Big Questions Demand Big Answers
by
Carolina Soto
Image: Pixabay
I am a working-class woman in my early seventies. I am an alum of Danbury Federal Prison Camp for the possession and sale of marijuana. My education about capitalism, racism, sexism, and group relations would not have been complete without those long sixteen months spent in the clutches of the prison industrial complex. I am still learning, after twenty years, from many of the women who were in that camp and whom I call family.
Thanks to my experiences, I have become a better person. That includes investigating the answers to pertinent questions and adjusting my lifestyle when possible.
How do we view personal social responsibility?
The bonds formed in women’s prisons in the United States are so strong that I have repeatedly watched women make and keep extraordinary promises to their friends left behind. The explosion of organizations founded and led by formerly incarcerated women have a focus on providing at least temporary housing, obtaining clothes for dress for success programs, health insurance, job training and placement, business roundtables, and education opportunities to name a few of the hurdles we try and help our sisters navigate. What is the basis for this bond? Why do people step up to the plate to be socially responsible? Love? Friendship? A shared trauma?
Personally, my commitment to social justice is an understanding that if I don’t fight against capitalism and imperialism, everything I love will disappear. Nuclear nightmare, climate catastrophe, the Anthropocene, prison slave plantations, inequality, racism, and sexual abuse are on the short list of evils perpetuated by capitalism. I need them stopped. Now.
I only find hope in working shoulder-to-shoulder with people for change. Anything else is total pessimism.
How can we get people on board?
In my opinion, the underlying problem stems from the deep pessimism that anything can genuinely change. People who are progressive and understand the state of our world continue to indulge in behavior that is certain to perpetuate the current climate crisis. Our climate is quickly overtaking 1.5 degrees of warming, the threshold scientists say we must avoid to prevent dire planetary impacts. The arctic ice sheets that have been 13-20 feet thick have declined by 95 percent! This ice is our world’s thermostat. The ice melts, warms the atmosphere and waters, the Greenland glacier melts, the largest solar reflector disappears, and the seas rise. The consequences include events like the climate river currently engulfing California.
Arctic sea ice loss is arguably one of the most significant tipping points in human history. I am citing this not to encourage the give-up-and-let-it-all-go-to-hell feeling that is prevalent in my generation but as a call to action, both big and small!
I don’t have children or grandchildren, but I want a future for the beautiful children that I have met everywhere, for the young activists who understand that their future is dissolving in front of their eyes, for the forests and mountains whose beauty has moved me to tears, and for the streams, rivers, and oceans where I walk and play.
Every stand for the planet, big or small, counts.
Living in the Dominican Republic, people tell me that I must use “el liquido” to have a garden or grass. The Monsanto products, now Bayer, poison the earth, birds, bees, and other insects after one use for seven to eight years. I am considered La Loca for refusing to use them. Even when I pointed out how after our neighbor poisoned the weeds and insects on his land, glyphosate blew across the street and killed the first two rows of Manuel’s plantain trees. I saw that Manuel, after much complaining, used the same herbicide (Roundup) to clear a small triangle of land near his house. Even if he does not grow food crops there, his chickens, and turkeys scratch up the dirt looking for insects and roots and eat poison. He eventually eats the birds.
Glyphosate is available in most stores that sell lawn and weed applications and roundup (isopropylamine salt of glyphosate) is sold in Home Depot. Glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” according to International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) findings from 2015. My friend has a strange lung cancer that was piling up cancerous cells that the Canadian doctors told him was most likely the result of exposure to Glyphosate, the benign safe weed killer.
Since then, test after independent test — the latest from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) — has found dangerous levels of glyphosate in everyday American foods. The link to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is particularly strong.
Sadly, the common alternative to glyphosate is paraquat, a similarly dangerous and potentially toxic herbicide and weed killer. It was the U.S. marijuana weed killer of choice in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru. A native people's activist group dumped paraquat on the flowers around the national capital building in Ecuador in response to the wanton spraying of this deadly chemical in their fields.
I refuse. I put out black tarps and bake plants that I don’t want out of existence, I spot-kill vines with salt and vinegar, and the rest I toss into my compost pit for nitrogen. There is always an alternative.
Cruising On The High Seas
Image: Matthew Barra
What is not to like? There is a bit of ruling-class luxury, wonderful food, entertainment, and top-notch service. No one believes our future depends on finding an alternate way of travel and feasting.
I read everywhere about the new eco regulations that cruise ships are implementing. The Cruise Lines International Association, CLIA, made the bold proclamation that its member lines, which make up 95% of the global cruise fleet, were committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
That goal is especially lofty given that the technologies and fuels necessary to achieve it do not exist, which the industry readily recognizes.
In international waters, more than 24 miles off the coast, nothing is regulated. Within the 24-mile limit, any dumping crime (usually untreated fuel) would fall under the laws of the country where the ship is registered. If a ship is at port when a crime occurs, it falls within that country's jurisdiction.
I fear for the beautiful whales off the Dominican Coast that come to our shores from Cape Cod to mate and calf. Whales have often been impaled by ships. At least these magnificent creatures do not eat anything while in the southern waters, fasting until they get back to their favorite krill off of Massachusetts. But, the water going through their system is hazardous to their health. They may not be eating krill but their guts are filled with plastics. Current law allows plastics producers, cruise ships, and shippers to discharge trillions of small pre-production plastic pellets directly into waters with little to no repercussions to them. But is your belly safe?
Marine ecosystems are fragile and are being destroyed quickly.
I love to eat seafood, and so I often blame the cruise ships for the large amounts of plastic scientists are finding in fish and all types of seafood. By 2050, there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish in our seas if we continue to let the oil and gas industry produce plastics. And when plastics enter an oceanic ecosystem, they don’t disappear, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces.
