And when we think about international climate policy and policymakers, what are some of the ways that small scale farmers are misrepresented? And what are some ways that we could change that?
Alexa White
Yeah, so a large part of the work that I d is looking at climate governance on an international scale. So the United Nations hosts the Conference of Parties every year, where basically world leaders and different representatives from countries come together to talk about what they're going to do about climate change. And I've been to four, if you know about the Paris Climate Accord, Paris climate agreement, that one was really important. But I that was the first one I went to when I noticed that there are no farmers talking, there barely any does really anyone really speaking at these conferences that have anything to do with food or have any influence over kind of the documents are coming out of it. And then last September, President Biden, he convened another kind of international conference, the United Nations Food System Summit. And so this summit was meant to figure out the kinks in our global food system, as we can see from COVID-19. Whenever there's a big perturbation, it kind of fails. It's not it's not foolproof. When we think about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, their production of wheat definitely had an impact on the food markets. And so back to the Food System Summit, that was largely put on by a lot of large agribusinesses. And not really a lot of farmers who kind of do the day to day and have those family farms and feed their families. And so my research really concentrates on these mistakes, and looks at the relationship between farmers and everyone else. So farmers and politicians, NGO leaders and academics and tries to figure out how we can improve those relationships and what that really means for the future of food when we think about climate change impacts.
Brian Bienkowski
And what are some ways that you or others have teased out that we could be doing things better?
Alexa White
Yeah. So at the international scale, I think that there are plenty of ways to include farmers voices, I would say that just the just the inclusion of farmers in these processes is very, very important for us to understand the context of how large of a problem this is, and kind of will transform to being. So the majority of our farms, like I said, are small-scale farms. And so in at a more local level, as opposed to international, having intimate connections with the land and having very personal connections with your farmers, it's really important. And it's also it's also good for you, right? So if you were to know that you could get a box of food, have a subscription, and have a really good connection with a person who you know grew that food, that would be good for the farmer as well as it would be good for you. So that's, that's called the CSA. So they're also food coops that you, lots of municipalities have installed as to their infrastructure. And so yeah, I would say that having a more intimate connection to your food, and kind of understanding where it comes from, is the first step. And then if we're thinking about international scale, farmers voices are really important.
Brian Bienkowski
I found we grow stuff here that is very adapted to a northern climate, because we're in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan, my wife and I, and I found it's kind of retrain my brain of what I eat throughout the year. So maybe I'm not eating tomatoes in January, and maybe that's okay. And it's squash time. So it's kind of put me more in tune with what we can grow here when we can grow it. And when it's, it's okay to not eat exotic things throughout the year sometimes, I guess.
Alexa White
Yeah, yeah. Something I bring up in most of my talks is that if you're in New York City, in February, how can you get a mango from the supermarket? I always ask that question, both kind of like there, I'd get big and it's like, oh, yeah, like, how did I do that? It's like, yeah, it came from a lot of the mango reserves actually come from Mexico and places that are near the Equator, different Caribbean islands. And so yeah, if you think about seasonality, and kind of like, how much, how much fuel it takes to bring that over here, who actually grew it? What what was used to keep it in season, wherever it was? That's all important. That's all stuff that kind of, you should think about when you grab those things at the grocery store.
Brian Bienkowski
I also think it's fun. I don't feel deprived. I mean, I do think there are things that obviously I still buy out of season and so on and so forth. But it's fun. It's fun to think about ways of kind of being throughout the year eating in a different way.
Alexa White
Yeah, there's a lot of things you can eat that are in season there, that are geographically correct, yeah.
Brian Bienkowski
Totally. So where does the coffee come into all this?
Alexa White
Yeah. So I got into coffee as a Ph.D. student here at the University of Michigan. So I am in an agroecology coffee lab. And so I study how coffee kind of allows for entry into market. So coffee is like a luxury product, right? It's something you drink for caffeine. And you kind of drink it in the morning or right after you eat your dinner. And so my work is centered around Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, in the Jamaican Blue Mountains, and then Kona coffee in Hawaii. And so I speak to those farmers and try to understand what else they grow outside of the coffee. And then, what the what the coffee really brings them. How do they grow? What do they choose to do when they manage that coffee?
Brian Bienkowski
Have you got to go to those places? And what are those? What are those interactions look like?
Alexa White
Yeah, yeah, yeah, getting into the Jamaican Blue Mountains is very hard. You have to know how to Off Road. It's it's very high elevation and the communities they're very close knit. It was a very inspiring summer I had, last summer I was there for about two and a half months. And yeah, I talked to farmers, off the side of the road, ask them about their day, ask them what they have been doing in terms of their farms for the past few years. And most of them come from generations of farmers. They have a lot of generational knowledge about what they're growing and a very kind of deep connection to the land that they have. And it's, it's very eye opening to kind of go and see that they can grow everything that they need for for their day to day lives. And then right after that, I went to Hawaii Kona, Kailua Kona, Hawaii and spoke to different coffee farmers there. It's very different, obviously. So we're talking about the US versus nations of the Global South. And so everyone there... usually they have different kinds of monetary resources. So I spoke to a lot of retired doctors and lawyers. And it's much more of something that they do as a hobby. They would grow various different kinds of fruits and vegetables alongside their coffee. But largely, it was an interest in kind of just having a special novelty coffee. And it's just fun to them.
