Food, Ethics, and Global Society Fall 2017, University of Vermont (Food Systems Graduate Seminar: FS 355) Office Hours: Tues and Thurs 1:40-2:40pm in Room 209, 70 S. Williams St., and by appointment Course Description This course introduces some leading literature on ethics, sustainability, and nutrition that is relevant to evaluating food systems. Unusual emphasis will be placed on thinking like a philosopher, thinking like an economist, ethical worries about research and publications, and leading literature on global food systems issues that are underrepresented in local discussions. Students will also gain experience running a leading global integrated assessment model, DICE, and using other methods for making decisions at the food-water-climate-energy 'environmental nexus'. "Unless we understand how the numbers are put together, and what they mean, we run the risk of seeing problems where there are none, of missing urgent and addressable needs, of being outraged by fantasies while overlooking real horrors, and of recommending policies that are fundamentally misconceived." - Angus Deaton Required Text Optional: Angus Deaton, The Great Escape, Princeton UP, 2013 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons, Cambridge UP, 1990 Optional: Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, Oxford UP, 1999 Optional: Anne Barnhill et al., Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 Readings (only numbered readings are required) August 29: Overview of Big Issues in Global Food Ethics: Individual Ethics, Collective Ethics, What Really Works Optional: Anne Barnhill et al., Introduction to Chapter 1: The Ethically Troubling Food System, Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 September 5: Consumer ethics, utilitarianism, valuing ecosystems, alternatives to utilitarian ethical theory 1. Anne Barnhill et al., "Introduction to Chapter 4: Consumer Ethics", in Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 (pp. 165-183 only is required) 2. First page of Paul Watson, "Tora, Tora, Tora", in Schmidtz and Willott, Environmental Ethics, second ed., Oxford UP, 2012 (first page only) Optional: EWG food scores app Optional: Austin Kiessig, "What 'Big Ideas' in Food Get Funded in Silicon Valley?", edible startups blog, 2013 September 12: Global justice, poverty, effective altruism, unintended consequences 1. Anne Barnhill et al., "Introduction to Chapter 2: Global Hunger", in Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 Optional: Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1972 (influential original article, with main argument widely discussed including in readings above) Optional: Peter Singer, replies to objections: chapters 3, 8, and 9 of The Life You Can Save, 2009 (this subset of the book provides replies to other objections to Singer's main argument) Optional: Angus Deaton and Nancy Cartwright, "Understanding and Misunderstanding Randomized Controlled Trials", Social Science & Medicine, 2017 September 19: Global justice, world food supply, sustainable intensification, tradeoffs between: organic values, local values, the environment, human wellbeing, animal wellbeing 2. David Tilman et al., "Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011 (incl. supplementary information) 3. "Food, the Environment, and Global Justice", in the Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics, Oxford UP, 2018 4. *multi-week assignment* (it is perfectly ok and encouraged to spread some of the following Conway reading over the next two weeks: read by Oct. 10): Conway, chapters 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 (challenges for contemporary global agriculture, the Green Revolution, contemporary arguments for sustainable intensification) Optional: Claire Palmer, Katie McShane, Ronald Sandler,"Environmental Ethics", Annual Review of Environment and Resources (overview of environmental ethics) Optional: Dale Jamieson, "The Value of Nature", in Ethics and the Environment (overview of environmental ethics) Optional Module: Leading literature on organics versus sustainable intensification and related issues Optional: Verena Seufert et al. "Comparing the Yields of Organic and Conventional Agriculture", Nature, 2012 Optional: Alexandra Kravchenco et al., “Field-scale experiments reveal persistent yield gaps in low-input and organic cropping systems”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017 Optional: Carol Shennan et al., "Organic and Conventional Agriculture: A Useful Framing?", Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2017 