An introduction to the divestment movement at McMaster, even if you’ve never heard the word “divest” before. No tutorials required.
By: Natalie Palumbo, Nicole Graziano, Mymoon Bhuiyan and Adeola Egbeyemi, Contributors
This article is written by members of McMaster Divest.
Instructor: OPIRG Group McMaster Divest
Email: [email protected]
Lecture: One-time reading
History of MacDivest
Welcome to the Winter 2021 one-reading course: DIVEST 1A03! In the context of higher education, fossil fuel divestment involves universities removing their investments in stocks, bonds and other forms of invested funds from the fossil fuel industry. Like many universities, McMaster University currently invests in fossil fuel companies.
At McMaster, the divestment movement traces back to 2013 when OPIRG project Fossil-Free McMaster began to advocate for divestment from fossil fuel companies. Although the efforts of students and faculty of Fossil-Free McMaster led to McMaster creating a committee to evaluate the possibility of divestment of endowment funds, ultimately no further action was taken.
Divestment Evaluation - Details
Moral Reasons
The use and production of fossil fuels are directly tied to climate change. It is a fact that as fossil fuels are mined, carbon emissions enter the atmosphere and raise the global average temperature, causing a host of problems and exacerbating others.
It’s no secret that fossil fuel companies have been repeatedly linked to human rights abuses and have shown that profits trump human rights, notably on Canadian soil. This is particularly concerning when we consider the effects of fossil fuels on Indigenous populations within Canada, such as oil spills and discharges.
Consider this: How can McMaster honour the promises made in their land acknowledgements if their investments support companies that build pipelines across Indigenous lands, threatening the livelihood and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples?
How can McMaster honour the promises made in their land acknowledgements if their investments support companies that build pipelines across Indigenous lands, threatening the livelihood and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples?
We know we sound like huge tree huggers, but hear us out — as students, it is also discouraging to know that our tuition supports an institution that’s invested in the slow roast of the planet by way of fossil fuel companies.
Leadership Reasons
“As a global university, we must recognize the important role we play through all of our sustainability efforts, which include responsible investments,” said McMaster president, David Farrar in 2020.
All universities will likely end up divesting, it is simply a matter of when. How embarrassing is it that in the middle of a climate crisis, McMaster wants to watch and see how divestment impacts other universities first?
This contradicts the idea that McMaster plays a global leadership role, as they are riding on the coattails of global institutions, as well as smaller Canadian universities that have shown real leadership. McMaster prides itself on its achievements, its sustainability efforts included. It would be a hollow victory if McMaster announced its divestment plan after watching other universities divest and assessing their processes.
Divestment Misconceptions
Misconception 1:
“But when we divest from these companies, we lose our seat at the table as shareholders, we can no longer engage and advocate for them to be more sustainable!”
Sustainability is avoiding the depletion of natural resources to maintain Earth’s ecology. There is no amount of advocacy that can make a company, whose goal is the antithesis of this (i.e. mining natural resources), environmentally friendly. Even if we could, the activism coming from McMaster’s tiny investment could not change a company’s mind anyway.
Misconception 2:
“If our investment is so tiny, then what is the point? You won’t make a difference with divestment, so why bother?”
McMaster’s investment is small in terms of financial capital, yes, but is massive in terms of social capital. Divestment looks to devalue social capital by sending a message that investing in fossil fuels is not okay. In addition, divestment is becoming an increasingly sound investment decision to make, no matter how small. Fossil fuels seem to be an industry in decline, seeing increasing amounts of trouble regularly.
Misconception 3:
“Oh, that’s real nice. You want McMaster to divest from fossil fuel companies, while the whole campus uses fossil fuels to run! Very hypocritical for the consumers to divest from the suppliers.”
First of all, if McMaster wanted to research, plan and conduct a smooth, equitable transition to a fossil-free campus, we would be all for it! But McMaster obviously isn’t a top world research university, so that’s silly talk. Divestment isn’t mutually exclusive from going fossil-free, we’re just a part of the worldwide movement for this particular systematic change.
Misconception 4:
“I know investment funds and tuition money are two separate pools of funding. But it’s still university money that should be diversified for a balanced portfolio.”
