Headwaters Magazine Spring 2020

HEADWATERS The University of Vermont’s Environmental Publication

Our Transitioning World Spring 2021

Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

Masthead

Best Left Standing: The Role of Trees in Attaining Burlington’s CO2 Reduction Goals

By Deniz Dutton | page 3

Editor in Chief Avery Lentini

Labor Unions: A Critical Tool For Climate Action

By Avery Lentini | page 6

Managing Editor Maya Bostwick

Eco-Facsism: What it is and How to Fight it

By Mike Baseggio | page 9 Sensing the Anthropocene With Phosphorus in Lake Champlain

By Chris Gish | page 13 Desalination: The Future of Freshwater?

By Katrina Seeberger | page 16 Who is an Environmentalist?

By Luke Zarzecki | page 18 Shifting The Narrative: Why Eco-Guilt Doesn’t Work

By Teresa Helms | page 20 Where the Highway Ends

By Ali Schafer | page 23 A Double-Edged Sword: The Paradoxes of Fast Fashion

By Emma Wardell | page 25 Deforestation and Exploitation: Bucolic Vermont’s Troubled Past

By Alexandra De Luise | page 28 A Burlington Toxic Leak Left Out of Citizen Consciousness

By Julian Barritt | page 31 Art of Sustainability

By Paige Aldenberg | page 34 Reflections on the Dao of Nature

By Sharon Newman | page 36

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Managing Designers Katelyn Lipton Gretchen Saveson Treasurer Sydney Decker Contributing Editors Alex De Luise Alissa Frame Avery Lentini Chris Gish Claire Golder Corinne Hill-James Deniz Dutton Ellyn Lapointe Jake Hogan Luke Zarzecki Maya Bostwick Noah Beckage Contributing Artists Abby Kaiser Ella Weatherington Juliette Fredericks Maggie Alberghini Sam Shaeval Find us @uvmheadwaters on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and online at uvmheadwaters.org Cover: Art by Ella Weatherington Copyright © 2021 Headwaters Magazine This magazine was printed on the traditional land of the Abenaki People

Dear Reader, We are thrilled to be back in print for our tenth edition! In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is a huge accomplishment and a glimmer of hope that times are changing for the better. There is no doubt that this past year has been a challenging one. This semester has required a great deal of flexibility and adaptation from our staff of writers, editors, designers, and outreach team. As we emerge from a global pandemic, we feel that there is change on the horizon. In this transition, we find ourselves at a critical moment to push back against the way we’ve always done things.

This sentiment is reflected heavily in this semester’s edition as writers react to systemic problems and begin to reimagine our world. Almost every writer came to us with an idea for a piece that took a critical lens to realities that concerned them. As you make your way through this magazine, you will find that our writers’ drive to think deeply about environmental problems is reflected in the passion of their storytelling. At Headwaters, we pride ourselves on being an entirely student-run publication. This gives our magazine the unique ability to spotlight student voices and worldviews. The writing you see here reflects our generation’s resilience, brought on by coming of age during a time riddled with global challenges. We must play an active role in imagining our futures and fight for progress.

The stories you will read within these pages are snapshots of the struggles of our time. We gave writers the freedom to submit ideas to the magazine this semester without strict thematic parameters, and, in response, they produced a diverse and deeply introspective body of work. Writers set out to examine how injustices are perpetuated on a systemic level; you will read their work about the warning signs of far-right politics, the power of working-class organizing, and the pitfalls of misplacing environmental blame. You will be forced to confront the dangers of maintaining the status quo as you read others’ investigations into the food and fashion industries. You will be transported to places across Vermont and beyond in the quest of understanding ecological change. Finally, art, spirituality, and identity are explored as mediums by which to engage in conversation around these existential questions.

We would like to thank our design and outreach teams, UVM’s Environmental Program, the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, UVM’s Student Government Association, and our advisor, Josh Brown, for all they do in making our magazine possible. It is our sincere wish that these stories provide you with hope and perspective in this period of profound transition. We hope that our writers’ messages of questioning the status quo help inspire you to envision a brighter future and demand a seat at the table. Doing so will take a collective imagination on all of our parts; we are truly in this together.

Sincerely,

Avery Lentini Maya Bostwick University of Vermont ‘21 University of Vermont ‘21 Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor

Photo by Juliette Fredericks Headwaters Magazine 2

Best Left Standing:

The Role of Trees in Attaining Burlington’s CO2 Reduction Goals

By Deniz Dutton

A

s I drive down the steep hill across Riverside Avenue and follow the bend on the Intervale Road in the Old North End of Burlington, I am met with the shocking sight of a massive cloud that seemed to have descended upon the earth. I am confused, as there is not a cloud in the sky on this sunny, early spring day. Getting closer, I notice that the cloud is coming from the smokestacks of the McNeil Generating Station, a wood-burning power plant

that supplies most of the Queen City’s electricity.

The industrial structure contrasts sharply with the surrounding small farms and nature trails that comprise the Intervale Co-op. Signs mounted on the fence around the facility assure visitors that the cloud is nothing more than water vapor and that the level of particulate matter emitted from the power plant is far below federal legal limits. But what is also coming out of that smokestack— and which can’t be seen by the naked eye— is carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that is drastically changing our climate and our planet.

Since its inception, the McNeil plant has spewed between 385,000 and 543,000 tons of CO2 per year into the sky, approximately the amount produced by 118,000 cars in a year. Still, the plant is the single largest contributor to Burlington’s renewable energy portfolio, followed by hydroelectric power. The city became the first in the United States to have its electricity supplied by 100% renewable energy in 2014, although it has now set its sights on carbon neutrality by 2030.

The wood biomass that fuels McNeil has been instrumental in achieving this goal, as has the designation of biomass energy as “carbon-neutral” by the EPA in 2018. The gross oversimplification of the carbon cycle on which this label is based allows the biomass industry to reap subsidies and take tax cuts designed to support the development of renewable energy alternatives— subsidies that are often the only thing making biomass economically feasible.

Consequently, bureaucrats pat themselves on the back for finding an easy “solution” to climate change that does not cost much or require any actual changes to our cultural habits or energy systems.

“It’s easy to convert a coal plant to burn wood,” says Rachel Smolker, co-director of Biofuelwatch, an NGO based in both the UK and the US. “It doesn’t have a lot of the problems with intermittency that happens with wind and solar so it gained a lot of traction very quickly and has now come to feature as one of the main sources of renewable energy.”

Ironically, burning wood for power is less efficient than burning coal. Overall, for each kilowatt-hour of electricity produced, burning wood is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels. Yet, biomass is still considered carbon-neutral – what is the catch?

As it turns out, the catch is locality. Vermont has no coal mines or oil wells, but it does have acres and acres of forestland.

“When you start factoring in that full lifecycle, of where the coal comes from and the equity issues around it, wood tends to be the better choice [compared to coal],” says UVM professor of forestry Anthony D’Amato.

Photo by Deniz Dutton

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The combined mining, trucking, and burning of coal have a larger net carbon footprint than the combustion of locally harvested wood. That’s why a wood-fired power plant fits into Burlington’s net-zero energy goals; though not completely sustainable, the plant brings Burlington closer to self-sufficiency and reduces its reliance on imported fossil fuels. “[Biomass is] not carbon neutral, but it’s carbon better,” D’Amato said, borrowing the words of Mike Snyder, commissioner of the Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation.

For Smolker, on the other hand, the bottom line is simple: any biomass is bad biomass. “The McNeil plant operates at 23% efficiency, which means basically that three out of every four trees go to waste. The smoke goes out and the carbon dioxide goes out, but the actual energy content is essentially wasted because it’s so inefficient,” she laments.

For the last 35 years, there has been talk of increasing the plant’s efficiency by using the heat by-product from McNeil to heat the homes and businesses in Burlington, a process coined as “district heat,” which could potentially offset a fifth of the city’s carbon emissions. This would put all of that waste heat to use, but it would not necessarily reduce the amount of fuel needed to run the plant; the idea is that the more buildings sign on to receive district heat, the fewer smoking chimneys there will be, increasing the city’s efficiency overall. On March 2nd, Burlington citizens voted to make district heat more politically feasible; essentially, the city now has the authority to levy carbon taxes on businesses that continue to use fossil fuels for heating.

While this does provide an incentive for more buildings to switch to electric heating systems, the source of that electricity is still the McNeil plant, and it would mean committing to biomass energy for years to come.

Excited to finally see with my own eyes the power plant that has sparked so much controversy, I park my car on the side of the muddy, unpaved road and take a stroll along the fence that surrounds the facility. Every couple of minutes, unmarked pickup trucks carrying woody debris drive into the compound and deposit their load onto a football field-sized pile of wood waste, most of which appears to be pieces of wooden crates. Bright orange and grey informational signs posted on the border fence facing the Intervale Road sport titles like “How the process works” and “why biomass is sustainable” – a bold statement considering the research on carbon dynamics in forests does not support such a conclusion.

To their credit, the McNeil plant employs four full-time professional foresters to ensure that their fuel is sourced with as little detriment to forests as possible. Betsy Lesnikoski, the chief forester who has worked at the plant since its establishment in 1984, informs me that the regu-

latory processes determining where and how McNeil can source wood are extremely rigorous. The Department of Fish and Wildlife must approve a plan for inflicting minimal damage on the ecosystem when harvesting wood.

“Once we have their approval, only then can the harvest begin,” she said.

However, while the impact on habitat and wildlife is taken seriously, this same amount of attention is not paid to the impact on the climate that burning tree biomass may have. Over time, climate change will have as much of an effect on wildlife in Vermont as habitat destruction.

Lesnikoski emphasizes that no trees are cut down in Vermont for the explicit purpose of fuel.

“What we get is the forest residues, which are the tops or the unusable parts of the tree, or small trees that don’t qualify for any of those other products,” she said. The other products that she is referring to are mainly paper and firewood, which require “high-quality” lumber.

Smolker is skeptical of the narrative purported by plants like McNeil. “It’s a myth that the industry has given us that it’s just leftover materials,” she tells me. “They’ll go in and say this tree won’t make very good timber but we can cut it anyway because we can put it in the biomass plant. It creates a market that wasn’t there before.”

Yet this new market can provide an incentive to keep forests in Vermont around, which is another way in which the biomass industry in Vermont justifies its existence.

“When we talk about working landscapes in Vermont, there’s a long history and legacy of logging happening,” D’Amato says in reference to popular initiatives like the Value Use program, which gives landowners preferential tax treatment to manage their forests for the production of wood products. The biomass plant provides a market for low-quality wood, which can sometimes make the difference between a profitable woodlot and a woodlot that a landowner thinks would be better made into something else. Both D’Amato and Lesnikoski emphasize that this practice is important for keeping the vast amount of privately-owned Vermont forestland from being sold off and developed.

Largely, the way in which the forestry industry interprets the carbon cycle has allowed for the proliferation of biomass. The accepted knowledge is that younger trees sequester more carbon as they grow, so the value has been placed on new growth over storage. D’Amato acknowledges that there can be some manipulation of the narrative around forests and carbon, depending on what the agenda calls for.

“If you’re all about cutting trees you can say, ‘young trees are best for carbon sequestration.’ People kind of select what part of the carbon cycle they want to talk about,”

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he says.

However, as new scientific findings continually emerge about the carbon dynamics of forests, this idea is being amended.

“The interesting thing is in a very young forest, the trees are growing fast but there’s also a lot of carbon being lost to the atmosphere from respiration. Early on they don’t function as well as a carbon sink but over time the capacity for this gets stronger and stronger, before reaching a relatively stable state” D’Amato says. “Old forests [being] better for storing carbon is an indisputable scientific fact.”

After a forest is cut, sequestration rates remain low for several decades, because while saplings grow quickly, they are smaller and subsequently do not store nearly as much total carbon as older, larger trees. It can take between 30 to 70 years for a tree to reach peak sequestration rates— years we can’t afford to wait. As each molecule of CO2 enters the atmosphere, it affects our current climate and triggers ecological feedback loops that will continue regardless of whether carbon is eventually sequestered.

As they stand, Vermont’s trees sequester half the state’s own emissions. Without forests, the city of Burlington would be hard-pressed to achieve its carbon neutrality goals. It is paradoxical that trees are being cut down at increasing rates to reach this goal, increasing the carbon debt from both ends.

Though the science confirms the forest lover’s intuition that trees are best left standing, reducing emissions in the short term may mean using trees for power in a forest-rich state while looking for more sustainable alternatives. If an

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alternative energy source produces emissions out of state at some point in its life cycle, these must be taken into account; each option should be assessed critically and holistically.

“It’s a good intermediary,” D’Amato says of biomass energy, “but then again, when we think about these bridges it’s not just about trying to transition away from carbon-intensive energies. It’s also about thinking about where we are exporting our impact to in order to meet some of these [CO2 reduction] goals.”

Booting biomass is not the answer if it means, among other things, importing our wood from elsewhere because the incentive to keep forests around is gone. While biomass energy alone may not have an overly detrimental effect on Vermont’s forests, its use still sustains a culture of extractivism that we must transition away from. More work needs to be done to attribute value to forests in different ways than just their physical biomass. Carbon markets are on the rise and could provide an avenue for monetizing the numerous ecosystem services that Vermont’s forests provide without cutting down trees.