Brian Bienkowski
So I don't want to put words in your mouth or actions, ascribe actions to you. But I know you're passionate about this. And I'm just curious how you navigate the space spaces as both a researcher and as an activist. And if you don't call yourself an activist, that's fine. But are those two roles ever in conflict?
Alexa White
Um, I definitely do consider myself an activist as well as an academic. And yeah, they're in conflict. Academia as an institution, has historically been very extractive in terms of kind of how science is done and the ethics behind it. And I don't want to be, I don't want to be a steward of that, I try my best not to participate in those kinds of activities. And so when it comes to kind of trying to balance those, I oftentimes try to work into my budgets, ways that I can help out farmers by either giving them some sorts of seeds or whatever they need, while also asking for their permission to use the data to further the agenda of the small farmer. And so I really do find that whenever I go to kind of like these international conferences and trying to understand exactly what's supposed to be happening, and trying to get these farmers to have the opportunity to speak there. There's definitely an internal conflict with my ability to kind of go to these conferences versus their ability to go to these conferences and I hope to pioneer spaces where farmers can have a voice and can speak about these things themselves.
Brian Bienkowski
And are there examples of places leaders organizations that you think are incorporating Black, indigenous and other marginalized farmer voices and perspectives and they're doing it in a way that that you think is good?
Alexa White
Absolutely. So La Vía Campesina is known as the peasants’ movement. They have a lot of agroecology principles, specifically food sovereignty. And so what food sovereignty means is that you should be able to have control and knowledge and cultural influence over your food. Everyone has a right to all of those things, which is very different from food security, right? So food security is, for example, if you were to go to a food bank, and they were to give you like a can of corn, and a bushel of apples, that would be considered food security, as opposed to someone else who has an own culture of their food or wants to know where their food is coming from, they would be able to have land where they can grow their own food and produce things that are within their culture, and that they have more knowledge about. And so yeah, La Vía Campesina, I would say, is the place for the kinds of movements and ideologies that I'm talking about today.
Brian Bienkowski
Very cool. And you mentioned, we talked a little bit about this corporatization of our food system and how large farms own I believe you said, 50% of the land what’s, what's something you find interesting about our current food system that other people may not know?
Alexa White
Yeah, I don't think people realize how close to home these issues are. So in doing work in Hawaii, the the current governor, he put on an initiative to try and get Hawaii to be more self-sufficient – as in growing a lot of their own foods. Throughout time, the farms have transitioned into more export crops, as opposed to things that are kept internally. And so if there were to be a natural disaster, let's say they're hit by a hurricane, which is unlikely, but they would only have enough food to survive for three days, if they were cut off from the rest of the world. And so things like that, and like understanding that the food system is very volatile, and not as stable as people think. I think it's really important for folks to understand that it can't maintain itself, through what we know is going to happen with climate change, right. And even beyond that, just just wars and, and different things, we have to be able to be more self-sufficient with our food and not require so many imports of food. And when I say we I mean Americans, but generally, island nations, nations in the old world, the concept that we can kind of keep exchanging food all across the world is very, very antiquated. And it can't really survive the test of time.
Brian Bienkowski
Do you still grow any food for yourself? And would you ever have an interest in farming?
Alexa White
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I live in a co-op myself. And we have a garden, where we grow a lot of fruits and vegetables, so tomatoes, kale, cucumbers. And so I hope to be able to acquire some plot of land when I graduate, and have my own farm and be able to produce food for my friends and family. The gardens that that are at my grandparents house right now aren't enough to sustain our family. But I think another really important thing that now that I mentioned that is that acquiring land is very hard. And land is kind of segmented off by various government organizations and corporations and acquiring land is really key to kind of the movements and ideas that I that I'm proposing today.
Brian Bienkowski
Right, I can attest to that. Acquiring land is is difficult. And there's obviously there's so many factors that play into it –population urbanization. And yeah, that is that is a challenge. So it sounds like you have plenty going on. But you have also started a think tank and nonprofit, I hope I'm pronouncing it right, the AYA Research Institute.
Alexa White
Perfect. Yes. The AYA Research Institute. Yeah. So early on at Howard University. I had a group of friends. And we were kind of recruited by Dr. Beverly Wright, who is the director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice in New Orleans. And so we all were scientists, baby scientists, and we kind of got into environmental justice through her. And one of my friends, Adria Peterkin, she's now a Ph.D. student at MIT in nuclear engineering, we decided that we wanted to create a think tank. We noticed that a lot of scientists and engineers don't really know that much about community engagement and what it means to kind of interact with communities without being extractive or without kind of getting the wrong results or not, not really getting what what they what they want out of the work that they're doing. And so in 2020, we founded the the AYA research institute, and have been doing projects that are centered around bringing more scientists and engineers into the field of environmental justice, as well as trying to inform policy about the direction of environmental justice, which is really important considering the Biden administration's Justice 40. Development.
