Headwaters Magazine - Spring 2019

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

e: A Insid into look nrise u the S ment e Mov he t and New n Gree l Dea

Feature 17. Sunrise to Sunset: The Grassroots Outgrowth of the Green New Deal

by Emmett Gartner

Contents 4. Sublimity: A Profile of George Nakashima

by Matthew King 6. The Sound of Nature

by Chloe Koval 8. Bulk Aisle Shopping: What’s the Scoop?

by Sydney Decker 10. Food is Money

by Mack Baker 13. Redefining an Industry: Costa Rica’s Alternative Model for Palm Production

by Jessica NeJame 15. A Deep Dive into an Undersea Mystery: Beaked Whales

by Jasper Barnes

29. Featured Column: Taking Action, Finding Hope

by Meryl Braconnier

21. What Lies Beneath The Water? Environmental Justice at the Chioxy Hydroelectric Dam

by Clare Abbatiello 23. Punta Banco, Costa Rica

by Barry Donaldson 27. Harvesting a Division Between Human and Environmental Health: Natural Ingredients in Pharmaceuticals

by Jacquelyn Hayatan and Jacqueline Johnson 30. Sense of Place in the Anthropocene

by Ella Mighell 34. Our Own Great Flood: What Should Christians Do About Climate Change?

by Abby Bruzas 38. Help a Rodent, Save a Raptor

by Alexis Martinez

Want to see your writing or art in the Fall 2019 edition?

Submit a 100 word pitch outlining your intended topic and approach to uvmheadwaters@gmail.com by Friday, September 13 at midnight.

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Masthead Editors-in-Chief Julia Bailey-Wells Jess Savage Treasurer Jessica NeJame Managing Designers Katelyn Lipton Gretchen Saveson Managing Editors Maya Bostwick Meryl Braconnier Emmett Gartner Chris Gish Avery Lentini McKenna Murray Jessica NeJame Brenna Reagan Lindsey Stinson Business Associates Abi Baker Sydney Decker Rebecca Goldstein Grace Mungenast Jill Reynolds

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Designers Mack Baker Eileen Brickell Grace Bugler Braden DeForge Eleanor Duva Jay Griffith Nadia Kamel Alexis Martinez Adela Miller UVMHeadwaters.org Find us @UVMHeadwaters on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter All images (unless otherwise noted) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Cover: Photo by Mack Baker, Art by Katelyn Lipton Copyright © 2019 Headwaters Magazine Headwaters Magazine 2

Dear Reader, Welcome to the sixth edition of our environmental publication. By the time these pages fall into your hands, the spring air will be bringing about a sense of renewal and a marked change from blustering winds to blooming April flowers. In the new season, we are also considering our role in an unfurling anthropocene.

We find ourselves fielding acute discouragement, skepticism, and doubt from both those who stand to gain from environmental exploitation, and those who view climate change as a benign non-factor. In turn, we see young people taking responsibility for a problem not of our own making, refusing the dismissal of hope as a juvenile fallacy, and instead finding productive intersections of urgency and deliberate action.

We, as journalists, are not stewards of solutions—rather, our role is to frame environmental thought so that we may inform our readers. Beyond this, we hope the work of our authors and artists spurs you to imagine yourself within our collective movement onward.

Our writers explore the deforestation that supports life-sustaining pharmaceuticals, the activism of students in the Sunrise Movement as they confront lackadaisical legislators, and how one religion responsible for widespread conflict can reconfigure perspectives of stewardship.

This issue is the last one which features students who helped to publish the very first edition of Headwaters. It is difficult to pass the magazine along to those who did not experience the initial energy that propelled the publication’s founding. Unlike older generations around the world who built an unsustainable society and handed it, wracked with ills, to their children to clean, gentle hands created this magazine and now place it into the hands of a new and ready set of devoted contributors.

We hope that from these pages you can appreciate the timeless effort of our writers, editors, designers, and those who work on the parts of the magazine you may not hold in your hands—our business team, UVM’s Environmental Program, the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, our advisor, Josh Brown, and UVM’s Student Government Association. So please, if you are able, take some time to sit with us and engage with the matters we all hold so close and now, pass along to you.

With Love,

Julia Bailey-Wells and Jess Savage University of Vermont ‘20 and ‘19 Editors-in-Chief of Headwaters Magazine

The Trump Administration’s plan to open nine million acres for oil drilling will infringe on land that protects the Sage Grouse.

Art by Katelyn Lipton

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SUBLIMITY A Profile of George Nakashima

By Matthew King

What separates wood from metal, concrete, and other mediums is the unpredictable grain, the unique beauty that it can create, and the living tale it has to convey. Rather than squeezing wood into a mold that makes it no different from other materials, George Katsutoshi Nakashima transformed the perception of wood held by furniture makers, consumers, and critics, from another seemingly endless resource to something that should be revered for its natural state.

Nakashima’s contributions to furniture making and 20th century design solidified him as a staple of woodcraft’s canon. In exploring his personal relationship with nature, one can see that his finished pieces of furniture served as nothing but an act of respect to the trees from which they came and the environment in which they grew; in crafting them, he was honoring the spirit of the tree, past its classic utilitarian roots. Furniture craft may not be a regularly discussed medium in environmental art, but Nakashima’s approach to his work—his philosophies regarding the soul of the tree—have helped to open the observatory scope of art critics and woodworkers alike.

As a Japanese-American born in Spokane, Washington, Nakashima spent his childhood and teenage-years exploring the lush Pacific Northwest. He frolicked among the great Douglas firs and cedars that stood on a ridgeline near his home, gaining an appreciation for their grandeur and their impact on his environment. In his teens, during the early 1920s, Nakashima’s summer jobs with milling companies showed him firsthand the tragedy of how quickly a unique thousand-year-old tree could become a dimensional, square lumber for construction. Though he may not have known yet, his dismay over this process would eventually inspire him to change the art of furniture

Art by Katelyn Lipton

making forever.

After earning a bachelor’s degree at the University of Washington and a master’s degree at M.I.T.—both in architecture—Nakashima sold his car and bought a ticket for a boat that travelled around the world. Through the artistic revolution and mass culture shift occurring in the 1930s, he developed a natural comfort for innovation and thinking outside of the box.

While living for a while in Japan, his parent’s homeland, he learned about the subtleties of Japanese architecture and woodworking and its interdependence with nature. For thousands of years, the Japanese have used their unique methods to create the world’s finest furniture and buildings. Japanese construction highlights the use of hand-tools, which give the woodworker a more intimate feel for their work, and strong, intricate joinery that allows the finished pieces to last for centuries, even millennia.

Nakashima began working with a world-famous architect Antonin Raymond and got a job in Pondicherry, India, as the lead architect of a religious group’s compound.

While in this spiritual commune surrounded by lush Indian wildlife he discovered a sort of religious connection between human and nature. After nearly ten years of travel, Nakashima returned to Seattle. His exploration, along with his newfound connection to his homeland, left him not only with an enhanced spiritual outlook on life, but also with immense wisdom that he could channel into his career.

Nakashima’s travels soon came to a halt in 1942, when the United States government interned him, his wife, children, and others of Japanese descent. Taken to a camp in Idaho, he met Gentaro Hikogawa, a man well-trained in the art of Japanese carpentry. The two men quickly bonded

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Image courtesy of Skinner, Inc. www.skinnerinc.com

over their shared craft, and it was in this camp that Nakashima developed his hand-tool skills and solidified the discipline that he had learned in Japan for perfection in all stages of construction. Released in 1944, he and his family promptly moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he started a furniture business.

Before exploring the relationship between art and artist, one must first understand the relationship between craft and medium—specifically, wood. Milling lumber is always the same process: take a round, unique tree, and turn it into flat, square, predictable lumber. Furniture makers traditionally favor this procedure, as the predictability enables them to mass-produce furniture out of lumber that comes from trees of all shapes and sizes. Perhaps it is because he saw this process firsthand on the Pacific Northwest ridgeline, or perhaps it was the spirituality of nature that he experienced on his travels, but these traditional processes simply did not work for Nakashima.

“There’s a spirit in trees that’s very deep, and in order to produce a fine piece of furniture, the spirit lives on, and I can give it a second life.” –George Nakashima

pieces—inspired by the arts and craft movement, as well as Japanese carpentry— generally followed a similar equation: use a well-built architectural base to display a beautiful piece of ‘live-edge’ wood. A ‘live-edge’ slab retains the natural edge of the tree, embracing the unique form of that individual tree. As the centerpiece of all of his furniture, these beautiful slabs became his design signature; ultimately, they would define an era. As one of the most innovative 20th century modernist designers, Nakashima worked to use the spirit, or soul, of the wood to his advantage.

It is worth noting that all of his lumber came from dead or dying trees, as Nakashima would not impede a tree’s natural growth. In a large barn (that is still on his property, now owned by the Nakashima Foundation), huge slabs of claro walnut wood from California trees lean upon wind-swept Japanese sugi trees, which balance delicately on human-sized oak burls from Scotland. Many consider Nakashima’s life work to be not just his furniture but also his extensive wood collection.

Because of their properties as burning and building material, billions of one-of-a-kind trees have been cut down and turned into consistently square, straight boards.

Humans tend to think of nature as chaotic, and in keeping with our utilitarian roots, as an entity to be conquered.

Nakashima’s revolutionary design shifted woodworking from this view to a more intimate form of the craft, where every tree is sacred.

George Nakashima’s contributions to the craft inspired many to perceive wood as a spiritual entity rather than a ductile construction material, thus connecting us to the intrinsic essence in all trees. By transforming his unmilled pieces of wood into beautiful pieces of art, Nakashima ensured that the unique legacy of the tree from which it came is preserved long after it has been cut down. H

To Nakashima, every tree had its own soul, its own purpose. According to one of the woodworkers in his shop, Jonathan Yarnell, “rather than imposing his will on a piece, he let the wood offer up its story, and in that dialogue, convey something to the woodworker.” Nakashima’s extensive knowledge of trees and how to mill them, combined with his many years studying carpentry, helped him develop a simple—albeit difficult to execute—philosophy. In his words, “each flitch, each board, each plank can have only one ideal use. The woodworker, applying a thousand skills, must find that ideal use and then shape the wood to realize its true potential.”