Ultimately, it comes down to finding the balance between energy needs and the need to mitigate climate change— without succumbing to our desire for quick, easy solutions. Labels like “local” and “renewable” will not get us out of the climate crisis; rather, thoroughly assessing the impacts of our options, doing our carbon accounting correctly, and putting our money where our words are will.

McNeil may only be a local plant but it is contributing to a global problem, and keeping it in commission for decades to come is not consistent with the values that our elected officials claim to have. While the city does seek to make progress in its carbon emission reductions, anything less than complete carbon neutrality will not be enough to stop us from crossing planetary thresholds from which we cannot return.

Before I leave McNeil, I close my eyes and try to tune out the ceaseless hum of the power plant, for a moment imagining in its place another vegetable garden like the ones on the Intervale land behind me, or perhaps some gently swaying birch and pine trees, yielding slowly to maple, beech, and oak.

No matter what confronts us in the present, we must never stop dreaming about a better future. H Art by Abby Kaiser

Labor Unions A Critical Tool for Climate Action

By Avery Lentini

T

he United States has a long history of addressing big issues using top-down approaches. A high-ranking individual or entity makes a decision that then gets passed down and disseminated to lower ranks of the hierarchy. Even the small government ‘trickle down economics’ that began under Reagan was enabled by top-down decisions—manipulating everything from interest rates to the farm bill to foreign policy—and more recently, has been extended to the sphere of climate policy.

This architecture takes center stage in international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Climate Accords; however, concern not only exists around these measures’ effectiveness in combating climate issues, but also the ways in which they may fail to serve working class people by ignoring the systemic roots of the climate crisis. Neoliberalism emphasizes efficiency and producing cheap goods at high volumes, which come at the cost of exploitation of natural resources and labor alike.

Top-down policies often neglect to consider the realities of those lower in the hierarchy, who make up a majority of the American population and who are most likely to face realities of climate change despite contributing the least to global fossil fuel emissions. Environmental policies have been historically lenient with corporations, like oil giants who are the main drivers of climate change, because of their enormous contributions to the American fos-

sil-fuel dependent economy. The system functions so that the average person feels powerless in the fight for climate justice as they confront the supremacy of governments and corporate power.

A solution, however, may lie in the recent tide of unionization activity among environmental organizations.

Nonprofit groups, like the Sunrise Movement, voting in favor of unionizing their workplaces shows a promising development in the amplification of voices fighting for our planet. Environmental issues, ultimately, cannot be untied from the issues of working-class people. Labor is uniquely positioned to tie these overarching global concerns with

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the microcosm of people’s lives, shedding light upon the parallel exploitation of the environment and working class people.

In order to understand why labor movements could be such a powerful tool in working towards climate justice, one must first investigate the root causes of the plight of the planet that stems from humans’ disconnection with it.

James McGuffey, a lecturer in the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics at the University of Vermont (UVM), examines the concept of “alienation” in his work to answer this question. Alienation can be understood as a state of being isolated or disconnected, and this shows up in a number of different sociocultural outcomes. McGuffey sees alienation as “a lack of reflection on relationships and understanding of our relationship and connectedness to others to other things, to other persons, and to our climate.”

He discusses how the western capitalist obsession with efficiency purposefully exploits and isolates the worker.

“The challenge is to better understand our potential relationships with one another… [and] with the environments we interact with. The isolating mechanisms of alienation exemplified by the assembly line and mass production... eliminate the sense in which somebody can connect from the work to something later down the line.” As the climate crisis gains momentum, the reality of workplace structure has profound implications on the planet and the working class.

Corporations are instrumental in detaching people not just from collaboration with each other but also from the environmental ramifications of their actions “downstream.” McGuffey points out that “we live in a world where we’re so interested in defining our differences, and living by those as opposed to finding our common ground when it comes to the environment.” He warns that “alienation needs to be mediated and moderated” and supports the idea that labor unions could be the “social collective space for discussion” that bridg-

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es the gap in finding common ground and establishing a shared class struggle.

My brother, Ryan Lentini, is part of a team unionizing his workplace at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. He believes labor is a powerful tool because of its ability to build community beginning in one of the most familiar spheres of life— the workplace.

Unionization allows for workers to “bargain for the common good,” a mode of building laborer power and representation by demanding a seat at the table. Lentini refers back to Marx in conversation, saying that “[labor] joins people together in a class struggle. It is important for people to enter into a struggle that is founded on the basis of a shared class identity.” Similar to McGuffey, he sees workplace organizing as a radical opposition to a pervasive American individualistic culture that prevents communication between communities and disconnects political figures from the will of people.

Lentini is critical of capitalism and its upholding of the destructive systems that have caused the climate crisis and he sees the labor movement as a way to translate the fight for climate justice on a global scale. “The only thing that can truly challenge [the capitalist system] at the end of the day is a system which challenges the flow of capital or the way that capitalism is administered and administrated.” This change ultimately, he believes, will create a system that respects the dignity and value of every human life. By contrast, under the current capitalist system, human lives are calculations in determining who, where, and what is expendable. Lentini acknowledges the hesitancy many have in adopting these ideas that challenge the status quo. “So many people write off left-wing change as being utopian—or they’re afraid of change— that people would much rather go with what they know.” But what if “what we know’’ is the very system that is destroying our planet?

Like many young people, Lentini is hopeful about the recent unionization vote at Sunrise and how this affects the viability of policies like the Green New Deal (GND) and the shift towards redistributed power. In contrast to the ambiguous voluntary commitment of international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol and the Climate Accords, the GND proposes a radical suite of policies advancing economic and environmental justice on the ground. Lentini tells me that he thinks “the messaging and the idea of the Green New Deal is hugely important. It connects the environmental movement to a much older movement for organized labor.” He sees Sunrise’s unionization, coming from the very organization that helped conceive the idea of the GND, as evidence that workers are trying to live up to the ideals that their organizations are putting forth. Workers are fighting not just for the right to live with equitable wages, but are also using organized labor and its power to make sure that institutions live up to their creed.

Brian Tokar, who currently serves as a lecturer in the environmental program at UVM and on the board of an independent organization called the Institute for Social Ecology, discusses the shared values of the pairing between unions and environmental movements. He states, “the concept of union organizing and environmental issues is always strangely kind of pitted against each other as if their messages are at odds. I think it’s only a quite recent development that people are realizing they actually share a lot of the same values and core messages.”

Tokar points out the systemic interconnectedness of problems in this common struggle, discussing “the ways in which the whole social and economic system, the drive toward profit, the drive toward consumption for the sake of consumption that...ultimately works to the detriment of almost everybody.” The two movements share common goals that are played out in the “just transition paradigm,” which seeks to transition away from a fossil fuel economy to a clean energy one while integrating ethical labor practices. The value in unionizing a nonprofit workplace, for example, does not just involve the expansion of fair wages and labor rights; rather, it extends to the creation of a holistically safer and healthier world at large.

Abby Mnookin, of 350Vermont, witnesses the power of nonprofit action in her workplace and speaks about the potential and importance of redistributing power in the nonprofit sector. She points out the flaws in the streamlined model of top-down organization: “In some ways, it’s easier to just have one person telling other people what to do...it’s more streamlined and more efficient in some ways, but I think it’s misleadingly efficient.” Mnookin emphasizes that decisions made with only higher-up actors instead of including community voices are not likely to last in the

long-term.

Part of her organization’s initiative is to address the environmental and human exploitation that stem from capitalism and systemic inequality—“extractive racialized capitalism,” as she calls it. “The history of colonization, brutalization, genocide, and slavery is all wrapped up in the destruction of the land as well and the pollution of the air and water.” She states that it is important to acknowledge those intersections of the exploitation of workers running in parallel to the exploitation of the earth. Mnookin’s answer to this problem is rooted in achieving consciousness around collective liberation and shared struggle. “We can’t be individuals pitted against each other in this struggle.

[Justice] is not going to be possible if we’re staying separate and individualized.”

The march towards economic justice and climate justice will be a long and painful one. But we cannot expect to achieve one without fighting for the other. For too long, environmental issues have been disconnected from the needs and realities of working class issues, but labor organizing presents a powerful platform for advancing this shared liberation. As the modern proverb in union circles goes, “you either have a seat at the table or you’re on the menu.” H

Art by Katelyn Lipton Headwaters Magazine 8

Eco-fascism: What it is and how to fight it Op-Ed By Mike Baseggio

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he climate crisis is escalating—big time. By 2050, over 1.2 billion people will be displaced, according to a recent report by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Research predicts a dramatic increase in uninhabitable land by the end of the 21st century if greenhouse gas emissions continue. A “climate clock” on Manhattan’s Metronome display counts down the mere seven years we have before the effects of the climate crisis become permanent. In response to this dystopian reality, a dystopian ideology is emerging from the far-right: eco-fascism.

Environmental historian Michael Zimmerman defines eco-fascism as a totalitarian ideology which “requires individuals to sacrifice their interests to the well-being of the ‘land,’ understood as the splendid web of life, or the organic whole of nature, including peoples and their states.” Following this logic, there won’t be room for climate victims of the Global South to migrate to the Global North without the sacrifice of land, which will only grow more valuable as sea levels rise and people continue to be displaced.

The American fantasy of a suburban home with a picket fence and a yard will be used to fear-monger people in the

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Global North into refusing climate refugees and refusing to fight for their survival and human dignity.

In his autobiography, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler expressed admiration for the United States’ uniquely racial conception of citizenship in the ideology of Manifest Destiny, the original “American Dream” for rural living space.

He modeled Nazi Lebensraum after the American concept of Manifest Destiny to rally support and justify war and genocide, just as the US had done to Native Americans and enslaved people by expanding westward. Lebensraum reflected the Nazis’ belief that German Aryan Christians, as opposed to those they deemed “undesirable,’’ were fit to occupy the Earth. Zimmerman also makes the parallel to the Nazis’ use of “land’’ propaganda like Lebensraum. One of their main slogans was “blood and soil,” which appealed to the racist nationalism of Nazi supporters by calling for a unified, racially-defined “body” merged with a settlement area’s “soil”.

If this doesn’t sound too different from the xenophobic “us versus them” rhetoric already prevalent in right-wing politics, that’s because the concept of the “American Dream”

In the past, myths of “overpopulation,” specifically is constantly used to justify nationalism and genocide. This Malthusian theory, have been used to justify poverty, hunextends from the colonial genocide of Native Americans to ger, racism, and fascism. One of the core tenets of Thomas more recent examples like toxic uranium mining on NavaMathus’s theories is that food production could not keep jo land to fuel Cold War militarism. Some may argue that up with population growth. Obviously, these myths are just a racial conception of citizenship is no longer the case in that—myths. We have enough food to feed 10 billion peoAmerica, but the new GOP voting laws in Georgia show ple. Houselessness has endured, even though we have more that racialized notions of citizenship have only evolved, not unoccupied homes gone away. When the than we do houseless climate worsens and people. Our producbillions are displaced, tive forces have depropaganda similar veloped to the point to the idea of Lebenwhere we can feasibly sraum may be used to guarantee a dignified keep the population life for every human complicit once again being on Earth. We with mass war and haven’t actually done genocide. it, though, because it The progression of isn’t profitable to do white nationalist, farso. Capitalism is a right politics could for-profit system that transition to explicit, relies on exponential outright eco-fascism profit to survive, and in the US, the most this extends to bapowerful capitalist sic human needs like country. The US’s pofood and housing. litical Overton WinModern Malthudow is much farther sians believe that right than most Eurobecause of climate pean capitalist counchange and the plantries, so regression to et’s limited resources, a fascist state could be the human race will more feasible in the eventually become US. too overpopulated The government’s to sustain itself. This failed response to is the core tenet of the coronavirus and eco-fascism; it conits economic fallout jures fears of overmakes the political population to norclimate even less staThis graph was made by ExxonMobil in 1982, when they malize displacement ble. As the environaccurately predicted the rise of carbon emissions and and death from the ment degrades and global warming. climate disaster. Conwealth continues to siphon upwards to the ruling class, reactionary narratives aiming to preserve the US’s capitalist hegemony grow increasingly grotesque and inhumane. As linguist and political thinker Noam Chomsky once put it, “jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you’re trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.”

trary to these Malthusian arguments, it is possible for the entire human race to fit in just New Zealand, and a mere 100 corporations are responsible for 70 percent of carbon emissions. 20 firms alone are responsible for a third of them. Plus, the Global South is the region that is predicted to be most affected by the climate crisis, even though the Global North is responsible for over 90% of global emissions.