Brian Bienkowski
And it's pronounced AI and it's a-y-a research institute. Can you explain the significance of the name?
Alexa White
Yeah, so AYA is a symbol, an African and ticker symbol for resilience. And so we really wanted to embody that we wanted to kind of ground ourselves in our African American roots and have a symbol that describes having an intimate connection to the land and have an intimate connection to your work. And so AYA research institute is meant to be a space where we kind of embody community engagement. And yeah, AYA is the is the symbol that we chose.
Brian Bienkowski
Excellent. And what are you optimistic about, Alexa?
Alexa White
I am optimistic about the optimism in academia that I've been seeing lately. That's a little bit redundant. But a lot of the work that that I kind of, grew up reading about climate change, grew up reading about the food system, or reading about science. Usually, it's been very gloom and doom kind of, we have to be worried about this. And we have to be really cautious about that. And now I'm realizing as well as other peers of mine, that we are not getting where we need to go. And we need to come up with very firm solutions on what needs to happen. And so the latest spaces that I've been working in, have been concerning environmental justice screening tools. So environmental justice screening tools are meant to be these mapping devices that can identify disadvantaged populations and possible impacts that they will see in the future. And so in these spaces, there are federal ones or state ones, there are different individual organizations that are creating them. And I see it as a very optimistic way to go about things because we're identifying ways to resolve these problems. And the conversations that I'm having with people are much more solution-oriented as opposed to identifying issues.
Brian Bienkowski
So to switch gears here, I know you are something of a thrill seeker we had the good fortune to meet before this program started. I think you mentioned bungee jumping, maybe it was skydiving, but it's these kinds of crazy things that most of us would never do. So where did this thrill seeking in you come from? And what's the what's the craziest thing you've ever done?
Alexa White
Yeah, so I did bungee jump and I have skydived. I did both of them more than once. Yeah, I don't know where it came from. I was studying abroad in New Zealand and I don't know why I tried to convince everybody I knew to go bungee jumping with me. And then I did, and it was the best day of my life! or one of the best days of my life. Yeah, I think I just really enjoy, I really enjoy transformation and I really enjoy kind of like getting through hard things and coming out on the other side. And so yeah, I'd say the the last really thrill-seeking thing that I did was I was actually another another bungee jump in Croatia I went with some of my friend, I went with Adria, one of the the the other co-founder of AYA. And yeah, I just like to –Oh, surfing surfing is very hard. Oh my god. I did not know that surfers had that much endurance and like skill, but it's hard.
Brian Bienkowski
That's that is so cool. I think I know the feeling you're talking about I don't know if there's a word for it, but the feeling of having gotten through something and then you can reflect on it and talk about it and have fun. You know, I think I know exactly what you're talking about.
Alexa White
Exactly. Yeah. It's really fun.
Brian Bienkowski
I don't know if I would bungee jump to do it. But
Alexa White
I would categorize myself as adrenaline junkie so good. Yeah.
Brian Bienkowski
So before I get you out of here, and this has been so much fun to hear more about your work. I have three rapid-fire questions where you can just answer with one word or a phrase. My favorite thing to cook is
Alexa White
Um, macaroni and cheese.
Brian Bienkowski
My favorite thing to grow in the garden is
Alexa White
Figs.
Brian Bienkowski
What was the highlight of this past week for you?
Alexa White
I actually just came back from New Orleans. And so it's Mardi Gras on there. I have several friends that joined me. And so, that was really fun to get back to get back to the Big Easy.
Brian Bienkowski
Awesome, and you don't have to confine yourself to one word or phrase here. But what is the last book you read for fun?
Alexa White
I'm really into Afrofuturism at this moment. So I'm rereading things with a different perspective. So Octavia Butler, she does a lot of work with that I'm interested in or I'm rereading Parable of Sour, and Kindred.
Brian Bienkowski
Awesome. Well, Alexa, this has been such a great time. It's been great to hear more about your work. And thank you so much for joining me today.
Alexa White
Thank you for having me. It's been a great time.
Dr. Robbie Parks joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss the need to treat destructive storms, hurricanes and typhoons as public health and justice issues.
Parks, a current fellow and assistant professor in environmental health sciences at Columbia University, also talks about moving to the U.S. from the U.K., population-level health lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, and his love of football (soccer!).
Parks also plays an original song for us — a first on the podcast! Visit his Bandcamp to hear more of his music.
The Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast is a biweekly podcast featuring the stories and big ideas from past and present fellows, as well as others in the field. You can see all of the past episodes here.
Listen below to our discussion with Parks, and subscribe to the podcast at iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher.
Brian Bienkowski
All right, I am super excited to be joined by Robbie Parks. Robbie, how're you doing today?
Robbie Parks
Very well. Thank you. How are you, Brian?
Brian Bienkowski
I'm doing excellent. And where are you coming at us from?
Robbie Parks
I'm in New York City, or Brooklyn to be precise. We're at home. And that's where I live and work, in New York City. So here I am.
Brian Bienkowski
Excellent. And you are not from there. Of course, maybe people have already picked up a slight accent. You are from the UK, having been raised in London. Tell me about your upbringing. Tell me about the beginnings.