In realizing the inner beauty of trees, Nakashima became the pioneer of a method of wood milling, called “through and through,” which emphasizes leaving the tree in large ‘slabs.’ This method exposes the unique grain and figuring behind every piece of dimensional lumber. His Art by Adela Miller

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THE SOUND OF NATURE

By Chloe Koval

The sun stretches through the clouds on a warm, hazy morning in the misty blue waters of Hawaii as David Rothenberg prepares to record his newest musical project.

He assembles his clarinet, dampens his reed, and presses ‘record.’ Only one task remains—he must locate his bandmates. While most musicians would inform the members of their band about recording ahead of time, Rothenberg does not have this luxury, as his bandmates are wild humpback whales.

David Rothenberg has melded animal sounds and the soundscape of nature with his jazz music for years. For him, these sounds are far more than musical tools or background noise for his songs; they represent a powerful connection between humankind and nature. He believes that when combining the sounds of two species, they create something one could not possibly make alone.

Inspired by musicians like Paul Winter, a Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist known for stepping out of the studio and into the natural world to record, Rothenberg continues

on his quest to communicate on a deep level with a variety of species through music.

Often called ‘biomusic,’ musicians have explored creating music with natural sounds in a variety of ways, including sampling, live recording, or using the sounds as a background to play over. However, there remains a large distinction between simply using animal sounds for a musical purpose and those like Rothenberg, who immerse themselves in the wild when they record in a true collaboration with nature. Rothenburg diligently listens to the animals with attention to musical leaps and rhythms in their song as he follows along, allowing for a duet or ensemble to arise between him and nature. With all of these techniques, biomusic creates a lasting impact on both the listener and the musician. It could even potentially change the way our society views nature and the environment.

Although the use of animal sounds in music may appear to be the product of more recent, experimental, avant-garde genres, many mainstream artists have also explored playing with such sounds in their own recorded music. This trend stretches from features on Bjork’s most recent album, “Utopia,” to Missy Elliot’s early 2000s bops, back to the iconic tune “Blackbird” by the Beatles. I too have incorporated animal sounds into my own solo musical project, using recordings of loons to create

Art by Katelyn Lipton Headwaters Magazine 6

an atmospheric connection to nature on my EP, “Mountains and Marzipan.” I wrote this album as my first true solo debut, intending for it to represent a variety of my own personal experiences and emotions, including struggling with mental health issues, entering adulthood, possessing a passion for the environment, and feeling distraught over the current state of our planet. The loon sounds, originally recorded by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, formed a mysterious and murky ambience that I felt embodied the overall mood of the album. In addition, I used the sounds as transitions to tie each song together and connect the listener to the natural world.

The predominant culture in the United States concerning our relationship to non-human beings stands as one of division, with the separation mentality of ‘we are people, they are animals.’ Even the term ‘biomusic’ creates a divide of nature from human music and sound. This separation is potentially one driver of the growing sense of disconnection from nature that many people experience when living in urban or suburban environments. With these ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentalities, loss of biodiversity, climate change, and other types of environmental degredation can graze over the minds of many. When engaging in an act such as creating or listening to biomusic, which can spark both intellectual and emotional engagement with another species, a deeper relationship begins to develop. Music can act as a bridge of communication, allowing for empathy and understanding, and in this case, an emotional tie to a species or nature as a whole.

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David Rothenberg and other artists bring a fresh perspective to the table when discussing biodiversity conservation. Rothenberg believes that “through music, we can communicate with beings with whom we cannot speak.”

This brings humans closer to the non-human world in an intimate way and deepens the connection between people and nature. While those singing humpback whales might not be in the Billboard Top 100 alongside Travis Scott or Ariana Grande, they represent an important step in bringing science and the arts closer together in pushing towards a brighter future for the planet. H

Bulk Aisle Shopping What’s the Scoop?

By Sydney Decker

You may have noticed the dry bulk aisle before, each bin stocked with whimsical varieties of granola, nuts, seeds, and candy, where everything is dusted lightly with a small sprinkle of flour and spices. Maybe you have even filled a little paper bag with banana chips because, ‘Wow! They are so much less expensive than the prepackaged ones!’ Maybe, if you are a passionate baker without a pantry like me, you have even purchased the exact measurements of bulk ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies in your dorm room community oven.

Whether you are completely new to the concept of a bulk aisle or you are already a proponent of reduced-waste bulk shopping, I ask this: in the grand scheme of the American grocery shopping system, can you imagine a single-use plastic-free shopping experience? This question begs many more, primarily regarding accessibility, allergies, and hygiene. A grocery shopping experience without single-use plastics seems as futuristic to me as the opportunity to buy fresh spinach in mid-winter did to my father in the 1970s, but low-waste bulk shopping is easier than one might think. In some cases, bulk grocery shopping gives customers the opportunity to diversify their taste in products through experimentation, cut down on food waste, save money, and reduce their environmental impact by reducing their single-use plastic waste.

Buying in bulk can be easier on your wallet than buying traditionally packaged dried goods, as many items are less expensive when purchased without added packaging and handling costs. A National Public Radio review of a Portland State University study found that buying in bulk produces average savings of 14 percent on bulk aisle products. Generally, buying in bulk produces net savings, regardless of the more expensive outliers. The benefits of this cost differential are increasingly powerful when paired with how reduced-waste shopping combats one of the most important problems in our American food system: plastic waste. The study by Portland State University also found that if “Americans purchased all their almonds in bulk for one year, 72 million pounds of waste would be saved from a landfill.” The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also states that offering customers the opportunity to refill their own containers or to use store-provided paper bags can encourage the reduction of consumer waste output.

Since customers can buy the exact amount of any

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product they need, bulk aisle shopping also gives consumers an opportunity to cut down on their food waste. However, customers reduce the low-waste benefits of dry bulk shopping if they choose to use single-use plastic bags or other single-use options for food storage instead of reusing containers. If shoppers reuse and refill containers while shopping in bulk, they can reduce both their plastic waste and financial expenses.

So, just how much of an impact can a grocery trip have for an individual, financially and environmentally?

To explore this, I visited the bulk aisle in a Burlington, Vermont cooperative grocery store, City Market. While this is just one grocery store with a bulk section, and there may be variation among stores, some savings were too notable to ignore. During this trip, I randomly chose a variety of products from the bulk aisle and compared their per pound prices to their prepackaged counterparts. While some products, (honey, semi-sweet chocolate chips, baking soda, and others), were more expensive in the bulk aisle, the majority of the selected products were heavily discounted in the ‘scoop your own’ section. Average cost savings on a variety of these ‘essentials,’ (spices, oats, brown sugar, salt, and others), were evident.

If shopping in bulk can be so impactful, then why is it not a common practice?

There are a number of reasons why people may not shop in bulk, including perceived and structural inaccessibility, cross-contamination of allergens, and hygienic dangers.

Bulk aisle shopping is not accessible to all people, due to health-related concerns and because not all grocery stores have transitioned to include these aisles. Contamination is a serious concern in the Graphic by Sydney Decker Headwaters Magazine 8

realm of food allergies. By nature, the bulk aisle contains products which are common allergens, such as gluten and tree nuts. Some stores take careful action to mitigate cross-contamination of these products; however, customers with high sensitivities to allergens may find themselves isolated from the bulk food movement as a result of these dangers. Proper use of scoops and tongs is important to the process of keeping bulk goods safe and contaminant-free for all customers. Some stores, such as Healthy Living Market in South Burlington, Vermont have separate gluten-free sections; however, the risk of contamination is still present due to human error. For bulk grocery shopping to be a realistic option for all people, grocery stores need to take stronger initiatives, such as the regular incorporation of allergen-free sections, to ensure that all people can safely shop in this environmentally-friendly way.

Additionally, some people may feel that they are not able to shop in bulk sections because they do not have the costly storage containers that they may see other shoppers using in this department; however, many grocery stores with bulk sections encourage customers to use any containers they have available for this form of shopping.

While not all grocery stores have adopted this method of sales, those that have often provide paper bags and promote refilling old jars, glass bottles, and repurposed single-use containers such as peanut butter jars. These storage options allow people who cannot afford to or do not want to invest the startup cost of new containers to participate in bulk shopping. It is worth noting that when customers bring their own containers, there is a chance that the hygienic security of the bulk aisle may be compromised. Hygiene is also a concern when customers may come in contact with products during the scooping process. The public can mitigate these concerns by spreading awareness about proper cleanliness practices in the bulk aisle. Use of scoops and tongs is important to the health and safety of all customers who shop in bulk.

It is not yet mainstream for stores to include bulk products in their inventory for a variety of reasons, including infrastructural startup costs and customers’ tendencies towards societal shopping norms. The bins and maintenance materials necessary for creating a functioning bulk aisle cost money, which proves to be an obstacle for stores, even if they would ideally like to incorporate this style of shopping into their stores. Companies have spent lots of time and energy on packaging facility infrastructure, and are used to selling their products in this individually-wrapped way. It might not be feasible for these companies to make such a widespread and drastic change in the short term without a

strong incentive. Also, customers are used to buying their favorite dry products, such as granola and beans, in individual plastic bags. The strong traditions around American grocery shopping present challenges around changing the ways of both customers and businesses.

Because startup costs for grocery stores to create a bulk aisle exist, it follows that stores with more money have the means to begin selling dry bulk goods. This may explain why natural grocery stores that are often associated with wealth are frequently the stores that have bulk aisles.