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2014 study published by Cambridge University concluded These statistics reveal that the root cause of climate that “economic elites and organized groups representing change is clearly capitalism. The capitalist mode of producbusiness interests have substantial independent impacts on tion—which entails an owner of the means of production US government policy, while average citizens and masspaying fixed wages to employees while dictating how to based interest groups have little or no independent influspend the surplus money they make—creates a society of ence.” Often, as in the case of climate change, these interindividuals working in their own best interest rather than a ests are diametrically opposed to the needs and wants of collective working together in pursuit of a common good. working-class people around the world. A quote from Karl Most of the corporations responsible for carbon emissions, Marx rings true: “the notably fossil fuel gimodern state is nothant ExxonMobil, have ing but a committee known about their difor managing the sastrous effects on the common affairs of the climate for decades— whole bourgeoisie.” and spend millions If the socialist lobbying for anti-clisolution of collectivmate legislation anyizing the means of way to spread blaproduction is not the tant misinformation. logical solution to cliFracking billionaires mate change and inDan and Farris Wilks equity, what is? were the first large Pretending that donors of the poputhe problem of clilar right-wing media mate change doesn’t outlet Prager Univerexist won’t work forsity, whose YouTube ever. Faced with the videos have titles like increasingly obvious “Fossil Fuels: The truth that the only Greenest Energy” and realistic way to curb “Why You Should pollution is to abolLove Fossil Fuels”. ish the very economThe large role oil ic system through and gas companies which they have achave played in the crued their wealth, escalation of the clithe most powerful mate crisis despite capitalists are turnknowing the effects ing to outer space for of global warming for A figure from The Guardian shows the extent of their next source of decades, and the foranti-climate lobbying and branding by fossil fuel profit. A century ago, tunes they have spent companies. March 22, 2019. when Vladimir Lenin opposing green enerclaimed that capitalgy policies, show that ism had reached its private interests have final stage—imperialism, he failed to anticipate this final single-handedly pushed our planet to the brink of climate frontier. catastrophe. The actions, decisions, and corruption of fossil As president, climate denier Donald Trump prioritized fuel capitalists form one of the most extreme examples of creating a Space Force that has already made a deal with the private interests of the capitalist class dominating the Elon Musk’s SpaceX to deliver weapons to other U.S. milinterests of the majority. itary branches across the globe. A SpaceX executive also While the US is a democracy that grants citizens the revealed the company has already begun drafting a constiright to vote on their representatives in government, these tution for Mars. representatives’ campaigns are sponsored by capitalists Jeff Bezos, too, is gearing up to use his immense rewho are actively working for their individual interests. A

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serve of capital for space colonization; he already founded a company called Blue Origin that literally named “space colonization” in its mission statement (the statement has since been removed from their website). In the days after he stepped down as CEO of Amazon, the Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote that Blue Origin is “the most important work” the e-commerce tycoon is now doing.

Some may not mind that Bezos and Musk are leading the way in space colonization, but they should. Musk has already outlined his plans for getting people to Mars who can’t afford it with a system largely resembling indentured servitude, a practice made illegal in the US by the Thirteenth Amendment. He and his fellow capitalists see a chance to make a profit by giving loans to those who are displaced by climate disaster and in poverty to work at a SpaceX plant on Mars to pay off their debts.

It is quite likely there will be a large pushback to Musk’s proposed idea—after all, this infamous tool of European colonization has been illegal in Western nations for over a century. However, it is clear that Musk, who has recently been found guilty of union-busting by the National Labor Relations Board, has no intention of giving away too much of his spoils to his workers.

Bezos, meanwhile, has taken every measure possible to suppress unionization. In an Alabama warehouse where Amazon workers recently attempted to unionize, there were anti-union pamphlets in the bathrooms and workers received anti-union texts daily. Bezos has fired workers across the country for organizing around injustices like low hazard pay, a lack of proper safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, and harsh working conditions.

Amazon workers are known to have to urinate in bottles because they’ll get fired if they take a bathroom break.

Amazon has even worked with Pinkerton to send private detectives to bust organizing efforts in the workplace.

It’s clear that both Bezos and Musk cut corners to improve their own bottom lines, and this pattern shows no signs of changing if the two magnates end up colonizing the Red Planet. Bezos especially has shown that he is not averse to abetting right-wing authoritarianism as long as it turns a profit. Amazon is the backbone of many key programs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security. The central tech company that these agencies use, Palantir, uses government data to compile detailed profiles that are then used to surveil immigrants. Palantir pays Amazon approximately $600,000 a month for the use of its servers, according to a recent investigation. Taken together, Bezos’ support for expansionism on Mars and authoritarian violence at home suggest eerie parallels to eco-fascist thought.

As the climate deteriorates faster and faster, the capi-

talist mode of production may not be able to be sustained without far-right governance in the Global North. Considering the Global North is also a major region to which climate refugees will flee, company owners in space won’t have nearly as many desperate people willing to risk leaving Earth to live and work if citizens in wealthy nations of the Global North are willing to allocate equitable resources for climate refugees. Not only that, but the majority of those who will be displaced in the Global South are people of color—a reality which will only continue to perpetuate the global white supremacist hierarchy that evolved since Europeans first brought capitalism to the rest of the world via colonialization.

Historically, fascism has emerged because the status quo of capitalism was no longer sustainable. Fascism, in other words, gained prominence primarily as a reaction to leftwing workers’ movements. In the US, there was even a capitalist-backed fascist plot to coup a newly-inducted FDR to combat his policy aims of dramatic wealth redistribution.

In Europe, the alliance of fascism and capitalism was much more overt. Italian socialists gained political power in 1919 and began seizing factories in 1920; Mussolini’s fascists gained power almost immediately after. Social democrats, who, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez today, believed in a capitalist mode of production with large amounts of wealth redistribution through taxes, welfare, and social programs, sided with capitalists when socialist revolution was at hand, allowing for the eventual victories of fascism. Leon Trotsky astutely observed in 1932 that Italy’s social democracy at the time of the socialist-fascist power struggle “was concerned with only one thing: to withdraw the workers from combat at the cost of one concession after another. The social democracy hoped that the docile conduct of the workers would restore the ‘public opinion’ of the bourgeoisie against the fascists.”

In Germany, social democrats worked with their capitalist class to crush the socialist German revolution of 1919.

In Spain, the reformists in power following the 1936 revolution also tried to bargain with capitalists, who promptly went and backed Francisco Franco, a brutal dictator who ruled for four decades. The birth of European fascism in response to left-wing uprisings shows that fascism was the only means by which capitalism could preserve itself. This pattern could repeat as global warming worsens.

As life on Earth grows more and more unlivable, an increasing number of people may be forced to migrate to space settlements where they will be further subject to the unbending will of our ruling class. If capitalists do expand to the Red Planet, class oppression could combine with a revamped Manifest Destiny ideology to make a true—and terrifying—eco-fascist dystopia. H

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Sensing the Anthropocene with Phosphorus in Lake Champlain

By Chris Gish

H

ead to Lake Champlain on a hot, still summer day and the placid water might resemble a thin pea soup. The murky blend is cyanobacteria, a community of native microbes whose growth is limited by a lack of phosphorus. When weather conditions are right and sources like wastewater treatment plants and farms release excess phosphorus, cyanobacteria populations ‘bloom,’ creating conditions that are both unsightly and toxic.

As the Executive director of the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC), Lori Fisher is familiar with these fickle, problematic blooms. She oversees a community monitoring network for cyanobacteria at more than 150 sites in Vermont, New York, and Quebec, in which volunteers monitor for cyanobacteria at least once a week and contribute to a tracker map that provides timely information on water safety. “Cyanobacteria are natural,” Fisher said. “What we focus on is when they get out of hand.”

A similar focus motivates a raft of programs that have sprung up to help monitor phosphorus and its effects in Lake Champlain. Since 2012 when the US Environmental Protection Agency mandated stricter Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) in Lake Champlain following a suit from the Conservation Law Foundation, Vermont has increased efforts to limit the amount of phosphorus entering Lake Champlain. Everyone from community volunteers to university professors are developing new ways to monitor and reduce what extension agents call the “wicked problem” of phosphorus.

Phosphorus, though, is not just an isolated molecule. It is embedded in complex socio-ecological patterns of unsustainability and harm. As increasing data is collected on phosphorus, I am curious whether another, perhaps more important question—how phosphorus traces our transi-

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tion to the Anthropocene—remains askable.

Like plastics and fossil fuels, phosphorus in the “Age of Humans” causes global ecological and geological change as humans unearth it in mass quantities and add it to biological cycles. The so-called “phosphorus apparatus”—a term coined by anthropologist Zachary Caple—now applies over 15 million tons of phosphorus fertilizer annually, radically altering the cycle of a naturally scarce nutrient to feed growing, urban populations.

In Vermont, agriculture is at the heart of the phosphorus apparatus. Farmers rely on phosphorus for high yields, and Vermont farms, primarily dairy, make up the largest source of phosphorus to Lake Champlain. Dairy farmers in Vermont seldom directly apply phosphorus fertilizer, but, on net, they import feed from out of state that has been grown with generous phosphorus inputs. Policies that maintain low prices and overproduction in the dairy industry and a farming model that relies on imported nutrients are key parts of Vermont’s phosphorus apparatus.

Dairy cows are too. To produce the most milk possible, their female bodies are forced through accelerated cycles of pregnancy and lactation, arranged so tightly in barns that they might not turn around for their whole adult lives. Phosphorus shows just how aptly the Anthropocene is also the Capitalocene—an age when cheap goods proliferate through the “cheapening” of countless human and non-human lives.

Thinking through the complexity of phosphorus and its monitoring led me to a 2017 paper, A Wary Alliance: From Enumerating the Environment to Inviting Apprehension.

Nicholas Shapiro et al. note that “the very pursuit of finding buoyancy and meaning among indeterminate data resists bigger/ ancillary/other questions becoming askable.”

This dilemma stuck with me as I noticed how the practices used to sense and monitor phosphorus were articulated through the same systems that create phosphorus pollution in the first place. Sensing practices—the many methods that produce knowledge about phosphorus in the environment—present an opportunity to explore problems and potential solutions to the Anthropocene, but they remain embedded in the Anthropocene’s messy, unjust patterns.

Raju Badireddy and Andrew Schroth are two professors at the University of Vermont (UVM) who are involved in technical efforts to ‘enumerate’ phosphorus pollution. Badireddy, an environmental engineer, is developing low-cost microsensors that will measure dissolved phosphorus in soil or water and store the data on flash memory. Schroth, a geology professor, makes detailed models that correlate UV/Vis spectrophotometry (a measure of how water absorbs light at different wavelengths) to phosphorus levels

in three Vermont watersheds as part of a National Science Foundation grant on phosphorus and eutrophication in Lake Champlain.

The phosphorus accounting of Badireddy and Schroth follows in the legacy of what critic Larry Lohmann calls molecular fetishism. Molecular fetishism, a fixation on the importance and (explanatory) power of isolated molecules, is central to the Anthropocene. It enabled chemical agriculture in the first place, as farmers reduced management decisions to the right N-P-K ratios and pesticide applications. Now, as too many of the wrong molecules accumulate in lakes and rivers, phosphorus becomes a “wayward” molecule. Once its amounts and distributions are quantified in sufficient detail, the logic of molecular fetishism goes, technical interventions can solve the problem without any structural changes to underlying systems of power and production.

Badireddy and Schroth were clear that more detailed data on phosphorus molecules are key to a healthier lake.

Schroth emphasized the importance of constant monitoring and frequent sampling because “there are things that, with much lower frequency data sets, you tend to miss.”

Likewise, “more data,” Badireddy said, “will give us a better understanding of what’s going on in the system, and how we should improve or change the best management practices.”

The barriers to this straightforward solution, according to Badireddy and Schroth, are the same ones that impede any capitalist enterprise: time and money. Badireddy lamented how lab analysis is held back by “the time it takes to process these phosphorus samples, and the amount of labor and the cost.” The alternative, in-situ sensors, currently cost a few thousand dollars each.

Community monitoring of cyanobacteria also bases its relevance on the assertion of universal, objective scientific truths. The LCC began monitoring in 1999 when a rash of dog deaths revealed the danger of cyanobacteria to public health. Unlike many examples of ‘citizen science,’ the program has institutional roots, borrowing UVM’s deep water sampling method and applying it to the nearshore areas that people interact with. Moving from “labor-intensive and very expensive” lab tests to a volunteer community monitoring model allowed the program to expand from fewer than two dozen sites to over 150 in 2020, according to Fisher.

The goal of scientific reproducibility remained despite the transition from laboratories to volunteer observations. All volunteer monitors undergo training and must follow

a consistent process that involves a “three-tiered visual system,” standardized “jar tests,” and established weekly testing times for the “integrity of data,” Fisher explained.

The LCC “ground truths” community monitoring data with occasional lab tests to make sure there is no systemic discrepancy between non-expert observation and ‘true’ lab results.

LCC’s community monitoring folds in another key aspect of Anthropocenic world-making: hierarchies of knowledge and agency, in which the most affected bodies have the least agency to change their situation. Remember the dog deaths that sparked LCC’s community monitoring? They are part of a hierarchy of cyanobacteria harm, with wild natures at one end and expert policy-makers and scientists at the other. Wild natures suffer the most damage but have the least agency to alter the dynamics of phosphorus pollution, while experts have great power to ameliorate phosphorus but seldom have to directly experience its harm. Pets, children, and community monitors populate the middle of this spectrum, with decreasing proximity to direct harm and increasing agency to affect the problem.

