Common Home Issue 6

Issue 006

Fall 2023

A Magazine from the Earth Commons—Georgetown’s Institute for Environment & Sustainability

Letter from the Editors We’re pleased to present to you the sixth issue of Common Home, Georgetown University’s online and print magazine on environmental news and analysis from the Earth Commons Institute (ECo). We extend a special welcome to three new editors who joined our editorial board this summer: Elyza Bruce, Cecilia Cassidy, and Madhura Shembekar.

Across the issue, we highlight stories both near and far with pieces from professors, academics, alumni, artists, and students alike. Just as in many of our issues, we approach environmentalism and sustainability from a multidisciplinary lens, showcasing a diverse set of stories, projects, topics, and companies.

In many of this issue’s pieces, arts and science converge, revealing the profound impact of creative expression – whether performance arts, poetry, sculpture, or painting – on our understanding and engagement with environmental issues. We are once again reminded that the fight for a sustainable future is not solely confined to laboratories and boardrooms.

As always, we seek to explore tangible solutions to environmental challenges – particularly those brought to life by Georgetown’s own alumni – including energy storage solutions, sustainable finance, urban farming, and sustainable food systems.

We would also like to extend our utmost gratitude to Yuki Kato, Rebecca Rutstein, Johannes Rittershausen, Charlotte Taylor, Luke Holden, Silvia Danielak, Jane Winters, Ashanee Kottage, Ajmal Khan, Jan Menafee, Sara Jordan, and Alexandra Pyne, who all contributed greatly to articles in this issue.

Sincerely, The Common Home Editorial Board Maya Alcantara, Elyza Bruce, Cecilia Cassidy, Marion Cassidy, Alannah Nathan, and Madhura Shembekar Undergraduates at Georgetown University

This magazine is printed on 100% recycled paper using 100% recyclable inks. Please share or recycle this copy.

Table of Contents

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One Industry, Many Ideologies: Exploring Sustainable Finance

By Alexandra Pyne, Strategy Consultant & 2022 Stapleton Fellow at Georgetown University A New Matrix for Urban Growing

By Yuki Kato, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Georgetown University The ripple effects of Sackett v. EPA: The Uncertain Future of Clean Streams and Wetlands in the US

By Elyza Bruce, CAS ‘25 & Common Home Editor Building a Better Future: Urbanism and Conflict in Environmentalism

By Dr. Silvia Danielak; Interview

by Madhura Shembekar, SFS ‘26 & Common Home Editor A Futurist’s Vision for Higher Education in a Climate-Altered World

By Marion Cassidy, COL ‘23 & former Common Home Editor Nature, Crisis, Consequence: Using the Past to Rethink Environmental Change

By Cecilia Cassidy, CAS ‘25 & Common Home Editor An Irresistible Revolution: One Alum'sArt-Based Change

By Ashanee Kottage; Interview by Madhura Shembekar, SFS ‘26 & Common Home Editor

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Watering Whole: Excerpts from poet Jan Menafee’s new collection

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What We’re Reading: Meltwater by Claire Wahmanholm Reviewed by Elyza Bruce, CAS ‘25 & Common Home Editor

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The Synergy between the Arts and the Sciences: Representing the Wonders of the Natural World through Visual Art

By Rebecca Rutstein; Interview by Elyza Bruce, CAS ‘25 & Common Home Editor

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Alumni Spotlight:

Sara Jordan, Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality Interview by Maya Alcantara, MSB/GSAS ’23 & Common Home Editor Luke Holden, Founder and CEO of Luke’s Lobster Interview by Alannah Nathan, SFS ‘24 & Common Home Editor

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Defense, Denial, and Disinformation: Uncovering the Oil Industry’s Early Knowledge of Climate Change

By Charlotte Taylor, SFS ‘24

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Extinction Rebellion: Inciting Controversy– and Conversation – Since 2018

By Madhura Shembekar, SFS ‘26 & Common Home Editor

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Editorial Board

Alannah Nathan Alannah is a Senior in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, pursuing a degree in Global Business. Alannah has a strong interest in the energy transition and sustainable food systems and the private sector’s role in pursuing sustainable development. She is from Brooklyn, NY.

Cecilia Cassidy Cecilia is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences studying English and Film & Media Studies. She is primarily interested in environmental art, which involves learning about artists who incorporate themes of sustainability into their work and making and directing the visuals for Common Home. She is from Brooklyn, NY.

Madhura Shembekar Madhura is a sophomore in the Walsh School of Foreign Service studying Science, Technology, and International Affairs. She’s particularly interested in climate justice and environmental racism, as well as how diverse narratives influence climate discourse. She is from Scottsdale, AZ.

Elyza Bruce Elyza is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences studying English and Environmental Studies. She is passionate about environmental storytelling and the intersections between sustainability and literature. In her free time, she enjoys writing, reading, and visiting museums. She is from Woodbury, CT.

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Additional help was provided by former Common Home interns Marion Cassidy, COL ‘23 and Maya Alcantara, MSB/GSAS ’23.

Managed by Sadie Morris, SFS ‘22 iv

One Industry, Many Ideologies: Exploring Sustainable Finance

By Alexandra Pyne, Strategy Consultant & 2022 Stapleton Fellow at Georgetown University

We are currently facing twin climate and biodiversity crises.

In our efforts to solve them, the Western financial services industry is playing an increasingly central role.

At the most recent Conferences of the Parties (COP26 in 2021 and COP27 in 2022), financial institutions have emerged as primary voices in the global environmental conversation.

COP26 resulted in a climate pledge that was signed by over 450 financial institutions, ten times more signatories than sovereign nation-states, which totaled 45. In the following year, COP27’s revolutionary inclusion of loss and damage funding in international climate agreements highlighted geopolitical movement towards market-driven strategies to address the environmental crisis.

Working from a desire to understand these trends in global environmental action, I dove into conversations with leaders in sustainable finance. I observed two prominent ideologies at play: the first, which frames sustainable finance as a smart business opportunity with strong economic benefits, and the second, which views it as a moral imperative with fewer economic motivations.

The first ideology – the financial narrative – focuses on monetary outcomes and the prevailing reign of market forces in determining personal and societal trajectories. One interviewee, who is a renewable energy financing specialist at a leading hedge fund, framed her motivation to specialize in sustainable finance by explaining that it was important for her to be "in the know” of what’s affecting the bottom line.

Throughout our conversations, she never mentioned personal connections to the environment or the economy. This characterization of sustainability work prioritizes pragmatism and financial risk mitigation, leaving little room to discuss individual ties to professional work.

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The financial narrative of sustainable finance aligns well with the sociological concept of identity minimalism, a term defined by a 2016 study of British investment bankers as “individuals largely [avoiding] relating identity to their work experiences.”

Embracing these minimization practices, the financial narrative of sustainability deprioritizes personal passion and reinforces traditional business language, ultimately embracing the characteristics of shareholder capitalism.

The second group of sustainable financiers I observed demonstrates an alternate sense of professional identity and motivation for involvement in the field. These bankers were motivated by personal interests in societal and environmental concerns that predated their entrances into the professional sphere. They drew on a moral desire to make a difference and emphasized passion for their work. Many of these analysts described starting careers in banking feeling unfulfilled, and later, awakening to an interest in sustainable capitalism. Others could trace environmental connections to their childhood days spent hiking with family or learning about the environmental experiences of their ancestors. These compelling personal narratives create a noticeably different definition of sustainability than that of those who draw from traditional financial language to define sustainable finance. These language differences illuminate the reality that the current operators of sustainable finance have formed remarkably different ideologies to galvanize action around this singularly named cause.

These ideological designations are incredibly important in understanding the nuances of sustainable finance, as these differentiations expose various definitions for a concept that industry, media, government, and the public has described as a singular, monolithic entity.

Design by Cecilia Cassidy

Given these often obscured differences, the sustainabilityfocused goals of the financial services industry pose an overwhelming need for integrative and interdisciplinary knowledge, particularly as sustainable finance offers pathways for explaining non-financial value to financially-minded decision makers.

Bydefinition, sustainable finance initiatives cannot solely focus on economic returns; they must incorporate expertise from natural scientists, human scientists, and other experts in order to actualize the lasting transformations these investment firms publicize.

Following these trends, the financial services industry and business at large have spent an inordinate amount of energy, time, and money seeking technical and quantitative solutions to the societal problems that stakeholders are now forcing them to address. As these incredibly brilliant – and remarkably different – minds are asked to work together in the name of sustainability, a gap in the new system has emerged.

New contributors to the success of financial markets have been socialized to think, process, believe, and imagine according to incredibly different models than those of traditional financiers.

The differing ideologies within a single industry – and even single companies – underscore the likelihood of ideologically-driven communication roadblocks in sustainable finance.

The introduction of alternative mindsets and ideologies to the economy remain crucial for solving the biodiversity and climate crises at hand. However, simple inclusion of diverse voices is not the same thing as integration of their differences.

It appears that sustainable finance is at a crossroads, where their different conceptions of sustainability and value have been introduced to each other but are not yet properly integrating with and influencing one another. The next phase of this movement requires actors who can integrate cross-industry, cross-disciplinary, and cross-cultural frameworks into avenues for new-age sustainability.