We agree! Loss of diversification is not good. That’s why there are companies in the energy sector that can be invested in that do not emit carbon dioxide! In fact, MacGreenInvest is a group of McMaster faculty that has been working since 2015 for reinvestment of these divested funds into sustainable initiatives.
The benefits of divestment are that McMaster can begin to actively, mindfully and genuinely invest in green companies and start-ups, forming a reciprocal relationship with the technology and energy sources we want to see thrive in the future.
We know we haven’t answered all the misconceptions about divestment at McMaster. There are still well-placed concerns about the complexities of removing pooled funding and monitoring progress year-by-year. But once you start thinking about the complexities of how to divest, you’ve already agreed then that divestment is necessary.
Next Steps
Hopefully you, the reader, are now on board with the fossil fuel divestment movement. You’ve aced the exam and secured that 12! Now what?
You can keep up with MacDivest work to move McMaster away from unsustainable investments on Instagram and Facebook. You can sign this petition calling on McMaster to take divestment action. You can even simply spread awareness with your friends and community by, for instance, sharing this article.
As individuals, it would be difficult to convince McMaster to divest. However, as a collective group, in the McMaster community and worldwide, working towards an actual brighter world is possible.
The McMaster & Hamilton communities should do more to support SoBi
By: Adeola Egbeyemi, Brittany Williams and Christy Au-Yeung, Contributors
This article is written by members of the MSU Sustainability Committee, who are in the midst of their virtual SoBi campaign.
They’re blue, built with a thick Dutch frame and basket. Though you may have been around Hamilton, you may have not even noticed their presence swarming the McMaster University campus. We’re talking about Social Bicycles.
SoBi is a bike-sharing company. The Hamilton-specific SoBi fleet has bikes located in approximately 130 hubs across the city. Users can purchase a specific level of membership online and once registered, are ready to ride anywhere. Bike-sharing systems like SoBi Hamilton allow users to take one-way trips on publicly accessible bikes and create a network of efficient, affordable and sustainable transportation.
This efficient, affordable and sustainable mode of transportation nearly ended this past summer and is not yet out of its narrow bike lane. Back in May, SoBi was operated by Uber, although still city-owned. On May 15, Uber unexpectedly notified the Hamilton City Council that they would stop operating SoBi in June due to COVID-19 considerations, even though ridership had increased in the hundreds since the pandemic began.
Ward 3 Councillor Nrinder Nann attempted to save SoBi by using taxes collected from areas where SoBi operates, but the motion narrowly lost at City Council. The very next day, Hamilton Bike Share Inc., a not-for-profit bike-share operator, started a GoFundMe to try to continue operating the bikes at no cost to the city.
In a last-minute save, a reconsideration motion for SoBi passed unanimously at the next council meeting. Presently, SoBi is operating as normal through Hamilton Bike Share Inc., but the city is still in search of a stable long-term operator.
As the city searches, SoBi has become a notable transportation alternative for individuals who want to avoid public transportation. SoBi also provides users with the convenience of locking their bikes to a non-SoBi rack for a one-dollar fee.
In addition, the bike-share service maintains user accessibility through their subsidized Everyone Rides Initiative, which provides both a discounted pass and an opportunity for users to earn SoBi credits by relocating any out-of-hub bikes. If you’re a McMaster student, you can also access a discounted membership. So if you want to reduce your carbon footprint or you want to support this community program, this affordable option is for you.
Just as small actions can produce larger change, bike-share programs not only provide benefits to individuals as previously outlined but to the community as a whole. It is at this level that bike share programs have been proven to decrease car usage and reduce traffic congestion, which consequently reduces pollution, leading to community health benefits and allowing for economic expansion.
These environmental benefits are particularly relevant given that the transportation sector emits the second most greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. To date, SoBi bike-sharing is estimated to have reduced nearly 1 million kilograms of CO2 emissions. As a community, we have the vital responsibility to be environmental stewards; we need to make the necessary efforts required to protect the natural environs that have provided us with so much.
McMaster has demonstrated its commitment to sustainable transportation practices at an institutional level through its April 2017 Master Campus Plan Update, which outlines infrastructural changes for a vehicle-free core campus. A key aspect of this is not merely accommodating cycling on campus but actively encouraging it.
