Life lessons from Willie

In my first year at Columbia University as a Professor at the new Climate School, it has truly been a pleasure getting to know the graduate MA students in Climate + Society. While the past few weeks have been disquieting on campus (and let’s see if the students have a graduation), it is that time of year when they come to me for advice on potential jobs and careers. Students want to discuss life advice on how they can carve out a path that is meaningful personally and professionally. The funny thing is, at 52, I am still trying to figure that out. I often say, “My plan was not to have a plan.” That may not be all that helpful in practical terms…

Copyright: © MARK SELIGER

But there is a person who I find quite helpful as even I continue to navigate what I want to be when I grow up. I recently watched the four-part documentary on Paramount called “Willie Nelson and Friends.” Now, let me tell you that I am not a huge fan of Willie Nelson’s music. I appreciate many aspects of him, his talent, and his voice, but I don’t partake, so to speak. My perception of Willie before watching the series is that he is considered the pot-smokin’ punk rocker of the country world. And after watching the series, I realized he is so much more. Why am I digressing to Willie about career advice? Well, because he has some lessons to teach us on how to work and live well, and you can seamlessly do both. I feel quite strongly about these three lessons and I try to make headway towards them.

Lesson number one: Only do work you enjoy. Willie spent a long, long time trying to accommodate what Nashville and the public wanted to hear and wanted him to be. He started off in the Air Force and held many remedial, random jobs, even moving to Washington state before settling in Nashville, where he pursued singing and songwriting. But his persona, his look, his music—while appreciated—never launched him into superstardom in Music City. It wasn’t until he started pursuing the kind of music he wanted to listen to, dressing the way he was comfortable, and living the life he was meant to live in his home state of Texas that he truly came into being quintessential Willie. He describes himself as the “Ol’ Cotton-Pickin’, Snuff-Dippin’, Tobacco-Chewin’, Stump-Jumpin’, Gravy-Soppin’, Coffee-Pot-Dodgin’, Dumplin’-Eatin’ Hillbilly From Hill County.” Remember, Willie came from stark poverty and abandonment. There is a part in the documentary where he says, “Freedom is control in your own life. I have more control now than in the past, and I'm learning the value of saying no.” While we all have to do things we don’t enjoy in our jobs, most of your time should be spent doing projects and work you truly take pleasure in. As Willie said, “We create our own unhappiness.” There are estimates that we spend 1/3 or more of our life at work. How to make the most of those 100,000+ hours? I know this all seems basic and privileged, but being authentic and true to (and honest with) yourself is at the core for everyone. Willie does it. So can we.

Lesson number two: Keep on, keepin’ on. Willie is 90. He struggled for a long time to find his voice and purpose, but he found it. He had many personal losses, heartbreaks, and health scares (and owed the U.S. government 32 million buckaroos for a stint), but he was able to take all the lows that life dealt on the chin and kept pushing on. He remains incredibly prolific with 152 albums. Now, maybe there isn’t enough self-editing going on there, but he has this urge (and enjoys) writing and composing music, collaborating with different genres of music, and touring. Part of his stamina relates to lesson one. If you love what you do, you want to keep doing it. In the documentary, Willie says, "It's hard to believe it was 60 years ago I wrote a song 'Funny How Time Slips Away.’ I was only 27, and I really didn’t know what I was talking about."

Number three: Be collaborative and find your tribe. Willie has collaborated with just about everyone in country music, and in other genres. His relationship with Ray Charles, for example, was exceptional. Everyone “in the business” has nothing but nice things to say about him. Willie Nelson Family’s motto is: “Don’t be an asshole. Don’t be an asshole. Don’t be a goddamn asshole.” This ethos is what enabled him to start Farm Aid, which is an incredible endeavor started in 1985 to “build a system of agriculture that values family farmers, good food, soil and water, and strong communities. Our annual music and food festival celebrates farmers, eaters, and music coming together for change.” Willie is always on the road, bringing his tribe with him. His band is made up of immediate family (including his sister and sons) and some of the same members for the last 50+ years. At the core is knowing who you are, figuring out what you love, and who you want to do it with.