Alexandra Pyne is a Strategy Consultant in the financial services industry and 2022 Stapleton Fellow at Georgetown University.

She specializes in ethnography & economic anthropology and applies these research methods to environmental experiences.

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Design by Cecilia Cassidy

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A New Matrix for Urban Growing

By Yuki Kato, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Georgetown University

In my nearly a decade of conducting research on urban cultivation, I have not met anyone who opposes the idea of growing food in the city. Some are avid gardeners themselves and others wished they had a green thumb. Yet, when I explain that I study the type of cultivation that is often called “urban farming” or “urban agriculture,” which is tended by full-time growers with an intention to feed others, many express skepticism: How can they grow food at a scale in the city? Do they sell the vegetables, and if so where? Can they grow enough to feed the city?

These are all legitimate and fair questions, but they reflect our general lack of understanding about what it takes to grow food at a large scale in the city, and why such practices matter.

Measuring the benefits of urban cultivation requires us to go beyond the matrix commonly used to evaluate the productivity of community gardens or rural farms, such as the volume of food being produced, retention of heat, CO₂, and rainwater, creation of green jobs, or education of the public – though urban farming does deliver all of these benefits. This way of valuing urban farms overlooks its key social benefits, especially how the existence of urban farms responds to and challenges the capitalistic urban development that continues to exacerbate social inequity, including disparity of access to food, health care, and green spaces. The act of growing food in the city, therefore, is a tangible form of resistance, even when the growers themselves may not say so explicitly. The public understanding of urban cultivation has yet to recognize how it subverts social and legal norms.

One thing that many of us fail to recognize is that growing food in the city is not new, even in the US, where it has gained popularity and recognition over the last couple of decades.

There has been a long history of immigrants and Black folks growing food for themselves in American cities. These gardens were not just a place of refuge and leisure for growers; they grew food and medicinal herbs that were significant for their cultural practices, while also supplementing their food budget by applying agricultural knowledge passed on from their elders and ancestors.

This is where we must pause and ask why they grew food for themselves. The emergence of this type of local food production and consumption was not a result of the foodies’ obsession with the farm-to-table fad or the city government’s recognition that these spaces have value to the communities beyond economic property values. These urban cultivation practices were the marginalized communities activating their “collective efficacy” to regain control over their foodways, right to the land, and cultural identities despite oppression, segregation, and neglect inflicted by the white, capitalist urban political economy.

Why is this important to recognize? As urban cultivation grows, as it has in recent years, the practices and policies that are put forth, and more importantly the matrix by which these practices and policies are judged, must be fundamentally connected to its historical roots.

The exercise of a matrix based on resistance models is a pressing conversation as concrete policies and resources in the urban cultivation sphere are pushing up against the confines of the U.S. capitalist system.

What is least understood about running an urban cultivation project – regardless of what they grow, how they grow, for whom – is how challenging it is to even start one, let alone sustain it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture established the new Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production in 2018 and has been making more funding available each year to urban growers. Ensuring that these resources are distributed equitably and in a way that addresses historical injustices remains an unrealized goal. Research shows that the most crucial challenge for urban growers is land access and security.

My research, in particular, has consistently found that securing long-term land access for urban cultivation is extremely difficult, especially in the cities undergoing gentrification where skyrocketing property values makes it prohibitive for the growers to own the land or even lease at a reasonable rate from private owners.

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Public land access presents its own limitations due to the bureaucratic red tapes and long-term property planning by various agencies. For example, Washington, D.C., passed the Urban Farming and Food Security Act of 2014, which originally included an ambitious mandate for the Mayor to “identify at least 25 District-owned vacant lots for potential use for urban farming.” The 2016 amendment removed the specific number of land to be identified for urban agriculture, and after nearly a decade, only three city-owned lots have been identified and none have been developed into an urban farm.

Even if a grower successfully gains access to space, there are many other factors that threaten sustainability of urban farms.

Seeking private investment requires the growers to present a business plan that would satisfy the potential investors, while going after increasingly competitive foundation grants, could lead the organization to prioritize practices that match the funder’s interests du jour. Operating an urban farm necessitates the growers to engage with various local agencies on a variety of topics from water, food safety, to business licensing. Navigating the local regulation requires patience and legal savvy, as most city agencies are not familiar with urban farming, and thus, do not have straightforward answers that could guide the growers to operate within the regulatory framework of the city.

Without permanent or long-term land security, growers’ investment in the space, including soil and horticultural infrastructure, is at risk of being displaced, as urban gardens are susceptible to the preemptive removal by the landlords or the developers that try to speculatively “clear” the land in anticipation of property value increase. The value that urban farms add to the space is not recognized by the capitalistic logic of urban development. Worse, whenever there’s a developmental pressure, urban gardens (including community gardens) have often been pitted against affordable housing as if these two were equally low-priority development goals that had to be in competition while luxury developments proceed.

Urban cultivation matters because of its many social impacts that are not always easily quantifiable or scalable, especially within the capitalist matrix. Urban growers do more than produce poundage of food; they build social connections with the residents, present alternative land uses, and organize communities around climate, food, and environmental justice concerns. True support of urban cultivation that values its social impacts requires us to recognize the historical land injustices and economic discrimination that shaped who had long been growing food in the city and find a way to ensure that the current popularity does not result in the whitewashing of these historical practices that were forms of collective efficacy.

Otherwise, it will end up becoming yet another fad or worse: become another tool of the green gentrification trend.

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The ripple effects of Sackett v. EPA: The Uncertain Future of Clean Streams and Wetlands in the US

By Elyza Bruce, CAS ‘25& Common Home Editor

A single legal battle over a water dispute in Idaho could have a major impact on the health of America’s waterways for years to come.

On May 25, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) passed a ruling in the case Sackett v. EPA that substantially narrowed the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) jurisdiction to regulate streams and wetlands under the Clean Water Act (CWA).

The petitioners in the case, Michael and Chantall Sackett, purchased property near Priest Lake, in Bonner County, Idaho. When they back-filled the lot with dirt and rocks in order to build their new home, the EPA sent them a compliance order informing them that their property contained protected wetlands under the jurisdiction of the CWA. The order threatened the Sacketts with penalties of $40,000 a day if they did not comply and “undertake activities to restore the Site.”

In response, the Sacketts filed suit under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), alleging that their property didn’t fall within the jurisdiction of the EPA because it did not contain “waters of the United States” and was therefore not subject to federal regulation under the CWA. Since this was a case of jurisdiction, the suit was filed under the APA rather than the CWA directly.

The case quickly escalated from a local dispute to a national fight over the scope of the CWA.

The language of the CWA specifically limits the scope of the Act to the “waters of the United States,” the definition of which has been argued in many cases over the last four decades since the Act’s passage. In this case, the EPA operating in the context of case law hereto date, interpreted “the waters of the United States” to include waters that “could affect interstate or foreign commerce,” as well as “[w]etlands adjacent” to those waters.

This interpretation allowed the EPA to regulate the wetland on the Sackett’s property.

In the end, the 6-3 majority opinion, led by Justice Samuel A. Alito, ruled that the “waters of the United States” as defined by the CWA should only encompass “those relatively permanent, standing, or continuously flowing bodies of water” and wetlands should be defined as having “a continuous surface connection” with “traditional interstate navigable waters.”

The ruling struck down the EPA’s definition of “waters of the United States” as overly broad. To illustrate their reasoning, the majority opinion asked, “Does the term encompass any backyard that is soggy enough for some minimum period of time?...How about ditches, swimming pools, and puddles?”

The impacts of the ruling are far-reaching.

The court’s use of the term “relatively permanent” may eliminate protections for ephemeral or intermittent streams that do not flow every day of 6

the year. According to the EPA, ephemeral or intermittent streams make up 59% of all streams in the United States excluding Alaska. This particularly impacts streams in the Southwestern region of the country, where ephemeral and intermittent streams make up 81% of all streams.

Ephemeral and intermittent streams provide the same ecological benefits as perennial streams, such as nutrient transport throughout the watershed, groundwater recharge, water-quality filtering, and much more. The loss of these federal protections will render many of these streams vulnerable to unregulated pollution and development.

The Potomac watershed is one of many watersheds across the country that will be impacted by this decision.

According to the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, the Potomac watershed contains many intermittent streams and wetland areas not directly connected to larger “traditional interstate navigable” waters that will now no longer be protected by federal law.

In light of this ruling, Bob Dreher, Legal Counsel for the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, says the criteria for streams and wetlands that qualify for federal protection is still unclear. “We need to be vigilant,” Dreher said.

“There are so many streams that are intermittent, and in some cases ephemeral, defining what it actually means will be crucial to keeping federal control and to regulating as much of these streams as possible.”

The narrowed scope of federal protections defined by this ruling will also have considerable consequences for wetlands in the United States. According to Dreher, this ruling will revoke federal protection from “all wetlands that are not directly connected to another flowing body of water with a permanent flow.”

Narrowing the scope of federal protections will have considerable ecological consequences, given the important functions of wetlands, such as filtering water contaminants, absorbing flood waters, erosion protection, carbon sequestration, and providing a habitat to numerous species.