The association between more expensive stores and bulk aisles may cast an inaccurate image of privilege on the practice of bulk grocery shopping. While a transition to this reduced-waste style of grocery shopping nationwide could be arduous, the presumed environmental and financial benefits of packaging-reduced dry bulk grocery shopping have the potential to make these efforts worthwhile.

Beyond Burlington, low-waste grocery shopping is gaining popularity worldwide. Europe’s first plastic-free grocery store aisle opened in Amsterdam in 2018. Shoppers at the Dutch chain store Ekoplaza have access to 700 plastic-packaging-free products such as meat, rice, dairy, cereals, snacks, fresh fruit, and vegetables. The store created this special aisle in response to urging from consumers reacting to the fact that leading United Kingdom grocery stores produce more than 800,000 tons of plastic packaging waste annually. According to the EPA, the United States food system also produces significant packaging waste, with waste from food products encompassing about a quarter of landfill waste. Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the United States, is responding to this problem. While Kroger has not yet adopted a dry bulk aisle model, they have expressed baseline commitment to the reduced-waste shopping experience by promising to eliminate plastic bags from their stores by 2025. Though not fully universal, bulk grocery shopping locations have popped up worldwide.

Dry bulk grocery shopping may not be yet safe for people with allergies, weakened immune systems, or other relevant safety concerns. However, this form of shopping does offer those without health and safety concerns an opportunity to diversify their taste in products through experimentation, cut down on food waste, save money, and reduce their negative environmental impact by reducing their single-use plastic waste. Normalized and inclusive dried bulk grocery shopping can be a powerful step towards solving the wicked problem that is plastic waste from pre-packaged grocery store products. H

Art by Sydney Decker

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ne day in the summer of 2017 while I was down in the kitchen at Honey Road in Burlington, Vermont doing prep work for the night, I noticed that I was alone. Moments later, I heard the sous chef, Paul, calling for me from around the corner, “Mack! Take it easy, everyone’s upstairs. Don’t ya wanna learn about olive oil? Get movin’.” I clearly missed the memo.

Apparently, the olive oil supplier from Lebanon had traveled all the way to Burlington to distribute the restaurant’s latest batch and wanted to give the staff a lesson on where the olives come from. Everyone who came up from the kitchen was intrigued, including me.

According to the Honey Road chef, Cara Tobin, and sous chef, Paul Trombly, educating the staff is a crucial part of their business plan. Instead of just telling me off when I left too much of a carrot for the compost, Trombly explained to me why it was important to cut the stem as close to the stock as I could. When I started to compost lemon zests, he stopped me, as they would later be used in a vinaigrette.

Honey Road is an award-winning Middle Eastern restaurant, and I believe that Honey Road owes its success to every person who makes the restaurant run and to how the food gets to the customer’s plate and not to the compost. I wanted to write this piece so that I and the general public of Burlington could gain a better understanding of what the attitudes around food waste are to the chefs of Burlington.

At Honey Road, there is a lot of consideration about where the ingredients come from, how much to order, and how they are used. Each week, Tobin and Trombly go over the menu to pick apart which dishes sold the most and what is going to be on the menu for the following week. Whatever ingredients are not used in time are used to cook pre-shift ‘family’ meals for employees. While this is common practice in most high-end restaurants, there is a unique intentionality in the way the staff at Honey Road prepare their dishes. These meals are a necessary part of everyone’s shifts, because there is no time for breaks during service. If, based on the leftovers used for these meals, a certain ingredient was not selling as well as the rest of the menu, Tobin and Trombly ordered less to the restaurant in the upcoming week. In terms of food waste management on an individual basis, no one cut corners.

On the morning of February 27, I went to the Old North End of Burlington to speak with Jordan Ware and Jackie Major at Butch and Babes. Major is the head chef at this restaurant, which is centered around comfort food fare with an Asian twist. Jordan Ware, the head chef at Hen of the Wood, was helping Major cook a community meal for the local elementary school at Butch and Babes that night.

Hen of the Wood is a restaurant on Cherry Street lauded for

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its dedication to cooking locally and sustainably. As soon as I walk through the door, Ware brings out a plate of chicken nuggets for us to try, having spent most of the afternoon trying to get the flavor just right.

I opened our interview with questions about the business model of both Butch and Babes and Hen of the Wood, and if they factored food waste into their models.

Major said that yes, there was definitely a figure in regards to the cost of food waste, but that it was hard to picture exactly what it was—there are too many different moving parts involved in running a restaurant. When asked about food waste, Ware tries to stay away from comments about wasting money. To Ware, mitigating food waste is more important than just the cost to the restaurant.

Ware went on to explain that educating the staff about food waste is important to him. Right now, Hen of the Wood is employing a fermentation program to make use of produce scraps, and it is a big hit among the staff and their customers. Instead of composting radish root, Ware says they use it to make their own horseradish.

The world-renowned restaurant located in Copenhagen, Denmark, called Noma, recently released a book on fermentation, and Ware says this has impacted the way many restaurants conserve produce scraps. In regards to the importance of minimizing food waste, Ware really tries “to push to the cooks that it’s not really a financial [issue], it’s a waste [issue]. Every time we can prevent waste, we should prevent it. It really comes down to saving the world, not just cutting costs.” In terms of the way that Major looks at reducing food waste, she says that she uses the “mom working the food budget” angle, which means that she uses as much as she can, whenever she can.

After my interview with Ware and Major, I went to Honey Road to interview Tobin and Trombly. I spoke with Tobin about how accessible composting is for the restaurant industry: “We are in a town that is hyper-focused,” she said, speaking to Burlington’s efforts towards sustainability and customers’ attitudes towards minimizing food waste. Tobin explains that she considers food waste each step of the way.

She shares that, “there will be those random nights—like recently there was a Saturday where everyone ordered all just meat and potatoes. And sometimes you get a Monday crowd that is more adventurous, where more industry people go out to eat and are up for trying new things.” This is one of the ways in which food waste can be tricky: you prepare food to serve clients, but it is up to them to eat it.

Two weeks prior to these conversations, I went to ArtsRiot to interview the head chef, George Lambertson. I met him in the dining room, where we began to talk candidly about each of our experiences in the kitchen, which helped me to gain a better understanding of his background as an accomplished chef. Lambertson was classically trained in the French tradition, and was taught to waste nothing.

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Jordan Ware, head chef at Hen of the Wood According to Lambertson, a good majority of the food waste that accumulates at ArtsRiot comes from the customers’ plates. He notes that some things can be done to manage customer food waste, such as encouraging them to bring their own tupperware. Dining out involves not only the chef, but the customer as well, and thus both are responsible for the waste that they produce.

According to Lambertson, on a busy night, ArtsRiot gets between 150 to 200 customers. He said that at the end of the night, the kitchen would produce five to ten gallons of compost. I found this strange because Honey Road produces double that, and their busy nights are consistent with ArtsRiot’s.

A couple of days later, I met up with a friend of mine who works at ArtsRiot. I mentioned off-hand that I interviewed their chef for an article I was writing on food waste in Burlington. They laughed and shook their head.

“Was he helpful?” they asked and continued to smirk as

I emphatically said yes. When I asked why my friend was so incredulous, they simply said that they were frustrated with the lack of progress towards sustainability at ArtsRiot.

When I asked them for more information, they declined to comment further.

What I have learned from writing this piece, and from talking to chefs at well-known restaurants in Burlington, is that minimizing food waste is no small feat, and in many cases, cannot be accomplished to its fullest extent. To quote Honey Road’s Trombly, “people waste a lot of food.”

The way that Tobin from Honey Road attempts to mitigate food waste coming back from a customer is in the way that she designs the plating of the food. Tobin told me that she wants the plate to return to the kitchen clean, and so approaches plating from an almost scientific perspective—placing the different parts of the dish in ways that encourage the consumer to eat all of the parts instead of leaving any of it behind.

In our interview at Honey Road, Trombly spoke on his experience seeing food waste accumulate in the catering industry: “If you have a 200 person wedding, you have to make enough food to feed everyone, but you don’t have much control over how much people eat. But at the end of the day...some people like to eat, some don’t. We tried our best to donate to food shelters and whatnot, but I really don’t think that gets utilized very often.”

In 2012, Vermont legislators passed Act 148, the Universal Recycling and Composting Law, which outlined and mandated specific steps to mitigate food waste for all Vermonters, restaurants included. The most recent step in enacting this law was in 2017, when the legislation mandated all businesses to compost or otherwise pay a fee seen as “an incentive.” Champion 12.3, a coalition of different executive groups aimed at reaching overall sustainable development goals by 2030, conducted a study that found that “restaurants saved $7 for every $1 invested in reducing food waste in the kitchen.” Investing in mitigating food waste poses a clear financial gain, but there needs to be greater awareness. Saving this kind of money should be incentive enough.

To quote Lambertson, “our goal is our motto: Destroy Apathy.” In a kitchen, this is as important as how the food gets to your plate. A passion and a thirst for knowledge are what it takes to be successful in the restaurant world.

Minimizing food waste is more than just a hashtag or a way to get people in the door—it is what sets successful restaurants apart.

I did not write this piece to expose anyone for not doing enough, nor did I write it to exonerate restaurants from making further progress in sustainability. We no longer have the luxury of writing off the idea of composting or putting it off until later. The repercussions of mindlessly wasting food are happening right now. As a chef, you should always be looking for ways to cut back, not just accepting what you already do as the bottom line. Talk to your staff and try to help them care about how food is made in your kitchen. Take the soda cans out of your compost buckets.

At the end of the night, when it would be easier to just throw everything away and get home faster—don’t.

While there is a great deal of responsibility placed on the restaurants to reduce waste and source their food correctly, it is also on us as consumers to resist wasting the food that we order. The next time you go out, try bringing your own to-go box. If your waiter treated you well, tip them well.

