The Dartmouth 1/9/18

VOL. CLXXIV NO.156

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Endowment tax could cost the College $5 million

PARTLY CLOUDY HIGH 32 LOW 7

By ALEX FREDMAN

The Dartmouth Staff

HANNAH MCGRATH/THE DARTMOUTH

Newly passed federal legislation could impose a 1.4 percent endowment excise tax.

With the passage of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the end of last year, many of the law’s provisions — including cuts to the corporate and individual income tax rates ­— have garnered significant attention due to the intense political fighting and maneuvering that occurred as the bill

moved through Congress.

Among the new law’s lesser-known provisions is a new tax that will directly affect Dartmouth and its long-term financial outlook.

Section 13701 of the bill creates a 1.4 percent excise tax on the realized gains of investments of private universities that have at SEE ENDOWMENT PAGE 2

OPINION

SZUHAJ: THE IMPENDING DISASTER PAGE 4

Public policy students take winterim trip to Liberia

By MARIA HARRAST The Dartmouth

TRUONG: LETTER TO TRAVELERS PAGE 4

ARTS

FILM REVIEW: ‘MOLLY’S GAME’ PAGE 7

TV REVIEW: ‘THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL’ PAGE 7

ROOMFUL OF TEETH PERFORMS TONIGHT PAGE 8

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TWITTER @thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2018 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.

Over winter interim, 12 Dartmouth students traveled to Monrovia, Liberia, where they witnessed a historic Supreme Court ruling that preceded a runoff presidential election, marking Liberia’s first democratic, peaceful handover of power since 1944.

“The election was actually supposed to be finished by

the time we got to Liberia, but it was contested, so it ended up going through the Supreme Court. This is the first time this has happened in Liberian history,” Hannah Pruitt ’19 said. “We got to sit in on that Supreme Court hearing, and it was very cool to see real democracy taking place in Liberia and the Liberian people engaging with democracy for the first time.”

The runoff election

advanced between celebrity soccer player George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change Party and then-Vice President Joseph Boakai of the Unity Party. On Dec. 26, Weah won 61.5 percent of the votes and succeeded Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as president of Liberia.

Dartmouth students traveled to Monrovia as part of the off-campus, experiential SEE LIBERIA PAGE 2

COURTESY OF CHARLES WHEELAN

The PBPL 85 students met with Liberian graduate students.

Thayer team develops Q&A with Dickey innovative bike brake Center associate director Melody Burkins

By ABBY MIHALY The Dartmouth

While bike riding is a quintessential part of childhood, it can often result in accidents and injury. But what if there was a way to protect children from breakneck speeds?

That was the idea behind “SpeedBreak,” an automatic brake invented by six members of the fall section of Engineering

Sciences 21, “An Introduction to Engineering,” which provides students with hands-on experience in innovative engineering. The team — comprised of Stephen Crowe ’20, Natalie Garcia ’20, Paula Lenart ’20, Julia Marcotte ’20, Alexandra Stasior ’20 and Cameron Strong ’20 — created a bike emergency brake which uses centrifugal force to cap the SEE BRAKE PAGE 3

By AUTUMN DINH The Dartmouth

Melody Burkins A&S’95 A&S’98, an environmental studies professor and associate director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, has a rich background in the intersection between science and policy. She is passionate about applying

science to solve global challenges and investing in the education of future generations to raise awareness of the importance of civil engagement and environmental sustainability. She has experience working in academia and government and has worked toward the attainment of the United Nations’

SEE Q&A PAGE 3

PAGE 2

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

College could be taxed 1.4 percent Students witness historic Liberian election ruling [and] flatter,” Wagner said. estate planning.

With proponents of the new law Another aspect of the new least 500 students and that own arguing that its tax cut provisions law that Wagner marked as investments totaling more than will spur increased economic potentially concerning is the fact $500,000 per student. g rowth and therefore better that the excise tax will not affect A f f e c t i n g a b o u t 30 oth er market conditions, Wagner said all of Dartmouth’s peer institutions colleges and universities, such as that if Dartmouth’s endowment equally. Since the tax only applies Harvard University, this provision returns remain high in coming to universities with investments will most likely apply to Dartmouth years, the effects t o t a l i n g and could cost the College about of the excise tax “There are a lot more than $5 million a year in new taxes, will be less severe. $500,000 per according to chief financial officer Fo r t h e 2 0 1 7 of parts of the student, peer Mike Wagner. fiscal year, the regulations that still institutions Wagner said that since the College reported like Cornell have to be worked regulations from the law have an all-time high University not been finalized, there is still 1 4 . 6 p e r c e n t out in terms of how and Brown uncertainty about how much of retur n from its that calculation University with Dartmouth’s investment portfolio e n d o w m e n t larger student of endowment to will be subject to the excise tax. investments. populations but “There are a lot of parts of “ I f r e t u r n s student is going to be s i m i l a r- s i ze d the regulations that still have to c o n t i n u e t o ndowments done, and then what ewill be worked out in terms of how g o r e a l l y w e l l be exempt, that calculation of endowment to a n d a b ove o u r income is going to according to student is going to be done, and assumptions, the be taxed versus not the Concord then what income is going to be 1.4 percent tax will Monitor. taxed versus not taxed,” Wagner not be particularly taxed.”

said. meaningful,” Wag n er s aid The main source of uncertainty Wagner said, but that as a result, -MIKE WAGNER, CHIEF currently is whether the new a d d e d t h a t i f schools like provision will apply to all of returns flatten out FINANCIAL OFFICER Dartmouth an institution’s investments or or decrease, paying that must just gains from its endowment, an additional tax comply with the Wagner said. He noted that would make things new tax may be while Dartmouth’s endowment worse. disadvantaged currently sits at around $5 billion, O t h e r as they compete the College also controls about $1 provisions from with peer billion in additional investments the new law could institutions for that are not considered part of h a v e a m o r e students and the endowment. indirect effect faculty.