According to the United Nations, 35% of all wetlands globally have been lost between 1975-2015, and the rate loss has accelerated since 2000.

Dreher expounds on the impact: “If these wetlands are not protected under federal law, then it falls to state agencies to protect them under state law. State agencies in Virginia and Maryland are both good agencies. The states have embraced a broad jurisdiction over wetlands, but they don't have the staff or resources to suddenly fill the gap left by the federal government no longer having this jurisdiction.”

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Design by Cecilia Cassidy

Dreher said that environmental groups should work with state agencies to ensure state protections for streams and wetlands are put in place. “There are other states across the country where there will be crucial battles in state legislatures and agencies to try and get them to take as much responsibility for these waters as possible, and that includes trying to get the resources and budget so they have the staff to do it,” Dreher said.

In an official statement concerning the decision, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said, “I am disappointed by today’s Supreme Court decision that erodes longstanding clean water protections. The Biden-Harris Administration has worked to establish a durable definition of ‘waters of the United States’ that safeguards our nation’s waters, strengthens economic opportunity, and protects people’s health while providing the clarity and certainty that farmers, ranchers, and landowners deserve.

These goals will continue to guide the agency forward as we carefully review the Supreme Court decision and consider next steps.”

Only time will tell the ripple effects this decision will have on streams and wetlands across the country and whether state governments will step in to fill the gaps left behind by the loss of federal protections. The health of American watersheds and ecosystems at large are at stake.

Building a Better Future:

Urbanism and Conflict in Environmentalism A dialogue with Dr. Silvia Danielak and Common Home Editor Madhura Shembekar, SFS ‘26 & Common Home Editor

Dr. Silvia Danielak is an urbanist and peace scholar. She studies sociospatial planning in the context of conflict, disaster risk, and post-conflict/ post-disaster reconstruction. Her research has been supported by the International Studies Association’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship Award, the US Institute of Peace’s Minerva Peace and Security Dissertation Scholarship, the MIT Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center, the MIT Center for International Studies, the MIT DUSP Rodwin Travel grant, the Harvard Center for African Studies, and the Harvard Program on Negotiation, among others. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Earth Commons Institute for Environment and Sustainability at Georgetown University.

MS: Your work is unique in that it delves into concepts that many people don’t think twice about: socio-spatial planning and post-disaster reconstruction, for example. What first interested you in the intersection between infrastructure, peace, and the environment?

SD: I am fascinated by what is commonly perceived as pretty ‘boring’: infrastructure! Even in urban planning, which is the field in which I did my doctoral work at MIT, infrastructure is typically considered the domain of engineers, whereas it is in fact a social and political issue.

Infrastructure is often a way to advance specific politics and make decisions about who is excluded and included, who can participate in public life, etc. Think of public transport in disadvantaged neighborhoods, or the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. These are all infrastructure questions. So, having studied and professionally worked in the field of peace and conflict for a long time, I was curious to see what role infrastructure plays in violent conflict and also how it is thought of as a barrier — or perhaps enabler or crucial ingredient — of peacebuilding.

Fascinating! Can you briefly describe the research you are conducting through the Earth Commons’ post-doctoral fellowship?

I began the post-doctoral fellowship to work on my book project on the role of infrastructure in United Nations peace operations. Peacekeepers build a lot of infrastructure in the places they intervene, with significant impact on the environment and local communities, which have so far remained relatively neglected. In the last few months, I conducted research in the United Nations’ archives in New York. I also conducted interviews with professionals currently working at the UN, from diplomats and military personnel from troop-contributing countries to NGOs and businesses working with peacekeepers on the ground on environmental management and climate change mitigation. The manuscript is out for review now — right in time as I and my collaborator Meredith McKittrick, at Georgetown’s History Department, received the Earth Commons’ Impact Award for a new research project. This will keep me busy for the second year of the postdoc!

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Design by Cecilia Cassidy

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You are currently writing a book about the UN’s use of infrastructure projects as a peacekeeping tool, and you’ve previously examined this topic in the context of UN efforts in Mali and urban peacebuilding in South Africa. Generally, what has your research shown about the impact of infrastructure projects, particularly concerning the environment?

Infrastructure — public works like roads and train stations, pipes, boreholes, or solar panels — are generally considered invisible to the public as long as they function well. My research has shown that this is not true! In fact, infrastructure is often conceived as part of peacebuilding strategy: to win the population’s approval for the United Nations’ military peacekeeping intervention and ensure that peacebuilding efforts are connected to long-term development in order to make peace sustainable. But those infrastructure projects also introduce new risks into communities. They may enhance competition, marginalize some groups, or lead to the depletion of resources.

For example, a new asphalted road allows peacekeepers to travel faster but it might make it more dangerous for children to walk to school or block pastoralists from accessing their pastures. Similarly, boreholes dug by peacekeepers might reduce groundwater levels, ultimately leaving local populations scrambling for this precious resource in an environment already affected by drought.

Have you had any surprising findings about the role of the environment in peacebuilding efforts? Does the environment play a larger role in conflict than you initially anticipated?

There has been a lot of research lately on the links between climate change, environmental degradation, and conflict. We often talk about environmental issues as potential risk multipliers, where disasters and environmental degradation add stress to communities that already face — often decades of — communal conflict and violence. Those communities often do not have the resources to address climate adaptation and pursue environmental protection.

What do you hope to research/explore next (after the completion of your book)?

While doing research for my first book, the links between climate change, conflict, and security became very obvious.

Policymakers are concerned with the consequences of climate change on collective security and peace. But I have often found this narrative to be simplistic and therefore, I wanted to better understand how climate adaptation and mitigation activities (which again, often involve an infrastructure component) shape people’s capacity to live together peacefully. What kinds of conflict does climate action create? When, where, and how is it part of peacebuilding? How do communities manage conflicts that emerge in the context of climate adaptation and mitigation? I hope to explore those questions in urban areas in Morocco, given the country’s climate vulnerability and rapid urbanization, as well as its status as a trailblazer regarding renewable energy generation.

Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself or your work?

Well, thank you for the opportunity to shed some light on my work! As I mentioned, Meredith McKittrick and I were very fortunate to have been granted the ECo Impact award. It will kick-start a comparative research project on energy infrastructure in Morocco and Namibia as part of the countries’ plans for “green futures.” We seek to better understand who bears the cost of energy transition, who is included and who is not — and are those sustainable development plans really sustainable? Research on the socio-political and historical dimensions of climate change, sustainability, and peacebuilding is by definition interdisciplinary, so we are grateful to the Earth Commons for supporting us!

In my research, though, I was most surprised to find out how far peacebuilders — agencies like the United Nations and its troop-contributing countries — have already come in considering environmental action as part of peace efforts. Environmental peacebuilding is not a new concept, but it has been taken up by UN bureaucrats over the last few years to address the environmental footprint of peacekeeping missions. It turns out that some of these initiatives are not only good for the environment, but also have military and political advantages! There still remains a lot to do, but we also need to credit the efforts undertaken already in those very complex conflict situations.

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Photo Feature lookout in paraty.

Photographed by Charlotte Taylor

Charlotte Taylor is a senior in the School of Foreign Service studying Culture and Politics with minors in Portuguese and Studio Art. She has a deep love of art, which informs her studies and her hobbies on and off campus. Charlotte took these photos while she was studying abroad in Brazil, and they capture the beauty and the importance of the coast there. She has contributed to Common Home multiple times.

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A Futurist’s Vision for Higher Education in a Climate-Altered World

By Marion Cassidy, COL ‘23 & former Common Home Editor

As a futurist, Bryan Alexander has spent years considering the possibilities of what lies ahead.

An adjunct lecturer at Georgetown, Alexander’s life’s work is to create a new and better future across various industries, including higher education. In his new book Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Age of Climate Crisis, published in March 2023, Alexander investigates how the physical and figurative effects of climate change will impact universities and colleges in the coming years.

From Hollywood to the Vatican, the world has begun to grapple with the impact of climate change on every facet of life.

Few, however, have examined the connection between universities and climate change. In his new book, Alexander begs the question, “If climate change is our next big fight, what can universities do to make a difference?”

When Alexander considered the relationship between climate change and universities, his first thought was the physical threat of climate change on university campuses. With sinking coastlines and increases in natural disasters like hurricanes and floods, Alexander considered the possibility that many American universities may have to move to new locations to adapt to changing conditions. Miami, home to several prominent universities like the University of Miami and Florida International University, is already facing urgent flooding and other environmental threats. The city’s coastal location and low-lying geography make it especially vulnerable to rising sea levels and powerful hurricanes. Alexander wonders if and when universities may decide to relocate to areas less at risk of climatic disaster.

“You wonder about how many universities’ locations are in physical danger, and there are many other natural dangers,” notes Alexander, “A couple of the colleges I talked to on the West Coast deal with fire threats every year and have had to create more specific processes to mitigate those dangers.”

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Alexander goes on to explore the significant opportunities for universities to reduce their environmental impact through better campus management. “Are their buildings carbon neutral or carbon negative? Do they use electrical power?” asks Alexander, who goes on to cite Berea College in Kentucky as an example.

In a recent effort to reduce their environmental impact, the university made the switch from fossil fuels to hydroelectric power, generated from a plant they built on campus.