In the 2017 update, McMaster planned to expand SoBi to the GO Bus station and west campus. Evidently, the support and facilitation of bike-sharing services like SoBi align closely with McMaster's culture and priorities of sustainability.
The McMaster Students Union has also shown its commitment to supporting sustainable transportation through the MACycle service, an on-campus do-it-yourself bike repair shop. Unfortunately, due to low engagement and alternative services in the Westdale area, the service was de-ratified last year.
This exemplifies the importance of making conscious decisions to support these sustainable programs otherwise these options may become defunct. We are only able to keep these programs running through our community efforts.
SoBi is a valuable and accessible program that provides benefits individually, institutionally and municipally; as a result, they have received support at all of these levels. Since the future of SoBi remains undetermined, we as a community can find our footing as environmental stewards by supporting the bike share program while it is still here.
By Sam Marchetti, Contributor
On Sept. 27, I saw something wonderful. In the 10 minute drive from my house to the Oakville GO station on Friday, I saw a class walking the streets with their teachers holding signs up. I saw a group of four high school students at a bus shelter farther down the road, brandishing large signs with phrases like “don’t be a fossil fool” and “I’m skipping lessons so I can teach you one”.
That morning, I made my way down to Queen’s Park in Toronto. I, unfortunately, could not stay for the climate march. But I chanted and stood with those near Queen’s Park station for as long as I could. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve been concerned about climate change for years. Those who know me best know that I’ve given up hope more than once. It was incredible to know that I was standing with just a small proportion of the millions of people marching around the world. There have been climate strikes and marches before, I have even attended a few of them. Eventually, though, I always ended up feeling defeated. For once, it felt like this time was different.
So, to all of you reading, let this time be different. Our climate emergency is no longer a problem that can be solved by our actions as individuals. We need the governments of the world to stand with us and to implement policies that will curb greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale and at an unprecedented rate. This isn’t an easy task, and it’s one that we certainly will not accomplish through one day of marching and striking in the streets. There are two things we need to do if we want these strikes to mean something.
First and foremost, we need to keep marching. The next time you hear about a climate protest, march, rally or strike, go to it. Don’t second-guess it, just do it. It doesn’t matter if there are another 500,000 people there and it doesn’t matter if there are just five. Most importantly, it doesn’t matter who you are. Whether or not you have contributed so far to this cause, we need you. We need your activism. We need to see you in the streets, to hear you in the media and to help keep our politicians watching us. Keep the momentum going and scream as loud as you can.
The second thing is equally as important: you need to vote. Marching, screaming and getting our politicians to see what we want is meaningless unless we can hold them to it. If we don’t vote, they don’t have to listen to us. It is imperative that we show them that we have the power and that we will not allow them to sit idly while the Earth burns. Register to vote, right now (I’ll even give you the link - www.elections.ca). In October, show up to the polls. Don’t just make your voice heard, make it count.
The marches on Sept. 27, 2019 were incredible. This wasn’t the first time I’ve felt that kind of hope, but I think this time it might not fail me.
This is my plea to you. Let this time be different.
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By Morgan Parcells, Contributor
Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg agrees: hot girl summer was way too hot.
At the forefront of a global sustainability movement, Greta Thunberg seems to have lit a fire amongst younger generations. She inspired hundreds of thousands of individuals to take part in Fridays For Future, Greta’s very own climate strike, across the world on Sept. 27, 2019.
On Aug. 20, 2018, Thunberg singlehandedly began the development of her global movement with the very first Fridays For Future protest outside of her local parliament. The following week, her fellow students joined her in taking a stand for the environment. After only a few weeks, Fridays For Future became a weekly occurrence.
Thunberg’s ideas quickly garnered attention from neighbouring countries and Fridays For Future began to spread internationally. By February 2019, more than 30 countries across the world were participating. In August 2019, Thunberg attended the United Nations’ Climate Summit in the United States, and students in over 165 countries took part in Fridays For Future.
To some, the idea of climate activism is an entirely new idea. However, others may believe that an environmental political movement has been at play for a greater portion of history. The question stands: how long have we known about the climate crisis?