Wagner said that the estimated on the College.

While $5 million in new taxes, which Notably, the law raises the standard proponents of the law could argue D a r t m o u t h ’s f i n a n c i a l s t a f f tax deduction for married couples that the new excise tax was created calculated based on previous and doubles exemptions on the to offset revenue losses from the years’ investments, should not have estate tax, which could potentially provisions that cut taxes in other a major immediate impact on the disincentivize individuals from areas, Sacerdote wrote that the College’s spending distribution of donating money to nonprofits. potential revenue gains will be the endowment.

Economics professor Bruce minimal. “ W h e n y o u d e d u c t $ 5 Sacerdote wrote in an email “The tax only raises $1.8 billion million [from] the $5 billion of s t at e m e n t t h at w h i l e h e i s over 10 years,” Sacerdote wrote. endowment, that doesn’t have a concerned about the potential “It’s peanuts. It would have been really big impact in year one,” of decreased charitable giving, far better to have had a smaller Wagner explained. “So that’s why the effect on Dartmouth may be reduction in taxes for pass-through we talk about [the tax] having a minimal. corporations that make $1 million long-term impact as opposed to a “Fortunately the biggest donors or more. This tax is not an effective short-term one.” will still have a strong incentive way to raise revenue.”

Either way, Wagner added, the to give since these donors will College executive vice president new tax should not affect the $100 still itemize,” Sacerdote wrote. Rick Mills agreed that the new million that Dartmouth spends “However, Dartmouth is about excise tax seems unnecessary if each year on financial aid nor broad participation not just additional economic growth is should it necessitate an immediate dollars. Time will tell how much assumed from the other tax cuts. change in asset allocation or this tax change impacts giving.”

“In the context of the full United investment strategy. However, Likewise, Wagner said that it States federal government, this tax in the long run, the potential is too early to tell whether the isn’t generating a ton of revenue investment gains that could be increased deductions and estate to help pay for this new tax bill,” accrued from the lost tax dollars tax exemption will affect the Mills said. “It feels a little bit more could cost the College hundreds propensity of Dartmouth’s donor like a popular political statement of millions of dollars from the base to give to the College, but about wealthy institutions.” endowment after 20 or 30 years. he added that people who give For now, however, Mills said that “What [the new tax] will do at a high level are likely to do so the law should not fundamentally is make our assumptions about because of their passion for the af fect Dartmouth’s financial growth in resources grow slower institution rather than for tax or outlook, at least in the short run.

“It doesn’t immediately change what Dartmouth does or is — we CORRECTIONS can cope with it,” Mills said. “But it We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, has changed what the environment please email editor@thedartmouth.com. for Dartmouth feels like in the longer term.”

FROM ENDOWMENT PAGE 1

FROM LIBERIA PAGE 1

learning portion of Public Policy 85, “Global Policy Leadership.”

The course began in the fall, and economics professor and creator of the course Charles Wheelan ’88 said students prepared in the classroom by intensively reading up on and discussing Liberia’s history.

T h e c o u r s e ’s c u l m i n at i n g project then calls on the students to collaborate and create a list of policy recommendations to improve the state of Liberia.

“The goal in this class was to study economic development in a post-conf lict state and come up with a list of policy recommendations for the next Liberian administration that would hypothetically put them on a path to economic development,” Pruitt said. “The unique aspect is doing this in a resource-constrained country and thinking about how to allocate these limited resources most effectively.”

Wheelan developed this course in 2012 with support from the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy. Each year, the template for the course remains the same, but the location for the off-campus experience differs. Some of the course’s previous destinations and their goals include India, to create a memo for the next government during the eve of the nation’s elections, or the Middle East, to discuss recommendations for U.S. involvement in the peace process, Wheelan said.

Despite previous travel experiences, Wheelan believes that Liberia provided an especially unique experience.

“The country was decimated by a decade and a half of civil war,” Wheelan said. “There is no infrastructure to speak of. Even in a place like India, which has a reputation for poverty, compared to Liberia, India seems like Switzerland. Having said that, there was a lot of optimism. Liberia has turned a corner — this election was really a big deal — and that was quite heartening.”

To h e l p a i d L i b e r i a ’ s development, Pruitt said that the students’ top policies focused on increasing infrastructure, such as getting the electricity grid running, and developing working road networks. Additionally, students focused on increasing human capacity and creating educational and vocational training.

Connie Lee ’18 said that she developed a policy involving the integ ration of collective collateral in financing agricultural

production.

“One big problem right now is that it’s very hard to start businesses or to produce agriculture very successfully because people can’t get loans from banks to get equipment or financing they might need, so my suggestion was to allow communities to provide collateral together,” Lee said. “If somebody doesn’t pay back their loans, the whole community makes them accountable, rather than that person just defaulting on the loan.”

Lee believes this system can be incorporated into the communitybased social structure of Liberia, while also providing more financing and bolstering business.

Throughout the trip, students met with influential figures who could give different impressions of what the government must accomplish to set the country on a positive development path, Wheelan said.

Students met with people such as the Liberian Minister of Education and Commissioner General of the Revenue Authority as well as members from the National Public Health Institute of Liberia and various non-governmental organizations, according to Pruitt and Lee. Lee’s favorite person she met with during the trip was one of the deputy director generals of the NPHIL, Mosoka Fallah, who was recognized as one of the TIME People of the Year in 2014 for his response to the Ebola epidemic.

