Headwaters Magazine - Spring 2018

HEADWATERs The University of Vermont’s Student-Run Environmental Publication

The Environmental Justice Issue

Spring 2018

BIOTECH BODY

Your back is fitted with solar panels to fuel your needs.

Your skin is riddled with chlorophyll for photosynthesis.

Your stomach is infused with algae that can digest anything: paper, plastic, food, metals.

Imagining a body that could mitigate climate change.

By Claire Dumont

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Your lungs breathe CO2 instead of oyxgen.

Headwaters Magazine

Your muscles and bones are mechanically reinforced for endurance.

“So that’s why the Air “From January 2015 on, “For the sake of climate Force – well, I think they Flint residents protest- justice, and to ensure a are scared of me – be- ed as government bod- future for human civilicause they trained me.” ies dismissed their class zation, we must immedi“The mission of the action lawsuit against ately halt the extraction Guard is to protect the local and state officials and burning of Canadipeople of Vermont. Why as “baseless” and their an tar sands.” shouldn’t that be the concerns as “hysteria.” “The tracks indicated mission of this aircraft?” “Sometimes social me- the pattern of a “bound“By artificially expand- dia can help people “feel er,” its hind paws landing the gene pool from like they can make a dif- ing directly in the imwhich modified crops ference in what are really pressions of its front can draw by opening up complex problems, even ones. A quick measureFeatures the species boundary, though it’s Examining quite social limited ment of the tracks reDrive-By Advocacy media dimension of activthe technology provides what that can do.”

“In vealed that they were

by Julia Bailey-Wells, Page 8 ism using the Flint water crisis and DAPL. more potential for the searching for the threat about 5.5cm by 5.5cm.” development ofIn Defense traits to Necessity mudpuppy popula“Being A look at how radical environmental action retired and freed of (Climate) that increase crop adaptit is cantempting to from those obligations, be defensible in court.

by Hannah Chodosh,tions, Page 11 ability, production, and point to the notorious there is nothing more the movement to keep From Convent to Colonel Activist Profiling a leader inyou nutritional value”” important than insuring sea tolamprey--and F-35far fighter jet out of Burlington.

by McKennawe Murray,would Page 25 “But the changes a habitable planet for all not thebe off.” need are going to take “The time has come to our children.” massive institutional re- put a halt to lampricide “Some OGI companies forms, not individual ac- treatments until it can use advertisements in tion. They’re gonna take be shown that there is which sponsored recContent a sea shift of attitudes no effect on the listed reationists “test” the and behaviors. Strangers “Your company’s gear, often in Lakespecies Champlain we are Whatcharged is the F-35?

University isn’t teaching “Deforestaby Emmett Gartner,to Pageprotect.”

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by Rob Persons, Page 28 in exotic, barely accessiyou to change systems,” tion is not only decimat- ble, depopulated landMassof Extinction Ecuador’s Ecological said Erickson, “and that ingConundrum the habitats thou- scapes, to demonstrate by Lauren Page 29 the empowering qualiby Caelyn Radziunas, Page 6 means it’s become dan- sands of species, butKing,also gerous and irrelevant.” ties of their products.” preventing forests from GMOs and the Organic Farmer Op-Ed: Not Like Our Elders ““The extremes byofEmilyour mitigating theby Halsey effects of 30 “The military has its own Millar, Page 16 Payne, Page political views have climate change. “ language, and I know the From Academia to Action First Impressions made us forget that nasystem...I had an advanby Katie Shewfelt, Page 32

by Meghan Murphy, Page 18 ture is a great unifier.” tage that a civilian might “For example, Consume urban not have,” she added.”

If You Give a Girl a Lobster & Dominate youth will learnby about

by Sara Klimek, Page 35 “21st century environIan Lund, Page 20 nature through the immentalists need to be Poetry Op-Ed: At Odds With Nature ages they see on snapmore than actors: they by Joscie Norris, Page 23 by Colby Bosley-Smith, Page 37 chat, and climate change should be scriptwriters, deniers will learn about “Despite a court order architects, directors, climate change through to pay for $9.5 billion carpenters. “ Fox News broadcasts.” worth of damage, Chev- “Vladimir Jankovic “I think the Mistress ron, which assumes all suggests the OGI may of Novices was fearful I responsibility for Texa- be sparking “a new outwould influence some of co’s mess, has refused to door adventurism… the other girls. I began take action, and has in- [driven by] scientifically to question things, and stead pointed all blame constructed immunity nuns don’t like that,” toward the state oil com- to both environmental “...their exposure to the pany.” risk and personal disnoise could impair de- “Whatever it is, you comfort.” velopment and have a commit a crime. You had “The first step in work-

Dear Reader, Welcome to the Environmental Justice Issue of Headwaters Magazine. Our mission at Headwaters has always been to provide informed, critical commentary on the environmental issues of the day. We chose environmental justice as a theme to call attention to social equity as we ponder what it means to be an environmentalist: What is the nexus between individual agency and our collective human impact?

How can we use our voice, bodies, and energy to make the world a better place?

We approach what climate change scholars call “the Bottleneck,” where scarce habitat and resources will limit the survival of all inhabitants of the Earth. It is more important than ever that we take stock of where people are thriving or suffering.

As resources are depleted we have to make drastic cuts to society, at a time where people are already underprivileged. We have to be conscious of how our actions have ripple effects.

We publish at a time when people ration their clean water, petrochemical extraction ravages communities from Ecuador to North Dakota, and climate change still seeks a fair trial.

In these pages, you will hear stories about a few of the ethical, physical, and biological battles taking place on our common soil. You will meet people that put their health, reputations, and freedom on the line to stand up for causes they believe in. You will be introduced to activists--good and bad, human and nonhuman--and the radical, legal, and ecological systems working in the background. You will experience touching moments of intimacy with nature and total apathy toward both human and animal life.

Headwaters are the small sources from which rivers originate. With hopes that our ideas may flow into greater bodies of knowledge, we have chosen to put our pens to paper.

Thank you for taking the time to read our words.

Our magazine is made possible by the generous support of many people, including but not limited to UVM’s Environmental Program, the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, our advisor Josh Brown, the Student Government Association at UVM, the Clean Energy Fund, the Headwaters Business Team, and the students who spent hours writing, editing, and designing these pages.

Love,

Masthead C0-Presidents Ian Lund Paige Greenfield Managing Designer Connor Brustofski Operations Manager Rob Persons Managing Editors Gillian Natanagara Caelyn Radziunas Jessica Savage Nathaniel Sharp Adam Wechsler Julia Bailey-Wells Maya Bostwick Business Associates Rebecca Goldstein Benjamin Greenberg Grace Mungenast Social Media Managers Phoebe Walker Ellie Blake Page Designers Katelyn Lipton Taylor Ehwa Gretchen Saveson All images (unless otherwise noted) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Paige Greenfield and Ian Lund, University of Vermont ‘18 Co-Presidents of Headwaters Magazine

Cover Photo: US Gov’t agencies occupy sacred burial ground know as Turtle Island on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Photo by Alana Redden Submit your ideas!

Contact us at uvmheadwaters@gmail.com Copyright © 2018 Headwaters Magazine Find us @UVMHeadwaters on Twitter/Instagram UVMHeadwaters.org Please recycle this magazine!

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Strangers in Lake Champlain L

urking beneath Lake Champlain’s murky waters is a formidable predator with the capability of decimating entire populations of native fish. Victim to victim, the serpent-like beast wreaks havoc on the ecosystem and ashore, causing an estimated $29.4 million dollars in economic damages to businesses and residents of the Lake Champlain basin. A description of a predator as daunting as this might easily lead to grandiose speculation. Could this be what has been summoned to bring about the alarming death of mudpuppies? Could it be Champ, the fabled Lake Champlain monster, killing prey to fulfill its mammoth diet? According to many area biologists, the answer to both of these questions is quite resounding… no. Considering that the prey of this effective predator is not swallowed whole, but left scarred and afloat, it is doubtful that their demise comes from a fall into Champ’s gullet, and, more notably, because Champ is merely fictional. Furthermore, their scars are not found on the dead mudpuppies that have recently been surfacing. Instead of finding the hitman, we have found the contractor: Petromyzon marinus, commonly known as the sea lamprey.

Natural selection is becoming increasingly artificial, calling into question the Darwinian principle. Often when one species of flora or fauna brings about the demise of another, there are ecological factors at play. The impact could be due to direct interactions, such as when predator kills prey. It could also be through

BY EMMETT GARTNER

indirect interactions, like competition over habitat or food that can cause losers to perish and victors to live to see another day. Either way, there is commonly a recognizable relation in the natural environment that brings about the decline of the predator or the prey. In Lake Champlain, we are witnessing a phenomenon that supersedes both of these conditions.

Die-offs of the common mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus), an aquatic species of salamander native to the Lake Champlain basin’s rivers and creeks, have been occurring at alarming rates in concentrated areas recently. These bottom dwellers are not the most charismatic of species the basin has to offer. They are only distinguishable from underwater debris by their unique ruby-colored external gills, small eyes, and four tiny feet, but what they lack in appearance they make up for in ecosystem services, acting as vital predators to aquatic invertebrates and small fish. Their overall population decline led to their designation as a “species of greatest conservation need” in Vermont and puts them at “high risk,” per the Vermont Natural Heritage Inventory, but did not earn them a spot on the federal Endangered Species List. In searching for the threat to mudpuppy populations, it is tempting to point to the notorious sea lamprey—and you would not be far off. However, in a Hitchcock-esque fashion, the lamprey conjures the outside help of mankind to bring about the die-offs.

Peaking at a length of approximately 24 inches, sea lamprey are speculated to be native to Lake Champlain, but thanks to in-

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creased food availability from modern fish stocking, their populations have skyrocketed. Adult sea lamprey penetrate the flesh of native fish species in a parasitic manner, latching on with their serrated, disk-like mouths and extracting bodily fluids, resulting in the hosts’ death 40 to 60 percent of the time. Their ability to kill over 40 pounds of fish in their lifetime has warranted the collaboration of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in implementing population control efforts, initiating a long-term program in 2002.

The favored method of extermination? Chemicals. TFM (3-trifluoromethyl-4’-nitrophenol) and Bayluscide (2’, 5-dichloro-4’-nitrosalicylanilide), to be exact. And at last, we have found the mudpuppies’ assassin.

Lampricides, as these two chemicals are known, are not limited to harming their namesake.

By overrunning the basin and prompting human intervention, sea lamprey are inadvertently bringing about the death of species they have no relation to. Every four years (a time period that coincides with lamprey transformation from larva to predatorial adults) lampricides are utilized across New York and Vermont in concentrated sections of rivers to attack immature sea lamprey in their spawning grounds. Compilations of lamprey population statistics thereby allow biologists to propose a population control method for the lamprey-infested portions of rivers, with options ranging from physical methods like stream barriers and traps to chemical solutions, like TFM. Once these strategies have been proposed, permits are filed and approved or denied by regulatory agencies. Amongst these proposals are Environmental Assessments (EA) and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) that determine the benefits and consequences of the proposed treatments, including the effects on non-target species. These scientific publications pay specific attention to the threatened and endangered species granted legal protection in Vermont, however, leaving a species of special concern like the mudpuppy unmentioned on most lamprey control expansion proposals that come out on this four year interval.

The EIS, titled “A Long Term Program of Sea Lamprey Control in Lake Champlain,” indicates a thorough study of mudpuppies in relation to lampricides, but lacks tangible concern. Other non-target species that have failed to receive state or federal protection also fade into the background of the program’s mission. Instead of intense regulation on lampricide use where these non-target species’ habitats overlap with sea lamprey that a protected species would receive, the equivalent of an honor-

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able mention is offered under the “Unavoidable Adverse Impacts” section of the statement. This sections states: “Stream lampricide treatments may also cause generally minor levels of mortality to frog tadpoles, mudpuppies and salamanders,” ultimately favoring the lampricide option over more non-lethal and less effective physical methods.

Biological population assessments done in tandem with lampricide treatments reveal that these mortality levels can be far from minor. The most substantial TFM related die-off of mudpuppies occurred just under a decade ago in the Lamoile River, a quick thirty minute drive north of Burlington on I-89. During this 2009 treatment, a total of 512 mudpuppies perished alongside the targeted sea lamprey, intensifying scrutiny from members of the Vermont Endangered Species committee. In response to these alarming population impacts, biologists on the committee, including Vice Chairman Dr. Bill Barnard, vocalized concern in a 2012 report to the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, asserting that “The time has come to put a halt to lampricide treatments until it can be shown that there is no effect on the listed species we are charged to protect.”

