The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-28)

TUESDAY, JULY 28 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E5

BY BETHANY BROOKSHIRE

Charles Darwin. Carolus Lin-
naeus. Gregor Mendel. They’re all
men. They’re all white. And their
names appear in every biology
book included in a new analysis
of college textbooks. According to
the survey, mentions of white
men still dominate biology text-
books despite growing recogni-
tion in other media of the scien-
tific contributions of women and
people of color.
The good news, the research-
ers say: Scientists in textbooks
are getting more diverse. The bad
news: If diversification continues
at its current pace, it will take
another 500 years for mentions
of black/African American scien-
tists to accurately reflect the
number of black college biology
students.
“Biology is still a very white
discipline, so the results were not
incredibly surprising,” says Cissy
Ballen, an education researcher
at Auburn University in Alabama.
By identifying scientist names
and determining when their re-
search was published, Ballen and
her colleagues looked at trends in

seven of the most commonly used college biology textbooks. They published their results June 24 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The team found that for research published between 1900 and 1999, only about 9 percent (or 55 out of 627) of scientists mentioned were women and 3 percent (19) were people of color. But for research published between 2000 and 2018, women got 25 percent (87 out of 349) of the mentions and people of color 8 percent (27). Some of this was representative; the number of women mentioned was proportional to the number of tenured women in the academic biology workforce over time, based on the National Sci- ence Foundation’s Science and Engineering Indicators. Informa- tion about the number of tenured people of color was unavailable. But the numbers were not representative of the much more diverse biology student body. Based on the change seen from the 1900s to the 2000s, Ballen and her colleagues extrapolate that it will take decades — or even

centuries — for textbook mentions of scientists to reflect the gender and racial diversity of who’s in the classroom. Specifi- cally, it will take 28 years to catch up when it comes to highlighting women scientists, 50 years for

Asian scientists, 30 years for Hispanic/Latino scientists and 500 years for b lack/African American scientists. Scientists in some groups, such as b lack/African American women, w ere never mentioned in the books. The issue of who’s highlighted is only one aspect of the diversity

problem, says Mark Lee, a biochemist at Spelman College in Atlanta. Textbooks are also written from a very white perspec- tive, he notes. As an example, take a perm. Yes, the hair treatment. It comes up in biochemistry textbooks, Lee explains. “The chemistry part is just resetting disulfide bonds.” But textbooks define a perm as making straight hair curly. T he same process can make naturally curly hair straight. Teaching at the all-women, 97 percent Afri- can American Spelman, Lee says, that’s not a matter of semantics. “It’s about lived experience, and about how your lived experience is different from mine.” When it comes to increasing diverse perspectives in science, Lee says, “I don’t think textbooks are the solution.” But they can certainly be better. “Publishers could make sure they have representation that is diverse on the writing team,” he notes. One driving factor is that most biology textbooks are presented as a history of science, Ballen says. No women from the 1600s through 1900 were mentioned in

the books surveyed. “That’s 300 years of just white men in textbooks,” she says. Instead, biology textbooks could be written with more emphasis on illustrating concepts with contemporary examples, instead of historical ones. “When you look at contemporary examples, you get more diversity; both women and scientists of color have greater access to biology, they are more accessi- ble for textbook authors and publishers to find, and more prominent in their field.” Because science is based on historical findings, however, some history is necessary. “Textbooks have to be a blend of historical and modern,” says Peter Minorsky, a plant physiolo- gist at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. “If it’s all historical, then it’s not up to date. If it’s all cutting-edge, there’s no context.” Minorsky is one of the authors of Campbell Biology, a textbook included in the survey, and notes that the authors are making sub- stantial efforts to include diverse scientists. There is a note at the end of the first chapter pointing out how underrepresentation of

diverse views hampers the prog- ress of science. And each section is accompanied by an interview with a modern scientist — none of whom are white men. Lee certainly isn’t waiting for a more diverse textbook. Instead, he emphasizes examples from his own published science and the research being done at Spelman. “Professors have to be versed in the conventional presentation and then bring in extra content,” he says. Then, students will “see science being done by individuals like them,” instead of feeling that they are making isolated forays into the field. Mentoring is also crucial. “Diversity isn’t ethnicity and numbers of people; it’s about your attitude,” he says. “We can’t wait until the industry is diverse. I’m asking [professors] to take on the burden of being diverse by supporting a diverse population.” — Science News magazine