“Dr. Fallah is a very welleducated doctor and coordinated the system that incorporated a lot of western aid,” Lee said. “He responded to Ebola by setting up these isolation facilities and coming up with a nation-wide education and response system to keep Ebola from spreading. The combination of getting to meet someone who was so accomplished and had so much of an impact on a country made our meeting with him particularly enjoyable.”

After extensive meetings and collaboration, the students drafted a roughly 70-page memo for the next Liberian government. Lee, Pruitt and Wheelan agree that the course allows students the unique opportunity to take a hands-on approach to public policy.

“The reason this program is so valuable is that you can study developmental economics and you can look at the models, but when you actually find yourself on the ground in a place like Liberia, it brings some of those things to life,” Wheelan said. “It really does bring the challenges into stark contrast in a way that is quite constructive.”

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

Q&A with Melody Burkins FROM Q&A PAGE 1

Sustainable Development Goals in both fields. She was also the chair of the first majority-female U.S. delegation to the International Geological Council in South Africa in 2016. She earned both her M.S. and Ph.D at the college studying the antarctic ecosystem.

How did you first become interested in international studies?

MB: I grew up in France and have toured Europe a little bit in the past.

When I went to graduate school, I was drawn to opportunities to go and work in other places to learn about them. I’ve never studied international studies specifically — my focus is on science but part of my wanting to study science was to travel. As I got to a senior level of my career in science, people would consult me because of my policy background to work on international issues of science and policy.

Do you have a field that you’re most interested in?

MB: What I’m most interested in is the intersection between science and policy. When I was just doing science, I’d be fascinated by a glaciologist and a geologist coming together and talking rather than people in just one discipline.

When I moved from science to policy and went to Washington, it was fascinating to me to see how science worked in policy and how governance is how all those interests come together. I just love the idea of seeing that whole picture through policy. However, I’m most drawn to the environment — it’s my history, my scientific background. I’m drawn to how that is displayed in issues of governance. Generally, it’s how science, evidence, governance and people work together to create a better world. I believe that science applies to global challenges, and when you apply evidence, you can make the world a better place for everyone.

Have you ever found it difficult to move among disciplines of study?

MB: I think it’s important to me to focus on the science first. My Ph.D. gave me credibility and showed that I could study something in depth and follow through. I have advice for students who want to do a lot of things: Make sure you have a grounding, something you care about. It doesn’t have to be a Ph.D., but something that can say, “I completed it, I have a degree in it and I know how to do work.” You have to prove yourself to a certain level and then you start to think about where you want to apply that.

Why did you choose to focus on earth and ecosystem studies of the Antarctic Dry Valleys in your doctoral studies?

MB: Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted first to be a doctor, and then everyone was being a doctor, so I wanted to be a geologist as I loved the outdoors.

I came to Dartmouth to become a geologist and study mining. I still love crystals and mines and wood deposits. Then I felt like I was limited, and I wanted to do other things as well so I debated leaving and doing something else.

Professor Ross Virginia, back when I was a student in the 1990s, would just take students to Antarctica, so since I’d always loved traveling I just told myself that I could do a Ph.D. in Antarctica. I joined his team, finished a Ph.D. in environmental studies and fell in love with Antarctica. Part of my passion was because I’d always loved the outdoors, soil, mining, climate changes, so I was thinking about how can we be more sustainable with mining. Environmental studies is a major that lets you explore a lot of different ideas and sometimes travel to very interesting places and meet interesting people with different perspectives.

What do you think about Americans’ current reactions to climate change?

MB: It’s part of why I teach. I think that what people believe is informed by a lot of the data and people they’re exposed to, so I can’t make someone believe that climate change is real, but I can teach them the facts that I believe in and ask them to push back and argue for their perspective. When you start looking at the credible facts from the good resources and good scientists, a lot of people come to a conclusion that something is happening. I feel we need to do more of that and we need to do that in a way that not only scientists are involved but also the people outside of science. It’s hard, but that’s why we need to do all we can and we must start at the local level.

Could you talk about your work to advance the progress on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals?

MB: This is about policy and diplomacy informed by science.

The SDGs are interesting teaching tools: They’re happening in science, they’re happening in international relations, they’re about security and governance. The SDGs is the system that moves the world forward, and what you do is work out measurements to work toward these goals. My interest in sustainable goals is the same as my

interest in good things — maybe you don’t have to believe in it, but it’d be nice to see people getting together and say it’s good to have resilience to poverty, it’s good to have clean water. I think what the SDGs do is open up a ground for people to work together toward these goals. I also ask students to question if the SDGs are feasible because I think it’s important for everyone to not just believe what they hear but also you have to feel comfortable about what the information means.

How feasible do you think these goals are?

MB: Organizations are putting funding, resources and people toward specific goals like clean water, and they’re all connected to a larger global group. The important thing is that you have to start locally.

People are thinking about them and implementing them in their own way. If it’s too specific, it’s not going to work with every community.

I’m not sure that the SDGs are going to work — I just like the idea that global leaders come together and actually ask communities to give them their top priorities, and they synthesize these priorities into these 17 goals, and now we’re thinking how we’re going to move these forward in the next 20 or 30 years. There are not many things that are better than that right now.

Can you tell me about your experience working as chair of the first majority-female U.S. delegation to the International Geological Council in South Africa?

MB: Never had a woman chaired a delegation to my knowledge, so I told myself that I should say something about that. I also recognized that there had never been more than one or two women in a delegation, even though there are many powerful women in geological sciences, so again it was an opportunity for me to build the delegation. At the event, people didn’t entertain some really hard questions about issues concerning underrepresentation and voices. I felt that the language wasn’t proper, so I voiced my idea. The first reaction I got was, “You don’t understand.