Robbie Parks
Yes, very perceptive. I am indeed not from New York City. I'm a transplant from the UK, in London. So you know, London was an amazing place to grow up, I grew up specifically right in the middle in a place called Pimlico. So just to give a quick shout out to my local area there. And I really loved growing up there. You know, it was sort of, in some ways people might say as a first pass, it was like New York City in that you could really feel the world in the city in lots of different ways. It was very multicultural, and it still is. Lots of different things to do. You can never be bored if you you know, they say "tired of London, tired of life." So, you know, really, there was always stuff to do. I really had a great time and lots of opportunity from, you know, the education system and was really fortunate to get a couple of really good breaks there that changed my life. And, you know, though I grew up without, you know, huge amounts of means, most of the time, I didn't really think about that I was just really excited to to be in such a big and vibrant city. And I think my friends and family would probably agree that it's turned me into a real city person. I am really comfortable in the city. So yeah, I loved growing up in London.
Brian Bienkowski
Well, we, we have had the chance to meet and I feel like you're a kindred soul. But I will say that is one place that we part ways as a person. So I'm glad. I'm glad there's some of you out there. So places like where I live can stay remote and, and sparse. So you mentioned London's multiculturalism. And I think that's an interesting point, because maybe I'm pigeon-holing my fellow Americans, but I think there's this misinformed notion that all British people are royal or wealthy and London is a full of that. And it's not, of course. So when you came to the States, how would you describe that transition? And if you felt that coming here?
Robbie Parks
Well, you know, just to be clear, all British people do know at least one royal member of the family. So you know, we are very well-versed and we do often go for tea at Buckingham Palace. But that aside, in all seriousness, yeah, it is a very vibrant, diverse place, London in particular, but also many parts of the UK. And I sort of came over after my Ph.D. finished in late 2019. And, you know, I think I was quite naive really, with the transition because I'd never lived anywhere else really apart from UK. And so I thought coming to New York would be relatively easy in the grand scheme of things because you know, one of the main languages being English, I thought it'd be very straightforward, but you know, the transition was anything but straightforward. I found it incredibly stressful and traumatic, especially because I didn't really didn't know anyone when I moved to New York, but also, you know, lot large parts of my life was still in, in London, in the UK. And, you know, I taught that when I moved, I knew that 2020 was coming. But in 2019, what everyone was thinking about in 2020 was the presidential election. And that's all everyone was talking about, you know, when I first moved, and little did we all know, that that wouldn't really even be one of the biggest events of 2020. But it would be merely one of the top five, probably, and so, you know, the transition into the pandemic really was a real shock to everyone. But for me, away from family and friends and family, I would say that, that was particularly difficult. And I was really blessed and fortunate to have so many new and good friends that I'd made in New York City in a large part because of, you know, meeting people through my university there. And so, you know, in terms of the other elements of it, where I think I was naive, I think, on a first pass, you know, New York City and London are quite similar. You know, there's similar populations, similar sorts of multicultural nature. They both got subways, you know, one is better than the other, I would say, but then I'm biased towards London, probably still. And, but really, I think culture and society are actually quite differen when you scratch below the surface. I think one of the first things I realized, you know, the silly example is I, I needed to fill in tax forms before I even started working, that was incredibly confusing, but really, I think that there's just a different sort of flavor on the way that people behave. I think, you know, the, the old cliche with with New Yorkers, they're trying to get somewhere all the time. And that really is the sort of case. And I found that that was, you know, very different from London, where people were in a rush. But I think there's a certain dynamism in New York and a certain... I don't know what the word is, but maybe you might say grittiness that, that isn't really necessarily everywhere in London. And I think that, my friend, Russ, told me that something I remember in New York, he said, Now, I still to this day, use it to sort of justify why I live here. And he said that, you know, "it makes the easy thing is hard, and the hard things easy." And I think, you know, getting groceries can can take half a day. But you know, if you want to see world-class art and science, it's right here, and it's easy to get. So that's the way I think about it. And that kind of helps me live day-to-day here.
Brian Bienkowski
I've never heard that. And that's, that's so true. What a great what a great way to put it. And you're mentioning, I didn't actually didn't know that you move there during pre pre-pandemic right before. And when you mentioned a difficult transition, I find cities can be some of the most lonely places, despite the fact that you're surrounded by billions of people. And it's kind of a little bit of... screws with your mind a little bit because I had that in Chicago a little bit just feeling very lonely, but surrounded by a lot of people. So I'm glad you've found your footing. And of course, your research has helped us understand that pandemic a little bit. And we are going to get into that soon. But I wanted to know, what is the defining moment or event that shaped your identity up to this point?
Robbie Parks
Yeah, what a great question. I think, you know, there are many things in everyone's life every day that shape your identity. If I had to reduce it to one life event, it would probably be you know, in relation to my parents passing away. My dad passed away when I was relatively young, in my early teens, and my mum passed away a few years ago, and both events, looking back and the longer I think about it, and the longer I sort of write my research and do my research and go through my career, and just in general, my interactions with everyone, I feel like it's a lens – that bereavement and that grief from from both my parents loss – I feel like that's really a lens through which I see a lot of my life and that's personal and professional as well. I think it's influenced a lot from from my professional life. And I think I'm looking forward to sharing the essay that I've written with with you, because I think that that will sort of help as well put flesh on the bone there. But yeah, definitely sort of those bereavements for me.