When it comes to reducing their carbon footprint, universities can take a variety of actions, both large and small. For example, universities may switch to using only electric vehicles on campus or plant-based foods in the dining hall.

But perhaps the most controversial issue of all is the use of air travel: “We have faculty and staff fly for research, for professional development, for programs of all kinds,” explains Alexander, “We have student-athletes who often fly to events.

Students leave town and fly to other countries for spring break, and there is also study abroad, which again is based on air travel. We don't have alternatives to CO2 emitting aircrafts right now, so should universities scale travel back?”

Given the immediate – and future – threat of climate change, why haven’t more universities taken action? In Alexander’s opinion, many universities are hesitant to take bold action on climate change because they fear the political backlash. He shares the example of one university president who said that half of the students and trustees came from fracking communities in North Dakota, where fracking is seen as a positive economic force. But the other half of the community was made up of green activists who opposed fracking. The university president told Alexander that she felt she couldn’t balance both sides, so she chose to remain silent.

Design by Cecilia Cassidy

Beyond physically protecting themselves, universities have much to gain from making environmental strides. A study by the Pew Research Center found 67% of Gen Z participants felt that climate should be a top priority to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations. Alexander notes, “If you want to connect with students, this is a huge issue to connect on. If schools are worried about student mental health, which I think everybody in higher education is, then giving students something to do with climate change can be really positive.”

Many universities have begun to address the climate crisis on their campuses, but could they do more by working together?

“I would love to see more collaboration between universities as

well,” says Alexander. “Imagine one hundred college campuses get together, form an alliance, and they support a kind of student climate Peace Corp where students can take a year off and go someplace and work on climate issues.”

While not all of Alexander's ideas have been implemented in universities, they nonetheless illustrate the important role that higher education plays in creating real and lasting change in the world. By educating, supporting, and inspiring the next generation of climate leaders, universities have the power to transform the future for the better. Alexander’s vision is a reminder of the important role that universities can play – if they are willing.

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Nature, Crisis, Consequence:

Using the Past to Rethink Environmental Change

By Cecilia Cassidy, CAS ‘25 & Common Home Editor

Looking southeast across Swan Lake..., ca. 1858.

Photo provided by Cecilia Cassidy

With every passing year, the world breaks heat records. The oceans continue to rise, and our carbon footprint continues to grow. Even worse, many of our institutions barely address the impacts of climate change. However, museums and cultural institutions are starting to fill this gap by putting climate change at the center of their work. The New-York Historical Society on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, one of New York’s oldest yet most relevant museums, has done so with the exhibit Nature, Crisis, Consequence.

On view from late March to mid-July of 2023, Nature, Crisis, Consequence comes from the mind of Wendy Nālani E. Ikemoto, the museum’s Senior Curator of American Art. The exhibit was separated into four sections, each displaying the work of artists of various backgrounds and mediums with the overall aim to explore “the social and cultural impact of the environmental crisis.”

Upon initial examination, the range of topics and artists’ voices in the exhibition may seem incohesive. For example, the first 15

section, “The Environment: Ruin and Resilience,” features Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire. This five painting series illustrates the development and fall of civilization, from a lush green mountain and a lonely building to a deserted city of overgrown ruins. Cole suggests that in the end, the environment is “ultimately triumphant over humankind’s ability to tame it.”

In the “Environmental Racism, Environmental Justice” section, viewers observe an empty turquoise ceramic basket by artist Courtney M. Leonard. “As the artist explains, her fragile woven earthenware forms speak to the inability of the natural environment to withstand the impact of manmade systems and infrastructure,” shares the museum. Leonard’s attitude towards environmental change clearly opposes that of Cole’s, depositing conflicting messages in viewers’ minds.

However, this dissonance is intentional.

It recognizes the different attitudes Americans have towards the environment and climate change — particularly over

Ishbínnaáche - Protector, Crow Scout Curley

by Ben Pease, 2020

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Far Eastsiders, aka Cowgirl Mama A.B & Son Wukong

by Oscar yi Hou, 2021.

generations. For instance, Leonard’s sculpture was made in 2015, reflecting an environment vastly different from the newly industrial world of the 1830s influencing Cole’s The Course of Empire. By showing where our relationship with the environment started and where we are now, Curator Ikemoto creates conversation about the direction our relationship with the planet should move in.

Ikemoto takes an active role in bringing the disharmonious voices into direct conversation — at times, quite literally. In the section entitled, “The Railroad: Speeding Settlement,” the main wall features three paintings: a large landscape sandwiched between two portraits. The landscape is Donner Lake from the Summit by Albert Bierstadt; created in 1873, this painting celebrates the completion of the transcontinental railroad through the rugged West just four years before, calling to mind the idyllic age of expansion and industrial America. Notably, however, the painting excludes the narratives of the people displaced and the crimes committed

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The Course of Empire

by Thomas Cole, 1834 Photo provided by Cecilia Cassidy

along the way. In striking nearness, artist Ben Pease’s portrait Ishbinnaache-Protector, Crow Scout Curley (2020) hangs left, responding with remembrance and resistance.

It features Ashishishe, a member of the Apsáalooke and a scout for the U.S. in the Sioux Wars, wrapped in a patterned blanket against a yellow background with white dots. The dots represent “incoming adversaries,” like the U.S. government, which later seized almost 95% of Apsáalooke land, mainly for the construction of the railroad.

On the right, Oscar yi Hou, an artist from the U.K., communicates similar themes with his portrait of a Chinese-American woman dressed as a cowgirl sitting with a Chinese-American man, titled Far Eastsiders, aka: Cowgirl Mama A. B & Son Wukong (2021).

taken over and cleared by the state of New York in order to build Central Park. While this section’s focus is seemingly niche in comparison to the rest of the exhibit, it underscores how Nature, Crisis, Consequence wants viewers to expand their understanding of environmental change from an altered landscape to the way our communities are affected by displacement and blatant racism.

In addition to the works of art themselves, Ikemoto incorporates the ethos of the museum as a historical society with her inclusion of important legislation and historical context on plaques. This information challenges the assumptions with which many viewers enter the exhibit. It also aligns with the New-York Historical Society’s overall goal to include and highlight more diverse perspectives in their institution.

Hou hopes to bring more recognition to the Chinese immigrant laborers who were essential to the construction of the railroad, but are often left out of the history and imagery of the American West. Pease and Hou’s contemporary perspectives give viewers the rare opportunity to reexamine older pieces, revealing the devastating hidden environmental cost of technological advancement.

Nature, Crisis, Consequence excels at showing the impact of environmental change on people, especially those who have been historically marginalized. Ikemoto even includes contemporary voices in the exhibit from an unexpected source — visitors. She invites viewers to leave a note in the comment book by the exit before they leave the exhibit. One visiting family wrote: “Our visit has been moving, the art inspires, raises questions, sometimes wounds.”

Across the hall, the section “Seneca Village: Central Park, at What Cost?” uses historical artifacts to highlight another story of the land seizure, change, and minority displacement behind an American gem. Seneca Village was a predominantly African American community that resided between the West 80 streets of Manhattan in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was

And they’re right. The exhibit takes the vastness of environmental change and situates it in the harmful decisions humans have made in the past two centuries. This realism and nuance — not overwhelming fear or hope — is what motivates the viewer to keep moving amid the climate crisis once they step back on to Central Park West Street.

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An Irresistible Revolution: One Alum's Art-Based Change

A conversation with Earth Commons research analyst Ashanee Kottage and Common Home editor Madhura Shembekar

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Ashanee Kottage (SFS ‘22) is a Post-Baccalaureate Fellow at the Earth Commons and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. She is a scientist and storyteller concerned about the security of this earth and the security of its people. She recently performed “We Hear You — A Climate Archive” at COP27, a global climate change conference organized by the UN. “We Hear You” is an international performance project that commissioned 77 youth storytellers to share their stories about the climate emergency. She works towards decolonizing conservation, effective science communication, and marrying rigorous scientific research with empathy, embodiment, and performance. Currently, she is building on the work of SURYA – a collaboration storytelling project between the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics and the Earth Commons – and helping with the 2024 premiere of “We Hear You” in Sweden.

MS: What has been your journey with performance and environmentalism? Were there any particular experiences during your time at Georgetown that shaped the way you engage with performance, the environment, or both?

AK: My personal journey with performance and environmentalism has been interesting. I’ve always been a storyteller.

The first time I ever performed, I was three. Everybody in my school was introduced to public speaking, singing, dancing, and acting from a young age, so that’s something I’ve done my whole life.

Design by Cecilia Cassidy

Regarding environmentalism, it’s kind of ironic, because growing up in Sri Lanka, I was surrounded by such a beautiful, biodiverse environment, and in a way, I think I took it for granted. I didn’t necessarily learn much about my particular environment until I arrived at Georgetown. Because I was in the School of Foreign Service, I knew I would be reading, writing, and engaging with my public speaking and critical thinking skills. So, when I was thinking about what extracurriculars 20

I wanted to do, I decided to do activities that weren’t competitive and were different from my classroom activities. I auditioned for a bunch of plays, and I was so lucky to get a lead role in one of the plays during my freshman fall. This formed my connection to the theater. But, I didn’t want to professionalize this connection or “academize” it, I wanted it to stay sacred – something fun and a hobby.