So where does this leave us? Coming this fall, the Champlain basin can expect to see two more names on the list of TFM treated tributaries, Little Chazy River and Red Brook, and once again, we can only sit back and observe which deaths of non-target species expand with it. Conservation organizations justify the widespread die-off of mudpuppies by pointing to the payoff of exterminating sea lampreys, but are putting the existence of non-target species, like mudpuppies, on the line. Instead of any concrete resolution, we are left with an ethical question: do we prioritize the lives of native mudpuppies, or death of overpopulated sea lamprey? At the very least, a louder voice of support could be raised for species that do not have tangible economic value to Vermonters. It is obvious that game fish have enough support on their own, or else this extensive program to exterminate sea lamprey would not exist in the first place, why not give equivalent support to an integral cog in the Lake Champlain ecosystem? Humanity has offered an extension of concern to non-target species before, as the start of the modern environmentalist movement coincided with efforts to save victims of another three letter chemical, DDT. While mudpuppies may not have the same allure as bald eagles and other birds susceptible to DDT, they are nevertheless deserving to the same right of life.

Ecuador’s Ecological Conundrum

Photo by Olivia Amerling

T

rekking through the Ecuadorian rainforest, you are first met with sound. You hear the amplified bellows of frogs burrowed under layers of mud and clay, the screams of howler monkeys, an endless song of tropical birds, and the buzzing of a myriad of insects. However, beneath the lovely choruses of jungle fauna, an alien whirring noise manifests itself.

Even atop the tallest kapok tree, the likes of which are capable of reaching impressive heights of nearly 200 feet, the vegetation is so thick that it is nearly impossible to visualize the oil rig producing the artificial whirr. What you cannot see is the flame of burning natural gas as it pierces the blue sky above it. The gas is merely an undesirable byproduct in the small quantities in which it is produced; therefore, it is more cost-effective to simply burn the unwanted fuel, saving storage for the true prize: oil.

Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park is thought to be one of the planet’s most biodiverse locations due to its tropical climate, low elevational range, and large swath of untouched wilderness. Home to several indigenous groups, some of which live in continued isolation, forcibly rejecting outside contact, the park is crucial for the survival of Ecuador’s rich culture and biodiversity.Yasuní, one

BY CAELYN RADZIUNAS

of Ecuador’s greatest treasures, currently faces the threat of annihilation at the hands of its own state. The quest for oil has driven companies to the boundaries of Yasuní, and soon, these entities will gain access to the very heart of the national park.

Drilling began in Ecuador’s Amazon Basin in 1964 by the Texaco Petroleum Company, purchased by the larger Chevron Corporation in 2000. During its years in the rainforest, Texaco initiated one of the greatest environmental disasters imaginable, sparking a decades-long legal battle which is still being fought today between a group of Ecuadorian lawyers and the Chevron company. Texaco is responsible for abandoning hundreds of petroleum waste pits in the Amazon Basin, leaving them completely uncovered, uncontained, and unremediated. Despite a court order to pay for $9.5 billion worth of damage, Chevron, which assumes all responsibility for Texaco’s mess, has refused to take action, and has instead pointed all blame toward the state oil company.

More recently, oil companies in Ecuador have produced the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil block, estimated to contain roughly 1.67 billion barrels of oil. The ITT block falls within the boundaries of the biologically and culturally diverse Yasuní National Park, and threatens the critical habitat of numerous spe-

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cies and the drinking water of indigenous communities within the park.

In 2007, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa announced his support for the Yasuní ITT Initiative, a plan which appeared to aim to protect Ecuador’s national park from oil development. The proposal pledged to, in exchange for international financial compensation of $3.6 billion USD, leave Yasuní’s oil reserves untouched. Regrettably, the Initiative was abandoned in August of 2013, following the failure of the international community to commit.

Today,Yasuní National Park may face its greatest struggle yet.

Petroamazonas, the state oil company of Ecuador, aims to complete construction of the ITT and Block 31 in Yasuní by the year 2022, at which time it projects the production of 700,000 barrels of crude oil daily (for reference, Petroamazonas currently produces 530,000 barrels daily). For a state such as Ecuador, which had a GDP of US $97.8 billion in 2016 and which relies heavily on revenue generated from oil production, increased production would result in an estimated US $2.4 billion greater revenue annually.

For Ecuador, increased oil production appears to be a worthwhile investment. Just this July, Ecuador was forced to retract itself from a deal between Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production companies. This deal sought to reduce global oil production due to recent investment cuts. Since backing out, Ecuador has additionally asked for an exemption from further production cuts. The government argues that low global oil prices have jeopardized the state’s finances, and the OPEC production deal made it difficult to maintain the state’s fiscal well-being.

Petroamazonas itself faces the remainder of an $850 million debt to the US. Although the company has paid off a portion, they still face several hundred million dollars of debt. The solution appears to lie in the greater than 8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves buried beneath Ecuadorian land, much of which remains untouched under Yasuní.

Despite the backlash of numerous national and international organizations, Petroamazonas might argue that it is capable of drilling responsibly. Under the leadership of state oil company manager Álex Galárraga, the company claims to “maintain international certifications,” and evidences 151 environmental safeguards, including smaller platforms, clustered wells, the reuse of gas and water, and the construction of eco-friendly pathways.

Petroamazonas’ efforts have won the company three awards for innovation, social development, and environmental responsibility.

However, their recent strides cloak decades’ worth of environmental damage. From Texaco’s irresponsibility in abandoning hundreds of untreated and uncovered crude waste pits, to Petroamazonas’ own neglect, the self-touted environmental safeguards seem too good to be true.

Petroamazonas was granted the rights to Block 31 in 2009, at which time the company was approved with an Environmental Impact Study and an Environmental License. Five years later, the company was cited for four violations. These infractions center around the creation of a newly constructed roadway into Yasuní and were identified using satellite imagery. One citation found that Petroamazonas had deforested more land than the maximum

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allowed by its logging license. Despite its recent citations, which were not widely publicized, Petroamazonas continues to operate under the narrative of responsible drilling, deflecting ownership of its violations.

Given Ecuador’s history with exploitative oil companies, and Petroamazonas’ tarnished record, one must consider the true validity of this company’s recent environmental stewardship claims.

The violations, in conjunction with previous claims by NGO Amazon Watch of various oil spills, beg the question: Can Yasuní National Park truly be protected while Ecuador’s economy remains dependent on oil?

As it remains a lucrative source of revenue for the Ecuadorian government, the oil industry stands in direct opposition with the conservation of Yasuní. As operations commence in Block 31 and in the ITT block, it is crucial that the international community become vigilant. Yasuní is one of the world’s remaining biodiversity hotspots; yet, its existence is tenuous. Without action, Ecuador’s rainforest, a modern-day chorus of fauna, threatens to be silenced.

Photo by Caelyn Radziunas

Falling short in Flint and Standing Rock.

BY JULIA BAILEY-WELLS that has the privilege not to value their well-being.

These conditions held in both the Flint water crisis and the construction of DAPL; the government perpetrated violence against communities of color by favoring wealth over public health. Racial factors, as well as the news and social media reactions to these battles for the right to clean water led to two different non-local activist responses. In Flint, social media and non-local activist reactions were superficial and fleeting, as onlookers were deterred by the complications of racial politics, and bored by the static state of the crisis. At the DAPL protests, the spectacle of dynamic physical violence led to sustained media attention, which drew many productive activists to the site, but also drew casual observers who were more interested in being part of a cultural moment than respecting indigenous wishes and understanding their contributions to systemic white supremacy.

From January 2015 on, Flint residents protested as government bodies dismissed their class action lawsuit against local and state officials as “baseless” and their concerns as “hysteria.” Residents sought recognition and aid that their government would not provide. The Flint water crisis finally drew national media attention a year later

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n April 2014, Flint, Michigan switched its public water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Flint River, as a cost saving measure authorized by state treasurer Andy Dillon. By January 2015, water from Flint taps flowed brown, filled with sediment. Citizens began speaking up. Responding to complaints, the Environmenal Protection Agency (EPA) tested the Flint water for lead, and found it in concentrations of 104 parts per billion (ppb), nearly seven times the ‘safe’ concentration of 15 ppb.

In July 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers approved plans for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which would travel from North Dakota to Illinois, under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, half a mile north of the Standing Rock Sioux’s reservation. The construction of the pipeline would leave the tribe’s main water source vulnerable to contamination in the event of an oil leak or spill.

Environmental racism refers to the disproportionate harm that communities of color face as a result of human-caused environmental degradation. People of color constitute 58 percent of Flint’s population. 42 percent of the population live below the poverty line. The Standing Rock Sioux are an indigenous people living on territory that the US Government has been shrinking since 1868. While many predominantly white communities have the economic and political power to fight harmful government action, communities of color often lack the means to fight a government

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in January 2016, when President Obama declared a national state of emergency in Flint.

From July 2016, Standing Rock Sioux and thousands of supporters occupied a camp in the path of the proposed DAPL. Indigenous leaders trained incoming supporters to engage in direct action in conformance with the goals of the protest, while recognizing their roles as non-indigenous participants. The protests came into the national consciousness in September 2016, when a video of police dogs attacking demonstrators went viral.

The Reaction On January 16, 2016, coverage of Flint’s water crisis peaked as national media flocked to the city in the wake of President Obama’s declaration of a national state of emergency. Coverage of the crisis spiked from limited local coverage to more than 100 daily stories in national media, and nearly 250 in state and local media. This moment could have been a turning point for the community, but media interest petered out within a matter of weeks.

According to a Flint reporter for Michigan Public Radio, ‘‘when the big lead news came out, the national media invaded the city.

They were here for two days, three days, a week. The governor said, ‘We are going to do something about this.’ And then they’re gone.’’ This is a textbook example of parachute reporting: when journalists with little cultural context and local background drop into a community for a brief media blitz, and then leave. Though parachute reporting is common practice, these journalists often end up exploiting local people in pursuit of what the MPR reporter refers to as “ruin porn.”

Social media response followed the same arc. A Pew Research Center Study tracking ‘#flintwatercrisis’ found that Twitter mentions jumped to 38,000 on January 18th. After that point, they steadily declined, reaching nearly zero by February 15th. For scale, data from Echelon Insights’s annual “Year in News” from 2016 found that tweets about Pokémon GO peaked at six million weekly mentions and remained above one million for two months.

Similarly, tweets about Harambe the gorilla remained steadily around 500,000 weekly mentions for two months.

After news of the violence and drama of the DAPL protests broke, tweets about DAPL peaked at more than four million a week in early December, and interest was sustained from September 2016 through early January. In one notable instance of social media activism, on October 31, more than one million people “checked-in” at Standing Rock Reservation to show solidarity with the protesters. People flooded to the protest camp. At one point, attendance peaked with around 10,000 people occupying the camp.

The Why So, why did Flint’s non-local supporters move on so quickly, and why did the Standing Rock Sioux’s supporters remain? Was initial interest in the Flint water crisis superficial? In 2013, Dr. Kirk Kristofferson, Arizona State University professor and marketing expert, led a study on the role of social media in activism.

His team found that people who showed token support of a cause, like making Facebook posts, or wearing a button, were unlikely to take concrete action beyond their public display because they

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were more interested in appearing engaged than actually engaging in a productive way. This was due to a motive of “impression management,” sculpting one’s public image for social capital. In the case of Flint, perhaps people were posting to maintain personas of activism and advocacy rather than acting on genuine investment in taking action. Once they had voiced their support, most people did not know how to follow up, so they moved on. At Standing Rock, leaders explicitly called for people to show up and lend their bodies to the protest, which provided a more direct path for non-local involvement compared to the need for bureaucratic strategy in Flint. Onlookers grew bored of news of Flint, as they lacked a clear and concrete opportunity for direct action in the face of the crisis. The DAPL protests offered numerous opportunities to engage productively with a definitive purpose, all while serving motives of impression management. By showing up, you could both contribute to the cause and gain the social capital that came with that contribution.

Initial awareness of environmental justice issues is important, but lacks value without sustained follow-up action. University of Vermont’s Dr. Ingrid L. Nelson, Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies, and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies faculty affiliate, notes the importance of “catalytic moments when suddenly there’s a convergence of attention, and what happens after that [to] sustain effective efforts.” Maintaining presence in the press may be part of activist strategy, but it must be accompanied by sustained bureaucratic efforts to solve the given issue. In the case of Flint, President Obama’s declaration of a federal state of emergency drew the nation’s eye. The crisis lent itself to a few dramatic visuals: sinks spitting brown, residents sitting atop mountains of bottled water, children crying as doctors pricked their fingers to test for lead. Yet, after the initial shock, people lost interest; conditions were not changing in a way interesting enough to maintain their attention. The sustained drama at Standing Rock—a dynamic and lengthy battle complete with water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas—kept media attention. Though both the Flint crisis and threats to the Standing Rock Sioux were rooted in racial injustice, the more quiet violence of poisoning, and the banality of follow-up work in Flint lacked the attractive, cinematic quality that kept onlookers interested in the DAPL protests.