Brian Bienkowski
Well, thanks so much for sharing that. And I don't know, I don't know when your essay will come out, but I encourage everybody to read it. You should be reading all the essays. But Robbie's in particular has really stuck with me as we've started the editing process. So as I mentioned, now you are studying all kinds of important things and I want to start with COVID, because we're still dealing with it here in 2023, unfortunately. So you're, broadly you're researching how environmental hazards impact the world's population, both now and in the future. And you've researched the pandemic and its responses from different angles and in different countries. And I'm wondering if you could just kind of share some of the more important and interesting bits of research you found, and how it can or should inform us as we still deal with it today.
Robbie Parks
Yeah, so just to be clear, I would be speaking from a population health expertise perspective. So you know, of course, I'm not an expert at all in sort of the medical side of things, but really, from a demograph/population health side of things, but I, you know, I do have a voice and based on my research on what we found, from official death records, essentially in many different countries. And the way that we would, and we have analyzed COVID-19's impact on public health is through excess deaths. And excess deaths, in a nutshell, what happens to the number of deaths now relative to similar periods in the past. Now, of course, we all know that lots of people died from COVID, and is a tragedy, and it's an ongoing tragedy, this global pandemic, however, the way you would manage –let me start again. However, the way you would manage that impact, really is a function of, you know, the infrastructure of recording deaths in each country, and that varies. However, you know, assuming you have reliable death records, you can create models and design models to measure the difference between the expected number of deaths at one point and the actual number of deaths at that particular point. And of course, during many parts of the COVID 19 pandemic, a lot more people died than otherwise would have had there been no pandemic. So why did that vary between countries? And why did that, in fact, vary between states? Well, of course, policies matter. So, you know, we're seeing a sort of unfortunate natural experiment. And we did see that in the United States, especially over the first couple of years, how different policies and different behaviors would impact something like infectious disease, like COVID-19. And so, you know, lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, made a critical difference, especially at the beginning. And so, you know, in the first half of 2020, if I invite you, your day you to, to go back to that particular time, especially in the United States, you know, over half of excess deaths really were –at the beginning half of 2020– for countries like England and Wales and Scotland and Spain, whereas in the second half of 2020, you know, that's when the bulk of excess deaths in that year happened in Bulgaria, Croatia, other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. And so why was that? it was largely a function before vaccines, remember, that the pressure and the scale of lock downs and the speed at which, and the timing of which those lock downs were placed. And, you know, that is inevitably a political decision, as well as the scientific position. And that goes, of course, in terms of, you know, the United States too. And, you know, behavioral science is probably, I would say, an underestimated element of the way we understood the pandemic before it happened. And in early stages, because the idea of telling people, a pandemic was happening, we thought probably was enough to make people sort of think we have to look down. But now what we realized is there's lots of unintended consequences to those ideas. And in the end, people's belief in science is really, really important. And, of course, there are forces that don't always help with the belief in science, but it's sort of incumbent on scientists to sort of understand that we need people to believe the science that we produce. And that's super important. And, of course, vaccines matter. And that's relevant to it. I'm not a vaccine expert, but, you know, the impact of vaccines has been clear. But really, if we're talking about non-pharmaceutical measures, then preparedness matters. That's before, during and after a pandemic. There are lots of lessons to learn there in terms of what politics and what the social fabric can do if we work together. Now, of course, in the United States, and, you know, other sorts of high-income countries, you know, vaccines are readily available. And so, you know, the latest sort of insights I would talk about really would be would be in the younger ages and how COVID-19 is impacting the children and adolescents. And, you know, recent research that I've been involved with is really highlighting how important it is to focus on the health of our children and adolescents with respect to COVID-19. because it is one of the top 10 causes of death for most age groups below 19. And in fact, the death rates for many of those age groups for COVID-19 pre-vaccination was higher than many of the worst regarded diseases like measles were before vaccines were available for those diseases. So it's really important to frame it in a historical context of how dangerous COVID-19 is, even for people we regard as safe from COVID-19 it is still very dangerous, potentially deadly virus that we need to contain.
Brian Bienkowski
I don't want to give listeners whiplash here, but you are studying lots of things, not just COVID. And I want to switch gears to tropical cyclones, which I've noticed, when I was looking at your your body of work. So you're focusing a lot of your effort here now and we think, I think we... in terms of infrastructure damages, the first place my mind goes when I think of tropical cyclones. But can you walk us through why this is also a public health and and climate justice issue?