Similar hierarchies emerge to govern the knowledge produced in community monitoring. Excess phosphorus and potential toxicity is made visible through the rapidly-reproducing bodies of cyanobacteria, but it takes human monitors to translate that knowledge into something ‘significant.’ Volunteer observations show up on the tracker map, but ultimately the data are validated by experts at the LCC and Vermont Departments of Health and Environmental Conservation. As they clean, analyze, and present the data, these institutions are vested with the power to produce knowledge that, in turn, is legible to other expert and policymaking institutions. When I last spoke to Fisher on March 18, 2021, these groups had not finished the analysis of 2020 field data.

These tiered understandings, though, are not fixed; as they come, go, and change shape like the cyanobacteria blooms they seek to sense, they open up space for different systems of knowledge and power. Fisher noted that volunteers were often the first to detect uncommon new forms of cyanobacteria. As these observations trickled up to program directors, community monitors ended up co-creating the testing standards and processes that are ostensibly passed ‘down’ to them to carry out. Paying attention to these inversions of power and expertise—which are always present but often overlooked—might reveal unexpected ways to reorganize systems for regeneration and more just futures.

Art by Gretchen Saveson Headwaters Magazine 14

Even Schroth’s nonliving computer models confuse the boundaries between a subject able to produce knowledge, and a passive ‘object’ being known. In science, a subject supposedly knows nature, independent of any influence from the object itself. Power flows one way, from the (often white, male, colonial) knower to that which is known, just like other unidirectional ways humans relate to nature in the Anthropocene. The algorithms that Schroth uses to model watershed phosphorus, however, are in a way written by the places they seek to sense. The relation between UV/Vis spectrophotometry and phosphorus depends on unique factors like soil type, topography, land cover, and land use. Factors like land cover and land use, crucially, live at messy human/nonhuman interfaces. Like Caple noted of the apparatus that left Bone Valley, Florida, a devastated landscape exploited for over 1 billion tons of phosphorus since 1880, the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene is always a “patchy” one. It is precisely this patchiness that demands that watersheds co-create their algorithms. As the environment changes, Schroth noted, the algorithm must change as well. This, too, is the Anthropocene: the place where established ways of ordering and knowing break down as we engage with new human/ nonhuman entanglements.

Beyond mutable hierarchies, phosphorus sensing also gives a window into other shifting, ambiguous entanglements that mark Anthropocene landscapes. One of these is the persistence and proliferation of living labor. Since Marx, critics like Lohman have pointed out that the advance of machines (and now computing) has not resulted in the elimination of human or animal labor. Rather, it has led to the more thorough exploitation of “living labor” to accommodate, interface with, code, fuel, and maintain the dead labor of machines. This is the case for the Anthropocene-making phosphorus apparatus, as it demands everything from alienated farm workers and sacrificial creatures like dairy cows (life-giving producers with barely a life of their own) to the millennia of genetic information needed to breed more productive crops and cows.

Living labor likewise persists in the sensing apparatuses that detect phosphorus here in Vermont. The community monitoring program depends, obviously enough, on uncompensated labor to interface with the environment.

Volunteers interpret ambiguous environmental conditions into a legible “sample,” and attend to changing conditions so they know when to resample even if it is beyond the weekly schedule. Coordinators, meanwhile, have to call volunteers weekly to negotiate consistency among variable lake conditions and human interpretations, then assimilate dissimilar reports from across the basin into coherent standards, processes, and statistics.

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Schroth and Badireddy do not have to manage the inconsistencies of human volunteers, but their projects still demand living labor for the idiosyncrasies of watersheds and changing geophysical baselines. Schroth relies on regular water samples, manually collected and analyzed in the lab, to provide “ground truthing” for the algorithms he creates. “A common perception is that once you have sensors, you don’t need to collect water samples,” he said. “It turns out you still need to collect a lot of water samples.” Similarly, Badireddy noted that even for the small site in Colorado where his team will be testing microsensors this summer, “there will be a technician present there at all times.”

Despite being couched in a language of objective scientism, the living labor of phosphorus sensing inhabits the ambiguity of the environment in the transition to the Anthropocene. Schroth noted that the difficulty of his work is precisely that it is hard to discern, out of the “noise” of bio-geological difference, what interventions actually change phosphorus loads. Community monitors, meanwhile, negotiate the ambiguity of visual phenomena—is that duckweed, pollen, cyanobacteria, motor oil, or algae?

Or some combination of the five? Even when the goal is to transform the environment into manipulable, universalized data sets, the actual ‘act of translation’ remains full of uncertainty.

If the Anthropocene is understood as the end of the stable, life-giving Holocene epoch during which human and non-human life flourished, then a collective goal might be to exit the Anthropocene as quickly as possible. Paying attention to the details of this transition, with everything from community monitoring to digital sensors, is vital.

Noticing ambiguity and entanglement invites not just more of the same—more studies, more living labor subsumed, more hierarchical knowledge—but also other ways to make sense of and act with phosphorus.

Schroth described the difficulty of ascribing causal agency to changes in phosphorus levels, but the Anthropocene is not a univariate problem. We inhabit a knot of globally distributed, brutally unjust dilemmas with no single cause.

Often, solutions at one scale or location—reducing direct applications of phosphorus fertilizer in VT, say—lead to problems at another that are not visible to mainstream science. The blasted landscapes where phosphorus is mined and the lives of the dairy cows it cycles through do not figure into analyses of phosphorus pollution in Vermont.

Sacrificial lives and places, however, are fundamental to the Anthropocene, so in seeking phosphorus abatement, I hope we attend to these relations as well. Data and detailed science are essential for understanding the messiness of the Age of Humans, but they alone will never point to a way out. H

A

salination, the process of separating salt water into pure round the globe, demand for clean water is increasfreshwater and a sludge-like substance called brine, we may ing faster than it can be supplied. According to the be able to utilize the vast supply of water that is the ocean.

Central California Area Office Bureau of Reclamation, Brine generated from desalination is composed of all of the approximately 3 percent of the 326 million cubic miles non-water materials that are in seawater and is conventionof water on Earth is freshwater. Unfortunately, about 83 ally considered “waste.” The contents and their concentrapercent of that 3 percent is inaccessible; too polluted to tions within the brine can vary vastly by region but typbe used, stored deep underground, or trapped in the atically includes salt, minerals, metals, and contaminants. mosphere, glaciers, ice, and soil. In 2017, the World Using chemical separation and magnification processes, Health Organization reported that 29% of the global it is plausible to extract these materials from the brine, population did not have access to a safely managed effectively “mining” the ocean. If scientists can idendrinking-water service, which is defined as a source tify energy-efficient processes to isolate the most “located on-premises, available when needed, and desirable contents of the brine, reclaiming matefree from contamination.” The world population rials from brine gives desalination the potential has doubled since the 1960s and is projected by to transform its primary waste product into a the United Nations to reach nearly 11 billion resource. Some minerals common people at the end of the century. The deDesalination: valuable in brine like sodium, calcium carbonate, mand for water extends far beyond domesdolomite, and gypsum are actively mined tic use, with water critical to agriculture, The Future of for their applications and are in demand. clothing production, energy production, Freshwater?

Small particles of rare metals like nickel, and industrial processes. To say that water copper, cobalt, manganese, zinc, and gold is necessary for life is an understatement,

By Katrina can also be found in the ocean. Although and despite the illusion of infinity that our Seeberger making a profit from the extraction of rare sink faucets create, water comes at a price. metals is not presently feasible considering the exDuring the past ten years in the United States tremely low concentrations of them in the ocean, it is alone, water prices have risen at a rate double that of theoretically possible to “mine” for rare earth metals in an the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) established by the analogous manner. federal government. The COLA is the Social Security AdExploring the chemical content of brine regionally is ministration’s (SSA) annual adjustment for inflation. In the next logical step to tapping into its potential as a reother words, the rise in the cost of water each year is greatsource. Brine is more commonly viewed as a waste product er than the government’s adjustment to fixed income for that needs to be “dealt with” under our current approach inflation. The problems associated with the aptly termed to desalination, which primarily includes discharging the “global water crisis” are not as far from home as Americans concentrated brine back into the ocean. Nick Ashbolt, the like to think. Our communities are impacted by rising wahead of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Uniter costs, whether they realize it or not. versity of New South Wales, explains, “the brine generated However, an often-overlooked resource may be able to as wastewater during desalination is heavier than seawater, alleviate our water supply issues: the ocean. Through de-

Figure 1: The percent increase in the cost of water is compared to the COLA; the cost of water annually increases at a rate faster than the COLA.

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so if incorrectly discharged to the ocean, it would sink to the bottom. If released into calm water, it can sink to the bottom as a plume of salty water that can kill organisms on the sea bed from lack of oxygen. The brine, especially because of the lack of oxygen in the plume, must be well mixed and released, preferably by a high energy coastline.”

It is not hard to fathom this approach leading to detrimental environmental consequences.

The way that brine is currently dealt with is, in principle, unsustainable— it does not take into consideration the accumulation of the brine in the ocean over time.

When the brine is dispersed by currents in the ocean, its environmental impact is minimized, not eliminated. Picture an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Imagine if every day, a teaspoon of salt is poured into the pool. At this rate, it would take 217 years for the level of salt to be detectable by taste. Now, consider if every day 100 teaspoons of salt were poured into the pool. It would only take 2 days for the water to taste salty. It does not matter if you evenly distribute the salt in the pool or dump it all at one end, the salinity of the pool will nevertheless increase. If there were living organisms in the pool, a sudden, drastic change in the salinity of their environment, like the de-oxygenated plume or pouring 100 teaspoons of salt in the pool,

Figure 2: The cost of water is increasing at an annual percentage that is cumulatively more than double the rate of the COLA in the United States. would likely be fatal. This is what we are currently trying to prevent by releasing brine into “high-energy coastlines”, effectively re-mixing the brine back into the ocean.

The impact of dispersing brine will be more subtle than if the brine were dumped in a calm area yet will affect a larger area of the ocean. Remember the example of a single teaspoon of salt being added to a pool every day? This would not harm fish if they were present in the pool for the

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first few days. The amount of salt is a “drop in the ocean.”

But what about after a year? Or 217 years? Of course, the ocean is vast and more complex than a swimming pool, but the principle remains the same. There is a finite amount of resources on our planet, the ocean being one of those. We can not afford to be naive and think that we can discharge brine back into the ocean with no long-term consequences.

From microplastics, to trash, to overfishing and oil spills, it is clear that humans can have a serious impact on marine ecosystems and the ocean itself. Sustainably redesigning desalination is especially important right now, given that the implementation of desalination technology is expanding.

Over 120 countries worldwide utilize desalination, including Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Australia, and the United States. Desalination currently supplies water to more than 300 million people, according to the International Desalination Association. In the United States, municipal desalination plants are emerging in several states including Texas, California, and Florida. Primarily, coastal regions without adequate access to naturally occurring freshwater use desalination to support their population.

The environmental impacts of desalination are not at the forefront of the discussion around desalination technology; the main obstacle to making desalination widespread is cost. Both construction and operation of desalination facilities are expensive. Saltwater has to be pumped from the ocean into the facility, desalinated, and then treated to be used municipally. Thus, desalination is typically only implemented when few other options remain. However, as freshwater demand and costs rise, it is crucial to research innovative methods to make desalination more economically viable. The extraction of resources like minerals or rare metals from brine represents one such approach. The money made from the sale of brine-extracted minerals could be used to offset desalination operating costs. Alternatively, minerals present in brine, like calcium carbonate, are actually used in the water treatment process and can be isolated and reused to reduce the cost of operation.

These are just a few of the possible ways to improve upon the present approach to desalination and make the process more sustainable and less expensive. To determine which ideas will be logistically worthwhile, it is imperative that we direct scientific resources towards this promising alternative to traditional freshwater sources. We must acknowledge the complexity inherent in the utilization of the ocean and the limitations of desalination. In order to apply desalination as a sustainable, effective strategy against the existing and ever-worsening global water crisis, we must act now— before more people become entrenched and dependent on this unsustainable process. H

Who is an Environmentalist?

Op-Ed by Luke Zarzecki

M

y friend Ariana lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood of Chicago. She does not own a car, she rarely eats meat, and only occasionally buys new things as she needs them. To get outside, she goes for walks in her neighborhood, and we like to hang out at the park near her house.

My other friend, Sam, only buys reused, thrift-store clothes. He shops Goodwill, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Depop, and any other place where he can find second-hand fashion pieces. “My clothes are cheap, durable, and preowned,” he tells me. He shares an apartment with 11 other boys and walks to most places or carpools as needed.

Neither Sam nor Ariana studied the environment in college. Ariana majored in economics and neuroscience, and Sam majored in economics and history. I, on the other hand, majored in environmental studies in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont (UVM). I drive a car, and I love buying new clothes. I eat meat occasionally, and some of my other habits would not necessarily be labeled as “environmentally friendly.” And of course, I never hesitate to call myself an environmentalist when the occasion arises. I run, hike, swim, and ski, and get outside whenever I can, self-righteously titling myself as ‘outdoorsy.’

Do these things make me an environmentalist as well?