Dr. Nelson notes that “a lot of individuals feel very powerless in their ability to effect change.” Sometimes social media can help people “feel like they can make a difference in what are really complex problems, even though it’s quite limited what that can do.”

Flint’s basis in institutional racism may have been a psychological barrier for some white people. According to Dr. Robin DiAngelo, white Americans “live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress,” which “lowers the ability to tolerate racial stress.” She asserts that white people “have not had to build the cognitive or affective skills or develop the stamina that would allow for constructive engagement across racial divides.”

For white folks, digging deeper into the Flint water crisis means confronting oppressive power structures in which they may be complicit. Acknowledging racism and its pervasive presence in non-white lives generates discomfort, which many white people can avoid with relative ease. Dr. Trish O’Kane, University of

Photo by Alana Redden

Vermont Professor of Environmental Studies, echoes this point, noting that “it’s a convenience thing.” The lack of tangible personal consequence for many white people makes institutional racism all too easy to ignore. This provides a possible explanation for the rapid rise and fall of social media discussion of Flint—people may have piped up in order to feel productive in the face of what they saw as a clear injustice, but then backed away, overwhelmed with confronting both individual racial biases and greater structural racism. At the DAPL protests, indigenous organizers trained incoming activists on their personal roles in white supremacist society and their potential role in its deconstruction, as well as on logistical specifics of how to engage in direct action for the cause.

Observers comfortably ignored Flint and the systemic racial violence it demonstrated, while the organization at the DAPL protests forced activists to confront oppressive power structures.

While the Flint crisis seemed insurmountable, Standing Rock protests, at first glance, provided an opportunity to take concrete action: show up and show solidarity. Though the drama of the DAPL protests drew steady attention and some committed supporters, some social media coverage glamorized the struggle as a recreational event. Some white folks began showing up for the ‘cultural experience,’ disregarding how they were perpetuating the very colonial behaviors the Standing Rock Sioux were fighting against. These visitors took space and resources away from those engaged in the fight and drew attention away from the cause.

Some Standing Rock advocates referred to this behavior as the “colonization” of the camp, as many white folks jumped to take a trendy vacation to Standing Rock. UVM senior Alana Redden, who attended the DAPL protests, noted: “There was an assumption of trust that if you showed up you were going to be responsible. Some people honored that and some didn’t.”

According to Dr. Nelson, “You don’t want to impose your

own fantasy of what helping looks like into these far away places.”

Instead, show up, listen, and be ready to answer questions about how you can help. Dr. O’Kane invokes the Spanish term protagonismo, which, in some contexts, refers to the desire to be the center of attention in a given space or issue. “You’re not supposed to stand out,” says O’Kane. Involvement in a social movement is not about being the star. Dr. Nelson notes that non-local supporters “need to be better at asking tough questions about where their skills and capabilities and commitments lie.”

These two cases of environmental injustice present flaws in social media activism. The Flint water crisis demonstrates how quickly media exposure can wane without continued spectacle or specific strategic vision, especially given an undercurrent of racial injustice. The battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline shows the power of a retained spectacle, but also how social media can contribute to unproductive involvement by warping perception of a serious issue into something more superficial. The role of non-local activists is to listen to local organizers and accept given roles.

Often, this involves moving past any visions of personal heroism to focus on, as Dr. Nelson puts it, “boring bureaucratic stuff [that] needs to happen so that the new status quo, the new boring, is more [equitable].” Sometimes non-local activists simply have to stay away “so that [local] folks can re-establish a sense of community.” Still, it would be a loss to dismiss social media as a tool for change. Aside from its capacity for facilitating organization and bringing material relief through fundraising, it can, and does catch our attention. “To stop work as usual is critical,” says Dr. Nelson, “because you don’t want people just going through the motion of their days. That’s another way to ignore whole groups of people, and ignore very serious problems.”

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In Defense of (Climate) Necessity

BY HANNAH CHODOSH

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magine you’re in the car. It’s going way too fast. The brakes aren’t working, and there’s a cliff up ahead. Everyone you love is also in the car.

You’re driving. It’s your foot on the pedal.

You don’t hurt anyone else, but in order to avoid the cliff you damage someone else’s property, or go where you’re not supposed to.

Whatever it is, you commit a crime. You had to; it was your only reasonable course of action to prevent something much worse. And when it is your time in court, those with the weight of judgment in their hands recognize that your actions were borne of necessity and not malintent or recklessness, and determine the consequences of your actions accordingly.

That is the way the necessity defense, very basically, works.

Now imagine that the car is the planet. And everyone in the car is everyone in the world. The cliff is the excess of carbon that is rapidly and dangerously warming our atmosphere, and instead of breaking the speed limit or striking down a mailbox, you shut down a pipeline, briefly preventing a certain amount of carbon in the form of crude oil from reaching its terminus, burning, releasing into the atmosphere and causing more warming. Was your action warranted, because it is the only thing you had left to do?

That is the question of the climate necessity defense and is the one that is playing out right now in the U.S. court system.

The morning of October 11, 2016 is cloudy in Walhalla, North Dakota. It is snowing in Coal Banks Landing, Montana. In Anacortes, Washington, it is warmer, and approaching Leonard, Minnesota, it is cold enough for Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein to wear jackets and gloves in the car. The sky is the dark of

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morning but is quickly turning lighter, into an icy blue. Out of the left side windows are short yellow trees, out of the right is rolling green land.

The road, one lane in each direction, is empty. The car stops in front of a blue metal gate between wood split rail fencing. Klapstein, with gray hair and glasses that reflect the sky outside, speaks from the front seat.

“This is the only way we get their attention. This is the only way we can put a stop to it, by putting our own bodies on the line. All other avenues have been exhausted. For the sake of the children, and the Earth that we love, I’m ready to do this.” Her voice is quiet but clear, as though she is trying not to disturb the dawning morning.

Johnston is in the passenger-side backseat. From the driver’s seat, Ben Joldersma, acting as a support person for the group, asks her how she feels.

“Somber, and worried. But also serene. We know at this point we have to do something, and I think this has a very good chance of being—ah, making an impact, so…we gotta try.” Johnston’s blond hair is pulled back and she gives a tight-lipped smile, crow’s feet forming around her eyes.

Klapstein and Johnston are both being filmed as they speak.

They hope the video (via the Climate Disobedience Center)—of their justification, and of their crime—will be admissible as part of their legal defense, and will give their judge and jury a sense of why they are doing what they are doing.

A few minutes later, Johnston climbs the rungs of the blue gate and opens it on the other side for Klapstein, who is carrying a bolt cutter. They wear neon work vests with red X’s printed over

their backs. Together they walk toward the two safety valves for Enbridge’s tar sands pipelines 4 and 67.

From the road, the valves look like any other piece of vague, medium-sized infrastructure. The station is set back a few yards from the asphalt and surrounded by chain link and barbed wire, standing in dirt and gravel. There are tall metal objects with tubes, two gray metal doors that let into, presumably, two tiny rooms with something in them, and many smaller metal boxes attached to different poles. It is the kind of drive-by item that is usually not more than the sum of its parts, so integrated into the texture of our country that we do not notice them every twenty or thirty miles along our roads, through our fields and in our towns.

There are warning signs—red ones, yellow and black ones—but surprisingly the compound is unguarded. It has to be, because it is one of the manual shutoffs for the oil that flows down from the Canadian tar sands through Regina to the Lake Superior terminus, near Duluth.

Quick access is part of its function. Klapstein and Johnston use the bolt cutters to cut through both chain link fences. There is a wheel inside both compounds that stops the flow of oil through the pipeline, and inside each they cut the chain that prevents the wheel from being turned.

At 8:45 AM Joldersma is outside the gate with two cell phones in hand, reading off of one and speaking to an Enbridge representative into the other. His voice is a controlled bounce; he is aware of the weight of what he reads.

“I’m here with Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein. We’re calling from Leonard, Minnesota. We’re currently at the blocked valve sites for Lines 4 and 67. They’re ten miles southeast from the Clearfoot pumping station. For the sake of climate justice, and to ensure a future for human civilization, we must immediately halt the extraction and burning of Canadian tar sands. For safety, I’m calling to inform you that when I hang up this phone, we are closing the valves. Please shut down these two pipelines, for safety and for our future.”

Fifteen minutes earlier, from miles away, another activist, Jay O’Hara, had made a similar call with the same warning. After the second call, Enbridge remotely shuts off the valve on Line 67.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, they close the valve on Line 4 as well. Klapstein and Johnston fasten the valves in the closed Photo by Steve Liptay

position, and wait for the Clearwater County sheriff to arrest them an hour later.

On the surface, the scene is unchanged, save four broken chains and a small bouquet of flowers tucked into the spokes of each wheel. It is utterly controlled; the mechanical process of the valve closing is the same one that happens when the pipe needs work or inspection or an emergency shutoff. If there is any chaos, it is that there are people here at all; small figures stopped in a roadside no-place where they are not supposed to be. Or it is that inside the pipe, on one side of the valve, where a few minutes ago

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there was oil, is a growing empty space; the oil it held previously flowing out and away toward the Great Lakes refineries with, for a few hours, nothing to replace it.

In North Dakota, Montana, and Washington, three more groups of activists make the same call to oil companies as they manually close the valves on three more pipelines. The total oil flow prevented was equal to 15 percent of the United States’ crude oil imports for almost a day. Reuters would call it “the biggest coordinated move on U.S. energy infrastructure ever undertaken by environmental protestors.” The halted oil flow, particularly from the carbon-rich tar sands of western Canada, is important, but not as important as the precedent the activists hope to set in court.

The activists will ask judges in four states for the right to present their actions as urgent, unavoidable measures to prevent further harm by the burning of the tar sands, one of the world’s dirtiest fossil fuels. And that may not be as important as the movement they hope to ignite, one of people finally taking action proportion-

“And fossil fuel companies are going to burn through it—because it’s still profitable and in a public market they are required to turn that profit.” ate with the crisis at hand.

Klapstein and Johnston, along with the other three “valve-turners,” Michael Foster, Leonard Higgins, and Ken Ward, are not the first to commit nonviolent civil disobedience for an opportunity to argue a climate necessity defense in court. The only successful use of the climate necessity defense to date was in the United Kingdom in 2008 when six Greenpeace activists occupied a smokestack at the Kingsnorth power station in Kent, and were found innocent of any criminal activity. In the United States, the other people and groups that have tried to use the defense have been so far unsuccessful.

One group, the Flood Wall Street 11, as they were called, tried to use the necessity defense after an action in conjunction with the 2015 People’s Climate March in New York City. They were denied the defense and acquitted on other grounds, but one defendant told The New Yorker he was optimistic about the future of the defense: “As the climate crisis unfolds, the logic of what we were arguing, I think, will make more and more sense, and at some point, I think we will see a breakthrough in a courtroom. I can’t say when or where, but I think the long-term arc is moving in that direction.”

And it appears to be. In fall of 2016, around the same time the valve-turners took their actions in the West, waves of protesters disrupted construction of a Spectra Energy-owned pipeline in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. 13 activists were arrested. On March 27, 2018, in what the Climate Disobedience Center says is most likely the first time in the US, they were acquitted on the basis of the climate necessity defense. According to the Climate Defense Center (CDC), “pre-trial discovery revealed that Spectra Energy, the pipeline operator (now owned by Enbridge) had no

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safety plan in the event of an accident.” Given this information and growing lack of public support, the prosecutor lessened the activists’ charges to civil infractions, in what the CDC called “a last minute move to avoid a public referendum on the harms of the pipeline.” However this decision meant the case was decided by a judge, not a jury, and that the activists were denied a court trial.

In the state of Minnesota, where Annette Klapstein and Emily Johnston took their action, the necessity defense requires that the defendant “[1] must show that the harm that would have resulted from obeying the law would have significantly exceeded the harm actually caused by breaking the law, [2] there was no legal alternative to breaking the law, [3] the defendant was in danger of imminent physical harm, and [4] there was a direct causal connection between breaking the law and preventing the harm.”

It is not hard to prove the harm of climate change. Activist and writer Bill McKibben lays it out in three numbers: 2, as in two degrees Celsius, is the amount of warming the planet can sustain before changes to the climate make our planet even more dangerously, and even more irreversibly, unfamiliar. Think of every climate headline that shocks us now—droughts, wildfires, floods, superstorms, mass migrations, and conflict—occurring exponentially more intensely and more often. Then there are the familiar stories like those of sinking island nations and places like Louisiana, which has been claimed by the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of a football field an hour for the last twenty-five years—lost cities of the twenty-first century slipping into the sea for good.