In 1896, the first scientific evidence of human-induced climate change was discovered: Swedish scientist Svente Arrhenius found that human carbon emissions have a direct contribution to the warming of the atmosphere.
In 1938, British inventor and engineer Guy Stewart Callendar posited that a correlation exists between the warming land temperatures and human carbon emissions. Callendar’s research was largely ignored by the scientific community of his time.
In 1960, American scientist Charles David Keeling — known for the Keeling Curve — found that carbon dioxide emissions were rising.
Clearly, the science has been in our grasp for over a century, but only relatively recently have we begun paying significant attention. Many credit Thunberg as the sole pivotal voice in the conversation around global climate issues. While her impact is nearly unmatched in the social world, the voice of Thunberg is not a lonely one. For decades, there have been voices of colour proclaiming the same message as Thunberg. Although her message is undoubtedly an important one, it would be disappointing to look past the second message Thunberg is sending — that the world only listens when white activists decide to speak up.
Despite doing the same work as Thunberg, climate change activists of colour are largely ignored.
Autumn Peltier, 13-year-old water advocate, addresses UN: pic.twitter.com/KaJ1aW5610
— Arlan 👊🏾 (@ArlanWasHere) September 28, 2019
Only 15 years old, Indigenous activist Autumn Peltier addressed the United Nations on the same day as Thunberg, urging the organization to protect the world’s universal right to clean water. She has been an advocate for these issues for the majority of her young life, having attended the Children’s Climate Conference in Sweden at only 11 years old and even personally addressing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about his broken promises regarding Indigenous Canadian populations. At the age of 14, Autumn was named chief water commissioner by the Anishinabek Nation.
Eleven-year-old Ridhima Pandey calls Uttarakhand, India home and has been a climate change activist for the past few years. When she was only nine years old, Pandey filed a legal complaint against the Indian government for their failure to reduce and regulate the emission of greenhouse gases that heavily contribute to climate change. Her petition reached the National Green Tribunal.
Greta has done amazing work in calling for action on the #ClimateEmergency.
But don't forget Ridhima, Kaluki, Aditya, Nina, Autumn, Leah, or any of the other incredible young activists working for the future of this planet. https://t.co/CgheGTYtaR pic.twitter.com/DyuY1cWjh9— Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) October 5, 2019
Beyond the two bright individuals detailed above, there exists a world of young climate leaders of colour who face global issues at a harsher level than most white communities will ever see.
The choice to champion Thunberg as the leader of the global climate advocacy movement holds a large amount of political weight behind it, exposing our tendency to champion those with lighter skin in place of coloured individuals who work just as hard, if not harder.
It is not wrong of us to recognize Thunberg’s dedication, passion and undying mission to save the world. But it is most definitely wrong of us to fail to acknowledge and appreciate the voices of colour who have been pushing this conversation for decades.
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By Wei Yan Wu, Contributor
It is becoming increasingly important to plan and prepare for the future consequences that the climate emergency will bring to our planet. Zoe Li, a civil engineering assistant professor at McMaster University, has set out to tackle this need.
As someone who works with scientific models, Li does not work in an experimental laboratory. Instead, she works with different simulation models to analyze the water cycle. Through her research, Li is attempting to quantify the unpredictable by forecasting the likelihood of droughts and floods in certain regions.
Li conducts a process known as climate impact analysis to assess the impact of climate change on water resources. Recently, her research has involved working with a Master’s student and two undergraduate students on an algorithm that will be able to collect weather and climate data from numerous climate centres around the world. This will help produce climate projections for specific regions and aid in informing preventive measures.
For an area at risk of flooding, for example, there will be structural or non-structural measures; a structural measure would entail diversions to modify flood runoff, while a non-structural one would involve practices like flood proofing in order to decrease the damage susceptibility of certain floodplains.
Through climate impact analysis, Li and her team aim to use advanced machinery and techniques to provide reliable evidence in support of methods of adapting to climate change. To accomplish this, they are working with colleagues in computer science.