Wait four years, and maybe we can change that.” I looked back at my group of women, and they were all horrified. I felt so powerful with the support of this group of women that I felt really comfortable to stand up and talk about what I care for. It’s important to talk about underrepresented groups. This committee that I just stepped off of is still a majority-women delegation.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

PAGE 3

Students develop emergency bike brake

solve through engineering, Lenart said. The groups then spent time observing people in order to identify maximum speed of a bicycle. “[We] did a little bit of research needs, which lead to their innovative and realized how many accidents projects. happen because children just can’t “When you’re specifically looking control their bicycles,” Lenart for a sign of struggle, you realize how said. “Small children cannot use a often throughout the day there are hand brake because they are not as little things that set people back,” coordinated as adults, so we tried to Garcia added. come up with a solution which does While brainstorming, Marcotte not require too much expertise for said the professors taught the groups to examine ideas through matrices children” she added.

The brake involved a stationary that weighed different variables ring attached to a bike frame, which like morality, feasibility, legality and safety. Students has T-shaped brake aim to develop these pads attached to ideas over the course its springs. As the “The idea for a of the term. wheel spins faster, centrifugal brake Many students the springs allow the expressed hopes to pads to touch the is not new, but no continue their work ring. The resultant one applied it to beyond the class. friction then slows bicycles before.”

“What we have the wheel. [at the end of the The team won 10 weeks] is really the Jackson Prize -PAULA LENART ’20 proof of concept,” for its invention, an Marcotte said. award given at the If the g roup end of the course were to develop their for the best overall conce pt outside performance of the class, the and functionality members agreed of prototype that they would inventions. need to change the Fo l l o w i n g i t s success, the SpeedBreak team product, specifically the materials filed a patent for their invention used. with support from Dartmouth Data obtained through user Entrepreneurial Network director surveys showed that consumers were willing to pay around $50 Jamie Coughlin.

“The idea for a centrifugal brake for the brake, which cost around is not new, but no one applied it to $100 to make. Price was not bicycles before,” Lenart explained. originally a barrier because during The only safety breaking systems the course, Thayer machine shop that exist in the current market instructors provided necessary require either the rider to control materials without disclosing the the brake or parents to remotely do prices, Garcia said.

In addition to bringing down so, she added.

Marcotte said that when their production costs, the group aims to product testing on Tuck Drive was improve the ease of installment and successful, it was one of the most speed, which could be adjusted through the ring size and strength of the spring. exciting moments of her life.

A board of six engineering “It [currently] works at eight [miles professors and Thayer School of per hour], which is not exactly the best Engineering experts chose the for the age group,” Lenart said. “We winner based on a set of six criteria want it to be 15 mph.” including design, functionality Garcia also said that in addition and sophistication. Past winning to helping pay patent charges, DEN inventions have included IceTrax, offered to fund at least part of the which added wheel covers for project should the group choose to wheelchairs to ease usage in ice and continue its work. Members hope to a pneumatic fire hydrant cover that receive funding from Thayer as well.

In addition to their product, the clears snow from fire hydrants.

“This class is really about the students are leaving the class with a engineering process and how to clearer conviction of what it means turn an idea into something that to be an engineer. can actually be made,” said Ulrike “I think that it really reassured Wegst, an engineering professor who me that engineering is what I want,” has been teaching the class since Marcotte said. “Because up until this point I’d taken the physics, I’d taken 2013.

Prior to the project, the class the math, I’d taken ENGS 20, but was divided into groups, and each I hadn’t had hands-on engineering group identified a problem or experience, so I was really just need that they would then work to thinking about it as a hypothetical.”

FROM BRAKE PAGE 1

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

PAGE 4

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST VALERIE TRUONG ’21

STAFF COLUMNIST BEN SZUHAJ ’19

Letter to Travelers

The Impending Disaster

Tourists, rather than locals, need to be responsible for their actions.

I hope you enjoyed your winter break.

Perhaps you traveled somewhere: to another country for a few weeks or another state to visit family and friends. Or maybe you visited a more local attraction, like I did. My family and I endured a two-hour car ride to Joshua Tree National Park, a desert named after the shaggy, Dr. Seuss-esque trees dotting the otherwise barren landscape. At one particular sight, Skull Rock, we clambered up the boulders to join the equally eager throngs of visitors who, like us, hoped for a picture with the rock resembling a human skull. Near me, a middle-aged woman, clutching her phone camera, prepared to take photos of her husband and pre-teen son who were standing a few boulders away. She audaciously hollered across the way at the pair, instructing them to stand up straight, shuffle a bit to the left and smile, alternating between Mandarin and Cantonese. This exercise continued for several more minutes until the woman was satisfied with the photos she had taken.

Even if tourists are not as blatantly discourteous as the woman at Skull Rock was, they are still often unintentionally disruptive to the local environment. The issue lies in their view of themselves as customers. Because visitors are paying for these unique experiences — in my case, a $25 admission fee — they feel entitled to act as they please. Even if there is no cost for admission to an attraction, visitors have still invested resources into getting to their destination, like time and gas money.

It is our responsibility as tourists to keep our behavior in check; we cannot always rely on locals or an attraction’s employees to rein us in. At natural habitats or sanctuaries, it is particularly difficult for supervisory forces to regulate each tourist. In order to respect the environment, culture and customs of the places we visit, we must be observant of how locals behave and exercise common sense. If we have questions, we ought to ask them and research our destinations before arriving. We should also be present — if we have made the effort to travel somewhere, we should perhaps avoid experiencing our trip

entirely through a camera lens. Finally, we ought to leave a place exactly as we found it. Being a tourist is an immense privilege: We are guests in someone else’s home, and we must be cognizant of that.

It sounds simple, but this is easier said than done. I used to assume that the government, local citizens, tour guides and others in the tourism industry would spoon-feed tourists pertinent information and police their actions to ensure the preservation of their homes. Though laws and advice may have influence, officials cannot reasonably account for every visitor at every location. Tourists hold the most power because they possess capital.