McKibben’s second value is 565—the number of gigatons of carbon we can burn before reaching 2 degrees. The third number is 2,795, the number of gigatons of carbon reserves, in the form of oil and natural gas, that fossil fuel companies and the nations that act like fossil fuel companies have already identified and factored into their valuations. So we have five times more carbon at the ready than we can safely burn. And fossil fuel companies intend to burn through it—because it is still profitable and in a public market they are required to turn that profit. And, of course, because we still depend on fossil fuels.

Those numbers are from 2012. They made a splash, carrying a now classic Rolling Stone article and energizing the fossil fuel divestment movement. A fourth number, 6, representing the years that have elapsed since then, is perhaps the most unsettling. Fossil fuel companies, packing enough carbon to warm the planet by ten degrees, are out looking for more in fracked North American bedrock and in the Arctic and the North Sea, where drilling platforms are built higher and higher to accommodate rising sea levels. Meanwhile, towns, cities, states, and some parts of the private sector are scrambling to keep to the Paris commitments under a belligerent federal government.

The tricky part in establishing a climate necessity defense is proving that the harm from climate change qualifies as an immediate threat, and that the action taken will significantly lessen that threat. Was someone suffering as a result of climate change at the moment the five valves were shut? Yes. But shutting the valves did not change that. Policy experts call climate change a ‘wicked’ problem because it is interdependent, unstable, spiraling and numbingly complex—we know that it is bad and will get worse, but we do not know exactly when, or how, or by how much. In cli-

mate change there is always a crime committed by some unto others, but the perpetrators often do not match up to their victims in space, or time, or specific offense—and it is the same in reverse.

Annette Klapstein is a retired attorney with two grown children. She is in her sixties. She writes of her action: “It is my job as an older person to step up and put my body on the line to protect my children and all children. Being retired and freed from those obligations, there is nothing more important than insuring a habitable planet for all our children.

Our political system has failed to respond to the grave threat of climate change - this is my taking responsibility.

“There was a call for International Days of Prayer and Action with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe this week - this is my prayer and this is my action. My life is only marginally affected by climate change right now, but there are mothers and children around the world in frontline communities - mostly low-income communities of color - who are being drastically affected right now.This is my act of solidarity. “...I have signed hundreds of petitions, testified at dozens of hearings, met with most of my political representatives at every level, to very little avail. I have come to believe that our current economic and political system is a death sentence to life on Earth, and that I must do everything in my power to replace these systems with cooperative, just, equitable and love-centered ways of living together.This is my act of love.”

Emily Johnston has been a poet and a writer for the majority of her career. Climate activism came later, but in force. She is a founder of the climate justice group 350 Seattle.

In her sermon, “Withdrawing Consent from Catastrophe,” delivered at a Unitarian Universalist church in Kirkland, Washington, Johnston spoke about her evolution into activism: “I went on living my life. I was working and writing a novel,

and every now and then my consciousness was punctuated by a scientific dispatch, always couched in uncertainties, from Jim Hansen or another climate scientist, filtered through the daily newspapers. They were increasingly alarmed, so I was too, and heat waves like the one that killed tens of thousands in Europe in 2003 registered as deeply ominous. But I wasn’t a politician or a scientist-not even a nonfiction writer, though I occasionally tried to make sense of my worries that way.What could I do? “…I voted; I signed petitions and gave money when I could; I lived modestly and carefully; I tried to treat everyone well.

Wasn’t it okay to live a normal life?”

Writing about her direct action, Johnston answers her question: “… for years (decades, for some people) we’ve tried the legal, incremental, reasonable methods, and they haven’t been anything like enough; without a radical shift in our relationship to this Earth, all that we love will disappear. My fear of that possibility is far greater than my fear of jail.”

I am twenty. I am more scared of prison than of climate change. I have not nearly exhausted all of my options, though I am starting to realize how few I have left. I wonder about the kind of conviction these people are able to muster. It takes a strong, but morbid faith to arrive at a fast conclusion about value of the sacrifice the valve turners are ready to make, and I do not feel it in myself.

Recently, I sorted through my mail and found a letter from the state of New Jersey telling me I needed to sign up for the jury duty pool. I filled it out in earnest. I felt a dull consolation—yes, I can at least identify what I think is right, but the reach of my faith extends only to being certain I could, if called, confirm the right of other people to do what I think is necessary, but know, for now, I would not do myself. The other, stronger feeling I have when I

Courtesy of Shut it Down Today

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Photo by Steve Liptay

think about the way our legal system is changing, though, is hope.

But like I am watching, the powers that be are watching, too. To the degree it excites me, it scares them; in October of 2017, 84 members of Congress wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking if the Patriot Act, which was passed in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, gives the Department of Justice enough power to “prosecute criminal activity against energy infrastructure.” The petition calls out the valve-turners specifically, asking whether the DOJ “[has] taken any prosecutorial or investigative action against those involved with the highly publicized October 11, 2016, attempted sabotage of four major crude oil pipelines in multiple states.” If not, the congresspeople ask for a reason why.

The list includes two Democrats and nine of the top twenty House representatives who take the most money from the fossil fuel companies, which is still a miniscule proportion of the buying power of one of history’s richest industries.

On June 22, 2016, in coastal Washington, Ken Ward, former Deputy Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, former President of the National Environmental Law Center, and co-founder of U.S. PIRG, Environment America, and the Fund for Public Interest Research, was denied the necessity defense, tried once resulting in a hung jury, and after a retrial was sentenced to one month of community service and six months probation for shutting down Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. Ward and his lawyers from the Climate Defense Project in Berkeley, California, which is involved in all of these valve-turner cases, have filed an appeal to try once more to use a necessity defense.

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In the beige neoclassical courthouse between Dakota and Boundary streets in Cavalier, North Dakota, Michael Foster and support person Sam Jessup (of Winooski, Vermont) were also denied the necessity defense and were convicted. Foster will spend one year in prison and Jessup will spend two on probation for shutting down TransCanada Corporation’s Keystone pipeline, an act that could have carried charges up to twenty-two and eleven years in prison, respectively.

In Fort Benton, Montana, Leonard Higgins was barred from speaking about climate change at all and has been convicted, but will not serve jail time. He also plans to appeal in hope of using the necessity defense. Higgins had faced a maximum of ten years imprisonment for disrupting Spectra Energy’s Express pipeline.

In Bagley, Minnesota, at the Ninth Judicial Court in a county that voted for Donald Trump by a margin of 43 percent, Annette Klapstein, Emily Johnston, Ben Joldersma, and documentarian Steven Liptay learned they would have their cases heard using a full climate necessity defense. 350.org founder and climate activist Bill McKibben would testify, as would world-renowned climate scientist James Hansen. Their trial was set for December 2017— and has been postponed as the prosecution appeals the use of the defense.

In any event, Annette Klapstein and Emily Johnston’s trial will be one of the first of its kind after the precedent set in Massachusetts. In the event that they are granted a full climate necessity defense before their jury, it will be the first of its kind in U.S. history.

GMOs and the Organic Farmer How organic farmers can take advantage of genetic modification.

BY EMILY MILLAR

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Art by Gretchen Saveson

y USDA standards, no food crop can be grown by the organic farmer. Organic certification rules mandate that no genetically engineered crops may be used in organic practices, but humans have been genetically engineering plants since the dawn of agriculture, with crop domestication beginning approximately 10,000 years ago. Through artificial selection by humans, food crops have been altered to reproduce faster, improve their ability to self-fertilize (or breed with themselves), produce larger fruits and seeds, and have a higher yield as compared to their wild relatives. Artificial selection over hundreds of years has resulted in crops that are ideal for agriculture. We consider this conventional plant breeding to be safe, despite the large uncertainty that is introduced by the genetic phenomena of recombination, random assortment, and mutations.

Today, gene-editing technology has streamlined this process of crop modification: “Genetically modified organisms,” or “GMOs,” contain manipulations or insertions of one or a small set of specific genes in the organism’s genome. The technology allows plants-geneticists to identify and isolate useful genes, and link them to the necessary regulatory parts in the target organism.

The genes are replicated many times in order to increase the probability of being taken up, and then all the gene copies are inserted into a plasmid that is transferred into the target organism, which is bred for many generations to see whether or not the gene transplant produces the desired effect. Ultimately, the ‘genetically modified’ organisms only differ by one or a few genes out of the thousands that make up their genome, making ‘genetically micro-edited organisms’ a more accurate term.

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Genetic micro-editing (GME) technology provides an array of possibilities for the organic farmer. By artificially expanding the gene pool from which modified crops can draw by opening up the species boundary, the technology provides more potential for the development of traits that increase crop adaptability, production, and nutritional value. It is important to increase adaptability in the face of global climate change, which reduces crop yields as a result of the increased frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, and high soil salinity. These factors put crops under osmotic stress, decreasing the plant’s uptake of water and nutrients through the overabundance or deficiency of solutes such as salts or sugars. GME can be used to produce crops that can withstand these extreme environmental conditions and use resources more efficiently, without losses of yield or of characteristic flavors, aromas, texture, and appearance.

Another major issue facing agriculture is ‘hidden hunger,’ a deficiency of vitamins and minerals in human diets. GME technology could be used to combat these deficiencies through biofortification, in which crops are engineered to take up more essential minerals, such as the abundant iron in the earth’s crust, and to synthesize vitamins important to human health. For example, scientists have inserted a gene pathway in golden rice that enables it to produce vitamin A using genetic material from other species.

Although the technology is relatively novel, we have already seen the development of wheat with high drought and salt tolerance, canola and soybean with a more nutritionally complete protein content, nitrogen-efficient rice, and low phytic acid (an antinutrient) maize, just to name a few. Thus, GME is a valuable tool for addressing issues of agricultural efficiency and world hunger.

Opponents of GME crops, however, have raised concerns about their safety for people and the environment, as well as the issue of monopolies by biotech giants such as Monsanto. While some argue that there is not enough evidence to show that there is no threat to human health, the scientific consensus from 1,783 studies and 275 independent science organizations is that GME crops are no more dangerous to human health than convention-

ally-bred crops. As for environmental health, concern about cross-pollination of wild relatives with GME crops is valid, but the likelihood of its occurrence is low, as the GME crop and its wild relative must be sufficiently close to another, genetically compatible, and flowering at the same time. Many of today’s crops are now genetically and geographically distant from their wild relatives and their original centers of domestication, and biodiverse farms can limit contact between crops and wild relatives in that area by mixing up what is planted at the farm’s margins. And while the biotechnology corporations Monsanto, DuPont/Pioneer, Syngenta, and Dow Agrosciences do dominate the market for GME crop production and marketing, many of the GME crops that benefit human nutrition or the environment are developed by scientists at universities and non-profit organizations. Golden rice, for example, was developed by two scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, while nitrogen-efficient rice was developed by the Africa Rice Center.

As has been demonstrated, GME technology could increase the production of more resilient, resource-efficient crops while prioritizing the organic values: sustainability, low resource use, ecological balance, and human health. It does not need to displace conventionally bred or heirloom crops, as conventional breeding techniques can be more effective at manipulating highly complex traits, like drought tolerance, while heirlooms provide a great source of genetic diversity, which is important for agro-ecosystem stability. Rather, by including GME crops alongside conventionally bred and heirloom crops in the organic farm model, organic farmers could reduce their need for even organic fertilizers and pesticides while better serving the people they strive to nourish. When the technology has so much potential to benefit undernourished populations and the environment, why wouldn’t we want to give organic farmers the option to sow these new crops in hopes of a more nutritious and sustainable future?

“By artificially expanding the gene pool from which modified crops can draw by opening up the species boundary, the technology provides more potential for the development of traits that increase crop adaptability, production, and nutritional value.”

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS

BY MEGHAN MURPHY

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he forest at Rock Point, Vermont stood tranquil in the crisp air, the cold quiet disrupted only by the steady thrumming of a Hairy Woodpecker and my own crunching footsteps.

Snow had fallen early in the morning, creating the perfect blank canvas for the Saturday morning of my first solo tracking experience. While the serenity of the landscape did not go unnoticed, I mainly kept my eyes down to scan the ground for the signs of an artist leaving its mark on the renewed surface. I did not have to hike for long before I spotted a methodical disruption on the pristine, powdery surface.

I bent down to examine the paired, diagonal tracks, and the presence of five wide toes and faint claw indentations immediately brought to mind a possible member of the weasel family. The tracks indicated the pattern of a “bounder,” its hind paws landing directly in the impressions of its front ones. A quick measurement of the tracks revealed that they were about 5.5 cm by 5.5 cm.

All of this evidence pointed to a fisher, commonly referred to as a “fisher cat.” While I would have been glad to find tracks of any kind, I was considerably charged by this discovery, as there is something fundamentally satisfying about seeing clear evidence of an animal that was once nearly eradicated from most of New England. A fisher’s thick, soft fur, while providing essential insulation against the bitter winter for the animal, also sparked a commercial

desire for these luscious pelts. This led to unregulated trapping, contributing to the near disappearance of the species. I peered at the tracks again and noticed that the snow around the toes and pad of this fellow was slightly scattered, most likely due to the thick fur that once may have spelled doom for the creature.