"The presence of microplastics in commercial seafood is well-documented on a global scale for finfish as well as shellfish like mussels, clams, oysters, and shrimp," Dr. Britta Baechler, Associate Director of Ocean Plastics Research at Ocean Conservancy cited in a recent review study that found that 60% of fish examined globally contained microplastics and plastic-associated chemicals such as BPA "show correlations with chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes."
Cruise ships pollute everything in their path — the air, water, coastal communities, and fragile habitats. Every day on an average-sized cruise ship, up to 3,000 passengers, and 1,000 crew members emit the same amount of pollution as a million cars, filling the air with small particulate matter. U.S. law allows raw untreated sewage from cruise ships to be pumped directly into the ocean without being treated as long as it is three to four miles offshore.
Offloading includes:
Solid waste – paper, food waste, glass, plastic, etc.
Oily bilge water – water mixed with oily fluids such as grease and lubricants and other wastes that accumulate from sources like the engine and other mechanical sources
Scrubber wastewater – water used to remove heavy fuel oil pollution from smokestacks
This contamination also kills the coral. Bacteria, chemicals, heavy metals, and oily waste all end up in our oceans.
Another recent study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found that children ingest roughly 550 microplastics every day — and adults ingest roughly 880 per day — just by breathing and eating eight common foods and beverages including fish, mollusks, water (tap and bottled) and milk.
The question remains whether cruising can be compatible with a net-zero world.
In 2020, the cruise industry claimed commitment to pursuing carbon-neutral cruises by 2050. In June, the Norway-based cruise company, Hurtigruten, released early concept plans for the world’s first emissions-free cruise ship to be ready by 2030, which combines battery and wind technologies, and features 50-meter retractable sails powered by solar panels. Will this be the norm, or are the Norwegian corporations betting on taking a consciousness-based share of the business?
The largest owners of Cruise ships in the United States explain "There is no one technology we can purchase to be carbon neutral. That’s why it’s an aspiration." — Elaine Heldewier, Carnival Corp.
If the ship is outside of the 24-mile International boundary, they are self-regulating. Carnival has a history of dumping and being fined. In 2016, Princess Cruises and its parent company, Carnival Corp., pleaded guilty to seven felony charges and paid a $40 million penalty for polluting the ocean with waste and then trying to cover it up. The EPA charged Carnival for illegally dumping 4,227 gallons of oily waste 23 miles off the coast of Britain on Aug. 23, 2013. The company also falsified official logs to hide the pollution. From their website: Carnival Corporation is producing fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions today than in 2011, despite adding substantial guest capacity to its fleet since that time. The company claims to be on track to achieve a 40% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030 (versus 2008).
My skepticism about the honesty of major corporations extends to Carnival.
In Europe, the Brussels-based NGO, Transport & Environment (T&E), found that cruise ship pollution at Europe’s busiest ports has returned to pre-pandemic levels, with sulfur oxides reaching 509 tons in 2022, an increase of 9% compared with 2019 levels, while methane emissions increased fivefold during this period, to 7,804 tons.
On a typical one-week voyage, a cruise ship generates more than 50 tons of garbage, a million tons of grey (waste) water, 210,000 gallons of sewage, and 35,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water. Some of this is pumped into the ocean and some is treated.
Energy Monitor calculates it is roughly three times more carbon-intensive to take a cruise vacation than it is to fly and stay abroad.
So, if you have to cruise, this is what you should be looking for before booking: IInquire if your cruise ship is using scrubbers and instead using low-sulfur marine gas oil at all times or at least while the ship is in or near ports, estuaries, harbors, Marine Protected Areas, and Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs). This is critically important for those sensitive coral reef areas, as they are already dying of ocean acidification and a warming climate. Check if your cruise ship has shore power connections or can plug in whenever available (ships without shore power connections should install them). EarthWatch suggests that cruise companies use non-methane alternative fuels, such as green methanol or even green hydrogen.
We need maritime trade. There are no better alternatives at this time. What the industry needs is to harness renewable energy sources to power oceangoing vessels: wind power, including sails and rotor sails, can assist in propulsion, while the installation of solar panels on ships can generate clean electricity.
The ship you take must have cleaner fuels. Liquified Natural Gas is not clean, it is available because of fracking. Hydrogen, and biofuels like methanol and ammonia would reduce a huge carbon footprint. Battery-electric or hybrid systems can be used for energy storage, especially on short sea routes.
The cruise lines and commercial shipping vessels must have shore power at ports to enable ships to turn off their engines while docked, thus reducing emissions.
There are many small things we can do by making different choices. Making informed choices about vacationing is one. Eat less meat, animal farming is producing 18-20% of the earth's greenhouse gases. Livestock now use 30 % of the earth's entire land surface and another third of the global arable land is used for cattle food. Ride a bicycle instead of taking the car. Mobilize your local government to take positive climate action.
Choose to stay off the ships and leave them to transport goods, not people!
One of “the real women of Orange Is the New Black,” Carolina Soto is one of the founding members of the Re/Creation writing workshop at Restoration Plaza in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Unlike the fictionalized Yoga Jones, Carolina has a long history of work in social justice and advocacy and is a seasoned painter and visual artist. Since beginning her work with Re/Creation, Carolina has increased her confidence and aptitude with both the written and spoken word, composing speeches and essays for her advocacy work and as well as written memoirs. In particular, her essays and memoirs illustrate her vast capacity for empathy in her descriptions of people with whom she shared time inside. She and her husband are in the manic process of building a home in her beloved Dominican Republic.