On one hand, I am passionate about the environment. I found all of my environmental coursework interesting, and most of my hobbies involve the outdoors. I hope to pursue a career in either environmental journalism or environmental law to contribute to the fight against climate change. On the other hand, my carbon footprint is bigger than many peoples and notably bigger than my friends who might not be consciously trying to reduce their environmental impact by choosing vegetables over meat at the grocery store. So, which gives me the green light? Talking the talk through studying environmental issues and walking the walk by getting outside? Or, rather, is there a certain threshold where my carbon footprint must fall under to label myself as an environmentalist? Something else?

A competitive culture often exists around this question within the environmental field. Who bikes to work, who discovers the newest piece of climate science, who lives the most sustainable life, who is an environmentalist?

It can almost be like competing in Harry Potter’s “house games.” Forget your reusable bag—seven points from Gryffindor. Bring a ham sandwich for lunch—there go another 12 points. Drive a car instead of taking the bus—the House has taken another hit. Sometimes, this competition rests within academia. A professor once told me about the ecology research she did across Europe, emphasizing not only what they discovered, but also the amazing places they were able to visit. Although the research was important and intriguing, it begs a key question: was there a carbon offset for the carbon emitted from travel (although, carbon offsetting itself is a whole other controversy within the environmental field)? Another professor told me how he rides his bike from a distant small town to the university every day instead of driving to demonstrate his dedication to sustainable transportation. A different professor came to class with a high-end backcountry backpack (holding merely a laptop and charger), a glow-light for night skiing, and a sporty REI jacket. Outdoorsy, huh?

The UVM Outing Club is also another place where this competitive culture of environmentalism plays out. As a leader within the club, I can wholeheartedly attest to the members of the group going for the best gear, the steepest climbs, and the ‘sendiest sends.’ Yet, does all that gear protect those rocks they climbed or trails they traversed? Would buying a new pair of skis not send more CO2 into our atmosphere than a used pair? What about hiking Mt. Mansfield in jeans and flip-flops, instead of $150 hiking boots and the newest pair of waterproof pants?

After talking with a professor who works with students new to outdoor activities, she detailed how this elitism around gear and competition also creates a culture of exclusion, in which those who are new to hiking, climbing, skiing, or other recreational activities face intimidation or feel unwelcome to join in on the fun. While many outdoorsy folks may describe themselves as environmentalists, they do not necessarily think about how they are affecting the landscapes upon which they impede. Does the privilege of having access automatically grant them a pass?

Many of the things I just mentioned I have done and will do in the future, and in no way am I trying to shame those professors or Outing Club members in doing what they define as their part in the environmental movement.

In fact, I think we should all try to incorporate some envi-

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ronmentally friendly habits into our lifestyles and get outside as much as possible, even if we do it imperfectly. But where I do diverge from those in the environmental and outdoor realm is the judgmental and competitive outlook many mix into their activism.

As an example, I took an environmental law course with a professor who commuted from Middlebury. Some students called “Code Green” because instead of driving an electric car, he drives a gas-powered one, contributing to carbon emissions and air pollution that environmentalism aims to combat. Electric cars tend to cost more upfront. As a new professor supporting young children, maybe the high upfront costs of an electric vehicle are inaccessible to him, as they are for a large fraction of vehicle owners who are limited by the lack of inexpensive and used electric cars. Should he be taking fault for this one aspect of his life? My environmental law professor works within the environmental movement by teaching and inspiring new generations of thinkers and activists. His profession, in my words, not his, became his activism. This raises questions around who earns the label ‘environmentalist’ and who does not. Is there really one right way to be an environmentalist?

There is no perfect environmentalist and there never will be. In our current society, it is nearly impossible for anyone to structure their entire life to reach a carbon footprint of zero. Everyone has many habits, many hobbies, many faults that negatively affect some aspect of this world. If I tried to make every single one of my actions parallel with environmentalism, I would be overcome with frustration from the lack of agency to do so. Yet, it is important to recognize this and examine accordingly. An environmentalist should examine their own privilege and how that privilege allows them to show up in the movement. There is a difference between choosing not to, and not being able to. Many working and middle-class folks do not have the means to make decisions based on environmentalist ideals, but many other people do. As someone who drives a car, I can decide to walk to work instead of driving. I can decide to eat meat only once or twice a week. I have the means to make these decisions, but judgment from others may steer me, or anyone else, away from these solutions.

It is easy to ‘sit in the ivory tower,’ complete academic research, and then preach to everyone else how they should change their lives based on conclusions. A balance must be struck. As a student who learned about how damaging meat is to our atmosphere, I should not begin lecturing others on why their diet should be changed significantly and immediately. Instead, informing others of the issue Art by Sam Shaevel 19 Headwaters Magazine

and letting them decide how they can best react sometimes is the only way to solve a disagreement coming from across the aisle. The least we can do is meet each other halfway, and try to change for the better.

Often, there is a privilege that comes with making environmentally-friendly decisions congruent with lowering a carbon footprint, and a privilege that comes with what we believe it means to be an environmentalist. This reality shows the necessity of moving away from a carbon-based economy to a renewable one, and one that accounts for environmental externalities currently left out of the equation. Air pollution costs need to be factored into gas prices, ocean biodiversity depletion needs to be calculated into the cost of seafood, and much more. Once environmentally sustainable decisions are embedded into our everyday lives, then we can begin to make meaningful change in the climate crisis.

Many students, activists, and attentive citizens look to popular voices within the environmental field for advice.

Bill McKibben is deemed to be a trusted voice because he writes for The New Yorker, has done immense amounts of research, and has studied the environment for years. Likewise, Naomi Klein, who details the pitfalls of capitalism throughout her work and gives us small attainable solutions to help build a better society, is also granted credibility. Rubenstein Dean Nancy Matthews, because of her experience within the Wildlife and Fisheries field and her passion for a more sustainable and equitable world, is given a seat at the table. We call these folks environmentalists.

I, too, call myself an environmentalist. I am a writer and editor for Headwaters, I study the environment, I love to get outside, and I am deeply passionate about environmental issues. Yet perhaps I give myself this label so I feel like I am making a positive difference. Perhaps academics, a position that takes privilege to achieve and only brings with it more, call ourselves environmentalists to feel less guilty for our environmentally detrimental habits. Are we doing the most that we can, without driving ourselves to the brink of burnout?

To solve environmental issues, perhaps we should look no further than our peers and friends. What if we ate meat as frequently as Ariana? What if we only bought used clothes like Sam? I do not know Bill McKibben’s lifestyle choices or how big Naomi Klein’s house is or how much meat Dean Matthews eats. Perhaps the footprints they leave within Earth are bigger than my friends’, who have less interest in the environment, except when they listen to me ramble about environmental economics. Are my friends the real environmentalists? H

Shifting the

Narrative: Why Eco-guilt Doesn’t Work

By Teresa Helms

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may be biased, but I love environmental majors. Being in a program surrounded by students who are passionate about, invested in, and excited to engage with the same issues as I am is exhilarating. Simultaneously, it can be exhausting. I spend the bulk of my academic hours reading, writing, and thinking about impending environmental doom. I often feel like I need to be doing something, or at least doing more.

The front desk of my residence hall hands out biodegradable compost bags, which I can take and fill with the orange peels that collect in my room. However, I have little control over the food scraps I send down the conveyor belt in the dining hall. I can follow my vegetarian friends’ lead and eat less meat, but I know that this may distress the rheumatologist who monitors my iron deficiency. I see photos from protests and climate strikes and think I should be on the ground making noise, but I am held back because of the pandemic. Even though these actions seem inconsequential in the broader context of colossal environmental problems like climate change, I am still full of regret for the activism I failed to participate in pre-COVID. At the end of the day, I feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy.

Maya Bostwick, a senior Environmental Studies major and manager for the Eco-Reps program at the Universi-

ty of Vermont (UVM), has had similar experiences. She affirms that the sentiment is not uncommon: “I’ve heard a consistent theme within the environmental majors that there’s sort of this culture of guilt...where some people are super, super involved and if you’re not that involved [and] you’re not doing everything perfectly, you’re a bad environmental student.” The guilty feelings that come when we think we are not living up to the standards of environmental activism required of us is termed “eco-guilt,” and the individualist framework from which it arises is fundamentally flawed.

A 2020 book by Sarah Jaquette Ray, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, highlights the importance of relinquishing eco-guilt when advocating for environmental issues.

Ray defines eco-guilt as “the feeling that we have so harmed the environment that we are eternally indebted and will never be able to right that debt, no matter how many green choices we make on a daily basis.” Corporations and media outlets exploit these feelings through marketing strategies, emphasizing individualism and ignoring the potential for—and necessity of—collective action. Many internalize this as guilt, a response to an unattainable standard of personal sustainability. They are left feeling that their own efforts are insufficient and that individual action is the only way to combat environmental challenges. Examples of guilt-driven individualism have been projected in the mainstream since the rise of classical environmentalism.

For instance, the Ad Council’s “Crying Indian” campaign of the 1970s used shame-inducing advertisements to redirect responsibility for pollution from corporations such as The Coca-Cola Company to individuals. Another is the pervasive idea of personal “carbon footprints,” a term fabricated by British Petroleum in 2004 that has since become commonplace, effectively convincing consumers that their own carbon emissions are the cause of climate change.

This messaging does not reflect reality and does not address the root of the problem. An individual consumer’s carbon footprint is minuscule compared to the carbon emitted by a few select corporations. Making individuals feel personally responsible for the brunt of environmental crises distracts from the fact that the largest contributors to climate change and other grand challenges are societal structures and big corporations. According to the 2017 Carbon Majors Report, around 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are produced by 100 companies. Half of those emissions can be traced back to just 25 companies, namely in the fossil fuel industry. Shaming individuals does nothing to change that. Though individual practices are a necessary part of the future of sustainability, larger institutional structures should be addressed instead.

There is opportunity here for science media to present a

Headwaters Magazine 20

more productive narrative. This type of effective communication is brought to us by folks such as Caroline Frigon, an Educational Programs Coordinator at the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain. Frigon describes science communicators as those “who have some sort of training or

Art by Maggie Alberhini 21 Headwaters Magazine

background in academia and the sciences.” She notes that these communicators “[take] their knowledge and expertise and then [interpret] science to make it more compelling, interesting, [and] relevant to the general public and to a broader audience.” Science communication exists to make complex concepts digestible and shape public understanding, which Frigon comments on: “One [concept] that comes up a lot for me is climate change and how that really complex system works. You don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty, necessarily, of specific drivers and the albedo of the arctic changing, but instead [you] want to create these narrative-driven arcs that people are compelled by.”

Moving towards big environmental goals, particularly climate stability, will require pressuring corporations and institutions of power. With most of this pressure misplaced onto individual consumers, however, people are burdened with responsibility. Rather, we should seek to encourage a response of collective organization, as this will more accurately achieve what Frigon calls “building an eco-efficacy.”

Science communicators must also address the flawed economic system that surrounds us and how this exacerbates the ability of powerful entities to waive responsibility for environmental negatives. Régine Clément, CEO of The CREO (Clean, Renewable, and Environmental Opportunities) Syndicate, writes in her essay Catalytic Capital that “[t]he challenge of climate change is perhaps best defined as our challenge to end destructive capitalism.” Change does not happen by working within the existing framework.

Movements that succeed are those that disrupt capitalist systems, and those that fit in between the cracks. Grassroots collectives that do not rely on these systems are therefore instrumental in achieving success. Frigon emphasizes the importance of building change at this level, stating that “community outreach and grassroots efforts tend to be far more powerful and persuasive than larger movements or broader, coarser scale movements.”

That said, capitalist institutions can exploit grassroots efforts, and authorities and systems at UVM are no exception. As a university that prides itself in “sustainable leadership,” UVM instrumentalizes these phenomena in order to place the responsibility of maintaining this status onto its students. Take for instance the University’s Sustainable Campus Fund, which, according to their website, exists to support a “vision of enhancing a cul-

ture of sustainability, innovation, and research on campus” by providing grants for sustainability-oriented projects proposed and led by students. While this may seem like an opportunity for many students to have their ideas realized, the program has problematic implications. Rather than addressing environmental concerns from an administrative level, the University’s presentation of the Sustainable Campus Fund as the main pathway to implementing change on campus suggests that sustainability is the responsibility of students instead of professionals with administrative power.

Molly Hetzel is one student who has been able to take advantage of this program, using the funding to produce the podcast Ripple Effect, which has discussed the Sustainable Campus Fund. When asked about the role of the University’s administration in sustainability, she affirms that “infrastructure should be taken care of by the University and should not fall on the shoulders of students.” In her eyes, students should be able to utilize this opportunity primarily for “projects that are more creative and unusual,” instead of feeling pressure to compensate for initiatives that should have already been taken by those with the money and power to do so.

UVM frequently boasts of its ranking in the Top Green Schools listed by the Princeton Review and makes this a selling point to prospective students. Once tuition is paid, the burden of sustainable ethic is passed onto these students. UVM profits off eco-guilt as with any other institution. The concept of a Sustainable Campus Fund is not inherently bad, and there should be support available for creative student endeavors. However, student-led initiatives, while necessary and important, are not sufficient alone when more powerful administrative entities withhold readily expendable resources. The Sustainable Campus Fund, as Hetzel says, “is a great way to…make changes on small-to-medium projects and individual areas, which is a necessary part of making progress in environmental challenges, but is by no means enough.” She adds that “individuals can’t make big strides quite like those in charge of the systems can,” and concurs that UVM as an institution is not doing enough to address environmental concerns.