Take responsibility for the food that you create and the food that you consume. There is always more that we can do, and there are always more steps we can take. All it takes is a little more diligence and some damn good food. H

Cara Tobin, head chef at Honey Road Photos and graphic by Mack Baker Headwaters Magazine 12

REDEFINING AN INDUSTRY:

Costa Rica’s Alternative Model for Palm Production

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Art by Nadia Kamel

n January 17, 2018, Skinny Pancake, creperie and local favorite of the Burlington community, authored a press release detailing why they would no longer be using Nutella in their crepes. They explained that one of the main ingredients in Nutella is modified palm oil, and, that “as far as our one and only Planet Earth is concerned: palm oil sucks.”

This blacklisting of palm oil is not just a Burlington-based fad; rather, it is reflective of a global condemnation of this commodity product. Palm oil is often associated with the destruction of rainforests, the decline of orangutan populations, and the displacement of native peoples; however, just because these issues are potential consequences of palm oil production, does not mean that they are necessarily characteristic of the industry as a whole. Cooperative business structures, efficient use, and repurposing of former agricultural lands are just a few ways in which Costa Rica, a national producer of palm oil, is demonstrating the possibility of making this industry sustainable.

Almost 2,500 miles away from Skinny Pancake, Costa Rican trucks loaded with freshly harvested palm fruits roll east towards the port town of Golfito, where they

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By Jessica NeJame

will be processed into refined, bleached, and deodorized (RBD) palm oil, the widely used commodity that Skinny Pancake and others denounced. In Costa Rica, palm oil is a valuable product that accounts for over $125 million of the country’s export economy. The consumer choices of Vermonters will not stop these trucks from rolling on; agricultural endeavors in palm oil expand economic opportunities for locals, allowing them to strive for a better life than previously imaginable.

Costa Rica’s palm oil sector is a relatively recent development with roots in the banana industry, which thrived in the country in the early 20th century. In the 1940s, the United Fruit Company (UFC) faced a crisis.

For decades, they prospered off banana plantations on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Then, in the late 1920s and 1930s, international economic downturn coupled with a seemingly-unstoppable banana blight—a deadly herbaceous fungus—began to spell trouble for the company. In response, the UFC expanded and began to establish banana farms on the Pacific side of Costa Rica; however, this strategy only worked for a decade or so, and by the 1940s, banana blight had spread to the Pacific coast. The blight raced through plantations and dramatically decreased banana outputs.

In order to maintain profits in the region, executives decided to experiment with palm oil production, which people have cultivated in regions of West Africa and Southeast Asia since the early 20th century. The investment in palm paid off. Manufacturers around the globe soon realized the potential that this product had for widespread commercial use as a cheap substitute for other fatty oils, like cocoa butter. Thrifty producers of cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food items, and detergents took note and made the switch. Nowadays, palm oil is in more than half of all products that Americans consume. It is found in food items like ice cream, pizza dough, and candy bars, and in other commercial products like lipstick, soaps, and shampoos. Palm oil is so widely used that globally, the average person consumes 17 pounds of palm oil each year.

These days, palm farming in Costa Rica is no longer under contract with UFC but with Palma Tica, a large agro-industrial producer. For agreeing to only sell their

product to Palma Tica, the company gave farmers access to low-interest loans and offered free seedlings. Incentivized contract labor shapes economic development in the region.

In some areas of the country, it is difficult to make a consistent living due to unexpected miseries like insect invasions, flooding, and disease outbreaks. Farmers see contracts with Palma Tica as a path to a stable income, which can bring new opportunities and a higher standard of living for those in the palm business. However, these contracts can be as detrimental as they can be beneficial—they guarantee financial assistance, but also prevent growers from selling to other businesses that might pay more for their palm. Contract labor has its caveats, but palm can be the only option that farmers have to make a decent living.

There are alternative business structures for palm oil that have had success in different parts of Costa Rica.

For example, in the northern region of Puntarenas Province lies Coopesilencio, a palm cooperative that grew out of the occupation of UFC-owned land by locals. For over a decade, residents insisted that they had claim to the territory. Eventually, the government officially sold the land to the locals, who converted about 600 hectares of former banana plantation into expansive forests of palm. The cooperative structure avoids the contractual obligations that some farmers find to be an issue with Palma Tica. It also empowers locals to care for the land and engage in sustainable farming practices, as they live where they work and can directly see the effects of overuse of herbicides and pesticides. Since the official founding of Coopesilencio in 1973, over 500 residents benefit from “schooling for all ages, a supermarket and café, offices, and [the] various agricultural and eco-conservation projects” that the cooperative engages in.

Palm oil is often seen as an environmental evil because it is a driver of deforestation in countries like Malaysia. However, there are regions of Costa Rica, like the Osa Peninsula, where the majority of palm farms are located in areas that long ago cleared for agriculture anyways. Palm trees are one of only a few species that can thrive in the toxic soil left behind after decades of intensive banana farming. Farming on reclaimed land circumvents concerns of deforestation. Costa Rica is also a leader in land use and land management. Mantenimientos a Campesinos (MAC) is an organization in Costa Rica that teaches farmers how to use natural methods of fighting disease and insects. For example, a simple calcium mixture can combat fungus, and molasses in an open bucket serves as a trap for insects. The introduction of these alternative farming methods show that palm oil production does not have to be synonymous with deforestation and degradation.

Once land use changes and inputs have been addressed, palm oil actually stands out as a very efficient crop: although it is planted on only 5 percent of global vegetable

oil acreage, palm oil accounts for 45 percent of edible oil worldwide. Palm oil production does not have to mean cutting down trees and killing orangutans; rather, it can be seen as an opportunity to work with land dynamics that are already in place to promote sustainable agriculture and local empowerment.

The bad parts of palm oil production are still happening, but the industry has proven to be adaptable to both local needs and consumer demands. Being a good environmentalist does not have to mean swearing off Nutella. In fact, Ferrero, the company that produces Nutella, committed to extensive satellite monitoring of the plantations that it sources from, lists every mill supplier from which it buys so as to increase supply chain transparency, and was given a score of nine out of nine on the World Wildlife Fund Palm Oil Buyer’s Scorecard. Critics of palm oil have some valid concerns, but Costa Rica is proving that the industry can be an economic boon without the environmental and social degradation so often attributed to it. H Emanuel Barboza, a member of Coopesilencio, demonstrates how palm fruits are cut from tall trees.

Photo by Jessica NeJame Headwaters Magazine 14

A Deep Dive Into an Undersea Mystery: Beaked Whales

By Jasper Barnes

With 22 known species, beaked whales comprise one of the most diverse cetacean (whale) groups. They are found in all of the world’s oceans, from the frigid polar seas to the warm waters of the tropics. While they belong to the suborder of toothed whales, it is mostly the males that have teeth; even then, they usually only have two apiece.

Instead of using their teeth for getting food, males mostly use them to compete with one another. That begs the question, though: how do they eat? Beaked whales, as it turns out, eat via suction feeding.They expand their throat and move back their tongue, creating a pressure change that sucks their prey, like squid and deepsea fish, directly into their mouths. Even more unusually, many beaked whale species appear to have internal antlers. These are structures on the skull, mostly in males. Their exact purpose is not known, but experts suspect that the whales use these internal antlers in some sort of display or signal to members of the same species. Curiously, these structures are not visible externally. Instead, scientists suggest that beaked whales detect these antlers using echolocation, which they use to obtain information on three-dimensional structures even when they might not be visible.

Despite this gathered research, beaked whales are still incredibly mysterious. Several species have never been seen alive and are known only from specimens that have washed up on shore. Indeed, it would not be a stretch to say that these whales are the most poorly understood group of large mammals on Earth. Part of this mystery falls on the whales’ cryptic behavior: they spend little time at the ocean’s surface, preferring to dive deep underwater to find their prey. They dive so deep, in fact, that these whales are freediving record-breakers. One species, known as Cuvier’s beaked whale, makes the deepest recorded dive for any mammal, down to almost three kilometers (nearly two miles) underwater. They excel at holding their breath, too: the species can hold their breath for over two hours at a time, another record among mammals.

A few key adaptations help beaked whales accomplish these dives. For example, they use their ribs to partially compress their lungs, forcing out nitrogen gas.

Since nitrogen bubbles in body tissues can be harmful, this unusual system is likely an adaptation for rising up from great depths. The nitrogen filtration system has its limits, though, and many stranded beaked whales have recently

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been found with injuries caused by surfacing too quickly.

What could have set these extraordinary marine predators askew?

As impressive as these deep dives are, there could be an unexpected, anthropogenic reason behind them: the use of military sonar in the surrounding area. Sonar use often conflicts with the whales’ own echolocation and reportedly induces a similar response to the echolocation of predatory orcas. This confuses and scares the beaked whales, causing them to swim toward shore, beaching themselves. In their confusion, they may dive much deeper than usual, and their fight-or-flight response results in inefficient breathing. Since these mammals still need to breathe, they must ascend more rapidly than usual at the end of their dives. Their quick ascension may cause a condition known as decompression sickness, or ‘the bends.’

As the whales return to the surface, changes in pressure cause bubbles of gas, especially nitrogen, to form throughout their bodies. Typically, the pressure changes would be subtle enough to avoid the bends; however, these bubbles arise directly from tissue-like muscles, they can be damaging and leave visible scars and lesions, even on bones. Indeed, these markers were evident in several beaked whales that had beached themselves. To add to this misfortune, research shows that the sound waves from sonar may actually generate these harmful bubbles in the whales, too.

Other threats beaked whales face come from a cultural front. Japan’s recent announcement that it intends to resume whaling is a key example of human threat. Although whale species like right, minke, and gray are more likely to be threatened than other marine species, Japanese boats continue to hunt numerous beaked whales each year.

Between the 1940s and 1960s, hunters caught upwards of almost 300 Baird’s beaked whales annually. A return to these numbers may prove absolutely unsustainable.