As consumers, they ultimately influence decisions made regarding the places they visit. As a result, locals are driven to catering to tourists because they need to make a living.

I spoke with my friend, Caroline Atwood ’21, about her experience living in a town seasonally inundated with tourists. She is from Fort Myers Beach, a seven-mile-long island off the southwest coast of Florida.

About 10,000 people live on the island, but Atwood estimates that the number doubles during the winter season when “snowbirds” — people who normally live in the cold northern states — flock south for the winter.

Each year, more than 1.8 million people visit Fort Myers Beach, which has led to a significant surge in hotels, restaurants, bars and other attractions. The perpetual construction on a tiny island with only one principal two-lane road means that it can take Atwood up to two hours to drive off the island. While tourism is vital to the town’s economy because many of its residents work in the service industry, the influx of buildings has raised property taxes to the extent that long-time residents have had to move off the island, no longer able to afford living on the beach. Ignorant beachgoers discard plastic straws on the sand after finishing their drinks, leaving behind scraps to be ingested by seagulls and other wildlife.

SEE TRUONG PAGE 6

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ISSUE NEWS LAYOUT: Autumn Dinh SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.

There’s a climate disaster looming, and almost no one is talking about it.

With record lows in Hanover this week and snow as far south as Florida, it isn’t difficult to imagine that somebody, somewhere, is citing the abnormally frosty weather as evidence to deny climate change. We all know the argument: Snow means Earth isn’t getting warmer; it’s getting colder. Of course, weather is different from climate. The fact that one can easily observe weather, along with all its natural fluctuations, but not climate is one reason among many that explain why it can be so difficult to convince climate change deniers of our planet’s impending environmental decline.

Even if you did manage to get administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt, a vocal climate change denier, to sit down and look at the data, and even if he did accept the validity of the scientific method and all its rigorous processes of unbiased falsification, I doubt he would change his tune. That is because even though the evidence seems airtight, people like Pruitt, who received $215,574 in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry between 2010 and 2014 when he ran to be Oklahoma’s attorney general, either benefit from turning a blind eye to climate change or seem to believe that a warming Earth, insofar as it is only bad for coral reefs and polar bears, is not troublesome.

The area of our planet most in need of targeted aid to reverse man-made pollution is an area often not thought of as part of Earth at all: low Earth orbit. LEO is defined as the area of orbit around the Earth with an altitude of 1,200 miles or less. That may sound vast, but the Earth’s diameter is 7,900 miles. This space is where the majority of humanity’s nearly 2,000 operational satellites orbit. LEO is also where most of our space junk collects before falling out of orbit and burning up in the atmosphere, a natural process much like the decomposition of food in our landfills that takes a fixed amount of time; in this case, often a few decades or even a century. The problem is that LEO is becoming increasing cluttered, both with active satellites whose orbits we can track and adjust and with space junk, including an estimated 100 million pieces of shrapnel, whose locations are becoming increasingly difficult to track. Every so often, one of these rogue objects will collide with a satellite or some other object, smashing it into thousands of small pieces that add ammo to the cosmic shooting range within which we are becoming increasingly trapped.

It is becoming difficult to send objects into LEO with confidence that they will not be ripped apart by invisible ultra-high speed shrapnel.

Scientists have a name for the scenario unfolding in our skies: the Kessler Syndrome. At some point, the number of objects in LEO will reach a saturation that will trigger collisions that occur with exponentially increasing frequency. We will then have to wait an indeterminate amount of time — a few years to a couple decades — for the natural cleaning process of orbital decay, when an object slows enough to fall out of orbit, to take effect. Only then will we be able to relaunch objects into space.

Meanwhile, the effects would be devastating.

We would have no wireless phone, global position systems or internet. The modern

economy as we know it would grind to a halt.

Many businesses would likely fail. There would be massive unemployment, a scramble for resources and growing resentment between nations as governments blame one another for allowing the most significant human-made environmental disaster and technological setback in history to unfold. In this heated nationalistic landscape, wars would likely break out. These would not necessarily be wars in which the United States, technologically declawed without GPS or internet, would hold the upper hand.

I explore this all-too-likely scenario not for shock-value but to underscore the graveness of the fact that we cannot afford to neglect, mistreat or exploit our planet any longer. Even if you are someone who thinks that increasingly violent storms, prolonged drought, crop failure, rising seas and an irreversible loss of biodiversity are not issues worth your or your government’s time, the sustainable use of LEO is. If the Kessler Syndrome is allowed to develop unchecked, we will lose our satellites. In this scenario, there are no alternative facts. There is only the all-toofamiliar disregard for the limits of our planet to deal with our garbage.

I am not saying that we should not launch satellites into orbit. The mindset that the natural world is a landscape for humanity to explore and utilize has led to many significant discoveries and improvements in the quality of human life. But all too often, in the pursuit of the unknown or of profit, we exploit the Earth beyond what it can support. The pollution of LEO is deeply ironic: We have frequently thought of space as the “final frontier,” representative of humanity’s capacity for wonder. Now, our irresponsible pursuit of the unknown threatens to keep us locked on Earth for the foreseeable future.

The internationally agreed upon laws that govern the use of outer space do not go far enough to incentivize a conservation of space or deter an exploitation of it. According to the 1972 Liability Convention, nations are only liable for damage caused by their space debris if they act negligently in their space activities.

Essentially, the law accepts that the production of space debris by “normal” modes of space exploration is unavoidable. Additionally, no law exists to address issues of salvage in outer space, so it is illegal for one nation to remove another nation’s space garbage. Thankfully, a number of companies and governmental agencies are already working on ways to remove space debris from orbit. While these ideas are promising, the laws governing the use of space must be updated if a coordinated international effort is fully to take flight.