Then, in my sophomore year, there was this awesome production called “On the Lawn” by the LubDub Theater Company, which is a theater company founded by some Georgetown alums. They collaborated with Georgetown’s Theater Department on the play. The play was entirely devised, meaning it was written from scratch by the performers themselves. I hadn’t really done theater like that before, but when I walked into the audition room, I had such a good time and fell in love with the team. Huge shout out to Caitlin Cassidy, who is one of the founders of LubDub and a Georgetown alum. She and Geoff Kanick, the co-director both have such a warm presence; I just knew I wanted to work with them.

It was an amazing experience. I got to write, perform and tell stories – everything that I love to do. And I got class credit for it? That blew my mind a little bit. And the story we were telling was a climate story. We were talking about the implications of the American lawn for climate change and the legacy of lawns.

So, I was communicating climate science through storytelling.

This was really the first time I had thought about that intersection, and I never looked back.

Along the same lines, The Lab and Earth Commons recently hosted SURYA: A Convening of Earthly Storytellers and collaborated on Ferry Tales, a series of performances celebrating the Potomac watershed.

What inspired these collaborations?

My position at the Earth Commons and at Georgetown is in collaboration with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, which is an inaugural position, so it’s very new and exciting. SURYA came about from us thinking about what this work already looks like, who is doing work like this, what they think work like this should look like, what resources they need, what ways we can help each other, etc. We were trying to imagine forward and think about what our next steps for this collaboration would look like. SURYA was such an inspiring gathering, and I met some awesome folks.

As for Ferry Tales, the Kennedy Center was doing a River Run festival from the time between Water Day and Earth Day, which coincidentally was also during the month of Ramadan 21

— so, a very auspicious time. We were commissioned to do this project called Ferry Tales, and we were the only project that was doing something about D.C. and its bodies of water. Ferry Tales was also devised in that we interviewed key stakeholders of the Potomac and the Anacostia, including a former Anacostia Riverkeeper, an Indigenous leader who had learned knowledge about the Potomac, and scientists. Almost everybody we interviewed were women.

So, that’s what inspired Ferry Tales, and again, it was awesome to work with Caitlin Cassidy, Robert Duffley, Jan Menafee, and Julia Beu. All four of them and I are Georgetown alums. It was also awesome to work with professional theatremakers at the Kennedy Center and what that process is like, including the pros and cons of working with a huge institution as a tiny project.

In your opinion, what does performance art contribute to conversations about sustainability and the environment that other mediums of art may not?

I think performance art is so uniquely powerful in capturing your conscience. For example, if it’s TV or film, you can always pause it and you are very in control of your environment, whereas live performance means that you are watching it in a room with other people. You are feeling their energy and you can’t pause, rewind, or fast-forward it. Your conscience is completely present in that moment, and that presence is really, really powerful.

One of my friends says that theater is biology because it is the most alive thing. Every aspect of it is alive: the actors are performing live, the set is moving, the crew is moving the set and positioning every prop. That aliveness is awesome because it’s a constant state of collaboration. After a TV or film or visual art, once you’ve created it, you’re done and you can present it to an audience and have some degree of distance from it, whereas with theater, until a show closes — or even after a show closes — you’re still feeling the aliveness of it, and it’s incredibly collaborative. Someone said to me that when you’re trying to make change, certain things capture the mind and certain things capture the heart, and the best and most mindful changes are always influenced by the heart — you can’t get to the head without going through the heart.

In that vein, Toni Cade Bambara says, “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.” And that’s another aspect of live performance, the beauty of it really is irresistible.

When you are in the audience watching a performance, you can’t help but look.

Performance uniquely contributes to the conversation about climate change because I feel like climate change and environmental issues can feel very abstract, scientific, and data-centric to a lot of people and to the mainstream, but performance really centers the person and their story. For example, with the wildfires in Maui, you can see pictures of the wildfires and read statistics, but the most compelling, tragic, moving, inspiring news and media that came out of it, to me personally, were the individual stories of local residents and how they were coping.

It adds a significant personal element to an issue that has been deeply politicized.

In your speech at the Sireus Conference this year, you briefly discuss the ever-present climate anxiety many people face today. How does climate performance address, alleviate, or simply acknowledge this anxiety?

I think live performances are connected to our ancestors and oral tradition — the way we have passed down knowledge and addressed problems by talking to each other and sharing stories.

And particularly with climate anxiety, the “We Hear You” project is about acknowledging the state of the world we’re living in, and I think that adds a degree of solidarity between people. Storytelling around this topic is not just about trauma and hardship but also about things getting better and things that are working.

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Watering Whole Excerpts from Jan Menafee’s new poetry collection

In Jan’s own words, “Before this little book was a little book, it was a daily walk along the Mad, Stillwater, and Great Miami Rivers of Dayton, Ohio; a constant questioning of my personal and cultural relationship with water, and a listening for the emotionality of water as expressed through Black art. Because through all of the uncertainty that comes with growing up in a dying world – I find comfort, curiosity and courage in the waters that we are born in and return to every day of our lives.” We are honored to share these selections with the Common Home audience. Please enjoy.

To read the entirety of Jan’s chapbook, email jem349@georgetown.edu for your copy.

Illustrations by Cecilia Cassidy

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Here:

Take this glass of water.

Simple, right? Boring. But Think about it like this.

With the slightest, subtle shift In how we think, We can change how we drink.

Which will change how we think And therefore so much more.

Change: How we spill ink In poetry and policy alike.

Those words written on paper That might transform the way We love ourselves, Our big and small bodies of water, Of Past, Present, Possible.

Know: That we’ve only Been here a blink.

So much depends on the love We sing for our soul bodies.

Our waters at once Mundane & Magical, Alien & Humane, Black Ice & Purple Rain, Those Gods slain and reborn Every day in every cell In every living being In our magnificent Mother Earth.

So here: Take this glass of water.

Remember that our soul bodies Practice the most sacred of rituals To honor who we are, Who we belong to, Who we protect and celebrate.

Constantly: Remembering & Forgetting, Inhaling & Exhaling, Pushing & Pulling.

Only, ever, always, on the path Of watering whole Of destiny fulfilling.

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Haiku of the Oceans

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The mystery that Does not fall from the heavens, But flows from within. ~

There’s no solid ground.

There’s nothing left to do but Wade in the water. ~

Sky, the first window, And Ocean, the first mirror, Hold us together. ~

How much of the me I see in glass mirrors is Really me? Not much. ~

The music made me Appreciate hues of blues.

Oceanic bliss… ~

I don’t know much but I know one thing: water will Always find a way.

There Was a Time When I had no sense of time.

But place, absolutely.

Where I could sit in one spot and stare As the seasons passed by.

As bees buzzed by close enough that I could see Their black and yellow fur, Bulbous, dotted eyes and big butt narrowing to A tip.

They picked their flowers.

The buzzing stopped.

I knew they were excited to dig in By the way they rubbed their hands together.

They feasted in those magnificent flowers’ The same way I did for some mac & cheese.

Just like me, These bees were A little more yellow after dinner.

The little specks of pollen Coating their little bodies.

But who was I to call bumblebees small?

Who are they big to?

Those bees never flew in straight lines, They more sort of floated around, circling.

There was a time When I had no sense of time.

But place, absolutely.

There was a time When I spoke a language More wondrous than words.

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Photo Feature afternoon on copacabana.

Photographed by Charlotte Taylor

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What We’re Reading:

Meltwater by Claire Wahmanholm

By Elyza Bruce, CAS ‘25 & Common Home Editor

Most mainstream conversations surrounding climate change are centered in the realms of science, technology, and policy-making – or rather, what is rational, concrete, and quantifiable. This is a failure of imagination; climate change is an emotional crisis as much as it is a practical one. Art, and in particular, poetry, can fill these crucial gaps in our understanding of the climate crisis. Meltwater (2023), Claire Wahmanholm’s fourth poetry collection from Milkweed Editions, offers readers the emotional vocabulary to process the grief, anxiety, and uncanniness of ecological disaster that few other mediums can capture. Using a variety of poetic forms, from erasure poems, to alphabet poems, and prose poems, Wahmanholm paints a rich emotional portrait of grief in the face of parenthood and the looming threat of climate change.

A recurring series of poems titled “Glacier” and “Meltwater” appear throughout the collection, both forms considering the future ramifications of melting glaciers. The “Glacier” poems contain bold blocks of texts solidly filling the page, visually resembling the ancient bodies of ice of the poems’ namesake.

Each time this poem appears in the book, the speaker revisits the same narrative as they attend exhibits where real glaciers can be viewed as they melt; visitors can even pay extra to bottle some of the meltwater to bring home.

In contrast, the recurring poems titled “Meltwater” are erasures from the essay “How to Mourn a Glacier” by Lacy M. Johnson.

They comprise mere spatterings of words sprinkled across the glaring white page, as if the poem itself is being melted and scattered away. While the “Glacier” poems are more grounded in narrative, the “Meltwater” poems read like ghostly prophecies of the fallout to come.