In addition, many beaked whale species, like Baird’s, Arnoux’s, and the northern and southern bottlenose, rely on cold polar waters for their survival. As the climate warms and ocean temperatures increase, suitable habitat for these cold water whale species could face a sharp decline. Plastic debris is also harmful to these whales. Recently, a Cuvier’s beaked whale washed up in the Philippines with 88 pounds of indigestible plastic in its stomach.

Unfortunately, it is not known how much these threats affect the whales because the very nature of their

deep-diving biology often drives them far away from human civilization. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s RED list, a compendium of conservation information for nearly 100,000 species, includes some information on them. Due to beaked whales’ habits, though, the information available is limited in scope. All but two species are classified as “Data Deficient,” and basic information like population size and trends remain unknown. Taking action with what we do know, however, is absolutely imperative.

Military could reduce sonar use, for example, or researchers could perform careful studies in areas where organizations use the technology. Consumers could reduce plastic consumption and global groups can undertake climate change initiatives.

Thankfully, people around the world are already taking action to conserve beaked whale species. Baird’s beaked whale and the northern and southern bottlenose whales are listed on the CITES list in Appendix I — all other bottlenose whale species are listed in Appendix II.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature created the second list concerning trade in endangered species, with Appendix I reserved for the most endangered species. Additionally, some sonar bans have already gone into effect. The Canary Islands, formerly a hotspot for whale beachings, has seen a notable decline in beached whales since Spain banned sonar there in 2004. Many scientists are advocating for more expansive bans as a result.

In another positive step for conservation, members of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Convention on Migratory Species agreed to protect the cetaceans of the Mediterranean and Black Seas in 2014, including the endangered Mediterranean population of Cuvier’s beaked whale. These protections, combined with increased action worldwide concerning plastic use and mitigating climate change, paint a hopeful picture for the future of beaked whales. Ensuring their survival may prove a struggle, but ultimately, these bizarre whales will likely be diving and suction-feeding for generations to come. H

Art by Gretchen Saveson Headwaters Magazine 16

Sunrise to Sunset

The Grassroots Outgrowth of the Green New Deal

By Emmett Gartner In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans reclaimed the majority of seats in the United States House of Representatives. A year earlier, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., brought the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 to the floor—the House passed the act 219 votes to 212 votes, yet it never made it to the Senate floor. This bill marks the last time legislators proposed significant climate legislation in Congress. Republicans used this cap-and-trade bill as a point of attack in 2010 political campaigns—especially within districts reliant on the fossil fuel industry—against the Democrats who aligned with

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it. Republicans promise to do the same with the House’s newest climate legislation.

Thus far, H.Res.109, or, the “Green New Deal” (GND) received support from six major Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential election, including Senators Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Cory Booker of New Jersey. Other Democratic and Republican leaders, however, are more suspicious of the resolution.

H.Res.109 is the U.S. legislative manifestation of the United Kingdom’s Green New Deal Group’s 2008 re-

port, a response to the “credit crunch and wider energy and food crises, and to the lack of comprehensive, joinedup action from politicians.” Crafted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and Senator Edward J. Markley, D-Mass., the GND’s current form as a resolution in the House of Representatives blossomed from the dire predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC. The resolution’s frame is an ode to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a public works package that aided a crippled U.S. economy during the Great Depression.

The GND places the U.S. at the center of responsibility for the climate change mitigation, citing the historical U.S. contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and the economic and technological ability for the U.S. to take center stage. To combat these challenges and fulfill US climate obligations at home and abroad, the GND calls for a 10-year national mobilization plan. By the plan’s end, the U.S. will achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions via the full adoption of clean, renewable and zero-emission power, as well as the “investment of infrastructure and industry to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century.”

To do so in a socially equitable fashion, the GND specifies “transparent and inclusive consultation and collaboration” with citizens, and federal accountability for the “complete environmental and social costs of emissions” that impact them. Aside from environmental prerogatives, the GND embraces a variety of socioeconomic goals, such as “guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, ade-

quate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.”

Speaker Pelosi referred to the GND as “beyond [a legislator’s] charge” in a recent interview with the Rolling Stone, and in the past has been even more skeptical, calling it “the green dream” in an interview with Politico. Some see the GND as widely symbolic. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., another candidate for the 2020 presidential election, referred to it as “aspirational” in an interview with Fox News. In Vermont, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, had abstained from offering any sort of support up until a Feb. 28, 2019 address on the Senate floor, where he simply referred to the GND as a “valuable road map for debate” and “a pathway to action.”

Congressional Republicans have flatly opposed the GND. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., plans to bring the resolution to a vote on the Senate floor.

Doing so, according to McConnell, would display how, “many Democrats want to end air travel and cow farts,” as he foresees a faltering in support when Democrats are forced to attach their names to what he believes to be a damning piece of legislation. One grassroots organization has taken this hesitation from politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, as a call for action.

The Sunrise Movement, put simply, is a coalition of young climate activists that aims to “stop climate change and create millions of jobs in the process.” In a news banner situated above every page on the organization’s website is a call to sign a petition of support for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez

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and Sen. Markley’s GND resolution. In the sidebar of the page is a space to provide your personal information for the petition, and at the bottom is the letter you are sending to Congress. In just a few clicks you can attach your name to the movement.

Amelia Avis, a senior undergraduate student at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park, opted for direct action with Sunrise. Members of Sunrise’s D.C. Hub—one of many Sunrise’s city centers that provide a centralized plan of action for the movement’s supporters— reached out to Avis as a member of the UMD Student Government Association’s Sustainability Committee, and she wholeheartedly committed.

Thus far, Avis has attended two Sunrise events.

Sunrise leadership and fellows led the first event together, and stormed Speaker Pelosi’s office to demand her individual adoption of the GND. U.S. Capitol Police arrested 138 Sunrise supporters for “unlawful demonstration.” The second was a broader day of action, where over a thousand activists occupied Congressional offices on Capitol Hill, echoing their call to Speaker Pelosi to other legislators.

Both events received national attention.

Sunrise’s concentration on legislative action is reflective of their political strategy. According to Avis, Sunrise is not concerned with mass rallies, and instead opts for “political insider tactics” that put direct pressure on lawmakers, leaving little room for the avoidance of their message.

More recently, a conversation facilitated by the Sunrise movement between schoolchildren and Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Feb. 22, 2019, led to a viral video revealing their “spirited discussion” (as described in a press release from the Senator’s office). In the video, the schoolchildren ask for action on the imminent threat of climate change through her adoption of the GND. Fein-

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stein responded by pointing out their lack of legislative experience, and the fact that the resolution simply would not pass the Senate. The discussion ended with Feinstein encouraging a Sunrise leader to “run for the Senate” if she wants to have it her way and adopt the GND. In explaining Sunrise’s structure, Avis puts heavy emphasis on the “youthful and well organized” aspects of the group that construct a culture of inclusivity. Their co-founders, such as Executive Director Varshini Prakash, shepherd the movement and foster this culture by putting everyone “on the same playing field,” allowing for students like Avis to take an integral role in its activities. Such a technique has its drawbacks, Avis notes, depicting the clunkiness of “giant action calls, group texts with over a thousand recipients,” and the consistent struggle “to get out information without seeming too single-minded.”

At the University of Vermont, first-years Emma Page and Maggie Friel began the Burlington offshoot of the Sunrise Movement. According to the two, their jumpstart of the chapter was inspired by word of mouth from a friend in Providence, Rhode Island, whose description of the Sunrise Movement resonated with their shared sense of urgency to act on climate change. Since its initiation, the chapter has accumulated a following of around twenty students per meeting, where, as time goes on, “more and more people are willing to talk and get involved,” according to the duo.

On Feb. 22, 2019, these amassed activists joined forces with the Middlebury faction of the Sunrise Movement, hosting a sit-in at Sen. Leahy’s Burlington office similar to the aforementioned ones on Capitol Hill. At that point in time, Leahy had yet to formally adopt the GND within his platform, and his reluctance to do so showed.

During the sit-in, Sunrise activists asked direct questions

en Gretch Art by

Saveson

to a Leahy staffer, probing at the necessity of the GND and Leahy’s lack of commitment to it. According to Friel and Page, their questions were only met with an explanation of the legislative measures Leahy had already taken toward action on climate change, a frustrating refrain that dodged Sunrise’s inquiries. Rather than focus on the entirety of the GND, Leahy’s office focused on individual aspects of climate-conscious legislation.

The response from Leahy’s staffer is indicative of a larger message that senior Democratic legislators employ when confronted by the GND. In an interview with WCAX-TV, Sen. Leahy directly responded to a question regarding whether he would sign the GND, saying: “If it comes up, sure, but remember, I’ve already written in a lot of things in law that are already in there!” Sen. Feinstein offered a similar defense when approached by Sunrise supporters in her office, stating: “I have been and remain committed to doing everything I can to enact real, meaningful climate change legislation.”

Speaker Pelosi, in the Rolling Stone interview, responded to a question on the duties of the Select Committee on Climate Crisis with a familiar stance: “When I was elected speaker—Bush is president, mind you—my flagship issue was the climate…you have to make decisions that you’re going to reach certain goals, and some of our goals we think are achievable.”

These members’ hesitation to embrace the GND contrasts with the urgency conveyed by staunch supporters of the GND, such as Rep. Ocasio-Cortez or the Sunrise Movement. This does not mean a fissure is forming amidst the party, as Majority Leader McConnell is trying to suggest with the proposed vote on the Senate floor. In an interview with Vox, Ocasio-Cortez shot down this narrative, saying; “No, I think it is a green dream. I don’t consider

to be that a dismissive term…Nancy Pelosi is a leader on climate, has always been a leader on climate, and I will not allow our caucus to be divided up by silly notions of whatever narrative. We are in this together.”