I began carefully following the trail into the dense woods, considering when the animal may have created it. Fishers are a crepuscular species, meaning they are most active during dawn and dusk, and stoically remain so year-round. Since the fresh blanket of snow fell in the early hours of the morning, this individual was most likely active around dawn. The fisher continued neatly up the hill and proceeded on a fairly consistent path of travel, selecting trails that steered clear of large brush that would be easy for a person to step over or around, but would cost the fisher precious energy to do the same.

These prints eventually blazed a trail to the edge of a steep bank, and the neat path that led purposefully down spoke volumes of the superior agility of this creature, shamefully contrasting the scarring smears of my own clumsy pursuit. The fisher crossed a frozen stream, its elegant trail telling of the grace with which it passed over the precarious surface; these prints left the impression that it may have caught the scent of another animal. Fishers, contrary to what their name implies, do not consume fish. Opportunistic hunters, fishers will take advantage of any potential

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food source, be it rabbits, squirrels, mice, grouse, or carrion, very rarely preying on domestic animals like they are so often accused of doing. Perhaps most notably, fishers specialize in hunting porcupine.Yet, the story printed on the landscape by the individual I was following contained no scene of a successful hunt.

Leading away from the seemingly sporadic overlap of prints, the fisher traced its way to the edge of a sudden drop. Peering over the edge, I found several thick, rolling masses of opaque ice leading to the shoreline below. Determined to pursue my quarry to the shore, I slowly and carefully began to lower myself down the ice. This cautious pursuit abruptly switched to a desperate attempt to slow a graceless plunge. Sitting still for a moment at the bottom of the slope, I turned a baleful eye to the perfect set of imprints laid in the snow without concern. These prints led down what I could now clearly see was a frozen waterfall, and any irritability I was feeling was overcome by instantaneous awe as I took in where the trail had landed me.

The rocks lining the shore were encased in magnificent coats of ice, shaped by the continuous crashing of freezing waves against their surface. Ice shelves extended over the water, the undersides made ragged by frozen droplets. Experiencing this literal winter wonderland was well worth the pride that had been left at the top of the ice fall. Effectively humbled by both the landscape and by

Courtesy of US Fish &Wildlife Service

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the creature that had unknowingly led me into this experience, I slowly followed the remainder of its trail, finally reaching a steep wooded slope where I could pursue it no further. This portion of the fisher’s tale that I was able to read ended, giving way to a new chapter of which it alone knew the details. I remained a guest in its landscape for a while longer before departing back up the way I had come.

I blessed the traction of my boots several times over during that climb, and I was unable to help myself from casting a humbled glance toward the tracks next to me. The imprints of fur and claws suggested the possibility of additional purposes beyond insulation and tree climbing. The roots protruding from the curtain of ice provided a much needed climbing aid, and made my own ascent easier and more efficient. I pulled myself over the top and scrambled gracelessly once more up the steep bank. It was at this moment that I realized I had been so engrossed in the path of the fisher that I had lost the original hiking path all together. I retraced my deep boot prints and the more finely placed prints of the fisher back the way I had come, once more feeling very much like a student of both the animal and the landscape. When I reached the wide hiking trail, I looked back at the fisher’s own trail, the echoes of a small portion of this animal’s life that I was able to experience without ever needing to see the creature in person.

T

he creation of wilderness, literally (in the desup camp, cooking and cleaning, getting dressed, and maintaining ignation of national parks and protected areas) functional social relationships within the expedition group. For and conceptually (as a way of viewing landexample, the climbing magazines surveyed tended to emphasize scapes), is grounded in the ideologies of setmale conquests, self-sufficiency, and demonstrations of physical tler colonialism. New American governments prowess—all attributes of hegemonic masculinity—while disoften forcibly removed indigenous communities from their own missing women to the role of the other by mostly depicting them land in order to establish state and federally protected areas. By as passive onlookers. When magazines did feature women, they literally separating humans from nature, governments manufactended to describe the exceptional nature of women’s participatured an uninhabited, “virgin” landscape. The epistemic result of tion. removing human elements from our default understanding of naEmphasizing cultural narratives of dominance in outdoor recture is that humans may perceive themselves as ‘above’ nature; reation minimizes other important components of the outdoor evolved past nature. It allows us to take an extraction-oriented, experience. For example, it is essential for hiking groups to build utilitarian approach to nature. Nature becomes a space for people resilient social structures to withstand the tensions of backcounto do, take, and acquire things, including experiences. try life. If there is infighting within a group, the hikers’ experiAfter colonization, outdoorsmen like Lewis and Clark, John ences will be measurably less enjoyable than those of hikers in Muir, Thoreau, Daniel Boone, and Teddy Roosevelt used an well-organized and well-bonded group. In crisis and ‘unexplored’ or protected wilderness to teach survival narratives, such as those told in Alive: The white Americans to view wilderness as an Story of the Andes Survivors or The Mountain Beempty proving-ground for white male tween Us (novels about plane crash surviadventurism. They embodied a phivors in remote areas) the extreme exlosophy of environmental conserposure associated with the outdoors vation and staunch individualism brings visibility not only to the that informs modern Americans’ importance of physical endurconceptualizations of the great ance, but also to the relationoutdoors and the social norms ships between the characters within these spaces. Contemthat their environment fosporary outdoor recreationters and challenges. These ists often idealize pristine social developments do not wilderness—absent of any merely drive the narrative, human trace—as nature at they are portrayed as crucial its most authentic. to collective survival.

The Commodification of Wilderness Access Like the college athlete, The gender dynamics at Wall Street banker, and surfer play in the outdoors matter

BY IAN LUND dude, the hiker has a specific because leisure activities are aesthetic and stereotypical idenlearned, socially constructed tity. Today’s “hikers, backpackers, behaviors. The commitment of and the like, are viewed as rugged, time and energy, rewarded by enhealth-conscious individuals with an dorphins and the occasional summit intense, almost reverent bond with nasnapshot, is often integrated into one’s ture,” according to sociologist Derek Martin sense of identity and perhaps one’s personin a 2004 paper on outdoor identities. Places of al bio. In identifying with a specific activity, one outdoor recreation, especially for more extreme activimay also internalize the norms, values, beliefs, and attities such as climbing and mountaineering, are often used by men tudes common to the activity. In other words, hiking is not merely as opportunities to perform valued traits of hegemonic masculina leisure activity. ity. In gender studies, the term hegemonic masculinity refers to However, the outdoor recreationist identity is constantly in culturally idealized conceptions of manliness, prioritizing tradiflux. The ideal wilderness explorer today must go beyond contionally male characteristics such as physical prowess, subordinaforming to a historical and social narrative. In order to achieve tion of women and less masculine men, and other demonstrations peak wilderness experience, one may find they must respond to of social clout. Its ‘hegemony’ addresses this expression’s tendenthe latest market and advertising forces. cy to minimize alternative expressions of masculinity.

The outdoor gear industry (OGI)—comprised of outdoor A content analysis of outdoor recreation magazines by gender gear retailers such as North Face, Patagonia, and REI—includes studies scholars Pomfret and Doran in 2015 found that expedition some of the most influential curators of this contemporary wilnarratives typically focus on traditionally masculine activities, like derness identity. Far from simply supplying equipment, these reweathering extreme conditions, challenging one’s physical limitatailers position themselves as key producers of the entire outdoor tions, and proving one’s power over nature, while omitting doadventure experience. Through on- and offline advertisements, mestic and therefore traditionally feminized ones, such as setting nature-adventure films, website design, and brick-and-mortar

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Art by Marisa Cigliano

locations, outdoor companies create and perpetuate the socially constructed identities formed and performed in nature, foregrounding their products as a means of achieving or completing these identities.

Marketing scholars Varley and Crowther call this visible space in which industries produce, advertise, and sell their products, the “servicescape.” Retailers intentionally curate this space to influence consumers’ perception of their products. Critically examining the outdoor gear industry through the lens of the servicescape, one can observe the retailers “contriv[ing] to contribute to the narrative of the extraordinary experience,” according to Varley and Crowther. Specifically, outdoor gear retailers advertise their products as critical tools for taking one’s wilderness experience to the “next level,” thereby laying claim to the outdoors as a space for its consumers to relive cultural narratives of dominance.

The outdoor gear retailer plays an important role in defining a consumer’s optimal outdoor experience through emphasizing a relationship with nature in which the consumer, aided by the latest and greatest gear, can dominate nature. In a widely cited 1988 paper published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Russell Belk suggests that consumers may perceive products as literal and figurative extensions of the self. Certain objects “[allow] us to do things of which we would otherwise be incapable,” he argues. Scholars building on this theory suggest “the body and its adornments can be used as symbols of role identities acted out in the natural and social environment.” The OGI provides tools to explore and dominate nature, thus creating space for consumptive and socially acceptable role identities consistent with the cultural divide between humans and nature—conquering over coexisting—that has persisted since settler colonialism.

Outdoor gear retailers seek to arm their consumers with products that will increase one’s ability to live in, travel in, and conquer the outdoors. Even ads for the Whisperlite, a lightweight cooking stove, highlights its durability, flexibility, and its ability to work wherever. The OGI is constantly innovating products to meet sub-zero temperatures or higher waterproof and breathability standards. In his 2009 paper, “The End of Weather,” Vladimir Jankovic suggests the OGI may be sparking “a new outdoor adventurism…[driven by] scientifically constructed immunity to both environmental risk and personal discomfort.” The OGI thus expands the degree to which access to the outdoors is possible by increasing the standards of ability and adventure potential in outdoor recreation activities through inventing and selling gear.

This gear becomes increasingly expensive and creates an inverse relationship where the more advanced the technology becomes, the fewer people have access to the technology itself. In situating

itself as the facilitator of increased access to wilderness, the OGI reshapes and narrows which identities are best suited for wilderness adventurism vis-à-vis preparedness, performance standards, and affluence. This selective messaging does not acknowledge the social and emotional experience of hikers.

By centering the outdoor experience around products, gear becomes a necessary prop to perform and demonstrate knowledge of behavioral and cultural scripts recognizable to what Varley and Crowther call the “consumption neotribe.” These scripts are rooted in the evolving norms of wilderness recreation, and includes or excludes people based on expectations of ability, preparedness, and motivation according to the recreation activity.

Rock climbing, for example, has a very specific operational script to ensure safety and a robust list of props, including at minimum a rope, harness, carabiner, ATC, and climbing shoes. These objects and their appropriate use are marketed as necessary to perform the activity. Hiking, in contrast, is less strict. In theory, all one needs is their body and enough energy, but in practice, a script and prop list have developed to include the “right” shoes, a water bottle, activewear, and an adequate backpack. Ultralight hikers will go to more rigorous extremes, weighing their gear to the decimal place. In each case, the cultural scripts tend to require that one obtains specific products for adventure performances.

Companies like Patagonia, North Face, and Mammut do their best to demonstrate their own competence and expertise in the servicescape. Some OGI companies use advertisements in which sponsored recreationists “test” the company’s gear, often in exotic, barely accessible, depopulated landscapes, to demonstrate the empowering qualities of their products. These exhibitions also serve the purpose of increasing the standard of individual performance in the outdoors, which may increase the desire for OGI products.

The OGI commodifies wilderness recreation and seeks to reshape cultural conceptions of the great outdoors. Through reinforcement of narratives that date back to Lewis and Clark, the OGI creates new barriers to wilderness based on the promise of increased access through more advanced technology. As modern curators of wilderness identities and socially constructed places, the OGI has not strayed far from the dominant narrative about relationship between man and nature posited in 1893 by Frederick Jackson Turner. He states, “the universal disposition of Americans… to enlarge their dominion over inanimate nature is the actual result of an expansive power which is inherent in them.”

The OGI identifies and capitalizes on Americans’ drive to “enlarge their dominion” over nature with a steady stream of products that promise to do just that.

Photo by Ian Lund Headwaters Magazine

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Selected Poetry TEXT & ART BY JOSCIE NORRIS

October Inquiry The air is crisping up, crabapples drop bruised, striped maples look like pale ghosts above, flickering, and leaves crinkle beneath our sneakers.

The hooded boy scrunches his shoulders and, plunging his hands into his pockets, runs with the others down the riverbank; I sprint after them, losing traction on the oily clay, and stop breathless, cringing at the sharp delta air in my throat, a feeling forgotten like the drawing of the toad sitting beside the playground slide, scratched with blue crayon into a notebook, happened upon fifteen years later.

Murky water steals its way through shoe-seams, soaking my socks with the Winooski River and I stoop over the debris; a stitched together raft of moldering driftwood, styrofoam, and fishing line, and collect a bee whose only objection is wing vibrations on my muddied palm.