Optional: Tara Garnett, "Plating Up Solutions: Can Eating Patterns be Both Healthier and More Sustainable?", Science, 2016 Optional: David Tilman at al., "Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices", Nature, 2002 Optional: Norman Borlaug and Christopher Dowswell, "Feeding a world of ten billion people: A 21st century challenge", 2005 (esp. pp. 1-8) Optional: WRI graph on reduced demand given more vegetarian diets (WRI Shifting Diets publications here) Optional: "With an eye on hunger, scientists see promise in genetic tinkering with plants", New York Times, 17 November 2016 Optional: Pamela Ronald, Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, Oxford UP, 2010 September 26: No In-Class Meeting: Measuring nutrition and health; the importance of early childhood nutrition and environment; challenges for measuring the effectiveness of nutritional interventions; human values through an economic lens; wellbeing: what it is, what social conditions cause it, what are its correlates, what are good proxies for it 1. Conway, pages 21-33 only of chapter 2 (note: pages 21-33 only) 2. Douglas Almond and Janet Currie, "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis", Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2011 3. Janet Currie and Ishita Rajani, pages 1691-1693 only of "Within-Mother Estimates of the Effect of WIC on Birth Outcomes in New York City", Economic Inquiry, 2015 (Note: only the first three pages of the pdf are required; you need focus only on the problems with previous studies regarding WIC efficacy and the authors' 'within-mother' method for overcoming them.) Optional: Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, "Economic Growth and Subjective Wellbeing: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox", NBER, 2008 Optional: Amartya Sen, "Freedom and the Foundations of Justice", in Development as Freedom, Knopf, 1999 Optional: Branko Milanovic, Global Inequality, Harvard UP, 2016 October 3: Is overpopulation the main cause of global problems? What should be done about population size by governments? What should be done about population size by individual people? Optional background: Kenneth Weiss, "As the world's population grows, hunger persists on a massive scale", LA Times, 2012 Recommended: Paul Ehrlich, Prologue and pp. 15-27 of The Population Bomb, Sierra Club (1968 edition) Recommended: Paul Ehrlich, Prologue of The Population Bomb, Sierra Club (1975 edition) (note: one-page Prologue only; compare predictions to 1968 edition. what happened?) 3. Sarah Hannan, "On the Morality of Procreation and Parenting", in Permissible Progeny?, Oxford UP, 2015 4. Julian Simon, introduction to The Ultimate Resource II, Princeton UP, 1981 Optional: Garrett Hardin, "Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor", Psychology Today, 1974 October 10: Food security: reliable entitlements to food and the difference between there being enough food for everyone and everyone having enough food 1. Conway, pages 34-40 only of chapter 2 (note: pages 34-40 only) 2. Conway, chapters 4, 8 3. Amartya Sen, "Hunger and Entitlements", UN brochure, 1987 4. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, "More than 1 Billion People are Hungry in the World: But what if the experts are wrong?", Foreign Affairs, 2011 Optional: Amartya Sen, "Famines and Other Crises", in Development as Freedom, Knopf, 1999 Optional: Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze, "Food and Nutrition in India: Facts and Interpretations", EPW, 2009 October 17: Water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition; culture, social norms, and real-world challenges for development Recommended: Elizabeth Royte, "Nearly a Billion People Still Defecate Outdoors. Here's Why", National Geographic, 2017 1. USAID brochure on the importance for food security of water, sanitation, and hygiene, 2013 2. Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development, and the Costs of Caste, Harper Collins, 2017, pp. 23-44, 57-81, and 149-195 from pre-publication draft Optional: Margaret Tankard and Elizabeth Levy Patrick, "Norm Perception as a Vehicle for Social Change", Social Issues and Policy Review, 2016 Optional: Karine Nyborg et al., "Social Norms as Solutions", Science, 2016 Optional: "Sanitation and Stunting", brochure, Research Institute for Compassionate Economics Optional: World Health Organization website on water, sanitation, and hygiene Note: these public health sources agree that proper nutrition requires more than adequate intake of food; so, arguably food security should be understood as requiring more than reliably adequate dietary intake; see FAO and USDA for definitions that do not seem to require this; FAO now stipulates that food security is to be understood as including more than reliably adequate dietary intake. MIDTERM EXAM: Due via email October 29 at 11:59pm October 24: Sustainability, the tragedy of the commons, virtues and vices of free markets 1. Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, 1968 2. Elinor Ostrom et al. "Revisiting the Commons", Science, 1999 Recommended: Handout on Hardin and Ostrom Optional: James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State, Yale UP, 1998 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, selections from Governing the Commons, Cambridge UP, 1990 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems", Science, 2009 Optional: Robert Frank, "Market Efficiency", Chapter 18 of Microeconomics and Behavior, 7th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2008 Optional: Robert Stavins, "The Problem of the Commons: Still Unsettled After 100 Years", American Economic Review, 2011 October 29: Midterm Exam due via email at 11:59pm October 31: Water, fisheries, sustainability, market-based environmental policy 1. Pages 3-11, 28-46, 62-68, 91-96, and 122-130 of Ray Hilborn and Ulrike Hilborn, Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know, Oxford UP, 2012 (readings are a proper subset of the pdf) 2. Elinor Ostrom, selections from Governing the Commons, Cambridge UP, 1990 3. Chuck Ross, "H.35 is a Vital Step Forward in Addressing Clean Water and Agriculture in Vermont", Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food & Markets Press Release, 2015 4. Bonnie Keeler et al., "The social costs of nitrogen", Science Advances, 2016 (only the abstract is required) Recommended: Conway, chapter 14 Optional: FAO definition of 'food security' and the 'water-energy-food nexus', in "The Water-Energy-Food Nexus", FAO brochure, 2014 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems", Science, 2009 Optional: Genuine Progress Indicator Optional: FAO, State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture: 2016, UN FAO, 2016 Optional: Rosamond Naylor ed., The Evolving Sphere of Food Security, Oxford UP, 2014 Optional: Bloom, 2011 documentary film Can you think of ways that Vermont's H.35 might have tried to incorporate more market-based policy, and more self-governance of the Ostrom kind? November 7: The food-water-energy-climate nexus: integrated assessment models of energy-climate-wellbeing, location-relative market-based policy Key: Bring your laptop to class with Excel so you can run the DICE integrated assessment model in class (optional info on DICE) Recommended: Conway, chapters 15 and 16 1. Robert Stavins, "Learning from 30 years of experience with cap and trade systems", An Economic View of the Environment Blog, 2017 2. Nicholas Muller and Robert Mendelsohn, "Weighing the Value of a Ton Of Pollution", Regulation, 2010 3. pages 70 and 92 only of IPCC, Technical Summary on Impacts of Climate Change (WG2TS), IPCC, 2014 (only pages 70 and 92 required) 4. Abstract only of Francis Dennig et al., "Inequality, climate impacts on the future poor, and carbon prices", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015 (only the abstract is required reading) 5. Abstract only of Noah Scovronick et al., "Impact of population growth and population ethics on climate change mitigation policy", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017 (only the abstract is required reading) Recommended: William Nordhaus, "Summary for the Concerned Citizen", in A Question of Balance, Yale UP, 2007 (summary of DICE model and economics of climate change) Optional: Peter Fairley, "States are using social cost of carbon in energy decisions, despite Trump's opposition", Inside Climate News, 2017 Optional: IPCC, Technical Summary on Mitigation of Climate Change (WG3TS), IPCC, 2014 (especially pages 37-48) Optional: IPCC, Technical Summary on Impacts of Climate Change (WG2TS), IPCC, 2014 Optional: IPCC, chapter on Agriculture and Mitigation (WG3chap11), IPCC, 2014 Optional: IPCC, chapter on Agriculture and Impacts (WG2chap7), IPCC, 2014 Optional: Robert Keohane and David Victor, "Cooperation and Discord in Global Climate Policy", Nature Climate Change, 2016 Optional: Elinor Ostrom, "A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change", World Bank, 2009 Optional: Climate Equity Reference Project, www.climateequityreference.org Optional: "Vermont Wind Project Needs