Many of the poems in Meltwater are from the perspective of parenthood: what it means to raise a child into a world

threatened by climate disaster. Wahmanholm articulates the cognitive dissonance that occurs when the ardent desire for a child clashes with the threat of an increasingly hostile world: “Sorrow and desire mixed at my roots…I thought your arrival would knock all the sorrow from me instead of increasing its reach.” Wahmanhom also explored this theme in her 2018 poetry collection Wilder. In an interview with The Adroit Journal, Wahmanholm said, “No one thinks they’re bringing their children into a perfect world, but some worlds are objectively worse than others.”

In the first iteration of the “Glacier” poems, the speaker expresses horror upon seeing parents bringing their children to see a glacier exhibit: “Everyone knows that children smell fear, but they smell shame even better.” Wahmaholm intricately captures a devastating situation; how to explain to a child that their future is bleak due to mistakes made before they were even born.

The heart of meltwater lies in the tension between the joy of parenthood and the looming dread of ecological disaster that threatens a child’s future. This tension is poignantly portrayed in the four alphabet poems in the collection, such as “P,” which follows a speaker as she reads a picture book to a child.

The poem begins with innocent associations with the letter “P” one might use to teach a child the alphabet, such as “peek-a-boo and this little piggy.” The tone takes a sharp turn as her mind associates “P” with the dark realities of environmental disaster such as “Pipelines and petrochemical plants” and “plastic, more permanent than permafrost.”

Another common thread in the collection is bearing witness to extinction. “O,” another alphabet poem in the collection and a third-place winner of the Treehouse Climate Action Poem 30

Prize, likewise uses rhythm and alliteration to evoke a children’s alphabet book to reckon with the startling loss of biodiversity.

In “O,” the speaker lists a myriad species to reflect the dazzling biodiversity of the earth “O for the osprey’s ostentation, the owl and its collection of ossicles,” then juxtaposes them against the looming threat of their extinction, “O for the rising ozone, the dropping oxygen, for algae overblooming like an omen or an oracle.”

Wahmanholm dwells in the gray area that simultaneously celebrates the abundance of life on earth and mourns its subsequent vanishing due to ecological disaster. Wahmanholm said of the poem: “I kept thinking about alphabet books, especially those featuring animals. They say to children: look, the world is a vast kaleidoscope; look, its creatures are miraculous. But what if we were honest? If we said that koalas will vanish, and zebras, and orangutans, and that we — the authors of these books — are ensuring their vanishing?”

Beyond powerpoint slides of abstracted carbon emissions statistics and international climate accords loaded with bureaucratic jargon, poems like those in Meltwater remind readers that the melting of glaciers is not merely a logistical issue to be solved by policymakers, nor can the extinction of countless species be reduced to data points on a graph; they are pressure points of grief that are to be felt and felt deeply.

Photo provided by Michal on Adobe Stock 31

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The Synergy between the Arts and the Sciences:

Representing the Wonders of the Natural World through Visual Art A Conversation with visual artist Rebecca Rutstein

by Elyza Bruce, CAS ‘25 & Common Home Editor

Installation photo of Blue Dreams by Rebecca Rutstein and the Ocean Memory Project on view at the National Academy of Sciences thru Sept 15, 2023.

Video projection on an 11x35' custom curved screen, 2023.

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Rebecca Rutstein is an interdisciplinary artist whose work, in collaboration with scientific researchers, explores the interconnected systems and unseen wonders of the natural world.

You can learn more about her work at rebeccarutstein.com.

EB: Most of your work explores subjects of science and the natural world. How did this inspiration start and how has it changed over the years?

RR I always knew I wanted to be an artist. From a very young age, it was just an integral part of me. My connection to the natural world evolved more slowly over time. I wasn't brought up in a family that was super outdoorsy. I landed in upstate New York at Cornell University for college, and if you're not familiar, the Finger Lakes region of New York is a wild display of geologic wonders, with gorges, waterfalls and monumental layers of sedimentary rock. On a whim, I took a geology course which was life-changing. For class we would go to nearby state parks and learn about geologic processes firsthand. It wasn't until after college and beyond grad school that I started thinking about geology as subject matter in my paintings. I was in my twenties with lots of tumultuous relationships and ups and downs. One day I was leafing through a geology textbook in my studio when I came upon these diagrams showing how the earth's tectonic plates were separating and colliding, and I began thinking about how these forces underneath the surface were causing upheaval. This resonated for me as a metaphor for interpersonal relationships; all of the friction, tension and erosion that happens over time. So I started playing around with this idea of incorporating the diagrams into my paintings.

This early experimentation sparked a genuine, lifelong pursuit to learn about the geology of different regions and create visual narratives about them. These explorations and my collaborations with scientists have become one of the most important aspects of my practice as I try to shed light on places and these processes that are often hidden from view.

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Installation photo of Sub Surficiem in an exhibition at the UC Science Center in Philadelphia.

Powder coated steel, LED lights, and audio, 2021.

Photo provided by Jaime Alvarez

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You use a variety of mediums from large sculptures to paintings. Could you break down your artistic process for an average piece from start to finish?

For some of your research, you actually travel with scientists on expeditions. Could you speak on that and whether it changes how you view what you're trying to represent?

A lot of my recent projects are research-based, where I'm collaborating with scientists. That’s exciting for everyone involved, because we're not in silos. We're working together to come up with something that is related to what they're doing, but also, maybe taking it in a new direction. What's exciting for me about these interdisciplinary exchanges is that we're having a real dialogue. Often I hear that scientists look at their work differently after seeing my artistic expression of what they’re doing. So there really is a synergy. If I'm working on a more immersive type installation that involves sculpture and LED lights that are programmed to mimic something in nature, those involve partnerships where I need funding, and there's a collaborative process where I'm working with other people to realize the project. In the case of a painting, it's a much more solitary process, that personal relationship between myself and the canvas where I'm exploring and pushing ideas.

It has been beyond life-changing to dive in deep sea submersibles and actually witness with my own eyes this otherworldly universe at the bottom of the ocean. The sensation of moving through the water column, descending slowly for long periods of time in the darkness, and seeing bioluminescent life moving all around you like dancing stars changes your whole perspective on our place in the universe. It's not only the experience of being in the submersible and seeing these wild chemosynthetic ecosystems at the bottom of the ocean, it's also the experience of being on the ship and being embedded with the scientists.

There's a synergy that happens on these expeditions. We're working together, elbowing in the lab together while I'm painting, and they're working with samples, and we're discovering and exploring and learning together. Beyond the scientists, it's also the whole team, the crew, and the engineers; everybody's a family, because you all have to work together to run a smooth ship and to have a successful science operation.

In our culture, it always seems like science and art are viewed as polar opposites. Art is all about beauty, emotions and aesthetics while the sciences are based on cold, hard facts and rationalism. Do you ever think about how your work might marry these two seemingly opposite things?

In my experience, they are not opposite at all. I have met scientists who are more creative than artists. Every collaboration I’ve had with scientists corroborates this for me: scientists and artists are, in fact, very similar in that we are both interested and inquisitive about the world. We're keen observers and trying to make sense of the world around us. And there’s a shared passion, you know? I always joke that scientists and artists are both grossly underpaid, so you have to really love what you do to do it. In terms of how my work might marry these seemingly opposing forces, I do believe there are these juxtapositions present in my work; expressive and emotionally charged moments that are grounded in patterns and systems observed in the natural world.

What do you hope viewers will take away from your work?

Installation photo of Shimmer in the permanent collection of the Georgia Museum of Art. Powder coated steel, LED lights and motion sensors, 2018.

I think about this a lot. I'm interested in creating work that is a visceral experience for the viewer that can be appreciated on a formal level, and that can generate moments of wonder, joy, curiosity, or what have you. Taking it further, I am interested in the piece resonating beyond aesthetics where the viewer might learn something new about the natural world. That might happen through seeing patterns that they recognize or by reading wall panel text where I describe the inspiration for the work. I would hope a viewer might take away a deeper understanding for the complexities of the natural world, a reverence and an empathy for these systems, and hopefully, a feeling of connection to foster a sense of stewardship for the natural world. That’s really, for me, what it’s about.

Rebecca’s project “Blue Dreams,” an immersive video installation, will be showing at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. from March 15 to September 15 as part of the Ocean Memory Project. Rebecca will be speaking on a panel during the closing reception for Blue Dreams on September 7, 2023. You can register for the event here.

Note: Minor edits have been made for clarity and concision.

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Alumni Spotlight:

Sara Jordan, Deputy Chief of Staff at The White House Council on Environmental Quality Interview by Maya Alcantara, MSB/GSAS ’23 & Common Home Editor

Our Alumni Spotlight series elevates alumni voices in the environmental field and shares their inspiring stories. Hundreds of Hoyas within the vast network of Georgetown alumni are working toward a greener future – leading critical projects in wildlife conservation, sustainable business, ecological research, and other vital efforts.

Sara Jordan (CAS ’07, GSAS’ 08) is the Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Created in 1969, the CEQ works within the Executive Office of the President to advise and develop policies around the environment and public health. Sara graduated from Georgetown with her Bachelor’s and Master's degrees in American Government.

Photo courtesy of Sara Jordan; Design by Cecilia Cassidy.