Well, maybe there is a number four. Pay your taxes because the IRS will always catch up to you….

Ran my fingers across the world

On the eve of a new year, we are meant to reflect on all that we accomplished (and didn’t) and put forward our hopes and goals for the new year. I find this hard to do as I get older because time seems so warped, and change is hard to measure. When I reflect back to 2023 to see what has changed for me, I am left with blurry memories and vague recollections, much like the three years of living during the pandemic. But there were some bright spots and standout moments.

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Our last New Year’s Eve was spent crisscrossing most of Italy, ending in the heel, also known as Puglia (where my family is from), with the idea that we wouldn’t return for a long while. Not that we don’t love Italy, but we spent almost six years living there, and maybe it is time to see other places if we do decide to travel. I had just learned I was granted tenure at Columbia University and would join the new Climate School faculty in July of 2023. Exciting. Now comes the hard part – we had to sell our house and downsize our belongings to snuggly fit into a smaller Columbia-subsidized apartment in NYC. Offloading a house in the middle of a housing crisis with high interest rates is stressful and borderline nightmarish, but we managed to do it. Plus, moving just sucks. No matter how often you do it (and for us, we are at 25 times), it is just a massive hassle. So, the first half of 2023 was one significant stressball transition phase.

Things fell into place once we got to NY in June. We live in the Upper West Side, where I have worked for a long time and where we have lived before, so it all seems routine and familiar. Are we too comfortable and normalized? God forbid that we get too comfortable. It may be time to move to another borough and start another walkabout MaPhattan project. Brooklyn beckons, but the ever-evolving NYC landscape is unpredictable, and it is hard to know where to move that won’t become overly gentrified or where you are not participating in such a predictable path.

On the work front, I published, in collaboration with many stellar scientists, 18 papers, the final one being the Food Systems Countdown Initiative paper and report. I started a new job as a Professor of Climate and Food at Columbia’s Climate School and as the Interim Director of the International Research Institute of Climate and Society. It has been an interesting adjustment since leaving Hopkins, with a lot of my team going on to spread their wings in other institutions. The Food Systems Dashboard is going strong along with other various projects.

On a personal note, we, the Sound Furies, finished our fifth album, Times Edit. My favorite song is Mandelbrot’s Coastline. I traveled a hell of a lot less and will continue on that path in 2024. What I will do in 2024 is spend some time curating and sharing all the photos I have taken on my 60+ country travels. 2023 was filled with ordinary experiences — I got COVID, which sucked. I walked an average of 5.8 miles per day, up from last year, which was 5.2 miles. I tried out the Peleton (there is one in my building) and found it ridiculous but effective. I ate red meat maybe five times and tried my best only to take public transport (maybe got in a taxi/uber 4-5 times) if walking wasn’t an option. I continue to bake sourdough…I decided I like folk music (maybe it’s my age) and succulents (maybe it’s my age). We celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary. I turned 52. We ate in 55 restaurants since arriving in NYC (hey, don’t give me shit, I’m in the food business).

Looking to 2024, the new year brings the opportunity to turn over a new leaf, improve, and make a change. But change is ruthlessly tough, and we are often hard on ourselves when we don’t make those changes “successfully.” And I must admit, I am worried about the changes to come. The poem, What they did yesterday afternoon, by Warsan Shire has been running through my head:

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”

Almost half of the world will be voting for new leaders in 2024, and democracy looks pretty fragile to me. I worry about the U.S. elections, as I am sure almost every American does, and the results will impact future decisions about our lives and goals. I am also profoundly concerned about the lack of action on mitigating climate change, what that will mean for everyone, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, how much they will need to adapt, and with what resources.