In its current state, the Sustainable Campus Fund may be doing just as much harm as it does good by serving as a distraction from the University’s lack of initiative in sustainability. These microgrant projects make students feel accountable for the actions of the school they attend when in reality they have little effect on the way UVM operates as an institution.

UVM often claims the positive outcomes that arise from this fund and other instances of student activism on campus without acknowledging the efforts of student

leaders. The website for UVM’s Office of Sustainability displays a headline declaring “UVM Divests from Fossil Fuels,” which links to a page that briefly explains the implications of the University of Vermont’s Board of Trustees decision to divest and a statement that reads, “it’s the right thing to do, and it’s in our nature.” Missing from this page as well as the official report on divestment from the Sustainability Work Group is mention of the years of student activism from groups such as Organize UVM that led up to this decision. This includes the proposal that was denied by the Board of Trustees multiple times within the last decade until the recent vote on July 14, 2020. Despite its long-standing resistance to divestment, UVM has now co-opted this as another “green campus” appeal to students, pushing it to the forefront of their marketing efforts now that they can. Conveniently, this marketing scheme omits their own reluctance to the decision and the labor of students who actually made divestment possible.

It is important to note that this collective, student-driven movement was ultimately successful in its goal to pressure UVM into divesting from fossil fuels. Maya Bostwick identified that the common theme among successful environmental initiatives at UVM is that “they’re [initiatives] that give students power or where students take that power for themselves.” She pointed to the perseverance of student activism that pushed UVM to divest: “I remember as a freshman the divestment club was sort of dying…and then cut to last year and they actually succeeded.” This example of ground-up activism productively utilized the collective power of students to call for institutional change, and it is something we should aim to repeat. “[It] just goes to show how much four years can change something and how much student activism can actually make a difference,” she adds, continuing “it’s just a matter of buckling down and really being in it for the long run.”

We are still stuck in a narrative that prioritizes individual action over institutional obligation and misplaces the blame for environmental issues. We need to recognize that student movements are powerful, but they should not be the only actors in this story. Most importantly, we need to leave behind our experiences of guilt and individualism.

Until we address this, measurable progress in the realm of global sustainability will not be possible. Rejection of guilt is not a rejection of responsibility or failure of will.

It is not apathy. Rather, it can help us shift accountability to its rightful place and steer us away from environmental passivity. It can also help us understand that collectively we hold far more power than we do alone. By acting together, there is greater potential to influence power where it is concentrated. To forego guilt is to embrace hope and the possibility of collective movement. H

Headwaters Magazine 22

Where the Highway Ends

By Ali Schafer

Art by Calagh Lim

I wrote this poem about my hometown, Rockport, Massachusetts. I wanted to exemplify how this area of the northeast is vulnerable to sea-level rise and how that has the potential to seriously harm our ecosystems, economy, and livelihoods. I also wanted to talk about how Rockport is a tourist town. People come from all over the country to visit, but I worry that there isn’t enough awareness about what the future may hold in a world affected by climate change. I wrote in the poem that my parents are planning to sell our house within the next 10 years, which is true. They believe that the housing market will suffer once sea-level rise becomes detrimental to our town’s infrastructure. Once my sister and I are finished with college, they will move inland or north. I can’t say I blame them, and we are fortunate to not have all of our family living here in Rockport, but my sister and I will have to say goodbye to the place where we grew up. I worry about the generations of people who live here, mostly surviving off the fishing industry. I wonder how they will fare in the coming decades, since the industry is already suffering from overfishing. Regulations, too, are severely hurting smaller operations. I wanted to invoke a feeling of desperation in this poem that is especially connected to how Rockport and similar towns largely depend on tourism. The way we market this place is through idyllic beauty, beauty which continues to be threatened by climate change. The people who need the tourist economy to function are the ones who are here all year and will suffer the most from the consequences of a changing climate.

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If you take Route 128 North all the way to the end, and drive over one of three bridges and above the Annisquam river, you’ll find it.

A small town of seven thousand year-round residents.

We call it The Island.

Despite the bridges connecting us to the rest of Cape Ann and the world beyond, our winding river seems bigger than the brackish water, filled with boats and kayaks that skate along her surface in the summer.

We are encircled, surrounded on all sides by the Annisquam, and her comrade, The Atlantic.

Swirling and churning.

On any given July day, you’ll find our bridges jammed with people eager for a red lobster, a toe dipped in our ocean, or a picture of that Red Shack, by the name of Motif #1.

In homegrown New England, days that grow longer, spent on Old Garden Beach, Good Harbor, Long.

Illegal beach fires at a place you’ll never find.

When I am old, and the unborn are young, I hope they get to keep the piece of emerald sea glass, found tucked beneath seven thousand grains of sand, that finds a home in their denim pocket.

Until the days grow long again.

In these first days of spring, I am 250 miles away.

Wondering if those hungry tourists will still visit, year after year if there may come a time when the shore lines are ripped to pieces, our marshes destroyed.

They can only see the beauty of the present while we see the intensifying storms, milder winters, red tides.

I’ve grown and been reshaped by the shores, their lines and I different every year.

My parents are planning to sell our house in a few years when the tides rise to sign the deed to our home.

We live too close to the ocean.

The visitors say “you’re lucky.”

And I say, “Yes I am.”

But luck is running out.

The tide may be turning on us, for what we’ve done to her.

It used to be the main attraction, now it’s our fatal flaw.

Headwaters Magazine 24

A Double-Edged Sword: The Paradoxes of Fast Fashion

By Emma Wardell

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hat was the price of your clothing? Not in terms of money, but in impacts? What resources were spent allowing you to wear that shirt today? As a whole, the fashion industry stands as one of the world’s largest polluters, second only to the oil industry. This impact is cultivated through the “fast fashion” aspect of the industry, creating the bulk of circulated clothing items and, odds are, what you’re wearing right now. An incredibly harmful, wasteful, and unethical source of apparel, fast fashion is defined as “cheap, trendy clothing, that samples ideas from the catwalk or celebrity stores at breakneck speed to meet consumer demand.” This rapid mass-production of clothing pilfers the newest styles from the runways to the streets as quickly as possible, repeating the cycle ad nauseam. As new trends hit the racks, old trends are thrown out, literally.

Barely-worn or used clothing is dumped into secondhand stores, filling the pockets of shop owners who profit off thoughtless trends while offering a new avenue that fulfills the socially constructed desires of the consumer. Utilizing tactics such as greenwashing, this industry has polluted our minds just as much as our wallets. We are led to believe that the clothes in our closets are never satisfying enough and are constantly tempted by online stores available to us anytime, anywhere, and in the comfort of our own homes.

On the other side of the coin stand those who rely on secondhand stores as a means of necessity. Increased access to “thrifting” through online social media platforms has helped bring secondhand fashion to the forefront of our commercialized culture. However, the rise and development of online thrift stores such as Depop, Poshmark, and ThredUp have caused secondhand items to fly off the racks just to be re-sold online. This typically comes at a higher, up-charged price, with significant socioeconomic consequences for communities who may have previously relied on secondhand options for all of their clothing needs

25 Headwaters Magazine

out of economic necessity. Low-income consumers who first relied on the concept of thrifting for practical means are being left out. These parallel issues—the fast fashion industry and the resulting commercialization of the thrifting industry—have profound implications. Examining the root of these issues is critical to understand how to mitigate their harmful consequences.

What do Urban Outfitters, H&M, and Forever 21 have in common? Each of them is a fast-fashion enterprise brought to the limelight of the industry due to the flourishing of online shopping. However, to truly understand how the industry reached its current peak, we must first understand how it arose in the first place. Preceding the fashion industry’s industrialization, the fabrication and mending of clothing were tasks reserved for lower-class citizens. Even for the wealthy, fashion consumption was limited to a once-per-year wardrobe restock that valued quality over quantity. Following the invention of new technologies, such as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, and a standard sizing system, the mass-production of ready-made clothing became easier and cheaper. Prior to the mid-twentieth century, the production of new styles occurred four times per year, coinciding with each season.

Today, the industry produces about 52 “micro-seasons” per year—virtually one new collection, or trend, per week.

Low-cost fashion reached its stride in the mid-twentieth century when the fashion industry saw the development of “trend replication” and “rapid production” as means to bring inexpensive styles to the public. The invention of trend replication allows corporations to design elements from couture fashion and rapidly produce them quickly and cheaply. It became customary for stores to hold massive supply stocks at any given time, limiting concerns of running out of items. Increased production has swept across the fashion industry as a whole, raising con-

Art by Sam Shaevel

cerns for environmental and social activists, and involving perhaps more unsuspecting brands, such as Vans and The North Face. According to Fast Company, this “culture of overconsumption” is perpetuated by the countless apparel companies within the industry that produce more than 50 million tons of clothes annually. At its current growth rate, the industry “is expected to reach 160 million tons by 2050”. The increase in production coupled with the evolution of “micro-seasons” invariably generates waste. Clothing is thrown out as quickly as it is consumed, overflowing landfills and secondhand stores.

As a response to fast fashion’s textile waste in the late 1800s, the thrift store industry developed as a more sustainable, less costly alternative to the growing and wasteful fashion empire. Throughout the early 1900s, secondhand clothing stores persevered against rising concerns about hygiene and racial stigmas. By the 1920s, thrift stores were well established, supported by the rising immigrant populations and aid from Christian charity organizations, such as the Salvation Army, which helped destigmatize secondhand shopping. Since then, thrift stores have amassed stability within American society, growing in popularity with emerging clothing trends. Despite what both fashion brands and the media sell you, the most sustainable choice you can make is to wear clothes that already exist. However, the thrifting industry can be very nuanced, especially within the “re-commerce” market of secondhand clothing.

Online thrift stores have reshaped thrift shopping by creating a capitalistic, new industry that profits off of older and worn apparel, making the clothing “new” once again in the eyes of the consumer. The assumption that cheap, pre-existing clothing equals sustainability has become a popular belief. Although buying secondhand is generally more sustainable than buying new, over-produced clothing, the issue of overconsumption is still prevalent.

Primarily driven by Millennials and Generation Z, this “re-commerce” market is booming. Currently valued at about $24 billion, its projected worth is $51 billion by 2023. The sustainable re-commerce market is fueled by younger consumers who gain more buying power while

becoming more passionate about pushing the fashion industry in a sustainable direction. These consumer pressures on brands have manifested in the development of sustainable fashion brands, such as Chnge and Afends. These companies strive to treat their workers ethically, minimize water and resource consumption, and reduce their overall environmental impacts by using less toxic production methods and more sustainable recycled materials, such as hemp and organic cotton. Unfortunately, these ethical and sustainable methods tend to be more expensive to both the producer and the consumer.

Because of this, many environmentally-conscious consumers turn to thrift stores in order to shop sustainably without breaking the bank. But they rarely realize that this leads to the overconsumption of secondhand clothing, transforming the industry into a money-making enterprise of its own. The development of online thrift stores, false advertising, and up-charging is becoming a significant issue. Although it is crucial to keep all of this in mind, it is also necessary to remember that the problem here is not thrifting; it is the overconsumption of thrifted items. As I mentioned earlier, this overconsumption creates accessibility issues for marginalized communities.

Megan McSherry is a sustainability activist and conscious consumer who shares her thoughts and advice on various platforms, such as Instagram and Tik Tok (@acteevism), along with her blog, Tunes and Tunics. In an interview with McSherry, she addressed how this perceived inaccessibility proves to be laden with falsehoods. How sustainability is marketed to the masses paints “sustainable living” in an unattainable and expensive light. While there are definitely aspects of sustainability that are costly and elusive, that issue has more to do with the marketing of “sustainable living” and “sustainable fashion” than with the actual reality of sustainability.

Speaking to the issue of accessibility and the involvement of more people with sustainable fashion practices, McSherry states, “I think over the past few years especially, as sustainability has grown in popularity on social media, it’s become this very ‘purchase-focused’ aesthetic kind of Art by Sam Shaevel Headwaters Magazine 26

thing.” Despite its convenience for connection and communication, social media, especially over this past tumultuous and unprecedented year, can easily oversaturate the mind with information and ideas. Specifically, it can be problematic in its “purchase-focused” approach to the everyday human and consumer, who subsequently is made to feel as though there is always something to buy into. However, from McSherry’s perspective, “sustainability is about using what you already have”.

In this day and age, deciphering what to believe can be difficult. Distinguishing a fashion brand that is greenwashing from a fashion brand that truly is “green” is key. Brands such as Uniqlo, H&M, and Lululemon are all guilty of using this marketing tactic to salvage their environmental reputations as consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the industry’s overall impact on the planet. Sustainability can actually be quite accessible. It’s something that numerous marginalized groups have historically practiced because it saves money, and they look at things as reusable, even when it’s not marketed to be.