How did your interests and experiences lead you to this position with the CEQ? Growing up, I was always interested in politics and the environment, but I didn’t realize I could have a career in either until I went to Georgetown. I majored in American Government, and my professors would bring in guest lecturers who were working on Capitol Hill or for the Administration at the time. I was hooked from the moment I heard them talk about their work. They spent their days working on issues that they cared passionately about and making a difference in people’s lives. I knew from that moment that I wanted to work in politics.

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My first job in DC was as a scheduler for Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.). I then spent several years working for environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), where I was able to dive deeply into climate change policy and advocacy campaigns before returning to Capitol Hill. There, I worked for Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) as her climate policy advisor for her position on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

You played soccer as a student and professionally; how did your experiences of being an athlete shape your career path?

How do you see the federal environmental policy field changing in the coming years?

Being a student-athlete at Georgetown shaped my career path in a lot of ways. Much of what I learned as a player and as a captain at Georgetown has translated into how I try to lead in my professional roles. I always try to build a team that is collaborative; we work together toward the same goals and have some fun along the way.

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act completely changed the environmental policy field. It is the single largest step ever taken to address climate change. It will accelerate private investment in clean energy solutions in every sector and corner of the country, strengthen supply chains for everything from critical minerals to efficient electric appliances, and create good-paying jobs and new economic opportunities for workers.

Being a student-athlete at Georgetown also shaped my career path in a very specific way. To finish my collegiate soccer eligibility, I enrolled in the Masters in American Government program at Georgetown. It was a new Master's program at the time, and it was small, which was great because the professors were really understanding and flexible with my soccer schedule. A requirement of the program was to complete a 9-month internship.

I was talking to Coach Nolan one day about how I was interested in environmental policy and that I wanted to complete my internship in that field, but I wasn’t sure where to start. I was also nervous about doing such a long internship with a full class schedule and a very demanding soccer schedule. I was the only person in my Master’s program playing a college sport and the only person on the soccer team in a Master’s program.

I didn’t want my performance in either to suffer. Coach Nolan introduced me to a Georgetown women’s soccer alum, Sara Chieffo, who was working for an environmental NGO in Washington, D.C., and she hired me to intern for her organization. I learned so much in that internship about the different facets of a career in politics and environmental policy, and that really shaped my early job choices.

As the field of environment and sustainability grows, do you have any advice for students looking to pursue a career in this line of work?

Look for an internship! Internships are a great way to get a better feel for what you like and what you don’t like. There are so many directions you can go in this field, and an internship can be both a great experience and a window into one facet of the environmental field.

How has your role evolved since joining CEQ? I started at CEQ at the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, so my role has changed a lot since the early days. When I started, we had about 25% of the staff we currently have, our Chair had not yet been confirmed by the Senate, and we didn’t have any existing procedures or policies for the office. Although I’ve never worked at a start-up, in many ways, the early days of the Administration were how I imagined working at a start-up would be. We needed to hire staff quickly, develop policies and procedures for the office, and execute President Biden’s ambitious climate and environmental justice agenda. It has been really hard work but incredibly rewarding, and I’m so thankful I have this opportunity to serve in this Administration.

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Alumni Spotlight:

Luke Holden, Founder and CEO of Luke’s Lobster Interview by Alannah Nathan, SFS ‘24 & Common Home Editor

Our Alumni Spotlight series elevates alumni voices in the environmental field and shares their inspiring stories. Hundreds of Hoyas within the vast network of Georgetown alumni are working toward a greener future – leading critical projects in wildlife conservation, sustainable business, ecological research, and other vital efforts.

Luke Holden graduated from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business (MSB) in 2007 with a B.S. in Finance and Management. After a brief stint on Wall Street, Mainer Holden turned his childhood passion for fishing and lobster into a successful restaurant chain, Luke’s Lobster. Luke’s Lobster is now a leading fast casual lobster restaurant with locations in ten US states, Japan, and Singapore. We recently sat down with Luke to discuss his journey from student to CEO, sustainability in the seafood industry, the company’s social initiatives, and the future of Luke’s Lobster.

Above: Luke sitting on yellow lobster crates against a wooden wall of his restaurant in Maine.

Photo provided by Jenn Bravo Right:

Thank you so much for being part of this Common Home piece. We’d love to know what motivated you to pivot from Wall Street to founding Luke’s Lobster. Was sustainability an important part of your initial vision for Luke’s Lobster, even back in 2009?

I initially was motivated by the desire to bring great lobster rolls to NYC, at a price point that was accessible. I was excited to showcase the highest quality lobster meat prepared in a really simple way, with the help of my dad who had at that 39

Photo provided by Jonas Jacobssonon on Unsplash

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Left: Pier in Maine with Luke's Lobster restaurant on it.

Photo provided by Jenn Bravo Above: Potato chips and a lobster roll sandwich.

Photo provided by Jenn Bravo

point been in the industry for decades already. It was important to me to source high-quality, sustainable lobster then, and is still important to me to this day, if not more so. I love taking my three young daughters out lobstering as much as possible in the summer, just as I did growing up, and it's crucial that we continue to do everything we can to sustain this industry so we can continue on for the next generation and many more to come.

Can you share about Luke’s Lobster Seafood Co.’s impressive commitment to serving 100% traceable seafood in your restaurants? How rare is traceability across the seafood supply chain in your industry? Why is it important both for restaurants and customers?

The seafood industry isn't known for transparency, so it was that much more important for me to make that a priority in

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our business from day one. It's important that restaurants know where their food is coming from in order to ensure quality, but also for everyone across the food chain to know the people who are harvesting the food. We try to pass this along to the customer every chance we get and to showcase the real people who not only are catching their seafood but who are hand picking it and preparing it, many of whom have worked with my family for decades.

Reading through a few of your past interviews, it’s clear that the well-being of the people who support Luke’s Lobster – from the Maine lobstermen you source your product from to your restaurant’s customers – is important to you and the company’s overall sustainability strategy. Luke’s Lobster has several admirable social initiatives – I’d love to know more about the Lift All Boats Project, for example. Are there any specific success stories you can speak to?

Luke and his dad standing in their garage Photo provided

by Jenn Bravo

The well-being of people who support Luke's is extremely important, as is the well-being of our team who work every day to fulfill our commitment to serving high-quality, sustainable seafood. The Lift All Boats Project is an educational project that came about last year, in an effort to increase access to the lobster industry for marginalized folks who may not have the generational access that is a typical entry point to the lobster industry. We're in year two, and we have 18 students enrolled compared to last year's four students, with two students returning, so I'd say that we are proud of that success. It's been incredible to see our returning students Joshua and Christian become leaders and to see them show new students how to haul a trap or tie a knot. This is really what this project is all about.

Luke’s Lobster is a B Corp-certified business and, impressively, the highest-scoring restaurant group and seafood company in America! From a consumer standpoint, a B Corp certification is a clear indication of a company’s commitment to sustainability. What role does being a B Corp certified business play on the recipient's end? Does the B Corp status act as a guiding light, if you will, of your sustainability strategy?

From our point of view, this certification allows us to tell our guests that we put social and environmental good over profit. It's a simple way to get that message across to the consumer, but it also guides us in many decisions that we make daily, from choosing which vendor to buy merchandise from, to determining what kind of Limited Time Offer promotion we'll sell in our shacks.

Looking ahead, are there certain sustainability goals or initiatives Luke’s Lobster has set to achieve or expand on that you’d be willing to share with us?

We are constantly looking to improve our own carbon footprint, and while we've done the work of measuring our carbon footprint and taken steps like buying 100% renewable energy in every Luke's property that we own, installing solar panels on our lobster buy station in Portland and more, we're constantly looking to make improvements within our reach.

We work with partner wharves to encourage them to install their own on-site solar, we're working to begin trials of electric boat engines at wharves around Maine, and we're continuing to innovate more ways to utilize the full lobster from antenna to tail.

While I’d imagine that all components of a sustainable food system merit more attention than they’re currently receiving, if you had to pick one area that you believe isn’t focused on enough, what would it be?

I'd love to see more light shed on the relatively low carbon footprint of lobster and seafood in general. There's been a lot of media attention surrounding the carbon footprint of beef and chicken, but lobster emits just 2.89 pounds of greenhouse gas per pound of lobster sourced, which is even less than eggs and coffee (beef comes in at 60 lbs of emissions per pound of protein)!

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Defense, Denial, and Disinformation: Uncovering the Oil Industry’s Early Knowledge of Climate Change

By Charlotte Taylor, SFS ‘24

As early as 1959, oil industry executives understood the connection between burning fossil fuels and climate change. Soon thereafter, industry scientists confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that the burning of fossil fuels contributed to anthropogenic climate change. In response, oil companies scrambled to promulgate climate change denial and disinformation in order to avoid government regulation. It was not until the late 1990s and early 2000s that oil companies began publicly acknowledging the scientific consensus on climate change and responded by promoting market-based solutions to mitigating emissions.

Popular concern for anthropogenic climate change did not emerge until the late 1980s, but formerly secret industry documents that are now available through the Climate Files database reveal that oil industry scientists were raising concern about oil’s impacts on the climate as early as the 1950s and 1960s.

