Environmental and Sustainability Studies

Review required classes, electives, and career outlook for this emphasis within the Environmental and Sustainability Studies major.

Lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing how our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profits ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Reveals surprising - and often shocking truths - about what we eat, how it's produced and who we have become as a nation.

Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney are ecological activists who met at Yale and learned that their great-grandfathers were from the same small town, Greene, Iowa. Their existential shock at learning that their " ... generation was at risk of having a shorter life span than our parents, and it was because of what we ate" prompts a return to their ancestral home to spend a year planting and harvesting an acre of corn. In the course of playing their part in the corn industry, they learn about government subsidies, ammonia fertilizer, massively increased yields, and how the system favors mass production over small family farms. There is also the ubiquity of corn in food, from corn-fed beef to high-fructose syrup that sweetens sodas and other products.