Support, So Company Offers to Pay Voters", New York Times, 12 Oct 2016 November 14: Animal agriculture, water-energy-climate-wellbeing footprints of foods, wild animals and climate Recommended: Conway, chapter 10, and pp. 311 and 316-318 1. Pages 1-26 of Gerber et al., "Tacking Climate Change Through Livestock", FAO, 2013 (only pages 1-26 are required) 2. Abstract only of Christian Peters et al., "Carrying Capacity of US Agricultural Land: Ten Diet Scenarios", Elementa, 2016 (only the abstract is required reading - what objective for society is Peters assuming? How does the social objective assumed by the Ranganathan paper differ from the objective assumed by the Peters paper? What is the best social objective to assume in this literature? E.g., should our goal be merely to maximize the number of calories produced on our land? What objections might be raised to that objective?) 3. Summary sheet of Mark Budolfson, "The Harm Footprint of Foods", in Chignell et al. eds. Philosophy Comes to Dinner, Routledge, 2015 (only the summary sheet of the workbook is required; let me know if you have ideas for improving the analysis) 4. Wayne Hsiung and Cass Sunstein, "Climate Change and Animals", University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2007 Optional: Aleksandrowicz et al., "The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review", PLoS ONE, 2016 (note that this has an extensive bibliography and provides an overview of the literature) Optional: Marco Springmann et al., "Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016 Optional: Janet Ranganathan et al., "Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future", WRI, 2016 (esp. pages 1-21 are required) Optional: Herrero et al., "Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems", PNAS, 2013 Optional: Terence Chea, "California targets dairy cows to target global warming", Associated Press, 2016 Optional: Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, "Industrial Food Animal Production in America", brochure, 2013 Optional: Conway, chapter 13 POLICY BRIEF: outline due November 26; final version due December 12 at 11:59pm November 21: No Class: Thanksgiving Break November 26: Outline of Policy Brief Due via Blackboard Discussion Board November 28: Global trade, neoliberalism, international institutions; discuss policy brief outlines in class Recommended: Reread pages 44-47 of Anne Barnhill et al., "Introduction to Chapter 2: Global Hunger", in Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 1. Jennifer Clapp, "Trade Liberalization and Food Security: Examining the Linkages", Quaker United Nations, 2014 2. Pages 10-12 and 28-30 of Andrew Guzman and Joost Pauwelyn, International Trade Law, 1st ed., Aspen, 2009 (only pages 10-12 and 28-30 are required) (this is from a top law school text on international trade law) 3. Joseph Stiglitz, selections from Making Globalization Work, Norton, 2006 Recommended: World Trade Organization, "Briefing notes: agricultural issues", 2015 [after Nairobi conference] Optional: Graham MacDonald et al., "Rethinking Agricultural Trade Relationships in an Era of Globalization", BioScience, 2015 Optional: Action Aid, "The WTO Agreement on Agriculture", online brochure Optional: Roberto Azevedo, "After a historic success, urgent challenges face the WTO", WTO Press Release, 2016 Optional: Philippe van Parijs, "Thatcher's Plot -- and How to Defeat It", Social Europe, 2016 Optional: Robert Frank, "Market Efficiency", Chapter 18 of Microeconomics and Behavior, 7th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2008 Can you find more info on agricultural rule changes after the WTO Nairobi conference? FINAL EXAM: due December 14 at 11:59pm December 5: Last in-class meeting In Class Discussion of Policy Briefs and Future Research December 14: Final Exam and Policy Brief (and optional additional assignment) due at 11:59pm Additional Resources Robert Paarlberg, Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2nd ed. Oxford UP, 2013 Rosamond Naylor ed., The Evolving Sphere of Food Security, Oxford UP, 2014 Anne Barnhill et. al. Food, Ethics, and Society, Oxford UP, 2016 Ronald Sandler, Food Ethics: The Basics, Routledge, 2015 National Geographic, The Future of Food, multi-article series, 2014 Michael Pollan and Raj Patel, The Rise and Future of the Food Movement, course at UC Berkeley, 2014 edition Marion Nestle, Food Politics, website James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State, Yale UP, 1999 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons, Cambridge UP, 1990 |