Robbie Parks
Of course, you know, when a tropical cyclone, hurricane, typhoon, cyclone, whatever it's called anywhere in the world, you know, life can be destroyed by a tropical cyclone. And that includes, you know, infrastructure from buildings, of course, that's what people think of when they see the press, the tropical cyclone having laid waste to a particular area, or flooded a particular area or destroyed buildings, etc, etc. And there's no doubt that the damage to property is one of the huge influences of tropical cyclones. But, you know, as I said, life can be destroyed very quickly by a tropical cyclone, or actually in slow motion over months and years. And so the impacts on public health, the impacts can be short to mid-term to long-term. You know, in the sort of hours and days after a cyclone has arrived at a particular place, there are direct impacts on public health. Now they can be deadly or in fact, they can damage your health but not kill you. And the first obvious example would be from injuries, fron electrocution, clearing up debris, being hit by flying debris. Then, of course, you've got a multitude of other causes, which sort of span into the days, weeks and months and even years after a cyclone has hit without appropriate recovery. And that could include infectious and parasitic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, neuropsychiatric conditions and respiratory diseases. Now take a few in turn, you know, infectious diseases can can spread from compromised drinking water, sanitation, damage to water pipes, which is related to infrastructure and disruption to treatment plants. Whereas cardiovascular diseases, you know –increases to heart attacks–, I'll start again. Cardiovascular diseases have increased related to heart attacks, cardiac arrests, from physical overexertion. People with pre-existing conditions who are taken unfortunately over the edge to death, from the stress and over-exertion of tropical cyclones, and, of course, traumatic psychological consequences, with a high prevalence of anxiety and mood disorders, evident of the, you know, American hurricane such as Harvey and Katrina, and increased risk of dementia, and decreased survival rates of people living with those conditions after tropical cyclone disasters and other similar ones. And of course, you got respiratory diseases disrupted from dust kicked up after tropical cyclones. But really one of the main issues of interest is for me, is really the power network and how robust that is to attacks from disasters. And so disruptive power supplies can disrupt all sorts of care, including breathing aids. And of course, we all know that, you know, cyclones are essentially stochastic events – they're random – but where they tend to hit, you know, both of is biased towards hitting more disadvantaged areas, and historically disadvantaged communities, both in the US but also in the world. But also, when those places are hit, they are really unprepared or less-well prepared than other areas. And in terms of the money that goes in afterwards, you know, it's harder to make sure that that money goes to the places where it's needed most. And I think that's why really, it's an issue of environmental and climate justice. So the disruption is, can be short term. It could be, but it can also be a matter of decades. And I think you're seeing that in some areas of America too.
Brian Bienkowski
What are some of the ways – and I'm thinking about the US in particular here, just picking up on the notion of this as a justice issue – that our responses is lacking? Where can we do better? And do you have thoughts how we can better serve these communities and dealing with the aftermath of the storms?
Robbie Parks
Absolutely, I think, you know, though, cyclones will inevitably arrive each year. The worst consequences on society and public health are often avoidable, with an equitable, long-term approach. So, you know, resilience to tropical cyclones is actually built over a long time. And so the depth of preparation is really a function of the amount of time needed. And so, robust societal infrastructure, including social services, housing stock, power distribution, and the recognition that you know, in the United States and elsewhere, one tropical cyclone or one hurricane can can affect communities differently, and that those differences are driven, you know, in large part by demographic, economic, social factors. You know, in non-affluent communities, impacts are often exacerbated due to institutional neglect and historical racism. And, of course, the recovery is, is also often very inequitable, with federal aid and private insurance, particularly difficult to obtain by Black and low-income individuals compared with other individuals. Now, of course, people talk about evacuation as a useful way to provide short term relief from a cyclone. But again, it's a very short term fix. And you know, what people come back to may not be what they left in any way, shape, or form. But I also want to stress the point that evacuation is a luxury in some ways. Because, you know, even if you've got an adequate early warning system, your family may not have the financial resources or adequate transport, or indeed, the faith and belief that their belongings are safe. And, you know, others are also expected to stay because of long-term health conditions for themselves or their close loved ones. And it's a very reasonable expectation that they wouldn't leave because they're actually worried that leaving may imperil people's health, more than actually staying. And so, you know, with evacuation, I would say this: it's a luxury for some people. But you know, if you evacuate the next question, I would say is where to, and so some simply have nowhere to go and cannot leave. And so in summary, really, you know, all of the all of the above is important, you know, resilience, recovery. And in understanding that people in place require a resilience that is not just moving people around, which is going to solve the public health impact of disasters like tropical cyclones.
Brian Bienkowski
One area research that is really interesting to me, and I'm starting to see more coverage both in the scientific community and in kind of the media writ large, is the link between environmental issues and mental health. And I'm sure there are some of these with tropical cyclones as well. But can you talk about some of your work examining the impacts of high temperatures, on things like assault, suicide, alcohol use and other kinds of mental health downstream impact?
