It’s been about a week and a half since I went through US customs returning from Europe. I had forgotten how complicated it was to get back in the country, and that was for a US citizen. It must be a real pain for people to visit the US. Read into that as you wish.
I think of myself as a pretty reflective person, maybe you could tell from a few of my blog posts, so I try to put in real thought to my reflections of my experience of studying sustainability and of Belgium as a country. However, real thought for me is a little scattered. I seem to always have 17 thoughts going at once; I sometimes find hard to stick to one thought process when everything reminds me of something. I’m going to do my best for you though, I promise.
In order to make sure I talk about the right stuff, and maybe it will help me stay on track, I’m going to copy my prompt for this blog entry right here. It is also a little cheat so I can look at the prompt without switching between pages. Life hack.
Here’s the prompt:
You should address A) what are the big picture components of sustainability that you learned about and how do they relate to the US food system sustainability, and B) What are your overall thoughts and impressions of Belgium that you would relate to others. How did the class affect your disciplinary thinking; we would like you to focus more in-depth on one class subject or excursion what was particularly interesting or relevant to you. You are asked to reflect about your cultural thinking about self and US or your local culture, history, and heritage as you compare it to other cultures you have observed or experienced during the class.
Alright, let’s start from the top with the BIG PICTURE. There will definitely be thoughts or experiences I mention that I have written about in previous blogs, but I’m bringing them all to the forefront right now all together.
So, generally speaking, the EU is more restrictive in the ways of procedure and protocol in testing and approving products for sale than the US. This means the time between concept and store availability might average years longer than in the US due to more avenues for testing and more rigorous standards to meet.
Another difference between the EU and US in their approach to sustainability is transparency with the public. From the Europe 2020 plan, which we looked into pre-departure, to how the European Union labels its organic food, I found that the EU was more likely to make it easier on the average person to find information about sustainability and the food chain.
Europe 2020 is an initiative from the European Commission which set goals for each EU state for sustainability issues such as energy consumption and gas emissions. Websites are easy to read, and information and decisions made at conferences are available on clearly labeled documents on one comprehensive website. I have a harder time trying to figure out how to renew my car’s registration online. Also, the US doesn’t even have an initiative like Europe 2020. Apparently, the topic is still a debate…very disappointing.
Which transitions into my next main point regarding sustainability on a government level; the progress of sustainable innovation and technology is stalled by people invested in opposing fields. Where there is money, there is power, and where there is power, there are people who don’t see climate change and damaged ecosystems as a priority. For example, in my last blog post, I mentioned how the biofuel plant only ran at full capacity when oil was expensive. When it is cheap, someone wouldn’t be making “adequate” money if some of the energy production was given to the biofuel sector. The demand for sustainable energy production magically disappears when people are not in a financial crisis using fossil fuels. This phenomenon is not unique to either the EU or the US; at the end of the day, everyone cares most about the price tag.
Lastly (for this topic), much of the reason the EU and US food chain is less sustainable is our fault, the consumer. We are not informed, and often times, we are misinformed. We often base our purchase and investment decisions on information fed to us through marketing and media. For instance, the food industry throws away so much food before it even reaches supermarkets purely based on aesthetics.
Did you know that cucumbers can naturally grow crooked and curly, but since they are marketed as perfectly straight, the ugly ones get thrown away even though they are completely fine to eat. That’s tons of food wasted for no reason other than vanity in food products. A red steak is less fresh than a purple steak, but since a red steak is marketed as “ideal” to consumers (I mean, just look at the picture of raw steaks in store or on a tv commercial), steaks are purposely oxidized to make them more red. Also, a brown steak doesn’t necessarily mean the steak is bad. A steak can turn brown from only a few hours of additional oxygen exposure, the same exposure that turns a purple steak red. I bet most Americans probably don’t exactly know what it means for a product to be “organic” or “free trade.” Compared to the fashion choices of the Kardashians or the most recent controversial viral Facebook post, it seems “sustainability” just isn’t that strong of a buzz word for news headline.
Now, about my impressions of Belgium and the Eurozone. I have come back with a general consensus that there are some things that the EU does right and some things the US does right. It is very easy to think with a “the grass is greener on the other side” mindset when comparing ourselves to Europe, and in many ways, it might be true, but I don’t believe the United States is the always in the wrong.
Since I have a more liberal view on social issues, there are many aspects of European culture with which I feel more aligned. They are much more open and relaxed with the treatment of sex and soft drugs in every day life. They aren’t so taboo as they are made to be here in the United States which I believe helps the European population be more open to discussing problems that arise from the topics without falling back on ill-founded stereotypes and false information. I believe this difference is also because of the introspective and reflective nature of the European people. As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, I was intrigued by the intense criticism of professors on various subjects regarding the EU. It made me realize a critical difference between EU and US nationalism; EU states believe they are the best BECAUSE they learn from mistakes while the US believes we are the best REGARDLESS of our mistakes. EU professors were more willing to display mistakes and failures rather than sweep them under the rug and only talk about successes. Also, they use the metric system which makes so much more sense, although the wide use of military time confused me for a few days.
If they could get on board with keeping stores open past 6, free water at restaurants, free public restrooms, and not switching the comma and the period when writing numbers, Europe would be pretty hard to beat.
Since you all know about my minimal overlap of my previous knowledge and this course, it shouldn’t be surprising that most of this course really expanded my disciplinary thinking. Courses on food production and soil management aren’t common electives chosen by students in the computer engineering field. The biological sciences has always interested me as another topic of interest besides computer science. There is a certain natural beauty and unpredictability in biology that isn’t in computer science because, at least at this day and age, technology can’t always beat or replicate biology.
Sometimes, the solution to a biological problem is something nature has already developed. I believe that is why I found the lecture on biocatalysts so interesting; it showed how people are manipulating existing biological or biochemical processes to produce a desired outcome in an unrelated biological or biochemical process using advancing technology. The repurposing of one process into another is intriguing, especially since it is able to accomplish amazing tasks and many of the desired traits come from bacteria which we tend to write off unless it could make us sick.
It seems that is a biological field like the ocean: largely undiscovered and a field day of possibilities. After all, who knows how many strains of microscopic organisms there are with beneficial traits hidden in their DNA? And how amazingly convenient that all life on Earth is coded using the same basic genetic building blocks? Meanwhile, we humans have had to develop numerous coding languages to progress with our greater knowledge. I suppose nature had a couple billion year head start on us, though.
What made this program was the culmination of the little moments. Often times, I was reminded of why we are all so similar even though I have predominately pointed out differences. At the end of the day, we’re all human who feel excitement and greed, who sometimes succumb to ignorance, who mean well and don’t usually intend on the negative consequences of our actions. Even though language and geographic location may separate us, we are more similar than we think, and we’re fighting many of the same battles.
Maybe in the future, more students can follow the path that we have to connect with people in the European Union and other countries around the world to work together to conquer these battle. At the end of the day, we are one people with one home, and we will be the reason it thrives or fails.
Probably. Fingers crossed for missed meteors.
It’s been real guys. Thanks for hanging in with me this long. Much love for you, Belgium. Thank you for all you had to offer and to learn from. I’ll be back.
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Read more from Kaylee at https://letsghentlost.wordpress.com/blog/
To find out more about the U of A Faculty-Led: European
Agriculture-Food Chain Sustainability program at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/SUSTEurozone/