But as the late Sam Cooke beautifully sang, a change is gonna come – the question is, are we ready for whatever comes? Because things don’t always change for the better, but they do change. Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark, wrote, "Incremental change can happen quietly, and change is rarely straightforward. Victories slip by unheralded while failures are more readily detected.” I will remain hopeful in 2024 as I run my fingers across the world. I am going to remain hopeful. Not because I think everything is going to be okay. But hope for the possibility that the change that is coming pushes us forward to a more sustainable future.  

Food Bytes: November 2023 Edition

FOOD BYTES IS A (ALMOST) MONTHLY BLOG POST OF “NIBBLES” ON ALL THINGS CLIMATE, FOOD, NUTRITION SCIENCE, POLICY, AND CULTURE.

I thought I would write up the November Food Bytes before the onslaught of publications leading up to the COP28 climate meeting takes place. Here is the roundup!

Some interesting articles and books:

The great “godfather of climate science,” Jim Hansen, also a Columbia colleague, has put out a paper with colleagues arguing the planet may be warming faster than previous estimates have indicated by measuring “climate sensitivity” – measuring the earth’s warmth via atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Global CO2 levels hovered around 280 parts per million in the pre-industrial age. Now, they are above 400 ppm. Not everyone agrees with this paper, but no matter, Hansen is sending us clear warnings.

We are more and more worried about how resilient our food systems are in the face of extreme events and shocks, be they climate, environmental, or political. This paper examines the impacts of crop yields related to several agriculture input shocks – nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, machinery, pesticide, and fertilizer. Industrialized agriculture systems depend on these inputs, and often, they are imported from other countries. When combined, as you can see in the figure, some areas showed decreased yields for some but not all crops. The yields of barley, maize, potato, and wheat decreased heavily in the western United States. Barley, maize, millet, potato, sorghum, and soybean yields all decreased in northern Argentina, while barley, maize, potato, and wheat. To some extent, sugar beet also saw large yield decreases in Central Europe. Rice yields, in turn, decreased heavily in Thailand, Vietnam, and the southern part of India.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00873-z/figures/3

My friend Bill Dietz, the Director of Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at George Washington University, and I just published a paper on how the U.S. agri-food sector can contribute to climate change mitigation. The paper is timely for the upcoming COP28 meetings. The U.S. needs to step up!

A new book on the political economy of food system transformation co-edited by Danielle Resnick and Johan Swinnen has been jointly published by IFPRI and Oxford University Press. The summary follows: “The current structure of the global food system is increasingly recognized as unsustainable. While the need to transform food systems is widely accepted, the policy pathways for achieving such a vision often are highly contested, and the enabling conditions for implementation are frequently absent.” Check it out and download it for free here.

Some interesting reports:

Every year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, also known as FAO, releases two flagship reports: the SOFI and the SOFA. The SOFA just came out this past week and focuses on the “true cost of food.” That means they assess the hidden environmental, health, and social costs of producing our food. What is their final assessment? Global hidden costs of food amount to 10 trillion dollars, with low-income countries bearing the highest burden of hidden costs. Yikes.

The Global Alliance for the Future of Food released an interesting analysis in this report calling for food systems to wean off fossil fuels. Wouldn’t that be nice….They argue that food production, distribution, processing/packaging, storage, and sales consume about 15% of all fossil fuels generated annually. They argue that the fossil fuel industry holds a lot of sway with governments, making it difficult to “extract” (sorry for the pun) their influence or hold them to account.

A report by the group I-CAN, which looks at the integration of climate and nutrition, came out. It is interesting…nothing new…and much built on the long scientific publications already out there, but I supposed putting it in a layperson report gets the message out there.

Some interesting listens:

Vice did an “expose” on how the Italian mafia has taken over food systems in Italy. Having lived in Italy and interested in Italian deep food traditions, I watched it. The document is not well done, with much speculation and little evidence beyond a few interviews. If it is even true, I wasn’t convinced by this documentary.