Robbie Parks
Yeah, absolutely. You know, of course, it's related to tropical cyclones. But there are other things you know, which are known as ambient exposures, if you like, like pollution and temperature, which are essentially there all the time. And there's more and more research on the impacts of those on mental health related outcomes. Now, of course, for me, I'll talk about what I've done. Now in, you know, in previous published work that I led, in part from my Ph.D., I researched how anomalously warm temperatures were associated in the United States with suicides and assaults. And I found that there was indeed a robust association, which has actually been borne out by other studies around the world and in the United States, over the past few years. And you know, what I found, which is very interesting, really, is that we predicted from our analysis that the majority of the additional suicides and assaults would be largely concentrated in younger males. And so there's an element of trying to understand what would be driving that particular vulnerability in those people. And you know, it's an emerging subject in the global stage as well. And so I've been working in a working group with the WHO on a report on the impacts of climate change on mental health worldwide. And you see, you know, the idea that, you know, having scarcer resources, having higher temperatures put stressors on the body and the mind, which would potentially lead to more conflict and more sort of violent behavior and actually more despair. And that's sort of related to the idea that, you know, feeling like, you've got nothing, feeling like, you've got a loss of the place that you call home, your friends and family, you know, all of that ties together to sort of highlight the idea, and really the concept that climate change impacts not just physical health, but also mental health.
Brian Bienkowski
I can imagine this work can be a mental stressor for you, you're looking at things that... COVID deaths, climate change, cyclones – I mean, these are these are heavy things, you're looking at population-level impacts. What are you optimistic about?
Robbie Parks
I think, you know, one of the reasons that I probably am still doing the work that I do, and have still got body and mind to gather in some way is because I am, I think, automatically optimistic, or by default, I am optimistic. And I think I still hold true. The idea that, the basic idea really, that humans care about each other fundamentally, and, and given the choice with, you know, the right availability of those choices, they're always do the right thing. But you know, society is constructed that mostly that sometimes we're not given a fair shot. But really generally what I see every day, in day-to-day interactions with people is that, you know, humans do care about each other. So I do have hope about the idea that we can tackle this beast called climate change and other huge problems in the world.
Brian Bienkowski
And for more on that, I would encourage listeners to check out I believe the podcast was titled "Meet Maria and a COP 27 review," where I spoke with Robbie and Alexa White, another fellow, about their experience at COP last year, and Robbie speaks more about kind of some of the things he's optimistic about when it comes to the activist presence at some of these larger climate negotiation events. So Robbie, I know you're a football fan or soccer for us, here in the States. Tell me about who is your favorite team because I think that's a big deal where you come from, just like, American football would be here and maybe describe to me and listeners the passion that comes with football fandom in the UK.
Robbie Parks
Yes, so you're completely right that, you know, soccer or football as we choose to call it, because we do touch the ball with the foot, So it kind of makes more sense than than American football or football, as you call it here. But that, you know, that's the minor jibe. But really, so my dad was from Glasgow, Scotland. So, you know, I'm always gonna have a soft spot for Celtic football Club in in Scotland. But of course, for people who follow football or soccer, they know that, you know, it's actually the UK is one country, but has four nations. And so Scotland has one league, or several Scottish leagues, and England has the Premier League and, and, you know, I, I sort of have great admiration for Marcus Rashford of Manchester United as a player and as a person. I think, if listeners haven't heard of Marcus Rushford, then I think I'd really recommend looking him up not only he's an excellent player for the England team, but he's also just from what I can tell just a fantastic person. And you know, speaking of the England team, I think, you know, really watching the England team makes me nostalgic about the way that we would grew up, we would sort of go to pubs and drink, you know, a pint of beer while watching the football during World Cups and European Championships. And I think we'd get very excited. And then invariably, we'd be disappointed. And I think that sort of peak and trough was very, very imprinted in my mind. So I've been beaten out of them enthusiasm. Now surprisingly, over the past few years, the England team has actually been quite good. And so, you know, despite not having won anything still, since 1966, yes, 19 66 is the date that most England fans will will have on their wall, when we won the World Cup. It was in England, so you know, whether or not that was played a role, I don't know. But I think you know, the idea that Englands are, you know, an ascendant force in football, gives me sort of a bit of solace. And so now I do allow myself to get a little bit excited. But you know, football instills, a lot of passion in the UK, and England in particular, as well as other places. But it sort of goes hand-in-hand, as I said, with pub culture. And so it has positive implications and negative implications. But for me, I'm going to focus on the positive because it's inherently social. And, you know, I am still, you know, if any, any listeners have any idea about the best place to do that in New York City, from a football fan, that replicates the English pub experience, I'd be all is.
Brian Bienkowski
Oh, that has to exist somewhere. I remember being in New York and finding a bar that catered to Detroit fans, I was there to watch a Tigers game. And it seems like there's everything there. So there has to be a good football bar. Do you get to play in New York? Do you ever get out and, and play soccer?
Robbie Parks
I have now and then but you know, really, I I focus on trying to find time to do exercise in between work and sort of music that that tends to be alone, so tend to go on a run to Prospect Park or go to Fort Greene and do exercise. But you know, when I do see people playing team sports, I always, I am always a little bit envious of the fact that, you know, it's a social event, rather than just having to focus on the pain that you're going.
Brian Bienkowski
I'm, I'm a cyclist here. And I spent a lot of years as a runner, and it was obviously a solo – well, not obviously, you can run with folks – but it was mostly a solo activity training. And I switched to cycling, and I ride a lot alone, but I started riding with a group and I look forward to that group or that group ride so much every week, there's something about being around other people that brings out a little competitive spirit, and also just makes the time kind of click by, so
Robbie Parks
Absolutely. Absolutely there.