Our handling of this problem will be a turning point in human history. Cleaning up space — and preventing a scenario in which we pollute our way into a celestial cage — could lead to a more cohesive humanity. If any meaningful action is to be taken, we must change the way we think about our planet: Not as an indestructible provider or absorber who can give and take as much as we want, but as a fragile, beautifully fined-tune home that can help us build and experience incredible things so long as we treat it with respect.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

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DARTMOUTHEVENTS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

MEANWHILE ON CHANNEL 6 …

CAROLINE COOK ’21

TODAY

4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Lecture: “How Concentration Camps Entered the World and Never Left,” with journalist Andrea Pitzer, Carpenter Hall 013

4:45 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.

Discussion with artist-in-residence Judy Glantzman, Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center

7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Concert: Roomful of Teeth, a Grammy Award-winning octet, Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts

TOMORROW

4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Lecture: “Free Speech on College Campuses,” with Columbia University School of Journalism professor Jelani Cobb, Haldeman 41 (Kreindler Conference Hall)

5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Lecture: “Of Trees and Life: Contemplating the Art of Jennifer Steinkamp,” with Hood Museum of Art director John Stomberg, Top of the Hop, Hopkins Center for the Arts

5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Cuban Modern Dance Master Class with the Malpaso Dance Company, Straus Dance Studio, Berry Sport Center

Truong: Respectful Tourism FROM TRUONG PAGE 4

Visitors renting a beach house may leave their lights on at night, driving just-hatched sea turtles away from the ocean.

Atwood noted that boards at beach access points warn the public not to remove sand dollars and other beach flora and fauna.

Laws prohibiting lights during turtle season and restaurants and hotels from using plastic straws have been enacted but are difficult to enforce. Ultimately, it is up to individual tourists to preserve the beauty of the beach.

When I asked her about the

changes to Fort Myers Beach she had noticed over the years, Atwood reminisced on the loss of cohesiveness in her community, recalling smaller, older houses with retired couples and local workers with whom she had personal interactions.

“I knew and I babysat everybody’s kids on the island,” Atwood said, “everybody knew everybody’s business.”

With real estate becoming more expensive, many of the families Atwood knew have moved off the island.

Those from wealthier backgrounds have taken their

place, building bigger mansions on the beach and lacking the same emotional attachment or care for the community as those before them, opted instead to bulldoze and replace much of what Atwood knew as her childhood home.

I am not advocating for the halting or even reduction of travel.

I believe traveling, when done tastefully and from a culturally relativistic point of view, can give you new insights and perspectives of our world. However, I urge you to be aware of your surroundings and try to minimize disruptions to the local environment and its people.

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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

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Review: Sorkin’s directorial turn captivates, lacks substance

By SEBASTIAN WURZRAINER The Dartmouth Staff

For some writers, dialogue is lyrical. For others, it is realistic, capturing the rambling cadence of everyday speech. And for still others, it is purely utilitarian: Characters must speak, so they do.

But for Aaron Sorkin, dialogue is the beating heart and soul of the enterprise of writing.

Well, perhaps that’s not quite fair. Sorkin well knows that witty dialogue alone does not a compelling story make. Rather, he revels in clever characters compelled to say clever things. There’s something almost amusing about the fact that so many of the films he has written are based on true stories.

The real-life counterparts would be lucky to sound half as intelligent and well-spoken as Sorkin writes his characters.

In his newest film, “Molly’s Game,” Sorkin is behind the camera as well as the script. As far as directorial debuts go, the film isn’t half bad. It’s not great — many have already assessed that Sorkin is a better writer than director — but it’s a captivating two-and-a-half-hour thrill ride that plays like a more tame and conscientious version of

“The Wolf of Wall Street.”

When a freak accident ends the competitive skiing career of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), she moves to Los Angeles and more or less stumbles into a room filled with movie stars, renowned athletes and business moguls, all there to play high stakes poker. Bloom recognizes the potential and begins to run her own games. But her rise as the “poker princess” is rapidly followed by her decline when she transforms her legal enterprise into an illegal one. Rather like Sorkin’s “The Social Network,” the film uses a subsequent court case against the FBI to frame the main story, jumping back and forth through time to detail her poker days, the trial proceedings and an altogether useless subplot about her childhood dominated by an overbearing father.

Unlike “The Social Network,” though, the frame story in “Molly’s Game” isn’t nearly as impactful as it wants to be. It doesn’t lead to anything particularly satisfying, and it is really an excuse for Sorkin to use narration to cram in every iota of Bloom’s backstory that he can fit. Sorkin writes beautifully, and the same holds true for his narration, but he frequently violates the “show don’t tell” maxim of screenwriting,

speeding through countless details conveniently explained away with voice-over. A different storytelling tactic might have forced Sorkin to write a tighter and more economical film, cutting out these unnecessary moments. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Sorkin’s struggle in adapting a memoir, a genre that tends to meander through looselyrelated anecdotes. However, about 20 minutes should be shaved off this film’s run-time.

In all fairness, the frame story does provide one bright spot: Idris Elba as Bloom’s attorney, Charlie Jaffey. Watching Elba and Chastain verbally spar is a delight. Like caged animals, they circle each other with burning intensity, exchanging quips instead of bites. As these scenes play out, one can practically hear their names being announced for Oscar consideration. Chastain is especially good — like Mark Zuckerberg from “The Social Network,” Bloom is a closed book, unwilling to open up around others. Unlike Zuckerberg, Bloom doesn’t really have an endearing Eduardo Saverin-type character to work off. Chastain thus has to manage a tricky balancing act between sympathetic and aloof. She makes it look easy.