Does she reckon the children’s’ screaming subsiding with the hoary shadows that spill from the frosted cinnamon ferns over the lapping water, the jostle of my step over the logs, or try to teach the boys patience, as she submerges herself in the sun?

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The Glen The daylight is not what we think.

It drains the black from between the stars, and behind the glow they begin their fall so each ember melts into blue.

It’s bleak, this time when gems vanish to show us these habitual colors of the sky, when drugged bees drone out of their hives.

We stumble on in silence.

Don’t touch the red fawns lying still in the thicket or the foxes mittened in their den.

And if your trifles are what deny you shelter, linger with us, rest each foot patiently beside the ambering caps of little mushrooms, and breathe steam into the grey air until the greatest witnesses whisper to us in the spruce forest light.

Small Greatness 5:29:45 July 16, 1945, New Mexico: After the “Gadget,” white in the blaze, flared into a gaseous mushroom, the world shuddered beneath the assault, and light echoed endlessly.

Even before the countdown quaked, it was as though the sea had started to surge.

“Now we’re all sons of bitches.”

Did you gaze at the calm, relentless stars that night and, looking out over another kind of knowledge in a world where paths can not be retraced nor atonement achieved, kneel for a different purpose in the forgiving dirt of your garden plot,

to nurture your apologies from the delicate hearts of seeds in flowerets opening their palms for the monarchs?

Later, did you notice how fragilely they glide on light winds, then skip through the lower heavens, these dwindling papery generations, like so many wanderers painted in tiger cadmium tracing the constellations on their journey in search of longer days to bask in?

They blossom the branches that shelter them, each new butterfly weed that flowers, a quantum difference, lest they too should cease to flourish, as the sunset blooms that hold their nectar droop and wither from each cluster, like falling stars.

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From Convent to Colonel to Activist Profiling Rosanne Greco, one of the leaders in the movement to keep the F-35 fighter jet out of Burlington International Airport.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY MCKENNA MURRAY

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osanne Greco’s home in South Burlington is almost as decorated as she is. Her house is a museum of treasures from the different places she has lived around the world, though kept tidy and clean– a reflection of her 30 years in the military. The only clutter is the piles of documents, stacks of newspapers and nine dense volumes of environmental impact statements scattered on her tables.

Rosanne Greco has been one of the most influential drivers and critics in the movement to stop the placement of a fleet of F-35 fighter planes at the Burlington International Airport, a highly controversial topic within the greater Burlington community.

To her knowledge, she is the only civilian to have read all nine volumes of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) published by the Air Force regarding the implications of housing the F-35 plane.

In reading this dense and lengthy report–a total of nearly 8,500 pages–over a series of months, she uncovered information that made the selection of the Burlington Airport appear exceedingly questionable. Given the burden of this information paired with her military background, Greco stepped up as a fierce advocate against this war plane, an unintentional full-time job for a retiree.

In the living room of her home, Greco sat in her white wicker chair, sporting an oversized canary yellow t-shirt with “Vermont” embroidered in colorful thread. Her dog, Gina, cried in at the door, ears perked. Gina knew the rules–no dogs in the living room, but she was curious about the new visitors. Greco reminisced about her childhood, a hint of nostalgia in her voice as she told of the humble mountains outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania where she cultivated a deep appreciation for the natural environment early in her life. She spent her days roaming the land, tending to her horse, sheep, dogs and cats, while her father worked at the coal mine and her mother at the garment factory. “I just loved being outside,” Greco shared, “that’s where I grew up; that’s where my soul is.”

Seeing that there were few career options for women at that time, Greco went to school to be a nun, training for six and a half years before she was dismissed for being too outspoken. “I think the Mistress of Novices was fearful I would influence some of the other girls. I began to question things, and nuns don’t like that,” Greco said, referring to her opposition of a “particular friendship rule” that was instituted by the convent. “Not until years later did we know what that meant,” Greco laughed, talking about her meet-ups with the other women who also dropped out of the convent, which they like to call “ex-con reunions.” They later realized that the rule, which prohibited any two girls from spending time alone together, was a strategy to prevent lesbianism.

Leaving the convent, Greco decided to get her education funded from the government in return for service in the military.

After working her way through college, she joined the Air Force, where she spent most of her assignments in the intelligence career field. She became the first military woman to participate in strategic nuclear arms control talks, and eventually was promoted to a full colonel, a rarity for a woman at the time, as the restrictions on what ranks women could fill were just being lifted. “I was often the only woman in meetings,” Greco shared, reflecting on her days in intelligence. “I learned to do my homework, and to complete my homework.Which is why I realized I had to read that.” She pointed to a thick volume of the F-35 EIS sitting on the coffee table–now falling apart at the seams from the color-coded sticky notes, annotations, and dog-eared pages. “The military has its own language, and I know the system...I had an advantage that a civilian might not have,” she added. “So that’s why the Air Force–well, I think they are scared of me–because they trained me.”

After retiring from the Air Force, Greco moved to Vermont because of its reputation for respecting and protecting the natural environment, which she claims is her true passion. Yet, like the other places she has lived, development encroached on South Burlington’s natural areas, inspiring her to get involved in local politics. She was elected to serve as the chair of the South Burlington City Council in 2012, and it was there that she caught wind of the Air Force’s plan to bring a fleet of eighteen F-35 planes to the Burlington International Airport. She brought the issue to the agenda of the City Council and conducted hearings, forums,and invited people to testify about the implications the placement might have on the community.

“I did not originally want to take this on,” Greco admitted.

“I was retired, [had] hung up my uniform, and was ready to focus on another part of my life. But, [as the chair of the City Council], my job was to take care of my people. In the course of doing this I got to know a lot of people personally who I wouldn’t have met before; I got to know their fear, their very legitimate concern, and what the plane would do to their lives. I couldn’t just sit back with that information and eat bon bons. People were relying on me.”

In her reading of the EIS, she found blatant contradictions between what the Air Force factually determined and the arguments perpetuated by supporters of the F-35. She accumulated a “reader’s digest” of the EIS, which includes a ten-page fact sheet that references information from the document with direct citations. “You owe it to yourself to learn,” Rosanne emphasized. “If you take what someone else says you’re pretty much sheep.”

Directly in the text of the EIS, the Air Force stated that Burlington would be negatively affected in nine of the fifteen catego-

“So that’s why the Air Force – well, I think they are scared of me – because they trained me.”

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ries–noise, air quality, land use, socioeconomics, environmental justice and protection of children, community facilities and public services, ground traffic and transportation, climate change, cumulative effects, and the irreversible commitment of resources. This objective data determined Burlington was not the “environmentally preferred location,” compared to the other two locations that were evaluated for the placement of these aircrafts. The EIS stated that the use of this aircraft in Burlington would put 6,663 current residents in a zone that is deemed “unsuitable for residential use,” as opposed to 170 people in Jacksonville, Florida or 245 people in McEntire, South Carolina.

The EIS utilizes peer-reviewed studies to inform the document, and has produced concerning conclusions regarding the placement of these planes in Burlington. It states that the noise levels of the plane will place a disproportionate burden on people of color as well as low income populations, diminishing property values and thus make it harder for people to sell their homes.

There is also overwhelming evidence that noise pollution has adverse health implications, particularly on children and the elderly.

Citing information from the World Health Organization, the document states that children’s learning and memory are negatively affected by the noise; their exposure to the noise could impair development and have a “lifelong effect on educational attainment.” In addition to the health impacts, the EIS states that there would be environmental consequences not limited to an increases in water consumption, wastewater generation, and natural gas and electricity consumption pertaining to the maintenance of housing these aircrafts.The safety of the F-35 is not yet determined because there have “not been enough flight hours to accurately depict the safety record.” In the event of an emergency, the safety precaution is to dump the fuel into Lake Champlain, posing threats to wildlife and humans alike. The list of potential dangers goes on.

“The F-35 is not the ‘sound of freedom,’” Greco passionately exclaimed, criticizing the common slogan used by proponents of the aircraft. “It is defacto the sound of war! Its mission is to kill people.” Similar to the F-16 aircraft, which the Vermont Air Na-

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tional Guard currently has, the F-35 is a nuclear capable aircraft, with air strikes and aerial warfare as its primary purposes. Greco is a zealous supporter of an alternative to this plan, encouraging the Air Force to instead give the Vermont Guard a carrier aircraft for transporting things like food, water, and other aid to communities in need. “Our guard can be skilled in humanitarian relief, which is transferable if Vermont has natural disasters,” she argued, leaning forward in her chair. “The mission of the Guard is to protect the people of Vermont. Why shouldn’t that be the mission of this aircraft?”

Greco has been a full-time activist for this cause, writing almost 40 articles against the F-35, testifying before countless City Council meetings, and initiating two exhaustive and ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits. “[Even though] my real passion is the environment,” Greco clarified, “I just keep getting sidelined with the F-35 because of my military background. But this is what I came to believe about this F-35 and the changing climate: They are directly connected. If you do enough reading you will see the connection.

The thing that is most important is that we can actually do something about the F-35. We have the power to stop the F-35 from coming to Vermont. We do not have the power to reverse climate change, not that we shouldn’t be focused on that. But the same amount of time and energy I could spend on the F-35, we could actually stop the F-35 from coming to Vermont. That is totally in the realm of possibility. When you have a success in one area, it gives you the motivation and the impetus to take on other things.

It’s the idea of bloom where you are planted. Look around.”

The non-binding ballot question rejecting the F-35 placement in Burlington that was presented to voters on this year’s Town Meeting Day passed with a 55 percent vote. It is considered a major victory for groups in opposition to the F-35, yet it is unclear what, if any, impact the vote will have. All of Vermont’s congressional representatives are in support of the F-35, as well as Mayor Miro Weinberger. Democracy has shown what the people want, now it is in the hands of the city council to communicate residents’ desires to the Air Force.

What is the F-35?

BY ROB PERSONS

T

he F-35 Lightning II is a nuclear-capable multimillion-dollar fighter jet built by Lockheed Martin, the U.S. gover nm e n t ’s top contractor. The Burlington International Airport in South Burlington currently houses eighteen F-16 bombers. The F-35s, scheduled to replace the F-16s in 2020, will be four times louder than the already disruptive F-16s. The noise is one of several reasons that Burlington and Winooski residents, backed by a unanimous Winooski City Council, voted to oppose the F-35 basing in March 2018. Burlington was chosen to host the planes even though McEntire, South Carolina, one of the other cities considered, was deemed more suitable because fewer people would be adversely impacted, according to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The EIS discusses the negative impact that excessive noise may have on sleep, the potential for hearing loss, and nearby classroom and learning environments—but many other environmental and health risks are omitted from the report. Pollution, climate change, groundwater contamination, and fossil fuel use were not part of the analysis. F-35s use over 18,000 pounds of fossil fuel, costing $32,000 per flight hour—equal to the average salary of a preschool teacher for a full year. The EIS also does not speak to the stealth coating used on the planes to make them indetectable to radars, but the material is toxic and needs to be washed and reapplied. Unless extensive measures are taken to contain these chemicals, they may leach into the groundwater.

A group of anti-F35 activists formed Save Our Skies and began filing lawsuits starting in 2012.The first was against the City of Burlington for not going through Act 250,Vermont’s land use and development control law, even though the F-35s were determined to have significant health and environmental impacts. Save Our Skies lost the suit when the Vermont Supreme Court found that because military basing decisions constitute federal action, the F-35 siting

Art by Katelyn Lipton

decision supersedes Vermont State law.

The second suit was filed against the Air Force under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for not sufficiently researching environmental and social impacts, such as residential relocation and potential for hazardous waste exposure in the event of crashes. The Vermont Supreme Court decided the EIS met the requirements of NEPA, and that they are not subject to a state land-use review because the F-35s serve a solely federal purpose.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New England Environmental Program Manager Richard Doucette told South Burlingtonians in 2017 that there would be “levels of noise that were incompatible with healthy living,” and that the best way to mitigate high noise levels is to “buy homes and remove them.” This approach is unconscionable for a region in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.

Although advocates call the F-35s the “sound of freedom,” it is de facto the sound of war. It is fair to suppose that those who happen to be under the flight path will feel more threatened than defended and more cornered than free.

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Mass Extinction Are we shepherding our ecosystems into extinction?

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BY LAUREN KING

he sixth mass extinction is upon us.

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Ocean temperatures rise, melting Arctic ice and threatening the food supplies of a host of species. The polar bear population has been decreasing for years, but their extinction may be coming faster than previously thought, as rapid climate warming has facilitated a million square mile decrease in Arctic sea ice since 1980. Climate change has transformed the once strong and intimidating polar bear into a weak, emaciated victim.

