Ryan Chen, FCLC 2024

MAJOR: Environmental Studies

BIO:

PROJECT TITLE: Nature-alization’ of NYC: The Environmental Practice of Chinese Health and Philosophy

MENTOR: Yiju Huang, 

ABSTRACT: Can we really save the world with trees, solar panels, and ‘net zero’ sustainable business? These are the mainstream solutions proposed by powerful actors–however these are largely false ‘Natural’ solutions that embrace greenwashing and ignore environmental justice. The rhetoric of ‘Natural’ has led to the violation of indigenous sovereignty and urban green gentrification in the name of ‘Conservation’ and carbon offsets. This paper explores the impacts of false nature based climate solutions and analyzes the sociological, historical, and political context of why these false solutions are pioneering the mainstream narrative of climate solutions. We'll attempt to understand what ‘nature’ truly means, what are its roots, what are the consequences, and how we find it in urban environments. Through interviews and public observations in Flushing, Queens I learned how the Chinese diaspora naturalizes the city through the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and how they can serve as a model to create the political and cultural will to change in light of the climate crisis. I use ethnography to reinterpret what nature means and how it is practiced in TCM. I'll discuss the theory of TCM and its history with the Black Panthers, the Cultural Revolution, and with immigrants in the United States. These examples aid to create the political justification for the potentiality of TCM as a means to shift our collective paradigm surrounding the practice of nature and climate solutions.