While Li and her team are aware that running a physically-based climate model requires a great deal of time and resources, they are able to help meet their need for mass amounts of information by collecting output from various climate centres around the world. These include, among others, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute and the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Moving forward, Li intends to use projections, machinery and algorithms to generate a customized projection specifically for Ontario.
“I’ve always known that there’s a research gap. People have been developing global and regional climate models, but there’s nothing that’s reliable just for Ontario. Since I live in Ontario, I thought we should provide a more reliable climate projection for Ontario because this is a very important issue,” said Li.
Li has been contacted by another professor in the civil engineering department at McMaster, who, alongside one of his students, now uses Li’s results as foundation for their own model. Using information that attempts to measure future environmental phenomena, such as predicted temperatures, this professor and his student have been able to quantify the energy consumption of buildings.
Li states that her model can be applied to anything that is affected by a change in temperature and precipitation. She believes that it is necessary to have a projection of what the environment’s future will entail in order to fully analyze the possible impact of climate change.
“We are trying to provide projections so that people will know what the precipitation is, what the temperature is. For example, for the design of buildings and bridges, they will need to know whether there will be gusts and what the wind speed is, things like that. That’s the input information we can provide,” said Li.
Climate impact analysis is only one part of Li’s research.
“For the other half, we focus on how to quantify the uncertainties in different environmental systems so that we can better manage different kinds of environmental risks,” she added.
Due to the fact that model inputs, parametres and structures come with their own uncertainties, Li currently has students working to address these issues by developing quantification methods that could provide more support for risk assessment and management.
Through her research and by collaborating with different sectors at McMaster, Li demonstrates the potential benefits her work could bring to the community. She also has another project dedicated to analyzing wastewater treatment as she continues to work on environmental solutions for Ontario.
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Last Friday’s climate strike brought the climate crisis to the forefront of public conversation. There is an ever-growing awareness of the dire reality of the climate emergency: if immediate, far-reaching action is not taken, there will be major harm to ecosystems and loss of life.
A 2018 report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that, in order to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C, carbon dioxide emissions would need to fall by about 45 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
Research tells us that the climate emergency is an existential threat requiring immediate, far-reaching action. It is clear that our reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable.
In order to properly address the climate emergency, we need rapid and unprecedented changes in every facet of society. We need to move away from our extraction-based economy that prioritizes growth and resource extraction, towards a justice-centred approach.
Currently, the university employs measures to understand and address climate change, including the McMaster Centre for Climate Change and the SUSTAIN program. McMaster also tracks and reports on its sustainability measures every year.
However, McMaster is more than just a research institution: the University has considerable financial, social and political power that it needs to use to push for far-reaching change.
Piecemeal solutions like banning plastic bags and reducing buildings’ energy consumption are good steps in the right direction, but they are not nearly enough.
Despite claiming to support pro-environment movements, McMaster provides financial support to the fossil fuel industry.
As of last year, $35.96 million, or 4.3 per cent, of McMaster’s endowment fund was invested in fossil fuel companies. By investing in the fossil fuel industry, the university provides not only financial support, but also social license to the very industries that are harming the planet. By continuing to fund the fossil fuel industry, McMaster helps to uphold a system that is completely unsustainable.
According to the Carbon Majors Database, 71 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 can be traced back to just 100 fossil fuel companies. Furthermore, pipelines and other dangerous projects have violated Indigenous land rights in order to extract fossil fuels.
Moving away from this economic system is a much larger discussion, but one tangible step that McMaster can take is to pull investments from the university’s divestment fund out of fossil fuel companies.
Divestment is not an end goal, but is a tactic that aims to “name and shame” the fossil fuel industry. It is morally reprehensible to profit off of the destruction of the planet, and pulling investments out of fossil fuel companies sends a clear message of condemnation.
In 2015, students, staff and faculty members issued petitions urging the university to divest from fossil fuel companies. Former president Patrick Deane struck an advisory committee, which came back with 12 recommendations for McMaster to pursue instead of full divestment.
More recently, MacGreenInvest, a McMaster faculty organization, issued a petition calling on McMaster to divest fossil fuel investments from McMaster’s endowment fund, and reinvest the funds in green renewable energy companies. As of Wednesday afternoon, the petition had over 1,000 signatures on Change.org.