Amidst the fashion industry’s trend cycle, it is often easy and automatic to create snap judgments about why someone is able or unable to shop sustainably. The individual struggles people may carry are often invisible, and therefore it’s important to keep this in mind when approaching the “sustainable fashion” conversation. In this same vein, living with a chronic illness impacts the many trials and tribulations of a person’s life—the ability to dress sustainably being one. Personally, I live life as a Type 1 Diabetic and will never be able to live a plastic-free, zero-waste life— that is, of course, unless the big corporations that produce my life-sustaining medical supplies allow me to.

In order to develop sustainable fashion into an industry that is truly comprehensive and inclusive, we must reimagine the narrative of sustainability and move away from the idea that it is something to buy into. We must return it to its original definition: using what has been made available to you for as long as possible. Many groups are excluded from the sustainability movement because of dominant “white environmentalism” or purchase-focused narratives.

More people must be included and involved in this conversation, specifically indigenous peoples who are the true sustainability trailblazers, acting as stewards of the earth.

Collective action is an important tool in reforming the fashion industry. Zero-waste chef Anne-Marie Bonneau said it best: “we don’t need a handful of people doing zero-waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.” The path to a more sustainable fashion future cannot be tread alone. On the contrary, it’s one that needs widespread support and dedication to see real, meaningful change. From McSherry’s point of view, becoming more

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conscious of the life that you’re living and identifying what hinders your ability to access sustainability are two ways to implement self-awareness practices into everyday life.

Finding ways to have fun with sustainability is crucial to maintaining motivation. That could be through learning how to sew and mend your clothes or even creating your own garments, ultimately thinking creatively about how you can reduce your own impact.

Looking to the future, McSherry offers a few actions we can all take to inspire sustainable living. “I think one thing that all students can do whenever you feel frustrated about not being able to do something that’s more sustainable, find somebody to write to about it.” For UVM students, that person might be Mayor Miro, President Suresh Garimella, or anyone else in our community that you can hold accountable. “I think it’s a good time to practice advocating for larger-scale change, rather than feeling guilty for what you are not able to do in the situation. Try to get the ball rolling on a larger scale.” Sustainability starts with making a conscious choice to look differently at the life you’re living as a consumer. Instead of viewing a product through a capitalistic lens, regard it as a multi-purpose, multi-use resource. Turn overconsumption into motivation to work towards a more sustainable future, starting in your closet. H

Deforestation & Exploitation: Bucolic Vermont’s Troubled Past By: Alexandra De Luise

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eplete with lusciously green rolling hills and a chain of coniferous capped peaks, “The Green Mountain State’’ fits well as a nickname for Vermont. It is central to its immense tourism industry, which boasts of endless ski resorts and leaf-peeping possibilities for families and children. These activities, along with bucolic farm life, small, one-church villages, and sweet, sticky maple syrup are what the state is known for. Picturesque images of this Vermont culture have been heavily promoted over the past fifty years. The state-sponsored Vermont Life magazine frequently depicts snow-capped barns, covered bridges, and miles of cow pasture dotted with ochre and crimson on its front covers. Vermont is characterized by this ubiquitous imagery, significant of a widely idealized view of its natural landscape. The largely forested state is perceived as pristine, ‘untouched,’ and even utopic. Often overlooked, though, are the nearly 200 years of exploitation embedded in Vermont’s history. Many are unaware of how colonial settlement decimated Indigenous populations. Even more do not know that nearly the entire state was deforested and most of its wildlife hunted by the late 1800s.

The ways in which the tourism industry has branded Vermont as idyllic raises questions about whether the state’s natural landscape is still being exploited, but through new means. University of Vermont Geography Professor Harlan Morehouse spoke to this question, explaining that though settler colonialism and extraction have shaped the way people consume Vermont today, this is the case for most American states. Dominant narratives about our current landscapes tend to hide the violent colonial foundations they were based upon.

These histories are intentionally left out of Vermont’s narrative today as the state began to construct Vermont’s image as an ideal tourist destination in the mid-1900s.

Morehouse explains that it “effectively gambl[ed] that people would be attracted to old 18th-century ideals of what it meant to exist in comfortable, predictable, and seasonal communities where they could cultivate safe, intimate relationships with the world around them.” By locking in

this pastoral aesthetic as a “mode of production,” (a new form of exploitation) origins of dispossession from settler colonialism were covered up, making the state attractive to economically mobile people interested in skiing and an ‘authentic’ American experience.

The challenge of Vermont’s ‘pastoral ideal’ is that not everyone can equally participate. Its aesthetic is appealing to those of a particular socio-economic class, despite it largely depending on idealizations of farm labor and peasantry. In many cases, economically marginalized and dispossessed Vermonters have not been able to take part in these kinds of dominant American aesthetics. As the state is known to be predicated largely on exclusivity, it is important to evaluate the ways Vermont today is either challenging those narratives or perpetuating them.

To do so, Vermont’s exploitive history must be acknowledged and dismantled. Dr. Cheryl Morse of the University of Vermont Geography Department spoke to the state’s complex past, explaining that colonization in Vermont differed significantly from the way it looked across the rest of the East Coast. Its wild landscape and Indigenous population were deemed as ‘dangerous,’ deterring many colonists from settling. In the early 1720s, a series of battles between white New Englanders and the Wabanaki Confederacy of the Vermont area (specifically Abenaki, Mi’kmaq, and Maliseet tribes at the time) solidified this colonial fear. Vermont tribes such as Abenaki and Mahican were perceived as forms of resistance, and unrest due to the French and Indian War also intimidated settlers. When the war ended, a clear border was marked between French and British territory, making white settlers feel safe enough to move in. At this time, resources in Southern New England were scarce. Population pressure was rising with the new borders in effect, and soon after the war, Morse shared that “it was as if a spigot was turned on and people rushed in.” Known by historians as “the great swarming,” a massive influx of settlers began to clear land for subsistence farming—doing so at a much faster rate than the gradual settlement of other states. Nonetheless, impacts of settler colonialism had

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reached Vermont long before the state was deemed viable for settlement, as disease from the previous century’s fur trade had already severely harmed Indigenous populations along the entire East Coast.

The bulk of Vermont’s colonization began in the late 1700s when the state faced pressure to ‘catch up’ to its East Coast counterparts in its settlement. Morse explains that this meant fast, widespread deforestation for the purpose of “potash mining, clearing for pasture, and a growing lumber industry.” Land needed to be clear-cut to make way for new industries and towns. In the early 1800s, Merino sheep were introduced to “meet the demand for wool by the textile industry of New England.” These sheep required large grazing spaces, and since they could access hard-toreach places like hilltops, they were used to clear land in these early years of deforestation. Consequently, the introduction of these sheep contributed to soil and ground-cover degradation across Vermont.

By the mid-1800s, a second wave of deforestation began due to demand for timber from out of state. The industry boomed steadily, and by its peak in 1889, according to VTDigger, “output went from 20 million board feet in 1856 to 375 million board feet,” leaving nearly 80 percent of Vermont treeless. In addition to its extensive clearcutting, Vermont had become a haven for hunting, trapping, and fishing. Settlers exploited much of the state’s wildlife population, as it had earned the reputation of a wild, undeveloped space for recreational enjoyment. The reality of barren mountainsides and severely low deer populations worried Vermonters, despite the beautiful image it was cultivating. The effects of fast-paced colonization and resource extraction were becoming visible, jeopardizing the state’s newfound tourism industry.

Though resource extraction had been the most profitable industry, social upheaval regarding the poor appearance of the state prompted the Vermont legislature to

Collage by Maya Kagan Photos compiled from the Special Collections Library at UVM and the Rockingham Historic Photograph Collection 29 Headwaters Magazine

look for solutions to the deforestation crisis. In doing so, a state committee was formed to halt intense logging. Joseph Batell, publisher and philanthropist, spearheaded this effort by buying large swaths of Vermont land as a solution.

He aimed to fix the deforestation problem by purchasing thousands of acres in the Green Mountains, such as Camels Hump and Breadloaf Mountain. Additionally, George Perkins Marsh’s 1864 book, Man and Nature, inspired people to focus on forest revival, as many related to his story of how intensive sheep agriculture and deforestation negatively impacted the land near his own Vermont farm. This led to new statewide sustainable forest management practices, such as “working forests,” which are forests managed to maintain output for revenue in a more sustainable way than clearcutting.

By the 1940s, Vermont was on its way to reforestation, with programs and protections dedicated to preserving forests. This was in large part due to state leaders’ realization that Vermont was at an economic disadvantage from the dissipation of the timber industry. It needed new ways of capitalizing on its landscape other than what it had done for the past 150 years, so the Vermont tourism industry was established as the new mode of production in its place. This made space for large-scale reforestation; today, Vermont has 4.6 million acres of forestland, equal to about 80 percent of its land area. A dramatic switch from the exploitation of the 1800s, this regrowth allowed for the state to lean into its adopted aesthetic for tourism.

Though it seems like regrowth could have been productive for Vermont’s natural environment, such drastic, fastpaced, human impact on the land had a major ecological impact on Vermont forests. According to Dr. Alexandra Kosiba, a Climate Forester of the Vermont Department of Forests, Vermont is living with the ecological repercussions of its exploitive past, which are visible directly through its forest structure today. Before deforestation, Vermont had many old growth forests, which are biodiverse dense forest ecosystems that have attained significant age without disturbance. Once logged, however, many forests’ structural and genetic complexity were depleted. As a result, Vermont’s forest profile today is simple because of how long it takes for forests to regain their natural complexity. In part due to soil composition changes from overgrazing and plowing, forests are now filled with large populations of northern hardwoods, including the iconic sugar maple.

Kosiba notes that the effects of deforestation were not entirely destructive, as forests are versatile. She explained that what has come from their use are the “ecological forestry” practices that are being adopted now on the state level. Vermonters realized that using all of a forest at once is damaging to forest health since taking the biggest trees

with the biggest crowns removes significant genetic diversity from the forest. Today, Vermonters have learned to work more closely with forest processes and conditions, measuring them and engaging in practices that mimic natural disturbances. As many worry that a dramatically changing climate will negatively affect forest health, methods such as invasive pest management and the leaving of downed trees serve as protective measures. Since forests take so long to grow genetically diverse and become ‘complete,’ humans can only monitor and mitigate them through ecological forestry principles based on climatic changes in temperature and precipitation. Morehouse notes that Vermont’s gradual reforestation has brought about a greater degree of ecosystemic resilience which can serve the state well in a time filled with climate uncertainty. Whether or not Vermont is maintaining its exclusive pastoral aesthetic, however, depends largely on variables of climate change and the efforts being made towards social equity and inclusion.

Morehouse explains that many people in Vermont are working to build that infrastructure. Morse adds to this, suggesting that some of these efforts are new, whereas others have been happening quietly over time. Many Vermonters realize that the state will never return to its pre-colonial position and that figuring out how to live in a balanced way with other humans and the environment is all they can do. Knowing that people still need food, clean water, and resources from our land, Morse wonders what we can learn from each other to “create a better now.” She explains that there are many conservation, environmental, and justice organizations working towards this goal. Importantly, they are starting with acknowledging colonial pasts and moving forward to figure out reparations and easement rights for Abenaki and other Black, Indigenous, and people of color that have been displaced and dispossessed. These projects are moving forward in small steps.

Vermont’s history of cultural and environmental exploitation points to the state’s problematic image as a white-dominated space where Indigenous voices are ignored and erased. When tourism became the “new mode of production,” the state economically benefited from its natural resources and violent colonial settler past. Today, extraction of the state’s natural resources has slowed, allowing Vermonters to begin working with the land and marginalized voices to create a more sustainable landscape.

By holding Vermont accountable for acknowledging its destructive past, space can be made for reframing and reenvisioning the state to be more inclusive and justice-driven.

The creation of systems, public services, and organizations centered on mutual aid and the health of our forests and natural environments make it possible to change the narrative Vermont was predicated upon. H

Headwaters Magazine 30

A Burlington Toxic Leak Left Out of Citizen Consciousness

By Julian Barritt

I

n August of 2017, a property owner decided to sell their house on Elmwood Avenue in the Old North End neighborhood of Burlington, Vermont. Prior to the sale, they tested the air inside the house. What they found quickly prompted them to contact the state. They had discovered high levels of chlorinated solvents inside, known carcinogens that can pose a host of serious health risks.

A year passed before state officials and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed up. The contamination garnered attention in the press for the first time on August 7th, 2018, when the EPA began searching for gas from chemical vaporization in the soil on a section of Elmwood Ave between Cedar and Lafountain streets and throughout the surrounding area. By August 8th, as reported in The Burlington Free Press, the EPA was also testing air and soil around Gadue’s Dry Cleaning at 222 Elmwood Ave. This seemingly pressing issue did not stay under the public gaze for long. After November 4, 2019, it dropped off the map—dissipating into thin air like the chemicals to which it pertains. This article provides updates since the last mention of the issue in the press two years ago, utilizing information independently collected from personal interviews with Kimberly Caldwell and Michael Nahmias, project co-managers for the site, and Sarah Vose, the State Toxicologist.

