Volume 118 Junior Issue 1
Alex Lautin and Alexandra Yao Staff and Contributing Writers From fashion and feminism to recycled poster-making, the school’s first-ever Green Week covered various themes related to intersectional environmentalism in student and faculty-led workshops. Green Week is intended to create an opportunity for students who are interested in issues involving the environment and equality, Coorganizer of Green Week Sabrina Freidus (12) said. Freidus, along with her fellow Green HM Copresidents Nina Gaither (12) and Natalie Sweet (12) organized the week with the theme of environmental intersectionality in mind. “Because of COVID, there’s this absence of school-wide events that bring people together under the same academic theme,” Sweet said. Freidus, Gaither, and Sweet had always wanted to host their own Unity Week workshops, but when this year’s Unity
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Week was cancelled, they decided to create their own week centered around the environment, Sweet said. With this goal in mind, the three sent out emails to teachers and other community members to make their dreams a reality, she said. Sweet and Freidus created their own workshop in which participants watched the 1972 film “The Lorax,” and discussed its relation to environmental themes. Freidus chose “The Lorax” because of its commentary on the struggle between the economy and the environment and because it was ahead of its time in terms of activism against climate change, she said. After showing “The Lorax,” Sweet and Freidus led a discussion about the repercussions of deforestation and finding a balance between the environment and the economy. “The Lorax” is an example of how capitalism and industrialization can harm ecosystems and have dire consequences on the world, Freidus said. Steve Yang (10) attended Sweet and
Freidus’s workshop with his French 3H class. “Seeing the images of ruin further made apparent the urgency of the climate crisis for me, especially combined with my recent research of climate change in Chemistry class,” he said. Jack Bleichmar (10) attended the workshop titled “Recycling Mentality: Looking at Gender, Misinformation, and Laziness.” The discussion made Bleichmar think deeper about the environment and its relation to gender, he said. Although most of the workshops took place on campus, Dr. Christine Leo’s AP Chemistry class put together a virtual collection of workshops for the week. In the workshops, the class focused on four aspects of climate change: land, water, atmosphere, and its causes and solutions. Previously the ten minute presentations were on posters, but this year Leo decided to host the workshop online because of COVID-19 precautions. “The hope is that this website provides a resource for people to become more deeply educated on the
science of climate change despite its complexity, and that this knowledge will ultimately lead to action,” Leo said. Alexandre Saint-Sauveur (9) attended the “Dumping Trash in Developing Countries” workshop led by Elise Kang (9) and Naomi Yaeger (9). In their workshop, Kang and Yaeger discussed the ways that larger and more developed countries tend to dump their trash on developing
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countries. Saint-Sauveur also learned that there are more solutions to the issue of dumping trash than he had previously thought of before, he said. “I hope that [the workshops] starts a conversation that lasts beyond Green Week and that it opens people’s perspectives into environmental issues that we don’t always hear about,” Freidus said.
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ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST Gaither (12) presents on farming.
Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert speaks on climate at assembly Emily Salzhauer Staff Writer “Climate change is not a problem that can get solved, but it’s a problem that can get worse or get better,” journalist and author of “The Sixth Extinction” Elizabeth Kolbert told the Upper Division (UD) at Tuesday’s assembly. Addressing climate change “will require some major thinking and we must work hard to fix our problems,” Kolbert said. People must cut carbon emission and stop climate change before it worsens, she said. “The Sixth Extinction” won the Pulitzer Prize and was labeled one of The New York Times “10 Best Books of 2014.” Kolbert is also a staff writer
for The New Yorker and has written seven other books, most of which address the science and politics of the environmental crisis facing our planet today. Natalie Sweet (12) introduced Kolbert, and a panel of Global Environmental History (GEH) students, along with GEH teacher Dr. Ellen Bales. The panel members, Claire Goldberg (11), Izzy Abbott (12), Bennett Neuwirth (11), Ryan Finlay (11), and Teddy Ganea (11), moderated the assembly by asking her questions about her work. Kolbert discussed her experience of traveling with other scientists to The Great Barrier Reef in Australia, an experience that opened her eyes to the tremendous destruction of the environment within only
CLIMATE ENGAGEMENT Assembly panelists speak with Kolbert.