Bethany Brookshire, a staff writer at Science News for Students, has a Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

References to white men still dominate college biology textbooks, survey says

“Publishers could make

sure they have

representation that is

diverse on the writing

team.” Mark Lee, a biochemist at Spelman College in Atlanta

The partnerships with Van- guard and Smithfield, Childress said, are equivalent to taking 650,000 cars off the road or plant- ing 50 million trees. “That’s huge carbon reduction bang for your dollar,” he added. But how loud is that bang? It depends upon whom you ask. The World Wildlife Fund’s director of dairy, Sandra Vijn, said methane is “an important transi- tion fuel” and is more sustainable than drilling for natural gas. “There are many industrial processes that require very high temperatures that currently can only be achieved by burning gas,” she said. “And biogas can be a viable alternative until carbon- free options are technologically and economically feasible.” But Mark Kresowik, the east-

ern district deputy director at the Sierra Club, the national environmental organization, said zero- emissions electricity from renewable sources such as wind or solar is the best choice. “When you move methane through pipes and into homes, you still have the same climate and health impacts of transport- ing, leaking and burning gas,” he said. “It doesn’t eliminate any pollution. It’s simply changing the source of that pollution from drilling to capturing it in this other fashion.” Even small leaks and other re- leases of methane during repairs, as little as 2 or 3 percent, negate the improved greenhouse gas effects over coal, for instance. Do- minion has cut methane emissions from leaks by 25 percent in

the past decade and has pledged to reduce them by another 65 percent by 2030, Childress said. Rebecca Larson, an associate professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin, has studied the climate effects of agriculture and the biological processes that take place when microorganisms break apart manure. “The benefits of digesting manure are significant,” she said. It not only reduces greenhouse gases, but the high temperatures dampen the odors associated with manure and decrease potential pathogens that can enter the wa- tershed. One study Larson co- wrote concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from a dairy farm can be reduced by 35 percent overall when biogas-based elec-

tricity replaces grid-based electricity. The problem for farmers, she said, has been the cost. Cost is one of several issues Vanguard helps solve. The company builds the biodigester and provides the expertise to operate it. “People think anaer- obic digestion is super straight- forward where you’re basically throwing organics into a tank and cooking it and, magically, you produce natural gas,” Chase said. “But it’s really a very difficult and time-consuming business. It’s four different things, a development company, an operating company, an energy company and an organic management company.” By raising capital, he said Van- guard has been able to hire 38 em- ployees, including biologists, chemists, environmental engi-

neers, construction staff and a development head. Since 2014, Vanguard has benefited from a Massachusetts ban on disposing large amounts of organic waste in landfills. Retailers, institutions, breweries and manufacturers — including Whole Foods, Gorton’s Seafood, Cape Cod Potato Chips, Cabot Creamery and Wachusett Brewing — pay Vanguard to take their food waste or pay a hauling company, which gives Vanguard a tipping fee. The company is completing a sixth in Vermont that will pipe gas to Middlebury College’s power plant as part of the school’s transi- tion to renewable energy. For Peter Melnik, who runs the 100-year-old Bar-Way Farm in Deerfield, Mass., partnering with Vanguard was another way to diversify, something struggling dairy farms need. He said he fig- ures the heat, fertilizer and energy savings are $75,000 to $100,000 annually. The odor reduction, he said, makes Bar-Way a better neighbor. “The dairy economy is never great,” Melnik said recently during a phone interview while plow- ing hay on his tractor. “I knew that to survive we needed to create different income streams. I was always taught to use the assets that you have available to you. The manure just seems to be one that was going unused. It just makes sense.” While the Vanguard farms in New England combine manure and food waste, the projects with Dominion will use only manure. For the Dominion projects, clus- ters of four to eight dairy farms will each have a digester that pipes methane to a second facility where it is processed before enter- ing commercial pipelines. Van- guard earns money by selling ei- ther electricity or renewable natural gas. Down on the farm, the process begins by collecting manure. Methods differ, but often it’s washed from the paddock, the milking parlor or the feed lane into a trough and fed into a rub- ber-bladder-topped digester. There, microbes eat the organic matter, producing methane, carbon dioxide and small amounts of ammonia. The gases are piped out. On Jordan’s farm, the gases go to a generator that produces electricity. Jordan, who has an inter- est in Vanguard thanks to the merger, says electricity not used by the farm is sold directly to two area businesses, Polar Beverages and Wachusett Brewing. Jordan said heat and hot water from the biodigester save him about $35,000 annually. He also gets 14 million gallons of liquid fertilizer annually that he applies to his fields, a savings of about $100,000. And he uses the solid byproduct for animal bedding, an estimated $20,000 savings. Jordan sees biodigesting as a partnership marrying one product line — milk — with another product line — manure. He keeps the cows healthy. A healthy cow produces milk for the market, but also manure for the digester. Van- guard makes sure the other living organism on his farm, the digester, stays healthy. “Do I have to help repair a pump one day when it’s broken? You bet,” he said. “But I’m not nursing that thing and changing its diaper and making it go every day.” One feeds the other. One needs the other. “Life has changed. Life is difficult. Life is better,” he said. “And I’m still here, probably because of the digester.” [email protected]