Rather than forming a rift within the Democratic Party, the GND is raising thoughtful discussions of policy framework. On the Pelosi side of the spectrum, there is a greater desire for specific, tangible measures that combat climate change through bipartisan cohesion and what GND skeptics deem to be ‘attainable’ goals. This does not discount the GND as a whole, but rather challenges it to meet the demands of a gridlocked Congress.

Avis understood these complications with the GND’s expansive framework, but saw them as an advantage rather than a roadblock. To her, the GND is “trying to cater to a bunch of environmental goals that are not necessarily compatible,” but “that is why it is compelling.

It takes into account so many economic and social disparities” that other pieces of climate legislation have yet to address. Page and Friel offered similar comments on the challenges the GND faces, saying: “Complexity comes with vagueness, but even though it is vague, we need it.”

The pressure Sunrise is placing on Congressional leadership is to accelerate the resolution of a markedly urgent issue, not further a political divide. The same is true of Democratic leadership, where attainability, rather than urgency, is at the forefront of their climate change mitigation strategy. Should the two round out their differences and find a firm middleground, it’s doubtful there would be any bitterness. The purpose of introducing a platform as wide as the GND is to start a conversation, and that is exactly what is occuring in legislative offices across the country with the help of Sen. Markley, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, and members of the Sunrise Movement. H

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What lies beneath the water?

Environmental Injustice at the Chioxy Hydroelectric Dam

By Clare Abbatiello

Among the Maya peoples of Guatemala, the words “Represa Hydroeléctrica de Chixoy” trigger violent memories. Between 1976 and 1985, Guatemala’s military dictatorship began construction on a massive hydroelectric dam along the Chixoy River, which many indigenous communities depended on for food, water, sanitation, and income. Before construction of the Chixoy hydroelectric dam, the people of Río Negro resided in the area and owned a significant portion of the land from the beginning of the original Mayan age in 250 A.D. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank funded the hydroelectric project, intending to provide electricity for a large portion of the Latin American country.

Today, the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam provides 15 percent of Guatemala’s energy. For regions without electricity, the construction of the 90-meter-tall dam was something to be excited about; however, as construction progressed, the Guatemalan government forcefully displaced upwards of 6,000 Maya families in order to make way for the dam.

When the affected people protested the dam’s construction, they were met with ruthless torture, mass murder, and kidnapping. This series of abhorrent events is now

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known as the Río Negro Massacres.

The Chixoy Hydroelectric dam currently sits upon a deserted tract of land with very few settlements located closely downstream. That area along the Chixoy River was once rich with Mayan culture, communities, and villages.

When the Guatemalan government decided to look for local energy alternatives, they nonetheless deemed the region perfect grounds for constructing the colossal dam.

The Guatemalan government informed indigenous communities of Río Negro that they would be torn from their land and relocated without choice. The government would give the families a meager three to five hectares of land to compensate for the 1,440 hectares the community would lose. The Guatemalan government then hired a team of excavators to remove ancient and sacred Mayan artifacts from the site, defiling the consecrated area, and disgracing the inhabitants they had just forced out. Not only did government forces remove this community with militant violence, they pillaged and destroyed aspects of an ancient and cherished culture.

To protest this desecration, several families moved

back into the region, technically violating the settlement that had been forced upon them. Violence broke out shortly after, beginning with a law enforcement officer opening fire and killing seven members of the community after a villager was accused of mild theft at a market. The brutality only increased from there, with the Guatemalan government ordering for the communities in this region to be scorched and destroyed in 1981. Authorities further carried out tens of unwarranted attacks against peaceful protestors, resulting in the torture and eventual slaughter of nearly 5,000 members of the Río Negro people.

Some might believe the supposed environmental benefits of hydroelectric power justify this violence. ‘But it is better than coal!’ is a sentiment often repeated by proponents of hydroelectric power. The dams themselves release almost no greenhouse gases, and the rivers they utilize classify them as renewable sources of energy. This statement, in some regards, is true, but nearly any source of energy is better for the environment than coal.

In order to build a hydroelectric dam, the construction site must be clearcut and filled with concrete.

This alone damages species that inhabit the affected forested areas, but once built, the dam has an even bigger impact on the local ecosystem. Hydroelectric dams have the capability of controlling the water flow and depth on either side, causing trees and other forest species to be wiped out due to rising water levels. Areas downstream from the dam often experience severe drought, in some cases making them uninhabitable. Fish migration is interrupted, which inhibits species’ chances of reproduction.

Hydroelectric power does not just damage the natural world. One must consider the humanitarian offenses caused by the implementation of hydroelectric power, especially against those who are already marginalized. This source of power has been the bane of environmental and social justice since its first large-scale implementation. Environmental justice emphasizes the rights of all people, re-

gardless of race, socioeconomic status, or ethnicity, to equal environmental protection and access to safe, non-hazardous spaces to live, work, and play. It also focuses on the equal right to a voice that can be heard in the process of making community-altering decisions, like those made for the indigenous people of Río Negro. The Guatemalan government’s violent reaction to the peaceful protests against the Represa Hydroeléctrica de Chixoy robbed the Río Negro peoples of their autonomy, while damaging the very environment the project claimed to protect.

Surrounded by rugged, rocky terrain and brush, the desolate site of the dam was once filled with communities and rich with culture. One cannot analyze this situation from an environmental justice perspective and claim hydroelectric power is a ‘renewable’ source of energy. The lives lost during the Río Negro Massacres are not ‘renewable.’

Maya communities along the Chixoy River still seek reparations to this day. They have not given up, and neither should mindful environmental activists.

There are other sources of energy whose environmental and humanitarian benefits outweigh the costs, and whose implementation has never been the cause of the displacement and massacre of thousands of innocent people.

The Río Negro Massacres present a disturbing reminder of the environmental injustice perpetually faced by people and their communities. Keeping atrocities like this in mind, and listening to the experiences of survivors of environmental injustice, are necessary in the process of making a change and ensuring such systematic cruelty is never repeated. It will be possible to fulfill the entire world’s energy needs with sources of renewable power in the very near future; However, in this very moment, it is entirely feasible to power the world without the cost of human lives like those so senselessly destroyed in the Río Negro Massacres. H

Graphics by Jay Griffith, using the words of a protest banner hung at Xococ, a site of the massacre.

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In 1998, I took a surf trip to Costa Rica. I liked it so much that I stayed for 18 years. After a couple of months of surfing in the northwestern part of the country, I decided to leave the tropical dry forest of the Guanacaste region and head south to the rainforests of the infamous surf town of Pavones. Pavones, located on the Burica Peninsula at the head of the Golfo Dulce, is known to surfers as the longest warm water left point break in the world. The waves can be over a kilometer long, and rides of two minutes or more are common.

Rio Claro de Pavones and the small pueblo of Punta Banco, located roughly nine kilometers to the south, were first homesteaded in the 1960s. Twenty to thirty families from northern Costa Rica came to the area seeking land to raise cattle to supply the demand for beef for a growing fast food industry in the United States.

In the 1960s, a surfer named Kenny Easton was sailing in the area and discovered the wave. Kenny told his friend and sometime employer, Danny Fowlie, about this incredible unknown surfing spot. Danny made his way down to Pavones in 1974, found the wave, and started buying all the property along the beaches that fronted it. His first purchase was 250 acres for $30,000, for which he wrote out a receipt on a scrap of paper and paid a $10,000 deposit in one-hundred-dollar bills. He built the first roads, bridges, schools, and churches, then a clinic, a cantina, and a small airstrip for flying surfer friends in and out of Pavones.

Drug trafficking charges in 1988 kept Fowlie out of Costa Rica for eighteen years. By the time authorities released him, all his land was no longer his—either claimed by squatters or sold by his friends. Danny tried to regain his land with no success and to this day, the disputed acreage is commonly known as Dannyland.

Since the 1970s, change came slowly to the area. Pavones and Punta Banco grew, though they remained generally undeveloped. There are cabinas and rooms for rent, some higher end accommodations, and small restaurants known

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as sodas. While the area became somewhat popular as a center for yoga retreats and yoga instructor certification, there are no large hotels, golf courses, marinas, shopping centers, or high-priced restaurants.

The incredible wave, bucolic charm, and lack of development, along with the nearly pristine rain forest and abundant wildlife, are still what define Pavones and Punta Banco. Surfing remains the big draw and is a large part of the economy, but it is not a reliable source of income for locals. The surf season only lasts from approximately April to October. Even then, if there are no waves, there are no visiting surfers. With today’s technology, it is possible to track the waves created by Antarctic storms across the southern Pacific Ocean and predict to within hours when the first waves come ashore. Surfers from around the world show up the day before the surf arrives, stay as long as the swell remains, and then leave.

I began to notice the effects of beach erosion not long after I started living in Pavones in the late nineties. The beach road sat close to the ocean in several places, so close that it seemed improbable that Fowlie would have built it there. The ocean ate away at the embankment next to the road. In a few places, there stood tall Ceibo Barrigon trees with roots threatened by high tides. A couple of these majestic trees were already obviously dying. The more I looked, the more I saw. The most dramatic evidence was the coconut palm tree line washing away. These trees normally stabilize the beach and provide a protective barrier for the interior hardwood trees. In some areas, the coconut palms were completely washed away, leaving no defensive barrier against the waves. Local residents constructed driftwood sea walls in an attempt to stop the erosion. The ocean had already claimed a section of the sole road to Punta Banco. Despite relocation, the sea now threatened the road in several other areas. Due to the steep hills that back Punta Banco, as well as property and right-of-way problems, there were few options as to where a new road could be built. It was apparent that in time Punta Banco would again become isolated. Spring tides, coupled with big surf events, already flooded into parts of the pueblo. There were concerns about the water encroaching on a turtle conservation area located close to the beach. The field where locals played soccer, a sport that is a big part of social life in Punta Banco, is located next to the beach; it, too was eroding away.