John Oliver’s Halloween episode focused on the issues of child labor related to producing chocolate – focusing on Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where roughly 60% of it is produced. A lot of the material is borrowed from Netflix’s Rotten series. Still, the message is clear that many children (1.56 million) are engaged in cocoa production stemming from insufficient wages paid by massive confectionary companies to smallholder farming families working or owning cocoa farms, leaving them in gut wrenching poverty. Such a tragedy. I don’t think John Oliver adds much to the debate – if you want a quick watch, go to the Netflix episode.

In their usual snarky, pick-it-to-pieces style, Mike and Aubrey of the fantastic Maintenance Phase podcast sink their teeth into Ozempic, the weight loss diabetes treatment drug. It's well worth listening to the latest.

No place else is good enough

In John Steinbeck’s 1953 essay, The Making of a New Yorker, he wrote: “New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.”

I have traveled to over 60 countries, visited just about every state in the United States, and lived in 9 of them – 4 in the near corners of the country (Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, Washington), and moved 25 times since meeting my partner 30 years ago. It is reasonable to assume I have seen my fair share of people, places, and landscapes. Yet, still, New York is good enough, at least for me. It is always in flux—changing, gentrifying, molding in both ambitious and merciless ways. The constant liquescency and, at the same time, the unyielding character of the city is home.

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Having been here for almost a month now, it isn’t the same city as when we first moved here in early 2000. It isn’t necessarily better or worse. It metamorphosed in some ways and remains utterly unvarying in other ways. Watching the documentary, Meet Me in the Bathroom, about the early naught NY resurging music scene, takes me back to my younger self, when we saw a ton of live music, ate out probably way too much, and took in everything we could.

This second go-around will be a bit different, I suspect. I think, and hope, we will be here a good long while (I don’t want to move for the 26th time). New York will be where we occupy our 50s and 60s. I have elaborate plans to be the quiet academic, the routine professor. I want to frequent my neighborhood restaurants and bars “where everybody knows your name…” Days will consist of stellar meals and drinks (we already had some delicious meals near our apartment, like Sushi W, Ortomare, Osteria 106, Calaveras, Rosies, and Flor de Mayo – nothing that requires booking months in advance…), books, movies, live music, and lots of walks.

We are starting our Maphattan* project again – in which we walk every city street of Gotham. A decade has passed, and we won’t do too much research this time. It will be more zen: reflecting and flaneuring with some tentacles into the other 4 lovely boroughs. To kick it off, we did a 9.5 miler today in our own hood: 98th to 109th Street on the west side.

*Our Maphattan Project is named after the Manhattan Project established by Oppenheimer, who lived in our hood on 155 Riverside Drive.

The town that we could call our own

Preface: To hear the deep cultural history of DC, I highly suggest listening to The Atlantic’s Holy Week podcast — a story about the week following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968, and the seven days of heartbreak and revolution, much of it centered in DC.

After eight years (well, technically six and half years, but more on that later) living in DC, we are heading back to New York. In 2015, I was wooed to leave New York and Columbia University to take on a tenured, chaired professorship—as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Food Policy and Ethics—at Johns Hopkins University. I split my time between Baltimore and DC, with appointments at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, the School of Advanced International Studies, also known as “SAIS,” and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. I started the Global Food Ethics and Policy Program and built and mentored a strong team of food system scientists. Amid those eight years, 1.5 were spent in Italy – one year as a nutrition policy program officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and another at SAIS’ Europe campus in Bologna. I also took a sabbatical and wrote the first draft of my hippie food book (more to come on that!). I cannot even begin to describe how pivotal these years at Hopkins have been for my career and those I had the privilege to mentor and work with.

But Columbia and, more so, New York City are calling me back. Starting July 1, I will be a Professor of Climate at Columbia University’s new climate school, the first in the country. I will also lead their Food for Humanity Initiative. I am looking forward to my 4th stint at Columbia. Yes, 4th. The first time was as a postdoc fellow in the Molecular Medicine Department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The second was with Jeffrey Sachs at the Earth Institute, leading nutrition work. The third was as an assistant professor at the Institute of Human Nutrition and the School of International and Public Affairs, aka “SIPA.” So, I guess my home is Columbia or, at least, where I continue to feel grounded.

Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library and “Low beach.”

I am looking forward to living in Gotham again. DC has been a fine place to dwell, but nothing that I felt would be our long-term home. Sure, you have free-entry Smithsonian museums, many memorials dedicated to the US wars (if you are into that sort of thing), and two rivers surrounding it. But, still, to me, DC is a suburban-oriented town that is culturally vacant. What I think I will miss most is the greenery, book boxes, birds, and Rock Creek Park. It is clean, but I would not necessarily say it is any safer than NYC at the moment.

I won’t miss the unfettered, careless gentrification of historic neighborhoods, so much so that you cannot distinguish parts of the city from other American towns like Atlanta, Philly, or Baltimore all that much. DC has become a city full of Sweetgreens (you know, the place that sells $13 salads) and Tatte Bakeries. Likewise, NYC has gentrified, and the old-school feel of the city has diminished. That said, when you are in NYC, you know it, and there are still plenty of unique places that are quintessential to Gotham. It just doesn’t seem so brutally gentrified, but maybe I’m biased.

Gotham

I will not long for the insanely expensive and the not-at-all-worth-it restaurant scene in DC. You either spend $200 on dinner for two or dine at a fast-casual place like the aforementioned Sweetgreens or Starbucks. NYC has a range of eateries to satisfy all tastes and wallets. Of course, you can spend even more than $200 on dinner in Gotham, but you can also score some real-deal delish dumplings, scrumptious sushi, or hand-rolled badass bagels for cheap. You just need to know where to go. I can’t wait to walk into a back-in-the-day diner (yes, they still exist), sit at the counter, and order a grilled cheese sandwich and a hot cup of coffee, private eye style. All for under ten bucks. I look forward to frequenting Hasaki or Takahachi in the east village, Lupes LA style burritos in Soho, the dumplings at Shu Jiao Fu Zhou, and the pizza. My god, the pizza.

Tom’s diner

I will appreciate seeing live music with more than five people in the audience (so sad for bands!) and grooving with like-minded lemurs as opposed to a strange mix of randomers, some just coming from work with World Bank badges hanging around their necks. At least take the goddamn badge off for chrissakes. It’s okay not to be networking all the time…

Moments to look forward to, like hanging out with friends in dive bars with a jukebox and ordering a beer instead of frequenting some douchey bar where cocktails are $20. Of course, NYC is also abundant in douchebaggery up to your knees, but you have more options to escape to the said dive bars and delicatessen, and I am yet to find a cool dive bar or old-school diner in DC.

Mo’s - dive bar in Brooklyn

I will relish walking the vast cityscape without fear of being hit by a car. And for the record, while DC is a bikable town, cars rule, and those cars seem to have a habit of running red lights. In NYC, pedestrians dominate. Plus, walking 6 or 7 miles in DC is like drudgery because everything looks the same. Lots o’ suburbs. It lacks eye candy to keep you preoccupied as you ramble.

I will love the true diversity that NY offers around you in its cultures and peoples, 24-7. Sure, DC is diverse, but everyone is either a politician, a policy analyst, a government contractor, or working for an NGO. Because it is a city of great political power, the whole area of the DMV feeds off that government infrastructure. The first question someone asks you when they meet you is, “What do you do/where do you work?” It is a pretty buttoned-up place. Pearls and pinstripes. Khakis after dark. You get the picture. It just doesn’t have the cultural cache. One of my students gave an apropos comparison between Miami and DC. She said: “In Miami, everyone who is 75 wants to be 25, and in DC, everyone 25 wants to be 75.” Too true.

I guess I just never felt like I belonged in DC. I miss who we were and the place, the town that we could call our own. I know everything will be different, and we, too, have changed. But change is good. I am not saying NYC doesn’t have its problems. Unfortunately, it does, especially right now. Rats, homeless populations, unsafe subways, and grime. But I love the grit. I love the jenk. It’s my kinda town. I can’t wait to go back home.