Brian Bienkowski
And you mentioned your other hobby, passion, former job maybe, is a musician. So what role, what role does making music plays in your life now, and if it at all intersects with your research and the rest of your professional life?
Robbie Parks
Yeah, so, you know, after my undergraduate degree, and my Ph.D., I did spend a lot of time really focusing on on music and trying to build myself as a, as a musician with a band. So you know, music for me, really, is, you know, to avoid a cliché, or barely avoid a cliché sort of, music is the soundtrack of my life. And, you know, I mean that, whatever I'm doing, I'm always thinking about music, I'm always looking at music, reviews, I'm always trying to find new music, I'm always listening to my favorite records while I work. So for me, you know, probably like most people, music has provided a lot of that secure that I need in my good times, and my bad times, in my low times, I think whatever my mood, there's always music for it. And so for me, it's that universal, sort of self that I always need in my life. And, you know, that sort of originated from, you know, my parents. You know, in Filipino culture, my mom was Filipino, you'd always have a piano in the house, electric piano that tended to be an instrument, which gather dust more than anything else. So like, it was always the idea that you wanted your, your child to learn piano. And so I was lucky enough to learn piano and I taught myself guitar. And then, when I was 11, or 12, I was in a supermarket in UK and I saw this record called Kid A, and I was fascinated by the cover. And then I was like, mom, who's that, and she had no idea. And then, you know, turns out was a band called Radiohead, and I, and they're British band, for those you haven't heard of them. And for me, they really sort of provided the compass direction that informs really the rest of my musical tastes and career. So, you know, other British bands like Pink Floyd and The Beatles, and some other American groups, but really, it sort of starts and ends with Radiohead for me. And so I really love that band. And, you know, I think in terms of my research, it sort of activates a different side of my brain than I use in science. So you talk about left and right brain sort of ideas. But I think using the two sides of my brain at different times, they kind of merge into each other in in good ways, I think. And so the creativity of, of music and the creativity of science, I think, are complementary, but also the logical side of, I guess the objective side of science can really help me to sort of think of the way I write songs as well. So, so I think, you know, I don't think there's a direct obvious way in terms of me, you know, playing music at scientific conferences or something, but I think in terms of the way that informs my art and science, I think there is something in that keeping both activated. It really helps me
Brian Bienkowski
We might have to do a whole podcast on Radiohead just a couple of quarter life to midlife dudes talking Radiohead. That's, that's what the podcast world needs needs another one of those, but I love that record. Kid A is a fantastic record, as was The Bends, was the other one that really that really stuck to me. I hate to put you on the spot. But I happen to know that there's a guitar around there and would you be so kind as to play us, play us a song? it would be a first for the podcast.
Robbie Parks
Well, I really never thought you'd ask. So you know, thank you for the invitation. So that Yeah, sure. Sure. Why not?
Brian Bienkowski
Wonderful. And what is this song called?
Robbie Parks
So this is a song I wrote in collaboration with my fantastic partner, Elissa, who is an excellent fiction writer. But we also quickly discovered while collaborating that she's actually a fantastic lyricist, so this song is called "Heaven not far away."
Brian Bienkowski
All right, Robbie, that was beautiful.
Robbie Parks
Oh, thank you very much.
Brian Bienkowski
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. Well, we will make sure to include a link. And before I get you out of here, I just have some last fun questions. Hopefully they're fun most of the time they're fun. And these first three, you can just answer with a word or a phrase. If I wasn't a researcher, I would want to be a
Robbie Parks
musician.
Brian Bienkowski
The best way to spend an hour of free time is
Robbie Parks
playing music.
Brian Bienkowski
I notice a theme. My favorite concert I've been to is
Robbie Parks
As I said Radiohead several times, but if I picked one, it probably be at Lollapalooza in Berlin in 2016.
Brian Bienkowski
And what is the last book you read for fun? you don't have to confine yourself to one word here. I'd love to hear a little bit about it.
Robbie Parks
So, you know, my favorite author, author of recent times, is a British author called Kazuo Ishiguro, and my favorite book of his, which I only really read recently, is "Remains of the Day." And really, it's this very strange English situation. It's about a butler. And it's about a butler called Mr. Stevens during the sort of interwar period between the First World War and the Second World War. But really, you know, the reason I love Kazuo Ishiguro so much is because he sort of deals with issues about loss and yearning, and covering up that loss and yearning, which is in many ways, sort of fundamental to British society, but lots of different societies everywhere. And I find the way that he sort of writes, which is used the writing is, is filled with with something else. And as I think as you read it, you sort of get a sense that there's something coming and I really love that book "Remains of the Day."
Brian Bienkowski
Excellent. Well, Robbie, this has been a lot of fun. I have found myself, since I met you and talk to you, reading specific environmental articles, and thinking to myself, "I would love to talk to Robbie about this." And I think that is the highest praise I can give a scientist and I hope you take it as
Robbie Parks
Thank you. So yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.