a few generations. Kolbert also discussed the importance of learning through active engagement with the environment, as it helps students understand their role in protecting those spaces. Bales agreed that learning about the environment first-hand in places like the John Dorr Laboratory can be beneficial to students, she said. When combined with classroom learning, it provides students with a deeper understanding of the environment and climate change, Bales said. Most of the ideas Kolbert raised during the assembly were also closely connected to what students are learning in the GEH course, Ganea said. Another theme that Kolbert discussed was the idea of timescales — or rates of change — and how quickly humans can affect the environment, Ganea said. “Humanity has been imposing a human timescale — years, decades — onto the geologic processes of nature, which means that nature simply can’t catch up with the burdens we are placing on it.” Another course theme Kolbert highlighted in her conversation was how catastrophic extinction events can stop the slow processes of evolution and natural selection, Neuwirth said. During the D period talkback, students asked Kolbert questions
about her work at The New Yorker, the process of writing her books, and her expertise on other environmental issues currently affecting the world. Kolbert also discussed technological innovation and the possibility of humans going to or living in deep space rather than solving environmental problems on Earth. In light of Kolbert’s insight, Ganea said people need to utilize their available resources when dealing with the climate crisis. “Kolbert argued that while going to space might seem great on paper, we cannot expect technological innovations in the future to serve as our ‘get-out-of-jail’ free card.” The UD community read “The Sixth Extinction” during the 20192020 school year in preparation for the 2020 Book Day, which was canceled due to COVID-19. The school chose “The Sixth Extinction” because of the current environmental crisis, Upper Division Library Department Chair Caroline Bartels said. The book is relevant to the school’s community because the consequences of human interference with the environment is a problem that current generations of students will have to face, Bartels said. “The decisions we make about how we interact with the environment will directly determine the rapidity of this
next big extinction.” Nitika Subramanian (10) especially enjoyed Kolbert’s thoughts on the Green New Deal. Kolbert said that while it is a great idea and political statement, it would not necessarily end climate change entirely, she said. “It’s great to talk about how climate policy would have a tangible effect on our lives.” At the end of the assembly, Kolbert urged students to take action to stop climate change. “[Climate change] problems are as big as planet earth and they’re only getting bigger,” she said. Kolbert’s assembly effectively demonstrated the gravity of the climate crisis and Bales plans to continue sharing Kolbert’s work in her GEH classes in the years to come, Bales said. “I hope students will feel inspired to read more of Kolbert’s work and will take seriously the urgent nature of the climate crisis,” she said. Ganea hopes students leave the assembly more conscious about the environment, and inspired to do their best to combat climate change, Ganea said. “We cannot stand on the sidelines of such an impending crisis,” he said. “We must take swift, yet well thought-out action, and it’s time we put our brains to the task.”
COMMUNITY REACTIONS TO DEREK CHAUVIN VERDICT “It’s the beginning of a long overdue seismic shift in both policing and the justice sysrem” - Music Teacher Doug Epstein
“I am very relieved that the verdict reached this conclusion, yet I am unsure about the policymakers and politicians calling this justice. This isn’t justice; this is the bare minimum for what should’ve happened. George Floyd “I don’t believe this will lead to concrete policy change, but should still be alive. He wasn’t a martyr, and seeing people I’m happy that someone our justice system has deemed is frame him that way as if he intended to die for a cause is unsettiling.” a criminal is going to jail.” - Gabrielle Fischberg (12) - Ryan Rosenthal (12)
“I think this verdict was a very important step in black liberation, but it’s not justice because the system is still broken so no change has happened yet.” - Ajani Green-Watson (11)