Moreover, when “Molly’s Game”

is detailing the protagonist’s time in the world of poker, it’s genuinely fun. Poker may be the conduit for the film’s plot, but even someone as poker-illiterate as I am can appreciate the stakes in these scenes.

We realize that it’s not at all about the cards — it’s about the hubris of the players. In fact, the narration works best not when it’s trying to cover vast swaths of Bloom’s life but when it’s detailing the minutiae of the poker schemes. Although the film, like its protagonist, refrains from naming names, the fact that the players are supposedly movie stars, athletes and mobsters makes the game all the more intriguing.

That said, the one piece of questionable casting is Michael Cera as Player X, a famous actor whose skill at poker is initially the real magnet for celebrities who attend Bloom’s games. From what I understand, X is based on the likes of Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, and I can completely understand why none of them would want to play the part — X is cast in an unsavory light. Regardless, Cera just isn’t convincing as a swaggering movie star on the same level as the aforementioned. He’s Paulie Bleeker from “Juno” — nerdy and

socially awkward and not the sort of person who would draw a crowd to a poker game.

In his review, film critic Peter Travers identified the main theme as “the tribulations of being a woman in a man’s world.” Indeed, the film regularly, and admirably, touches on issues of gender and sexism, often implicitly, occasionally explicitly.

Yet, there’s scarcely a woman in the film who is not framed by the camera like a supermodel in a commercial.

As admirable as Sorkin’s intent may be, the mixed messages he’s sending make the gender politics a touch unfulfilling.

Indeed, the film as a whole feels a little unfulfilling. One is left with the question: “So what?” Love it or hate it, “The Social Network” at least has a point beyond learning about the creation of Facebook.

It explores the contradictions and ironies in that act of creation — how a website designed for social interaction was initially fueled by toxic, misogynist and anti-social behavior. “Molly’s Game” touches on themes related to power, gender and identity, but none of them really stick. It’s more fun to watch than it is to think about. Once it’s over, you try to close your hand around it but find that it’s just air.

Review: Brosnahan dazzles as “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

By HALEY GORDON

The Dartmouth Senior Staff

Watching the opening scene from the new Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” I knew immediately that the titular character would get cheated on. A woman does not happily bounce through her daily, homemaking chores that seamlessly in the first few minutes of a feature without foreshadowing the demise of that perfect, happy routine by the end of said feature.

I find myself bored and irritated by the introduction of the morally bankrupt cheating male partner as the sole conflict as an everpresent trope in contemporary content that dares to offer a female protagonist. However, I also believe in completely viewing a pilot episode before writing off a series. If that principled, holier-than-thou approach weren’t enough to keep me watching, the series is also produced and written

by David Palladino and Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator of the series “Gilmore Girls,” a personal obsession.

The series is set in the 1950s, and Mrs. Miriam “Midge” Maisel is the quintessential upper-class, white housewife. She thanklessly

and enthusiastically supports her husband’s passion for comedy, using her charms and famed brisket to get him prime performance slots and keeping a journal full of joke ideas, audience reactions and notes on the sets. Naturally, she goes to bed in full makeup and hair, only to sneak out after her husband falls asleep to do her skin and beauty routine.

She then wakes up minutes before he does to reapply makeup, do her hair and freshen her perfume before slipping back under her covers, him none the wiser. Her routine is so manicured and obsessive it makes the viewer want to laugh, until of course one steps back to analyze why a woman might be driven to measure and record the widths of her body from ankles to breasts every single day.

Of course, these tactics cannot keep a man from straying, and so after a particularly terrible set at an open mic night — all “borrowed” material — Mr. Maisel admits that he has had an affair with his secretary. Midge is left alone for the first time in her adulthood and must face her new identity apart from her husband. In this emotional turmoil, she discovers a talent and passion for comedy.

T he Sher man-Palladino trademark wit and rapid-fire

exchanges play especially well between burgeoning comic Maisel — a beautifully cast Rachel Brosnahan — and her aspiring manager, played deftly by Alex Borstein, who manages to complicate and humanize a character that could have fallen into a stereotypical “butch” archetype. Contrasted with the clunky conversations impeded

by Mr. Maisel in earlier scenes, the audience is unapologetically signaled about which relationship will drive this series forward.

No smoke and screens are deployed either with regard to the characters populating Midge’s obstacle universe. For example, the husband-stealing secretary is dull, dim-witted and disarmed from challenging Midge with an unflattering comparison with her virtual complete silence. Luckily, these narratives established in the pilot episode seem to complicate in following episodes, perhaps relaxing and evolving alongside Midge’s mindset.

Emmy Award-winning costume designer Donna Zakowska has styled a range of periods, most notably revolutionary as in HBO’s “John Adams” and AMC’s “TURN: Washington’s Spies.” The upscale, luxurious, girly pieces that fill Midge’s wardrobe might appear

to be simple looks to maintain, but Zakowska shows off her skill and attention to detail in each of the protagonist’s complex, perfectly accessorized looks. Each look emits the aura of an impossibly soughtafter vintage find, yet no wear and tear betrays aging. It becomes challenging while watching the show to determine whether Midge’s costumes inform her character or vice versa. And actually, irrelevant.

A common — and deserved — criticism of the “Gilmore Girls” series is the lack of diversity in casting and conflicts that reek of white and economic privilege. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” focuses on the newly separated Midge and her close-knit Jewish family.

She comes from a very wealthy background, and while the status of her relationship might get her a shunning from certain members of her high society gym class, she is not in danger.

However, as the series gets running, Midge runs into several people of color, like one of her friends at her new makeup counter job and several jazz musicians at a club. As for the cultural politics of the period, Midge admits ignorance, and that’s a start. Only time will tell if her circle will expand and diversify, and one hopes that it

will.