McMaster prides itself on being a leader in sustainable development. It is unconscionable that they pay for this work by investing into companies that profit off of harming the environment.
By Wei Yan Wu, Contributor
On Sept. 27, thousands of Canadians took to streets and parks to participate in the Global Climate Strike to raise awareness on the climate emergency.
On a request by students calling for cancellation of academic activities in order to make time for strike attendance. In response, McMaster Students for Climate Change Advocacy created a petition on Change.org. To date, more than 2,000 people have signed the petition, without a public response from the university. Classes and evaluations continued to be scheduled at McMaster during the strike.
Although the university showed no support for the petition, various climate change combating initiatives and programs exist at McMaster. The university’s energy management program, for one, strives to manage utilities and facilities in a way that improves energy efficiency.
“McMaster is very research-intensive. We’ve been working with a third party to reduce air volumes to the labs which reduces our carbon footprint,” said Joe Emberson, director of energy management and utilities at McMaster.
The university’s energy management staff has also worked on reducing water use on campus. They audit buildings to check where the water is being used, investigating if there might be alternative solutions to using water.
McMaster also offers The Sustainable Future Program (SUSTAIN) and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability to its undergraduate students.
The main pillars of the SUSTAIN program, according to Kate Whalen, current senior manager of McMaster’s academic sustainability programs, revolve around providing opportunities for students to learn about sustainability. However, they also have opportunities specifically for interdisciplinary, student-led, community-based and experiential learning.
Within their five courses, the program aims to scaffold specific skills that give students learning opportunities to prepare for tackling more complex issues in upper-year courses. On the other hand, the program’s lower-year courses have observation-based experiential excursions, projects in the community and lectures on sustainability theory.
“I expect a lot of our first-year students will be attending the climate march [on] Friday. They’ll go and participate, so they’re very much in the community in terms of project implementation and experiential learning where they’re working directly with the community,” said Whalen.
The upper-year courses focus more on community engagement and tackling city-based issues through sustainability projects. Whalen’s students, for example, are each completing a full ethics application for environmental practices. They conduct research and interviews, working with members of the community and city staff to understand environmental issues most prominent in the community and to seek solutions to these challenges.
The SUSTAIN program has garnered a great amount of interest from the student body.
“When we started the Sustainable Future Program, we had one course and I think we had just under a hundred students enrolled in it. Now we have more than five courses and we have just under a thousand students enrolled this year. We’ve seen rapid growth in the demand for our program,” said Whalen.
She attributes the success of the program to its timeliness, interdisciplinary characteristics, community-based experiences and the overall way sustainability education is being delivered at Mac. For her, it shows that Mac students are aware of the sustainability issues they face and are motivated to understand and engage with them.
Outside of academics, other McMaster students have also taken the initiative to promote sustainability across campus. Zero Waste McMaster is a new club on campus this fall.
“I decided to start the club because I thought there was a gap in the clubs at McMaster. There wasn’t really any club organization working towards conscious, sustainable, low-waste living for students,” said Josephine Agueci, president of Zero Waste McMaster and student in the SUSTAIN program.
The club is in the process of planning its activities for the year, with goals to hold monthly workshops and discussions on sustainable living. The club also aims to encourage students to attend environment awareness events like the Sustainability Walk in Hamilton happening at the beginning of October.
“Right now we’re focusing on individual impact, but from there we definitely want to work towards helping McMaster be more sustainable as a school, not just on an individual level. So whether that be working on a composting system or working with different food options or waste disposal on campus,” said Agueci.
Zero Waste McMaster also aims to collect feedback from the student body. They want to know what students want to change and what sustainability issues they see on campus.
Though the university did not support students who wished to attend the climate strike on Sept. 27, academic programs continue to find ways to contribute to efforts against climate change. While many of them were not able to skip their classes or evaluations on Sept. 27, McMaster students are nevertheless finding ways to engage in sustainability initiatives on campus.
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By Kayla Freeman, Contributor
Since 2019, metal straws have taken over. Every day, I see at least 50 metal straws in peoples’ beverages. That should be a good thing, right? To some extent it is, but people aren’t choosing sustainability for the right reasons. Using a metal straw is currently a trend, but are metal straws even the right answer to saving our oceans and marine life?