Starting in the 1950s, the oil industry designated funds to research the effects of pollution on the environment. For example, the 1954 American Petroleum Institute (API) article “The Petroleum Industry Sponsors Air Pollution Research” suggested that smog was the product of a reaction of ozone and gasses that evaporate from cracked gasoline.

Later, Shell’s 1959 article “The Earth’s Carbon Cycle” affirmed that burning fossil fuels released 2.5 billion tons of carbon each year at the time and “might conceivably change the climate.”

Nonetheless, the paper’s author, Dr. M. A. Matthews of Shell International Chemical Company employed just enough doubt to cast uncertainty on the suggested climatic threats.

Matthews’ doubtful rhetoric appears to be the first of many industry ploys to instill uncertainty in the public and generate distrust in scientific fact.

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Moreover, documents reveal that the API was privately informed about the threat of climate change by its commissioned Stanford Research Institute scientists. In the scientist’s report, “Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmosphere Pollutants (Prepared for the American Petroleum Institute),” Elmer Robinson and RC Robbins write that if fossil fuel production continues, “Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000” which “could bring about climatic changes.” In direct and convincing language, the scientists declared that “there seem[ed] to be no doubt that the damage to our environment could be severe.”

This means that at the latest by 1968 (when the report was published) the oil industry knew beyond reasonable doubt about the relationship between burning fossil fuels and climate change.

In fear of looming government regulations, the oil industry responded defensively by promulgating climate denialism.

Organized strategies of climate denialism were evident in the 1970s. Exxon’s 1977 “The Coming Energy Crunch: A Practical Guide to Defensive Action” pro-oil report illustrates the

Design by Cecilia Cassidy.

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industry’s strategy of defensive denialism. Dr. Leslie Cook, the manager of Exxon Corporate Research Laboratories at the time, dismissed the oil industry’s culpability in climate change as “sheer folly.” Fearing the financial threat that the emerging climate science posed to the industry, Dr. Cook wrote that “prudent businessmen will take steps to see to it that someone else takes the risk.” He concluded that Exxon must deflect responsibility onto the public to ensure that environmental issues were dealt with at the public level.

The “1988 Exxon Memo on the Greenhouse Effect” took a similar stance. While acknowledging the severity of the greenhouse effect, the policy memo ordered Exxon to “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions” and “resist the overstatement and sensationalizing of potential greenhouse effect which could lead to noneconomic development of non-fossil fuel resources.”

Moreover, the history of the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) serves as a prime example of the oil industry’s collective efforts

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to spread climate disinformation. The GCC mobilized funds to oppose greenhouse gas regulations through collaboration across automotive, manufacturing, mining, and petroleum industries. In the coalition’s testimony before the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House of Representatives, Michael E. Baroody testified that a natural greenhouse effect exists, however adding that “there is still substantial uncertainty about the importance of human-induced global warming.”

The accompanying GCC report even claimed that “some scientists forecast that the impact of future climate change may be neutral or beneficial.” Ultimately, the GCC and oil industry executives weaponized doubt of climate change to protect their businesses from environmental regulations.

Prompted by a strengthening consensus among the scientific community and growing concern among the public, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, big oil began making public concessions to climate science and hinted at a commitment to mitigating the threats of climate change. Still, these concessions were

characterized by a hostility towards government regulations.

Instead, the industry promoted voluntary solutions based on technology and economic benefits.

Take for example, Shell’s 1998 Report, “Climate Change: What does Shell Think and Do About It?” In this report, Shell acknowledged the connection between climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. However, instead of pledging to reduce its carbon emissions, Shell claims it will combat climate change by continuing to produce oil and gas in order to fuel economic growth and foster technological innovation. In 2000, Exxon reiterated such market strategies, claiming “technology will reduce the potential risks posed by climate change.” This response from Shell proved ineffective at best, and harmful at worst; it ignored any sense of responsibility in the company’s direct contributions to climate change. Instead of addressing the climate change problem head on by reducing carbon emissions, the oil industry favored nonbinding, technological and market-based steps to confronting the issue.

Now, we are left to deal with the environmental consequences of years of corporate-backed denial which has helped instill public distrust in climate science despite the strong agreement among scientists. Today, this climate denialism appears in a new form: corporate greenwashing. Greenwashing is when a company misrepresents its products or services to be more environmentally friendly than they are in order to gain sales.

It functions as a marketing tool that tricks the public into thinking their purchase at a certain company is better for the environment. In reality, these companies – not unlike oil and gas corporations – are doing little to nothing to actually combat climate change.

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Extinction Rebellion:

Inciting Controversy – and Conversation – Since 2018 A review of the plight and progress of the environmental activist group

By Madhura Shembekar, SFS ‘26 & Common Home Editor

“This is an emergency.”

“The science is clear.

Our future is not.”

“The time to act is now.”

These are the bold declarations splashed across the homepage of Extinction Rebellion (XR), a U.K.-based, radical environmental group that uses public acts of civil disobedience to take action against organizations, businesses, and governments perpetuating climate change and biodiversity loss.

The group’s message is fairly straightforward, and to understand XR’s motivations, one has to look no further than its name and logo. “Extinction” refers to the ongoing sixth mass extinction on Earth, largely driven by unsustainable human practices such as poor land and resource management.

“Rebellion” manifests itself as XR’s ongoing nonviolent action.

And XR’s logo — a stark, geometric hourglass — completes the picture: our time is running out.

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The organization was officially formed in 2018 after British activists announced a Declaration of Rebellion against the government of the United Kingdom. Thousands of activists planted trees, dug a metaphorical “coffin” in the middle of Parliament Square, and glued themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace. From this first feat onward, the group has taken inspiration from historical nonviolent movements — such as Occupy London, the Civil Rights Movement, and Gandhi’s Satyagraha — to draw global attention to its cause.

And the world is paying attention. Since its inception in 2018, XR has spread to all seven continents, including 88 countries worldwide. Activists have scaled the Eiffel Tower, glued themselves to U.K. government buildings, and blocked roads

Photo provided by Unsplash;

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in Germany. The organization’s mission has expanded, as well.

When XR spread to the United States, a fourth item was added to its list of demands prioritizing “the most vulnerable people and indigenous sovereignty” by establishing “reparations and remediation led by and for Black people, Indigenous people, people of color and poor communities for years of environmental injustice.” Across the globe, inclusivity in its members and mission has become one of XR's central goals. In attempts to combat criticisms of its members being overwhelmingly white and affluent, XR now encompasses 7 affinity groups, or “communities,” including “XR Buddhists,” “XR Scientists,” “XR Disabled Rebels,” and even “XR Grandparents.”

Despite the changes it has undergone, XR has remained just as, if not more, controversial as the day it declared a rebellion against the U.K. government. Considered by many a radical fringe environmental group, XR has been blasted for alienating the general public through fear-mongering and obstruction of daily life as well as costing governments millions of taxpayer dollars. By the end of the group’s protests in London in 2019 and 2020, for example, XR had cost U.K. taxpayers £50 million in damages and police force costs.

XR has also struggled to gain widespread support within the progressive and activist community. Moves like denying its association with socialism and shying away from police abolition have made XR unpopular with left-wing political activists.

Many have even argued that XR’s work isn’t truly meaningful or impactful. Left-wing magazines like The Jacobin have criticized the global organization for simply not going far enough: in their words, “Our wretched Earth needs class and climate organizing, not a funnel into prison for young activists.”

highest levels of government and business. And perhaps most importantly, XR demanded that the U.K. government declare a climate emergency, making it the first country to do so in 2019.

For all of the criticisms of inaction it faces, XR seems to be making waves in the climate movement on an international scale.

So, where from here? As XR has evolved into countless chapters and regional groups, so has its activity. Now, individual chapters operate as autonomous arms of the broader movement: sheltered by the power of XR’s name and authority, but free to operate at the grassroots level. In Washington, D.C., for example, the local chapter is currently battling Washington Gas, a methane gas company serving more than 1 million customers, in an effort to expel fossil fuels from the nation’s capital. The campaign, coined “End Methane. Electrify D.C.” hopes to tackle the negative health, environmental, and political effects of methane gas use, particularly among families and children in lower-income communities in D.C..

Around the world, similar chapters tackle local issues, forming the now international beast that is Extinction Rebellion.

So, has it really made a difference? This question has plagued the conversation around XR and similar groups, with critics arguing that simply creating controversy isn’t real action.

However, in a world where a fifth of U.K. citizens and 46% of Americans doubt the severity of climate change and climate denialism seems rampant, perhaps simply forcing conversation is a tremendous step in the right direction. Without groups like XR challenging the status quo and forcing elites to reckon with their role in climate change, perhaps these conversations wouldn’t happen.

Despite these many critiques, the organization has consistently maintained its celebrity — or to some, its notoriety. Over the course of its many campaigns and sub-movements, XR has raised millions of dollars from donors of all kinds, from wealthy philanthropists to ordinary green-thumbed citizens.

In the U.K., where XR was founded and is based, the group has met with Members of Parliament and discussed policy at the

Collage of the activists, protests, and symbols of the UK environmental group Extinction Rebellion.

Photos provided by Unsplash; Design by Cecilia Cassidy 50

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