That hope brings me to another.

I hope that the higher-ups at Amazon decide to give this show a chance to morph and develop its identity. Just as Midge begins in flux, finding her footing, so does this series. Amazon recently canceled its original series, “Good Girls Revolt,” which had a similar theme of brave women challenging a male-dominated industry and likely a similar target demographic.

Overall, I enjoyed following around the effusive Midge and rooted for her success. Brosnahan’s comedic timing is impeccable, and it carries into scenes not as in-yourface funny as those in which Midge grabs a microphone.

I believe that this creative team has the potential and skill to marry the simplistic, satisfying storylines that deal with Midge’s irascible humor and talent alongside the historical and political context of a time in American history that is oft warmly misremembered. They should have time to execute that vision, which will require of their scripts a challenging balance to maintain. Then, if Midge turns out to be a marvelously familiar white feminist protagonist of the Taylor Swift variety, we can all agree that we gave her a fair shot.

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018

Roomful of Teeth to premiere new work at tonight’s concert

By SAVANNAH MILLER The Dartmouth

Today, Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth will bring its unique sound to the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Founded in 2009, Roomful of Teeth is a group of eight singers who explore a variety of vocal techniques in their pieces, including Persian classical singing, Tuvan throat singing and yodeling.

Margaret Lawrence, director of programming at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, has been following the group for several years and is especially excited for them to visit and perform on campus. “[Members of Roomful of Teeth have] been on the scene, really making a splash and really demonstrating that they are unlike any other vocal ensemble I’ve ever heard,” Lawrence said. “They only perform contemporary music, and much of that music is written for them and the reason for that is that they deliberately push themselves outside of the box vocally.”

In addition to its inimitability, Lawrence cited the Upper Valley’s love for music and voice as part of why she thought it particularly important the group visit the College.

“Another reason to bring them for us has to do with the really rich atmosphere that’s already here in the

Upper Valley and definitely on the Dartmouth campus for vocal music,” Lawrence said.

What makes this visit by Roomful of Teeth especially relevant to the College is the concert’s inclusion of a composition by one of Dartmouth’s own professors. Richard Beaudoin is a music history and theory professor on campus, and his work “Superstition” will be performed by the ensemble during the concert.

When sketching “Superstition,” Beaudoin was inspired by a poem of the same name published in 1919 by Amy Lowell, a poet who would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for her work in 1926.

“I was reading [Lowell’s] poetry, which is very varied, and when I got to that one I just stopped and thought, ‘That would be an extraordinary thing to sing,’” Beaudoin said.

The poem is nine lines about the narrator’s decision to fly a kite above the heads of everyday passersby: I have painted a picture of a ghost Upon my kite, And hung it on a tree.

Later, when I loose the string And let it fly, The people will cower And hide their heads, For fear of the God Swimming in the clouds.

After reading the poem, Beaudoin

COURTESY OF TIGRAN HAMASYAN

Tigran Hamasyan will be a featured pianist in the concert, performing beside the ensemble Roomful of Teeth.

said he found the simplicity and message of the piece intriguing and inspiring.

“This is how we become afraid of things,” Beaudoin said. “People fly these icons above our heads ... Sometimes you have to ask what’s behind them.”

The collaboration between Roomful of Teeth and Beaudoin is nothing new.

COURTESY OF BONICA AYALA

Roomful of Teeth will perform at Spaulding Auditorium in the Hopkins Center for the Arts tonight at 7 p.m.

In December 2016, the ensemble performed Beaudoin’s composition “Another woman of another kind” in New York City. Several months after the performance, the ensemble invited Beaudoin to visit the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, where the group was in-residence and workshopping various pieces.

Beaudoin brought his early sketches of “Superstition” with him on his visit, he said.

“I brought them the piece, and they sang it right on the spot,” Beaudoin said.

Artistic director and group member Brad Wells said that the ensemble was eager to work with Beaudoin again after performing his work in New York. “[Beaudoin] is a brilliant thinker and composer as well as a good friend,” Wells wrote in an email statement. “We love performing his music.”

Another aspect of this performance thatmakestheconcertsuchanimportant event is the premiere of “Ser Aravote,” a composition by renowned pianist Tigran Hamasyan commissioned by Dartmouth and Carnegie Hall. While the two institutions commissioned the piece together, the ensemble is visiting Dartmouth to perform it first.

Hamasyan will also be in attendance at the concert and play the piano for the piece.

“We’re immensely grateful that Dartmouth is co-commissioning Tigran’s piece,” Wells wrote. “[Hamasyan] will join us on his piece — we can’t wait.”

In addition to “Superstition” and “Ser Aravote,” Roomful of Teeth will be performing pieces by trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and tUnE-yArDs creator Merrill Garbus, as well as its classic piece “Partita for 8 Voices,” a composition written by group member Caroline Shaw that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2013.

Roomful of Teeth will be joined by the Dartmouth College Glee Club on the composition by Garbus titled “Quizassa.” Lawrence considers this one of the many highlights of the performance.

“It’s really rhythmic and hardy and robust and fun,” Lawrence said. “It’ll be a great way to close the evening.”

Members and others involved with the performance believe is the New Hampshire and Dartmouth debut could be both impactful and fascinating for students to experience.

“The group is unlike any other vocal ensemble [audiences will] see,” Wells wrote. “We have a crazy wide range of sounds — colors, techniques, vocal gestures — that result in music that’s surprisingly emotionally charged.”

Beaudoin emphasized the beauty of the human voice as an instrument and noted Roomful of Teeth’s experience as a group and role in moving the vocal art form forward as reasons to attend the show.

“There will be a time in music history in America where it will be [referred to as] the time when Roomful of Teeth was around,” Beaudoin said.