Of course not. Imagine if saving the environment was that easy. Every day, 500 million disposable plastic straws are used and will likely end up in our waterways. This statistic can scare many people into thinking that the solution lies in replacing plastic straws with their metal counterparts. However, many people fail to realize what materials and emissions go into making a metal straw.
The energy used to create one metal straw is roughly equivalent to creating 90 plastic straws, and also produces carbon emissions equivalent to 150 plastic straws. This may not seem like a lot, but in order to offset the environmental impact of creating a metal straw, it must be used over 150 times.
We also need to consider the harsh reality of nickel mining that is necessary in order to create these trendy accessories. The Philippines is a predominant nickel supplier. Much of the soil in Palawan, a major nickel supplier in the Philippines, has been reduced to a wasteland.
Metal straws are not the only items that are made out of nickel, meaning that they are not the sole contributors to the destruction of soil in Palawan. However, they are trendy accessories and are produced excessively. This is evidenced through the variety of designs metal straws are offered in. Our materialist society does not hesitate to contribute to this “fast fashion” accessory, with celebrities such as Jeffree Star capitalizing on the movement by coming out with their own packs of metal straws. The excessive production of metal straws contradicts the environmentalist intentions that they are meant to fulfill.
If you’re purchasing a metal straw, you would assume that it would be made out of metal, right? Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Many of these items are not labelled due to their “eco-friendly” branding strategy as they are not required to list any ingredients since the straw is not being consumed. Safe metal straws should be made with food-grade stainless steel as any other materials may corrode over time. Safe metal straws should be made with food-grade stainless steel as any other materials may corrode over time.
Additionally, painted or coloured straws also pose a risk of either contaminating the drink or containing unsafe chemicals such as Bisphenol A (BPA), which is known to cause an array of health risks. Metal straws might not be the only alternative to disposable plastic straws, but they are very popular because of their durability and cost-effectiveness.
Make no mistake, I think that we should try to be as eco-friendly as possible. But if you are going to opt for a reusable straw, try to purchase locally and support Canadian businesses, such as Glass Sipper. It’s important to keep in mind that when you are trying to be sustainable to be aware of what goes into the production of “eco-friendly alternatives” because sometimes the good intent gets lost in the action.
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By Ember, Contributor
Recently, there’s been a lot of push for individual initiatives to combat climate change. This can be considered admirable and noble – but they hardly scratch the surface of the problem. These initiatives tend to overlook industries as the largest contributors to climate change, the Global North’s role in plastic pollution and they place misdirected blame on disabled people.
In a scientific paper that outlines that the Pacific Ocean is rapidly accumulating plastic, Laurent Lebreton et al. states the following findings.
“Over three-quarters of the [Great Pacific Garbage Patch] mass was carried by debris larger than five cm and at least 46 per cent was comprised of fishing nets. Microplastics accounted for eight per cent of the total mass but 94 per cent of the estimated 1.8 (1.1–3.6) trillion pieces floating in the area,” they say.
Almost half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s mass is abandoned gear from industry fishing. Another 20 per cent of the mass is thought to be remnants from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In comparison, Seth Borenstein, a journalist, noted the extremely small proportion of plastic waste made up of plastic straws.
“Straws on average weigh so little – about one sixty-seventh of an ounce or .42 grams – that all those billions of straws add up to only about 2,000 tons of the nearly nine million tons of plastic waste that yearly hits the waters,” Borenstein said.
Banning plastic straws seems pretty asinine when you consider a few different factors. It’s interesting how alternatives like the new Starbucks lids were created to replace the use of plastic straws, but they have been found to contain an equivalent amount or more plastic than what a plastic straw contains. Christian Britschgi, an associate editor at Reason, described the miniscule impact of the Starbucks nitro lids.
“Right now, Starbucks patrons are topping most of their cold drinks with either 3.23 grams or 3.55 grams of plastic product, depending on whether they pair their lid with a small or large straw. The new nitro lids meanwhile weigh either 3.55 or 4.11 grams, depending again on lid size,” said Britschgi.