Today’s species extinction rate is 20 to 100 times higher than the background extinction, or the standard rate of extinction. This is the worst species die-off since the loss of the dinosaurs: 1,000 species are going extinct every year. Though habitat loss and the spread of invasive species contribute to modern extinction, the central cause is the actions of the human race. Humans are bringing about the sixth great extinction through climate change, deforestation, and animal poaching.

Forest ecosystems are facing similar destruction. Forests cover 31 percent of the land on Earth. The Bornean orangutan, a resident of subtropical and tropical Asian forests, faces threat of extinction due to deforestation of rainforest habitat as a result of growth in the lucrative palm oil industry. Forests provide indispensable services and resources to their inhabitants, and to others across the globe. In the face of climate change, one of the most important functions of a forest is the sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Deforestation is not only decimating the habitats of thousands of species, but also preventing forests from mitigating the effects of climate change.

What else? The coral reefs, once vi-

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brantly colored and home to great biodiversity, are turning gray due to coral bleaching, the fatal result of ocean acidification. This occurs when the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves into the ocean waters, creating carbonic acid, which lowers the average pH of the oceans. Past a certain threshold, the coral discharge algae that coexist symbiotically in their tissues, killing both inhabitant and host.

Although extinction of numerous species is inevitable in the sixth great extinction, there are ways to protect vulnerable species, including environmental protections and regulations, which help to slow rates of extinction. However, there have been steps backward on some conservation efforts. Recent legislation lifted a federal ban, initially passed by the Obama administration, on the import of elephant tusks. Elephants are killed by the tens of thousands every year for their ivory tusks. This species is but one of many threatened by poachers’ reckless pursuit of wealth.

In January, the Eastern Cougars were officially declared extinct, removing them from the U.S. endangered species list. This extinction was due to the decline in forests and thus, prey populations. The North Atlantic Right Whale is highly endangered, this year hitting an all time low in population at around only 450, their deaths caused by entanglement in fishing gear and acidifying oceans.

No species before the human race has altered the environment in such extreme ways. The Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in its history, all ending millions of lives in chaos and destruction. Nothing will compare to the sixth, as humans are finally living, and soon, dying, as a result of our own actions.

Art by Katelyn Lipton

Courtesy of Trump Forest

Not like our elders.

Everybody is a part of the new environmental problem. Who is part of the solution?

OP-ED BY HALSEY PAYNE

I

get a feeling sometimes that my generation was born with a toe tag.Those are the little slips of paper tied onto a corpse as it gets rolled through a morgue. The tags detail time, place, and cause of death. It is bad to be born with one; an early tag means that your fate is set, that your opinion is not relevant to your own death. Sometimes, as I sit in my lecture halls, I feel one of those rigid little papers crowding my shoe.

I signed onto an education in Environmental Studies to learn about how people may die. In my first year, I was told that four Grand Challenges can define that. The Grand Challenges are: Urbanization (many people in small areas), Biodiversity Loss (the global destruction of nonhumans), Climate Change (destabilizing global temperatures), and Sustainable Development (trying to make our future a good one). Together, they set up a new age: the Anthropocene, or the age of humanity as the main force that changes the Earth.

“Oh, shit,” I thought near the end of every class. The problems had been laid out and I learned what my species’ toe tags might say. “Cause of death: environmental collapse (self-inflicted),” would be fastened around our metaphorical big toes. The lessons I was learning in class were not about saving forests and recycling more. They were about something new.

20th century environmentalism, even its major disasters, was local. Like the Exxon Valdez oil spill, maybe the biggest environmental disaster of the last generation. A tanker crashed off the coast of Alaska in 1989 and hundreds of miles of coastline were coated with oil. Environmental institutions could respond with: “There’s a disaster in Alaska! We should go there and fix it.” The

spill caused a big problem in a big area, but it was just one area.

The Exxon Valdez disaster could be addressed with one big effort.

It was big, but it was localized.

Climate change is different. The disaster is everywhere. The world is heating up because things are burning across the world, and that will change life... everywhere. The environmentalism of past generations was not made to deal with “everywhere,” though.

I had trouble understanding what that implies until John Elder came to the Ira Allen Chapel.

Professor Elder, now retired, was Middlebury College’s Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies. He spoke about life after “The Bottleneck.” He described what the world should be like after the Anthropocene kills a lot of people. As an ecological term, the Bottleneck was coined by the biologist E.O. Wilson to describe the narrow opening to the future left by the four Grand Challenges. If this Earth is a bottle—only able to contain so much life—the Bottleneck is the point where it collapses. The metaphor is another way to look at the Grand Challenges: human growth has made natural resources scarcer. That scarcity will squish and squeeze and press living things through the Bottleneck until there are fewer living things on the other side of it.

Elder called the Bottleneck a “critical juncture in human evolution.” I was shaken up. I had spent years studying the conditions of the Bottleneck, and I had heard all of what Elder had said already. But in three years, I had forgotten about the scale. I was reminded that my major was not about me, and how I could solve a series of disasters.The disaster is everywhere. It touches everyone.

At the same time, environmentalism is very much about me, and it’s about you. Elder was not talking about statistics or projec-

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“Your University isn’t teaching you to change systems,” said Erickson, “and that means it’s become dangerous and irrelevant.” tions or the latest climate science, though he used all of those. He was talking about our lives. The problem is very, very personal.

The solution has to come from us.

Jon Erickson, a University of Vermont professor and economist, gave a talk similar to Elder’s in 2014 to admitted students at UVM. He convinced me to come to this University because he laid out what the 21st century, where we will be living, will be like.

Students today will grow old in the midst of a roughly 4 degree Celsius increase in average global temperature and a population that grows to about 11 billion people. Because of that, more than one in ten nonhuman species will go extinct and every major fishery will collapse by the time a kid born in 1996 turns one hundred. Young people should get ready to thrive in the face of those challenges, Erickson said. We should go to school to learn about, prepare for, and build a new sort of century. I agreed to join UVM the next day. I wanted to be relevant to this part of human history.

Instead, the majority of what I learned is that I, as an individual human, should drive less, eat less meat, and take shorter showers. I should become “green.” After reaching that status, Step Two would be to convince everyone else to follow my example. It was the same approach of the Valdez spill: go to where the problem is and fix it. If the problem is the actions of billions of individuals, then billions of people needed to change. “‘We should all be environmentalists,’ right? That’s the thing,” Erickson told me to sum up years of lessons. “But the changes we need are going to take massive institutional reforms, not individual action. They’re gonna take a sea shift of attitudes and behaviors.” Instead, my classmates and I had been trained to compost, eat organic foods, and drive less—as better members of a society that has a toe tag. “Your University isn’t teaching you to change systems,” said Erickson, “and that means it’s become dangerous and irrelevant.”

A University education in environmentalism is useless if it only creates one environmentalist. Facing the Grand Challenges of the whole human race by changing individuals is like cleaning up the Valdez spill with measuring cups, one scoop at a time. A one-person-at-a-time solution is not fast enough or big enough for a problem this big, and it will not keep us from shattering on our way through the Bottleneck.

“Yes, your generation is headed towards a cliff,” John Elder said, as we spoke months after his lecture. I had called Professor Elder because I wanted to understand what my education had missed. “The question is whether your generation will fall off of that cliff or make a sharp right turn. You’re on a stage now, and you’ll all have to make that decision.”

Elder was right: the Challenges set the 21st century’s stage.

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There will be more humans. There will be fewer non-humans. The planet will be hotter. Life will be harder. The stage is set differently than anything past generations have stepped onto. The show’s suspense is in what the actors will do.

“Your generation gives me hope,” Elder told me. “You’re less and less bigoted than your parents. You’ve grown up with the Internet, so you know much more about your world. You think globally, in systems, rather than nationalistically.” More and more people alive today see our species as a connected community on a shared stage, he explained. Some of us see that we are heading to a bad place.

So what do we do about the Grand Challenges? “Change everything,” Jon Erickson said. “Engage with it all: from civil service to civil disobedience to community relations to higher education.

The individual choices you make are constrained by the public choices that you live with. The public choices have to change.”

In other words: you should forget about only being a good actor. The composting, the vegetarianism, and the short showers are a good show by good actors, but the stage has changed. The thermostat has been turned up, the boards are rotting, water is flooding in the doors, and the lights are flickering. A few good actors are not relevant to building an ecological society.

21st century environmentalists need to be more than actors: they should be scriptwriters, architects, directors, carpenters.

Their real-world equivalents are the leaders of collective actions: legislators, city planners, and economists who say, “let’s fix this together.” The good actor who says, “I’ll do this on my own,” is not helping to save the world stage while it floods, burns, and goes dark all at once. The environmentalism of individual action is irrelevant to the real problem.

Knowing that, I still compost like any good environmentalist.

I bike everywhere that I can bike to. I rarely eat meat. Even though changing what I do will not cause the Big Change that we all need, I do it anyway to see what a more-sustainable life looks like. And I like it. I am happier and healthier, and convinced that billions of people can, one day, live in a world where sustainability is the norm instead of a quirk.The fourth Grand Challenge of environmentalism was named “Sustainable Development.” A better name would be “Changing it All.” The Challenge is to make low-impact living the norm of every human alive, rather than the goal of a minority like you and me. That Challenge needs politicians and economists, inventors and city planners, CEOs and activists, who all call themselves ‘environmentalists’ and are all working towards a society without a toe tag. The environmentalism of individual action is irrelevant to making that future. What kind of environmentalist are you going to be?

Photo by Connor Brustofski

From Academia to Action The Sustainable University

BY KATIE SHEWFELT

We asked college students across New England what they imagine a clean energy campus of the future would look like.We received submissions from multiple colleges, including Brown University, the University of Connecticut, Colby-Sawyer College, and the University of Southern Maine. After much deliberation, we are proud to announce first place of the New England Clean Energy Campus to Katie Shewfelt fromWesleyan University.

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S

ince the mid-twentieth century, University campuses have been in the vanguard of progress in the United States. The tradition that began most notably during the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements persists today, as students and faculty work to push the country towards a better future. However, on some key fronts, universities have much work to do if they want to be more than just intellectual spaces, but also agents of change—namely, on the issue of clean energy. Most universities offer a robust curriculum in sustainability and encourage environmental discourse. While these are important first steps, they are not enough; larger-scale cooperation by the administration and less eco-inclined corners of campus is essential for universities to live up to the environmental message they preach.

Our whole nation has a responsibility to adopt more sustainable sources of energy, and our universities must lead by example. The campus of the future is one that not only explores sustainability from an academic lens, but also champions it by fostering a commitment to the environment and embracing clean energy.

The energy overhaul of an entire university is no light undertaking—it demands commitment and sacrifice from everyone.

While some students and faculty would rally behind such a cause, others would cling to the comfort of the status quo. That is why changing attitudes and norms is crucial. Professor Gregg Sparkman of Stanford has discovered that people embrace change when they “begin to think that change is possible, that change is important and that in the future, the norms will be different.” For example, his study at a Stanford café found that customers who read statements describing how people are “starting to limit how much meat they eat” were twice as likely to select a vegetarian option.

Although eating dining hall meat may seem irrelevant to clean energy, the livestock industry contributes to fossil fuel demand and accounts for 14.5 percent of global emissions. A university truly committed to clean energy must be responsible in its direct and indirect energy consumption. Norms surrounding meal choice, transportation, water use, electricity use, and others are key targets, and we can apply Sparkman’s findings to influence them. The core base of environmentalists on a campus must be vocal about improving their own behaviors, and others will be encouraged to adapt to the changing norm.

The administration also has a role to play in fostering a campus commitment to the environment, but this may prove challenging. Pressure from both the top and bottom will be critical in convincing an administration to support a costly (though valuable) undertaking. A spectrum of support that ranges from boards of trustees to students themselves can help secure university funding, resources, and commitment.

If the goals of students, faculty, and administration align, I envision a campus ripe with innovation and collaboration. I envision students lobbying successfully for a wider variety of vegan food options, relationships with local farms, and bike-renting and ride-sharing programs. I envision faculty partnering with students to design mobile sources of clean energy, cultivate farms and gardens, and spearhead environmental projects in the surrounding community. These initiatives can serve to unite diverse groups behind a common cause. They can also evolve to have considerable

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impacts on a university’s carbon footprint—imagine, for example, lush, sprawling gardens and fields that revitalize the campus landscape, provide students with hands-on experience in sustainable agriculture, and supply dining halls with all the responsibly grown produce they require. It is important for a campus to actively choose change, and creating a culture of sustainability in all areas of student life can facilitate this.

Once a productive and dynamic environment is developed, the university can implement broad clean energy technologies. In fact, some universities have already come close to carbon neutrality through such approaches. A study by MIT researchers analyzed these campuses’ strategies and found that seeking out “local opportunities” for renewable energy was consistently effective. No university’s renewable energy needs will look exactly the same, but the versatility of options allows every campus access to a clean alternative. For some campuses, energy sustainability will look like rows of solar panels lined proudly along a green or mounted from every rooftop. For others, it may be underground geothermal systems - bringing heat from the earth for millions of dollars less than coal boilers—hydroelectric plants on nearby bodies of water, local wind farms, biomass, or even natural gas.