 M ore at washingtonpost.com/ climate-solutions

ucts of the process, including heat
for their property, livestock bed-
ding and fertilizer.
Jordan’s local battle to reduce
his rising electricity costs has be-
come part of the global battle
against a warming planet.
In the past two decades, there
has been a slow, steady rise in the
transformation of farm and food
waste to energy, but the process
remains a rarity.
According to the Environmen-
tal Protection Agency, biodigest-
ers on livestock farms total 255,
up from 24 in 2000, driven by the
market for renewable gas, a desire
by farmers to diversify and federal
tax credits as well as government
subsidies in states such as Califor-
nia, which has awarded nearly
$320 million in grants and match-
ing funds since 2015.
Why the investment? Poop is a
pervasive problem, and a source
of methane, a greenhouse gas
more potent than carbon dioxide.
Trapping methane, processing it
and burning it for energy or sell-
ing it to the electric grid is a way to
remove it from the atmosphere. It
turns manure — a 1,400-pound
dairy cow produces nearly 54,000
pounds of it annually — into
m oney.
Still, manure is a comparatively
modest source of methane from
cows. While agriculture — live-
stock and crop production — ac-
counts for 10 percent of green-
house gas emissions in the United
States, just 12 percent of that frac-
tion comes from manure, accord-
ing to the EPA. Cows burp up
95 percent of the methane they
create, little puffs of pollution
during digestion in its four stom-
achs, far more than comes out the
other end.
Dominion, with 7.5 million cus-
tomers in 18 states, partnered ear-
lier with Smithfield Foods on a
$500 million deal to build biodi-
gesters on hog farms in five states,
including North Carolina and Vir-
ginia. One of the hog farms is
operating. None of the dairy farm
projects, expected to be complet-
ed over five years, is in operation.
“These partnerships with
Smithfield Foods and with Van-
guard Renewables are great ex-
amples of how we can create new
sustainable business models
around greenhouse gas reduc-
tion,” said Ryan Childress, Do-
minion’s director of gas business
development. “They’re economi-
cal, they’re market-driven and
they’re scalable.”
Unlike energy from wind and
solar, gas from manure is avail-
able 24 hours a day, Childress
said. Dominion estimates the
dairy farm projects will produce 1
billion cubic feet of natural gas
annually, a comparative eyedrop-
per in the U.S. market, which used
more than 31 trillion cubic feet
last year. It’s more expensive than
other methods. The typical cost to
construct a biodigester and the
accompanying facility to clean the
natural gas for a farm with 5,000
cows is about $15 million, said
Kevin Chase, co-founder and chief
investment officer of Vanguard.
But processing methane from
farms into natural gas helps re-
duce the carbon footprint for
companies such as Dominion,
which has pledged to reach net
zero emissions from methane and
carbon dioxide by 2050.

MANURE FROM E1

Burning

methane

for profit

and ecology

PHOTOS BY ADAM GLANZMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

TOP CLOCKWISE: Farmer Peter Melnik in the corral at the Bar-Way Farm in Deerfield, Mass. Farmer Randy Jordan first sought a way to turn manure into natural gas over a decade ago as a way to reduce his electric bill. Technician David Sandstrom of Vanguard Renewables works with Frank Lopez of Chase/Harris Septic to pump waste into the biodigester at Jordan Dairy Farms. Melnik, who runs Bar-Way, says of the biodigester program: “I was always taught to use the assets that you have available to you. The manure just seems to be one that was going unused.”

The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-28)

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