Point blank, this “solution” is performative – it is a cheap tactic spearheaded by a corporation to make the common folk feel like they’re making a difference in regards to climate change when it really amounts to nothing.
Then why not use paper straws or reusable straws? Well, because these options are awful. Often times, banning plastic straws does not take into account how alternative straw materials can be detrimental to disabled people.
“Biodegradable [straw] options often fall apart too quickly or are easy for people with limited jaw control to bite through. Silicone straws are often not flexible – one of the most important features for people with mobility challenges. Reusable straws need to be washed, which not all people with disabilities can do easily. And metal straws, which conduct heat and cold in addition to being hard and inflexible, can pose a safety risk,” said Godoy.
Another thing to keep in mind is that biodegradable straws can also be made of soy – a common allergen – and because it isn’t food, corporations aren’t required to disclose ingredients on the packaging.
Putting the responsibility on disabled people to survive in public without plastic straws because you don’t believe stores should offer straws is venomous.
It’s not that disabled people don’t care about the environment – we absolutely do. But instead of demonizing us for existing, shouldn’t able-bodied people help create an accessible, environmentally friendly alternative to plastic straws?
Currently, I am a student studying earth and environmental science, and I’m aiming to get a minor in sustainability. I am also disabled and I realize that climate change is larger than any one of us.
However, it’s important to note that often disabled people are the ones being accused of holding the environmental movement back, while corporations are conveniently cropped out of the frame. The big picture of climate change and environmental collapse is large enough for all of us to fit inside – so please don’t forget that industries play a large part, too.
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The Campus Store will no longer be selling single-use plastic bags in an effort to make McMaster University more sustainable.
According to Donna Shapiro, the campus store director, the store was selling over 20,000 plastic or tote bags each year.
“We look at the waste on campus and we look at the plastic bags. Those bags are heavy duty plastic bags. We’re not talking about Walmart plastic bags, because they have to hold textbooks,” said Shapiro.
The Campus Store has previously taken measures to reduce the environmental impact of bag sales in the past, charging 15 cents per plastic bag. While the initiative failed to reduce plastic bag sales, it prompted the store to look into other more sustainable alternatives.
Louise Walker, the sales floor manager at the Campus Store, said it took their team a long time to evaluate alternatives such as paper or compostable bags. Each time they pursued an option in hopes that it would pose a solution, she said, they realized that it was much worse than plastic.
Eventually, she reached out to the university and got into contact with Kate Whalen. Whalen is the former developer and manager of McMaster’s office of sustainability as well as the current senior manager of academic sustainability programs at the university.
While many at the Campus Store supported the elimination of single-use plastic bags, they also considered student needs.
“I think my biggest concern was that the thought of a customer coming here and not being able to put their items in [a bag]. So Kate [Whalen] helped us think about the donation bin, where we could take donation plastic bags,” explained Shapiro.
The donation bin encourages shoppers to bring their own bag. If customers do not have their own bags, they can reuse a donated plastic bag or purchase a water resistant tote bag for 75 cents.
“The goal is not to sell the bag — the goal is for students to bring a backpack, their own recyclable bag or to carry it in their hands,” emphasized Walker.
The campaign, called “Maroon is the New Green,” launched on Aug. 24. The initiative is the first of many steps the Campus Store intends to take to make McMaster more sustainable, according to Walker.
“We’re looking at changing a mindset. People are used to bringing their bags to the grocery store but they’re not used to bringing their bags here,” said Walker.
The Campus Store’s remaining plastic bags, as well as bags donated by the store’s staff have been filtered into the donation box.
The store’s green team, a group of staff interested in supporting more sustainable practices, is now working closely with a group of students in the SUSTAIN 3S03 course to raise awareness of the campaign and continue to help the store look at greener alternatives.
The Campus Store is already looking at what reusability could look like in the future. They are working with student groups to create more sustainable products, such as washable cutlery sets and stainless steel straws.
“It fulfills two things: it’s a student entrepreneur we will be supporting, but also they are reusable materials,” said Shapiro.
She added that the Campus Store is always open to feedback about how they are able to improve a process. Students are encouraged to provide feedback to the Campus Store regarding their green initiatives at [email protected].
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