Diverse sources of energy can be engineered to power a campus at multiple scales. Larger operations are practical for meeting high energy demand, but scaled down operations allow students to engage educationally with the apparatus. For example, mobilized solar power units are certainly not sufficient to power an entire building, but a few 100W panels generate enough energy to power speakers at a concert or laptop charging stations. Students who use them can learn how the solar panels and battery systems work, and then carry that knowledge with them after graduation, making it easier for them to use renewable energy in future living situations.

In addition to transitioning to responsible sources of energy, universities can modify their infrastructure and systems to curtail growing energy demand. Targets include campus transportation, waste management, and lighting, but the greatest beast to tackle is energy inefficiency in old buildings. Universities can retrofit buildings to upgrade their utilities, install motion-sensor lights and high-performance windows, and construct cool roofs. Synergistic development can even design new buildings that are inherently greener and also serve an academic mission in the environmental sciences. For example, energy efficient laboratories and halls can support further research into campus sustainability and clean energy technologies.

The ideal clean energy university, one that considers its carbon footprint in every aspect of physical and academic development, is not too far in the future. Many are already progressing in that direction, but we need the staunch advocacy of campus communities to propel them forward. A green university is certainly a goal worth striving towards: it reduces costs in the long run, unites students behind a shared conviction, beautifies campus environments, and sparks further progress. If universities across the country throw their unmitigated support behind clean energy, it will mark a seminal moment in the environmental movement. A new age will begin, in which our country’s future lies in the hands of those committed to responsible, sustainable innovation.

Photo by Connor Brustofski Headwaters Magazine

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If You Give a Girl a Lobster

I

watched my dad intently as he twisted the legs off individually and sunk the meat into butter, and I tried to replicate the motion myself. If I had known earlier about the process of getting that lobster to my table, I probably would have enjoyed my meal much less. I vaguely understood how one plunges the lobster into boiling water to kill it, but now I see why my dad would send me to play with my dolls while he operated the stove on lobster night.

One day, when I was about ten, I asked my dad about getting a pet lobster. I figured it was just like adopting a dog, except you buy one you really fancy from the supermarket, get a bucket of saltwater from the ocean, and feed it with whatever fish scraps you had at your disposal. My dad laughed and told me that I could not get companionship from a cold-blooded creature valued solely for its meat. He then recommended that I should find a rock to call man’s best friend. When I was sixteen, however, my dream of having my very own lobster turned out to more attainable than I had previously imagined.

Better than one lobster, I got a hundred of them. They were much smaller than the ones at the supermarket; the biggest one was about half-an-inch long. For everyone else, this was just the average day at the Marine Science Magnet High School in Groton, CT. New species arrived every day. One week it was a horseshoe crab, the next it was 10 unwanted goldfish from the pet store, and a month later, 300 young tilapia from a farm in Louisiana. But for me, one hundred new lobsters represented something larger than I could surmise at the time.

My teacher, mentor, and lab director, Eric Litvinoff showed these tiny crustaceans to my Aquatic Husbandry class. I was really intrigued by how small they were, and how they responded to 10 sets of eyes peering into the 250 gallon tank. Mystic Aquarium, a partner with the Marine Science Magnet High School aquaculture program, donated them to the school for research and culturing.

One of their animals, a rare blue lobster, had just given birth to nearly 1,000 babies.

After talking about lobster anatomy with my class, I discovered that the American Lobster, Homarus americanus, rarely reproduce in captivity. As a result, scientists are often unable to study the lobster gestation period, the number of offspring per individual in one reproductive cycle, or the survival rate of newborns.

Ideally, scientists would be able to study these behaviors in their natural habitats, but wild lobster populations are severely threat-

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BY SARA KLIMEK

ened by one of their top predators: humans.

Part of the reason lobster fishing is so high-stakes is the demand often outpaces the stock. Viewed today as an expensive delicacy, lobsters are prized by Americans. I grew up in a shoreline community, and experienced the anticipation of watching lobstermen and their families pull up traps after a long day of work. They were proud of what they were doing and how they made their money at the end of the day. Who was I, as someone who worked in a lab and grew lobster, to try and outcompete small families, who were willing to sacrifice their boats and reputation just to feed the consumers’ craving for lobster?

To date, there are no large aquaculture efforts to grow the American lobster. The offshore American Lobster fisheries are managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which receives representation in states down the East Coast from Maine to North Carolina. The commission regulates the size of lobster pots, total trawl length, and size limits on captured lobsters. However, there may be discrepancies between the areas in which people fish for lobsters; if lobster pots are located in areas with inconsistent state and federal regulations, the restrictions may be more stringent. Historically, these differences have resulted in variable catches from year to year, often resulting in overexploitation.

The American lobster industry is incredibly lucrative, and often toes the line of legality. In 2016, a lobstering “turf war” in Maine produced a $15,000 bounty on a group of trap-cutters who frequently cut competitors’ pots so they could not be retrieved. There have even been reports of lobster fishers ramming into other lobster boats at full speed, physical altercations, and gun violence as a result of these fishers working outside of their territory. Historically, pot sabotagers in Maine were referred to as “lobster gangs.” Lobster fishing has not always been as serious as this. When settlers first came to America, lobsters were washing up on shores. They fed poor colonists, indentured servants, and prisoners for decades up until World War II, when lobster prices hit an all time high. The heightened post-war economy doubled the per capita consumption of lobster.

I encountered this dichotomy frequently in my work: fishers attack aquaculture facilities and regulators because they feel that they are not being treated fairly for the work that they do.

However, if regulations were to decrease, we would be prioritizing humans over the ecological integrity of lobster populations, and putting the larger ecosystem at risk. If you regulate the fish-

ery too much, you risk jeopardizing the economies of shoreline communities. Aquaculture, when used as a supplement, can keep fishers on their boats and lobster in their habitats. The challenge, however, is getting the aquaculture into fruition.

Some would call me foolish for thinking that I had a “green thumb” for growing lobster. I treated them like any other species. I fed them regularly, exposed them to human contact, and helped teach other students about them. Despite my efforts, we lost about 70 percent of our lobsters within the first three months of the project. Some had died during molt, others got in territorial disputes, and others were not able to adjust to conditions in the lab. Finding food that was digestible, protein-rich, and tiny enough to fit in their mouths was only half the battle.

If it was any other organism, I would have probably felt more discouraged than I did.

I felt an unconditional connection to the lives of the tiny lobsters, which I had not experienced with any of our other species. I owed it to the entire aquaculture community, which had given us the lobsters in the first place, and challenged us to “make it work.” I owed it to the fishers, who, without management, would one day run out of lobsters to fill their traps. Most of all, I owed it to myself for making something meaningful out of my mistakes.

The aquaculture program consulted Mystic Aquarium when only four of our lobsters remained. They had three of their original one hundred left, and provided us with some tips on how to keep them alive and to make them grow. The formula for success would be as follows: leave molted shells in the tank as a natural source of calcium, feed “crustacean gel,” (a concoction of shells, fish remains, and whatever was under the sea) to each one, and provide each with a small PVC pipe to seek shelter in. The results slowed our mortality rate significantly; we did not lose any more lobsters until nearly seven months later.

I decided to name the last survivor of the original lobster group Jefferson. He lived until October of 2017 and passed away peacefully in his own tank. He had almost doubled in size since he came into our care. Without him, we would not have been able to compile research and learn what strategies work best to culture lobsters in captivity. Since October, other students have worked on researching the lobster, learning about their current fishing regulations and understanding the importance of aquaculture in preserving current wild stocks. What can we, as aquaculturists, do better next time?

The prognosis of the “lobster project” was dismal from the beginning. However, I do not consider it to be a failure by any stretch of the imagination. The consumption of lobster will not slow down any time soon, but neither will our efforts to preserve the human and ecological communities that rely on them.

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At Odds With Nature

Photo by Connor Brustofski

Finding common ground between humans and the environment.

OP-ED BY COLBY BOSLEY-SMITH

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“The extremes of our political views have made us forget that nature is a great unifier.”

W

e live in what seems to be a perpetual state of antagonism with the environment. Our headlines admonish us for the introduction of another invasive species, the deforestation of the Amazon, and our carbon dioxide emissions that are stripping polar bears of their ice. Meanwhile, nature retaliates with hurricanes, forest fires, and droughts. Are we really incapable of coexisting with our natural environment? Are we actually outsiders in a world ruled by nature’s laws and processes?

As a student in the field of environmental science, I am all too familiar with the grim realities of anthropogenic change. But as someone who grew up surrounded by people who love and feel connected to nature, I cannot help but feel hopeful. Our relationship with the natural world is far more mutualistic than society leads us to believe. As populations have condensed into cities and human technologies have advanced, we have moved further away from an awareness and connection to the natural world. Only recently did the good of the environment begin to become a partisan issue. Environmentalism in the 1970s was a unifying issue across political parties. It was in this decade that the Environmental Protection Agency was founded under the conservative leadership of President Richard Nixon, and the Clean Air Act passed in the Senate unanimously. It was an era before partisan politics overtook environmentalism.

So, what happened? The extremes of our political views have made us forget that nature is a great unifier. My conservative grandmother has a beautiful vegetable garden and my conservative aunt treasures the wetland next to her house. They may be climate change deniers but they are not the nature-hating monsters that environmentalists are supposed to despise.

Fear of nature is our other great challenge. I attended a diverse public high school in Washington D.C. where field trips to museums were far preferred to those that would require being outside. The familiarity and safety of clean, air conditioned buildings were more comforting than the dirt and wildness of a forest or field. My peers’ relationships to nature had been built through a screen rather then through direct interaction. Places without people were unknown to my classmates, so fear compensated for a void in understanding.They may not deny climate change, but they lack the impetus required to combat it.

Given that cities are racially diverse settings, access to nature is often an issue of racial inequity. A recent study by the Outdoor Foundation found that 70 percent of youth between the ages of 6 and 24 who engage in outdoor activities are white. It is important that everyone, regardless of race or place of origin is presented with equal opportunities for engagement with the environment.

We cannot expect diverse populations of urban youth to engage

in environmental issues when they lack a developed connection to nature.

What do urban youth and climate change deniers have in common? They both rely on media hearsay over true experiences in nature or personal observations of anthropogenic impact. For example, urban youth will learn about nature through the images they see on snapchat, and climate change deniers will learn about climate change through Fox News broadcasts. Their fear and denial is fueled by propaganda that villianizes nature and those who wish to protect it.

The solution rests in a change of tone. In his book Drawdown, Paul Hawken details a collection of creative solutions for combating climate change. Technology like green roofs and smart grids, or ideas for conservation agriculture make it clear that people are looking for ways to live in harmony with nature. Our success, however, hinges on our ability to adapt from environmental devastation towards innovation.

When climate change is discussed in the news, it is often presented as a disaster. It is the end of the world, and finding a solution would be a miracle. If instead the narrative changed, and we were bombarded with stories of hope in the mainstream media, then attitudes might change as well. We need the climate change denier and the city kid to both feel that their ideas and concerns are valued, not pushed aside as we reconstruct our relationship with nature. We need to constantly remind ourselves that we are part of natural processes and systems. We need to recognize the simple fact that what is good for people is good for the planet. Our antagonism with nature is a societal fabrication.

I do not mean to understate the devastating impacts our actions can have on the environment. The first step in working toward a place of harmony with the environment is acknowledging our mistakes. Climate change, species extinction, resource degradation can all be attributed to human action. That said, our impact is not always negative and it is valuable to recognize when it is positive. If we know what we are doing well, then we can identify ways of expanding constructive innovation.

So what can you do? It is your job to further this positive narrative, and use it as a tool to reach out to those who are left out of the discussion. Share stories of innovation and hope, engage climate change deniers, and take a city dweller on a hike. Those of us who care about solving complex environmental issues need to spread the message that what helps the environment helps human civilization. Let us make it clear that humankind and nature are not enemies.

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To the friends, supporters, readers, and staff of Headwaters, Thank you. Thank you for your passion, your ideas, your thoughtfulness, your kindness. Thank you for engaging with difficult issues and difficult people. Thank you for pushing the envelope. Thank you for caring about these issues that will define humanity for generations. Thank you for donating your time, money, and pet pictures to us. Thank you for making my job easy and providing beautiful words, art, and photos. Thank you for helping spread environmental discourse past the bubble of any one institution, college, or program. Thank you for being my friends, and my family. I am so immensely proud of what we have accomplished in our first years, and you should be too. Thank you.

With love, Connor Brustofski, Managing Designer

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