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Recently, I got in touch with my friend, Frank Van de Ruit, one of the 23 Dutch partners of Rancho Burica, a cabina business, to ask him about the beach erosion. Rancho Burica is located at the end of the road in Punta Banco and is built right on the beach. He pointed out that when they first bought the property 20 years ago, there was a beach platform for scoping out the surfers, hanging out, and watching sunsets. He said it was well above the high tide line at that time. Since then, the waves have washed it away. Locals built another platform, and it too has washed away. Rising tides now threaten the third beach platform. Frank estimates that 10 to 12 meters of beach have disappeared since they bought the property; he says that he and his partners are “from a country below sea level, so we know what we are talking about.”

In December of 2018, I returned to Costa Rica for a brief visit. I walked the beaches and revisited the places I took photos of in 2015 and early 2016. There was still plenty of evidence that the coastline is washing away.

Most of the uprooted coconut palms had disappeared with the tides. The optimistic sea walls built of driftwood were gone. Where the beach road used to be, the ocean had crept a meter or more into the tree line. The water was also at least a meter closer to the turtle conservatory area. One thing was clear—Punta Banco is falling into the sea.

While in Punta Banco with my friend Malcolm Miles, who came from California to live in Pavones over 30 years ago, we bumped into another old friend, Ricar Moreno. Ricar is a Tico and a volunteer with the Punta Banco Turtle Conservatory. He was releasing some late hatching Olive Ridley turtles. Later that evening, we got together to talk a little about the beach erosion problem.

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Ricar refers to the beach road as la calle de lastre, the road that has become a burden. He said there are no thoughts or meetings to talk about future problems. The locals do not know what to do and there is a sad realization that there will be no action until the problem is here. Ricar says that “this is a new and out-of-the-ordinary problem.” There is no plan of action from the government, no discussion, and no solutions. He feels that for himself, it is important to set an example by building a driftwood sea wall in front of his property, even though he realizes the futility of trying to hold back the sea.

Malcolm agreed with Ricar. Costa Rica has problems keeping up with the maintenance of existing infrastructure—the country has some of the worst roads and bridges in Central America. Malcolm was also concerned about heavy, out-of-the-ordinary rain events that he felt were a result of global warming. He has been keeping track of rainfall totals longer than I have known him. According to Malcolm, October of 2018 was the wettest he has recorded—20.75 inches of rain. On two of those days the rain gauge overflowed, so the total for the month was even higher than he recorded. October normally marks the beginning of the dry season.

On November 24, 2016, the late-season Hurricane Otto crossed out of the western Atlantic and came ashore as a Category 3 storm at the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve in southeastern Nicaragua. The eye traversed the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border and emerged in the eastern Pacific Ocean, leaving behind a trail of death, flooding, landslides, and washed out roads and bridges. This was the furthest south that a hurricane has ever made landfall in Central America, highlighting the effects of climate change that Costa Ricans are experiencing firsthand.

With hurricanes, unusual weather patterns, and rising tides, tragedy is on the way for the people of Punta Banco.

The rising ocean will eventually win and they will become climate refugees, joining the other tens of millions who will be displaced by rising ocean levels.

I am lucky to have lived in Pavones. They were the best days of my life. I was able to realize my dream of living and surfing in a tropical paradise that may never be the same. I am thankful to the gentle, warm, open-hearted Costa Rican people. I am grateful. Pura vida. H

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Harvesting a Division between Human and Environmental Health Natural Ingredients in Pharmaceuticals

By Jacquelyn Hayatan and Jacqueline Johnson A glimpse at the ingredient list of a Tylenol bottle might overwhelm you with pharmaceutical jargon and chemical compounds with scientific names well beyond the average person’s understanding. The first component listed, carnauba wax, may seem innocent—at least you can pronounce it! However, a closer examination of this seemingly innocuous ingredient reveals a prime example of the detriments of using natural ingredients in medicine.

Everyday reliance on pharmaceuticals for things like instant pain relief has evolved into a cultural tenet of modern American life. Dr. Christine Vatovec, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Vermont who specializes in human health and the environment, explained the complexity of America’s reliance on pharmaceuticals, saying “we spend more on healthcare in general, including both over-the-counter and prescription pharmaceuticals, than any other country and yet we rank lower… on standard health outcomes.” Brand name acetaminophen drugs, such as Tylenol, are the second highest selling over-the-counter pain medication, grossing over $335.3 million in 2018 in the United States alone. This is likely due to the fact that 23 percent of Americans consistently incorporate drugs containing acetaminophen into their weekly routine.

Overuse of these drugs has become so normalized that acetaminophen overdose is responsible for approximately

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458 deaths annually, and is currently the number one reason for Poison Control Center intervention. Overuse fuels high demand, which results in overharvesting of the natural materials needed to synthesize these common drugs.

Carnauba wax is a widely used medical ingredient that can be found in popular over-the-counter drugs like Advil and Motrin. It is derived from Copernicia cerifera trees grown exclusively in Rio Grande de Norte of Brazil.

This region qualifies as a desertification-susceptible area, defined as a fertile region at risk of becoming barren due to excessive land use and loss of natural assets, two characteristics of carnauba wax extraction. Between six to eight fronds are usually harvested from the carnauba tree, but of the material taken from each tree, only 5 percent is viable for wax synthesis. Thus, a vast amount of trees are required to meet the global demand of 36 to 41 million pounds of wax per year. As we continue to harvest leaves that aid in protecting against climatic changes, future generations of the carnauba tree will decrease in germination abilities, and therefore, fewer overall trees will exist. Despite its widespread use and detrimental environmental impact, the wax is not used for any significant medical purpose.

It is an inactive ingredient in most medicines that creates a smooth layer over the capsule which makes it easier to swallow. Another main ingredient of Tylenol is microcrys-

talline cellulose (MCC). MCC is extracted from the pulp of the interior of the Sorghum caudatum stalk, which is cripplingly overharvested in its native country of Nigeria.

The destructive procurement of Copernicia cerifera and Sorghum caudatum are examples of only two drugs in a pool of over 120 pharmaceuticals that are produced from rainforest flora, including some which are administered to patients of cancer, malaria, and tuberculosis. These patients require access to these drugs to survive and cannot afford to contemplate the ethics of their environmental origin.

The drug Taxol is considered a major breakthrough for the cancer community. Chemotherapy regimens using taxol to combat breast cancer increase the chance of patient survival by 2.6 percent, and survival without recurrence of cancerous cells by 4.1 percent. Despite its immense contribution to cancer therapies, the debate surrounding the drug presents a moral dilemma between its medicinal use and environmental origins. Taxol is extracted from the bark of a rare and slow-growing yew tree, Taxus brevifolia, found in the Pacific Northwest. Development of Taxol requires large quantities of mature bark, roughly 5,000 to 15,000 pounds, yet each viable yew tree can only supply 10 pounds of dry bark. In 1995, 12,000 ovarian cancer patients collectively consumed 80 pounds of taxol. Isolating 2 pounds of taxol requires 25,000 pounds of dried yew bark—thus, in only one year of treatment, 90,000 mature yew trees were sacrificed.

Turning a blind eye to overharvesting threatens both the environment and the ability to keep synthesizing these critical drugs in the future. By 2100, experts posit that over 50 percent of all rainforest flora and fauna could become extinct due to anthropogenic factors resulting in extreme climate change. However, grassroots organizations, small businesses, and large-scale corporations are working to address the role of pharmaceuticals in this issue. According to Dr. Vatovec, once the cancer community realized the threat Taxol posed to yew trees, many advocated for a compromise. Dr. Vatovec said that “although not a perfect solution, listing the tree as an endangered species was a useful step in both helping to protect the ecosystem [and] bringing to light the challenge of providing conventional medical treatments within planetary boundaries.”

Those consuming medications and those synthesizing them are instituting changes to the industry. Smallscale biochemical start-ups aim to develop anti-cancer drugs in the lab, utilizing rainforest components only as a chemical model. Many of these companies, such as Manus Bio in Cambridge, MA, focus on synthesizing drugs using methods that mirror plant-like functions in bacteria. Larger corporations such as Merck & Co, Pfizer, and Bayer agreed to international sustainability pacts that set standards for carbon dioxide emissions, biodiversity, and

protection of threatened harvested areas. However, the effects of these pacts are mainly theoretical due to lack of globalized consensus, prioritization, and enforcement.

Preservation of the natural world and continued expansion of medicinal resources is a tricky scale to balance, and one that comes with moral obligations on both sides.

The codependency the U.S. fosters with overutilization of over-the-counter drugs contributes to increasing environmental distress worldwide. This codependency is not easy to break away from. While some natural ingredients are a convenient luxury, others provide a medicinal remedy to those with limited options. But the degradation of the environment cannot be disregarded even in the face of the pressing need to find medicinal solutions for severe diseases.

With this issue finally acknowledged, a variety of efforts inch closer to finding a balance between conservation and access to medicine. This balance may be unattainable, but considering both increasing environmental constraints and chronic medical needs is vital to decisions that will shape the future of both healthcare and the planet. H

Art by Katelyn Lipton

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Featured Column: The Activism Spotlight By Meryl Braconnier crisis is not mentioned every day by every newspaper, news channel, and radio show “as if there was TAKING ACTION, environmental a world war going on.” Astounded by the illogical lack of ameliorative action, Greta Thunberg fell into a serious deFINDING HOPE pression at age 11. She was later diagnosed with Asperg-

Art by Meryl Braconnier

Meet Greta Thunberg: the 16-year-old activist behind global school strikes.

Mid-September 2016, I exited Elizabeth Kolbert’s lecture with a sinking stone in my heart. Perhaps it was my personal chunk of the accumulative asteroid that we each contribute to as we drive our cars, charge our phones, and discard our innumerable wastes. While metaphorical, our asteroid may prove to be as powerful as the destructor of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, because, as Kolbert just finished explaining, we are the cause of another mass extinction. The talk addressed her most recent book, “The Sixth Extinction,” which first documents the five, previous mass extinctions and then subsequently warns of the current one—a crisis catalyzed by humanity’s ability to alter the planet. Kolbert’s presentation paralleled the morose message of her book, offering minimal assurance with regards to the feasibility of present-day solutions—hence, the heavy, hopeless heart.

I recalled this moment while watching the TEDx talk of a young, powerful activist from Stockholm, Sweden who, of late, garnered the media’s attention, inspired worldwide protests, and even spoke at the 2018 UN climate conference (COP24) and the 2019 World Economic Forum. At 15-years-old, Greta Thunberg stands alone on stage with her long, braided pigtails and describes how she learned of human-caused climate change when she was 8 years old. She could not understand how, in spite of the risks of greenhouse gas emissions, the ongoing sixth extinction, and the need for equity and climate justice, the

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er’s Syndrome, OCD and selective mutism, explaining, in part, her black and white view of the world and her inability to accept humanity’s grey, unemotional, and ineffective response to the sustainability crisis.

While society may consider Thunberg’s response ‘not normal,’ in her opinion, it is not normal to estimate the daily loss of up to 200 species, to understand the cause that is within our control, and to still carry on as if nothing were wrong. So, in August 2018, Thunberg began school striking for the climate. She plans to skip school and sit outside Swedish parliament every Friday until her country adheres to the Paris agreement.

The young woman’s solo protest provides an outstanding example of climate activism and the wave of solidarity that it can create. Thunberg’s determined promise inspired school strikes throughout Australia in November, 2018. The participating students formed the School Strike 4 Climate Action movement which is now planning a global protest for March 15, 2019. Students also school struck in Belgium on Thursday, January 10, 2019. The numbers quadrupled the following week with over 12,000 participants who expressed their intentions to continue these rallies each week. Swiss students similarly skipped school on Friday, January 18. As Thunberg expressed in her TEDx talk and then again at the COP24, “If a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.”

Following these uplifting words, Thunberg concludes her TEDx talk on the topic of hope, refusing to provide it like a typical motivational speaker, echoing Elizabeth Kolbert’s somber presentation in 2016. According to Thunberg, while we have been “pep talking” and promoting hopeful technologies for the past four decades, we have yet to attain effective change. “The one thing that we need more than hope is action,” she says. Perhaps this was the hidden message of Kolbert’s discussion that evaded my comprehension. Now, it is clear and simple, evident in the contagious influence of Thunberg’s school strike and stated explicitly by Thunberg herself: “Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action.

Then, and only then, hope will come.” H The Activism Spotlight covers recent or upcoming events related to environmental activism.

Visit UVMHeadwaters.org for more online columns.

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Our Own Great Flood What should Christians do about climate change?

By Abby Bruzas

“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves.” (Luke 21:2526, English Standard Version) In coastal towns, like much of the low-lying Floridian coast, the sea and the waves are already creeping inward. Water bubbles in through drainage pipes, flows down streets.

Flowers choke on its salience; pedestrians grumble about their wet socks. By 2045, a fifth of Miami will slip below the water at high tide.

“Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places, famines and pestilences.’” (Luke 21:10-11) Nowadays, as hikers come off the trail in Vermont, they must stop to check each other over for deer ticks—like monkeys, they pick through each other’s hair looking for stowaways. As temperatures rise, ticks and mosquitos move northward into territories formerly free of their itchy bites and vector-borne illnesses. As climate change broadens their range and season, cases of serious illnesses like Lyme and Zika become more common.

As for famine, 821 million people worldwide lack the calories required to lead a healthy and active lifestyle—that is one out of every nine people. Parched soil will become a constant in many regions as droughts continue to increase in severity and frequency.

Increasingly arid conditions, compounded by an expanding population and the spread of invasive pests and pathogens, come as a consequence of the growing global economy and will continue to threaten our ability to feed ourselves.

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In the given passages from Luke 21, Jesus details the end times to his disciples. The events he describes have distinct parallels with phenomena the world is experiencing today: floods, droughts, pestilence, famine, all of which we can trace back to climate change.

At least 59 percent of Americans view science and religion as generally incompatible, a belief consistent with historical actions of the church. Even the earliest scientific theories were met with resistance from the Christian community. In 1633, Galileo was convicted of heresy for his writings on heliocentrism, the idea that the Earth orbits the sun.

Heliocentrism challenged the Church’s teachings that placed the Earth at the center of the Universe. Although the Church eventually conceded to the scientific evidence that Earth was in orbit around the sun, Western Christians continued to put themselves at the center of the universe.

Christian voices espousing anti-scientific views today use the same interpretation of the Bible that was prevalent in Galileo’s time. A few verses in the Old Testament tend to inform the early relationship between Christians and subsequently much of Western culture and the natural world.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” (Genesis 1:26) This verse heavily influenced Western ideas of human dominion over the natural world and the separation of humans and nature into two distinct spheres. The dualism between humans and nature stemming from this verse shaped Western ideas about natural resources and their subsequent exploitation well into the modern era. This idea of dominion and domination becomes a force behind the sterilization of the landscape and the expulsion of indigenous peoples by early protestant colonists. This verse provides the justification for the environmental damage that comes as a consequence of unrestrained economic growth encouraged by capitalism. Acknowledging the negative impact of these imperialist interpretations of the Bible on Western environmental ethics remains imperative.

According to a study from Yale University’s Program on Climate Communication, 15 percent of Americans believe God controls the climate. One of the demographics most likely to espouse doubt about climate science are Evangelical Christians—these are Christian sects favoring a more literal interpretation of the Bible, specifically the Old Testament. The concept of the Anthropocene, a geological age driven by human changes to the climate, seems arrogant to Evangelicals because the atmosphere lies outside of what they believe God has given us dominion over. This unwillingness to acknowledge the hand that humans have had in shaping climate change implies the prevalence of a belief that humans are at the center, and that their actions are without consequences.

Christian beliefs can act as a roadblock for some, preventing them from endeavoring to understand science. Many feel that God will take care of the problem if there is one. However, my own Christian beliefs have heavily influenced my interest in climate change and other problems of the Anthropocene. When I was in high school, my pastor gave a sermon in which the central message that humans were placed on Earth to care

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Art by Alexis Martinez

Art by Alexis Martinez

for it, the land has been loaned to us. The message of being caretakers stuck with me. I thought about how I would feel if I lent someone a valuable belonging and they treated it as humans treat the Earth, polluting its waters, filling it with trash, and causing damage to its atmosphere. I would be furious.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

(Genesis 2:15) A call for stewardship, to care for the Earth and all of its creatures, is the foundation for Christian environmentalism. Interestingly, it also comes from the beginning of Genesis, just one chapter from the clause used to justify human domination of the natural.

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In this verse, God commands His followers to work and protect the Earth and to do so, not for their own benefit, but for His glory. The Earth is a magnificent, complex, and beautiful place. I believe it is more arrogant to think that our actions will not have consequences for the planet than to think that they will. I harbor a feeling of guilt for the way the Christian faith has influenced the careless way many Westerners treat the planet.

Christians have failed to protect the planet, our fellow humans, and in our mission as stewards. In this way, my faith has not acted as a roadblock but as a spark plug, igniting my interest in climate change and other issues of the Anthropocene and inspiring me to look at the facts.

In the past few years, major sects of Christianity have made formal recognition of human-caused climate change. Most prominently, Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church, the largest branch of Christianity, issued a letter to Catholic parishioners in 2015 in which he called for an inclusive conversation pertaining to ecological preservation including peoples of all statutes, and acknowledged the disproportionate burden environmental problems place on the poor. This letter was a call to action to protect “our common home” in which climate change receives its own chapter where the Pope writes in a similar tone to Vermont climate writer Bill McKibben, citing “a very solid scientific consensus”.

Grassroots organizations, like A Rocha, take a cooperative, community-based approach to promote wildlife conservation, sustainable farming, and education all with a Christian flavor in countries around the world. They focus on educating and enriching impoverished communities to help them build the capacity to care for their local ecosystems. Another organization, Interfaith Power and Light, is tackling climate change domestically by sponsoring Faith Climate Action week in April of 2019. Last year, they provided sermons, prayers, music, and devotionals to 5,000 churches nationwide to help them plan Earth Week services. Included in these resources is a mix of religious teachings, Bible verses, and scientific reports like those issued by the IPCC intended to help congregational leaders teach and inspire their members to take action against climate change. Religion offers a basis for people to relate to climate change on an emotional level and deal with issues of fairness and moral obligation to the greater good.

“For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.” (Matthew 24:38-39) The difference between humanity today and the people in the parable of the flood is that modern science has given us a chance to save ourselves and the planet. While some Christians continue and will continue to deny the importance of addressing climate change, its causes, or its existence altogether, others have recognized their role as stewards of the Earth. From large organizations to individual congregations, Christians have taken initiative to reduce their use of fossil fuels, support major legislation, help climate refugees and victims globally, and are ready to advocate for science. In this way, Christian stewards like myself are doing their share to save us from our own great flood. H

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Help a Rodent, Save a Raptor Featured Artist: Alexis Martinez Use of Rodenticide, a pesticide commonly used in the state of Vermont, contributes to unusually high raptor death rates, as the birds eat poisoned prey and consume rodenticide as a result. The state alexis art of California passed a ban on the use of Rodenticide through Assembly Bill 2657 in 2014—Vermont needs to do the same.

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As of April 25, 2019, Flint, Michigan has not had clean water for five years.

FLINT, MICHIGAN.

WITHOUT CLEAN The EPA recently tested 51 Flint homes and WATER SINCE found that 90 percent had average levels of lead of four parts per billion, just below the ‘safe limit’ 15 ppb, with some as high as 923 ppb.

Children in Flint are at risk of slowed development, nervous system and brain damage as their bodies absorb five times the lead of adult bodies.

Visit flintkids.org to donate to the Flint Child Health & Development Fund.

2014.