In speaking to Nahmias about the risks of the contamination, it was clear that he was not alarmed. He claimed the chemicals were “common contaminants” which have turned up at nearly a dozen sites around Burlington over the years. The EPA’s investigation yielded elevated levels of solvents perchloroethylene (PCE)—also known as tetrachloroethylene and PERC—and trichloroethylene (TCE) concentrated around breaks in a sewer line under the road.

They realized that the sewer could have carried the chemicals multiple blocks, delivering the vapors to houses along the street.

Upon further inspection, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) found 14 houses along the street to have unsafe PCE and TCE levels. Some houses had levels 30 times greater than the indoor level deemed safe by the EPA of 0.63 micrograms per cubic

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meter.

The DEC traced the contamination to 222 Elmwood Ave, a site occupied by dry cleaning companies since the 1940s, including Lennie’s Shirt Laundry & Dry Cleaners and Gadue’s Dry Cleaning, Inc. The EPA found high levels of PCE below the building that appeared to travel through the sewer to the contamination site under the street. From there, vapors seemed to permeate out from the road to residences, where PCE levels were comparatively lower yet still alarming under the homes.

It is important to note that those living with toxicity on Elmwood Ave are more likely to be racial minorities, New Americans, and poorer than in other parts of the state. In the Old North End, 11% of the population is black, 10% is Asian, and 3% is Hispanic, compared to statewide rates of 1.4%, 1.9%, and 2%, respectively. 7.49% of the neighborhood’s residents were not born in the US (compared to 4.6% statewide) and 7.46% do not have US citizenship.

Additionally, 12.15% of the neighborhood is blue-collar, and one resident described it as “a pretty standard US low-income neighborhood,” a “working-class section of Burlington.” These demographics raise questions of who faces the burden of environmental contamination.

Though eight of Vermont’s 10 dry cleaning companies use PCE as of 2018, they dispose of it properly. Conversely, 25 years ago, when Lennie’s and Gadue’s operated, the state did not regulate disposal of the chemical and PCE was frequently dumped into the environment or poured down floor drains. Caldwell attested that Gadue’s was using PCE until the early 1990’sIt was also unintentionally spilled through pipe leaks or vaporized out of dumpsters and air vents. These practices could have been especially concerning if the dry cleaning facility was located in a residential area or near offices or businesses. Caldwell said that the DEC’s current contamination concerns focus on pollution that has persisted in the environment due to the antiquated practices dry cleaning companies used decades ago.

Regularly used in the dry cleaning process, PCE and TCE are common solvents for cleaning and degreasing, and are found in paints, varnishes, and lubricants, and much more. PCE’s widespread use explains why it is present in 945 of 1,699 of the most hazardous waste sites in the US.

Art by Katelyn Lipton

Both chemicals are volatile organic compounds, which means that they vaporize and move from groundwater to open spaces in soil easily. The vapors can enter houses through crevices in foundations, basements, crawl spaces, walls, or floors, and dissipate upwards throughout the house.

Because it breaks down so slowly, PCE can travel great distances and contaminate groundwater, indoor air, and air pockets in soil for months or years. Conversely, TCE has a short half-life of fewer than seven days in the air.

The toxicity of both chemicals is well known. Both PCE and TCE can disrupt fetal development, damage the nervous system, and cause various cancers. Short-term exposure of just a few hours to PCE can cause dizziness, headaches, sleepiness, confusion, nausea, discoordination, unconsciousness, and even death. In liquid or vapor form, it can irritate the skin, eyes, nose, and throat. Long-term exposure to lower levels of PCE can cause changes in mood, memory, attention, reaction time, and vision.

The DEC spent $86,645 on its initial contamination assessment of various sections of the Old North End and determination of appropriate remedial action in the affected residences. On October 10, 2019, the DEC petitioned the state to increase its budget for the project from $100,000 to $150,000 from the Environmental Contingency Fund, which the Vermont Legislature created in 1985 to control, investigate, and remediate discharge of hazardous waste.

State lawmakers approved the request on November 4, 2019. These extra funds now support the DEC in continuing to evaluate the level of environmental contamination of PCE and TCE and whether removal is necessary.

It is still unclear if this new budget will cover the rest of the needed work as the costs of the remainder of the re-

mediation and long-term monitoring have yet to be determined. Also, Caldwell says that “it is unknown if and when the responsible parties [the dry cleaning companies] will start overseeing the work.” As neither company, Gadue’s nor Lennie’s, has taken responsibility for the contamination, the DEC continues to conduct their work with their state contractor with intentions of recovering costs from “the responsible party” later.

In their October 2019 memorandum, the DEC declared PCE and TCE to be contaminants “which may present an imminent and substantial danger to the public health and welfare or to the environment.” The organization stressed that contamination remediation needed to take place “immediately,” with a particular cause for concern being “continued exposure over the winter months where there isn’t the ability to adequately ventilate the house.”

Sarah Vose, the Vermont State Toxicologist, assured that the health risks associated with the concentrations of former dry cleaning contamination found on Elmwood Ave are relatively minimal. She affirmed that PCE can increase one’s risk of developing cancer, and that the state’s acceptable levels of vapor exposure are based on 24/7 exposure over 70 years. “Our threshold is if the concentration in the air increases your risk for cancer by 1 in 1 million”; hence, she argues, Vermont’s regulations are quite stringent. She assesses the current situation at Elmwood Ave as not an “acute” or “immediate” health risk. The only present concern is regarding the long-term effects of PCE exposure.

While some houses exceeded 10 times the state’s recommended exposure level, Vose again emphasized that Vermont has a low threshold for chemical exposure, whereas other states “wouldn’t take action on the levels VT considers a risk.” Similarly, the EPA was hesitant to deem the

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concentration of PCE vapors a health risk. Vose claimed that the years that have passed since the contamination was first discovered on Elmwood Ave probably have not increased residents’ health risk much due to the low vapor concentrations.

VTDigger reported on November 4, 2019 that the DEC had begun consultations with a contractor to acquire cost estimates for mitigation efforts to protect occupants of affected houses from these health risks. Potential mitigation included installing vapor barriers to seal cracks in the foundation and walls of basements in the affected houses and installing sub-slab depressurization systems—units that vacuum air from under the basement floor and send toxic vapors from the soil outside through a chimney.

The DEC provided some basic guidance to residents when they first started sampling soil around the houses.

They instructed the households to minimize time in their basements, keep basement doors closed, and only have fans that blow air into the home and not out of it—which would draw air (and possibly vapors) upward into the structure.

As of November 2020, five houses have received depressurization units, three of which had the highest PCE concentrations. Other homes have concentrations closer to the DEC’s Vapor Intrusion Standard of 0.20 µg/m3 for PCE indoor levels. Five homes exceeded that level in the basement, but not in the rest of the house. Vose explained that homes with higher PCE concentrations in living areas were prioritized for contamination remediation. Many of the houses had high basement levels but may not have had detectable PCE levels on the first floor.

Some homes are also having vapor barriers installed to seal their basements and are having concrete floors poured if they currently have dirt floors. This is the case for at least one house that will receive a depressurization system.

More houses will be fitted for systems pending scheduling with homeowners. Fitting a house for a unit requires multiple visits to the residence in order to design the unit, have an engineer approve it, and conduct final measurements. Since some residents are uncomfortable having contractors in their houses due to the pandemic, many DEC installations have been on hold during the pandemic.

Once the depressurization units are all installed, the contractor will write a long-term maintenance and operation plan entailing an explanation of what is installed in each home, what should happen annually to make sure the units are working, and how residents will be able to tell if the units are malfunctioning so they can contact the DEC. Maintenance obligations will eventually transfer to Gadue’s. In the meantime, the state will make sure things are working properly.

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In the best case scenario, Caldwell said, the DEC will effectively remove the source of the contamination so that depressurization units don’t have to run in perpetuity. If they then monitor the decrease in vapors over time, mitigation will eventually no longer be necessary. Due to uncertainties around the scope of contamination and the nature of PCE’s breakdown, Caldwell had difficulty defining a concrete termination date for the project.

Vose explained that the project has not been “back-burnered” and that seeing three homes remediated in three years is reasonable progress. With the two additional homes they have assisted more recently, nine remain. She contrasts the situation to EPA superfund sites (the most polluted chemical sites in the country), many of which have not seen any remediation efforts, despite receiving ample funding from Congress. “If you want to see slow progress, look at how slow those have changed,” she said.

Caldwell theorized that the initial federal involvement (through the EPA)—testing vapors on Elmwood Ave and around the Old North End near Gadue’s Dry Cleaning— was likely responsible for the attention this project received from the media. Additionally, since it wasn’t originally clear to the DEC what the problem was, the state wanted to alert the public. Now that the state DEC has taken over from the EPA and contamination levels were not determined to necessitate immediate address, there have been no press updates since November of 2019.

It is still unknown how high the concentrations of PCE and TCE will be on Gadue’s former property at 222 Elmwood Ave. High levels could pose a hazard to future owners and clientele of shops or facilities that plan to open there, but it is also possible that the property exhibits minimal contamination and that the various dry cleaning businesses at the site over the years disposed of their PCE and TCE down the drain, leading to off-site contamination by leaking out of the sewer line.

This story presents a theme of unknowns: dry cleaners’ lack of understanding of the toxicity of PCE and TCE and how to dispose of them over the decades, Burlington residents’ lack of awareness of the chemicals in their homes, and the absence of many facets of this issue from the general public’s consciousness. Capitalistic structures let these toxic chemicals make it to store shelves (where they are still being sold) and the state government did not feel that local residents needed to know the details about the contamination, beyond the simple fact that PCE and TCE were found. As the gatherers and possessors of data, the state’s claim to ownership of important information is limiting the ability of the community to determine for itself what action needs to be taken. H

The Art of Sustainability By: Paige Aldenberg

S

ustainable art can be a figurine whittled from locally harvested wood, an outfit made from upcycled clothes, or a painting made with reused canvas. It can serve as a cornerstone for cultures, activism, and individuals worldwide. It does not leave a large carbon footprint compared to more mainstream mediums of art, such as acrylic paints.

While acrylic materials are accessible and cost-effective, the impact of their production and disposal has a carbon-intense life cycle. Despite the added challenges of navigating sustainable art practices, artists Bill and Sherry Gould and Anne Cummings express their activism, passions, and culture through recycled or natural materials.

Indigenous Art The use of natural materials has long been ingrained into Indigenous ways of life and artmaking.

Abenaki artists Bill and Sherry Gould express their culture through traditional Indigenous basket weaving. In their practice, they harvest sweetgrass from Indigenous sites in New Hampshire and Maine. Bill Gould is a lumberman by trade and harvests brown ash trees. He states that working with these natural elements and sustainable harvesting are important practices to pass down to generations. He explains that when he first entered the logging industry, “there really were no foresters involved with anything.” In the 1980s, when foresters first became involved with lumber harvesting, tree health improved following the establishment of harvesting laws and forestry knowledge. Through his lumber practices, Gould has learned to identify brown ash trees and to harvest them for multiple

purposes, including making furniture and slabs for syrup boiling. He explains the thought process behind his sustainable foresting practices, saying, “you need the ash to make baskets, so you have to harvest the ash in a responsible way to continue to do that through the generations.”

Sherry Gould describes how ash and sweetgrass “are two materials that complement each other really well.

They both smell really nice, they’re really wonderful to work with, and in the end, you have a beautiful basket— something people treasure and use.” In basket making, the brown ash wood is removed from its bark, and the logs are pounded to split the tree rings, which are then prepared for basket weaving.

Bill and Sherry Gould have passed down this skill to their family members and apprentices, while also leading school programs where they pound and weave the ash with their students. Sherry Gould uses her focus on fancy work baskets and knowledge of utilitarian baskets as a foundation for her artwork and creativity. The Goulds also conduct demonstrations with community baskets, where members of the public have the chance to add rows to the

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basket until it is complete. Afterward, the baskets are then auctioned to raise money for an organization. Sherry Gould states that she wants these community events to serve as a “continuation of our culture and a statement about how each basket maker has their own thing they do that makes their baskets them.”

Eco-Art Anne Cummings is an eco-artist based in Westford, Vermont, whose primary mediums include post-consumer waste and recycled materials. Eco-art is a form of sustainable art grounded in politics and activism, often bringing awareness to legislation, projects, or practices that are harmful to the environment. Cummings’ journey to eco-art started when she began examining her ethics as an environmentalist while teaching high school art classes.

Cummings states, “I stopped doing oil painting because I felt that the fumes from the solvents were toxic — which they are — and it’s not good to have those in a school environment.” From here, she learned about the microplastics generated from acrylic paint disposal, which ultimately inspired her decision to work with post-consumer materials. Acrylic paints, which are soluble in water, are often disposed of down sinks. With the wear and tear of these paints — particularly in outdoor settings — small particles are released into the environment. When acrylic residues enter wastewater systems from these sources, they are hard to filter out and easily lead to environmental contamination.

While eco-art and sustainable art are genres of environmental art that focus on the carbon footprint and source of materials and methods, Cummings explained that for some environmental artists, the art is more about the mes35 Headwaters Magazine

sage or the physical appeal than the materials used. Early environmental-based art used the earth as a canvas. For example, Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped landscapes with synthetic fabrics, and Robert Smithson, who made the Spiral Jetty, sculpted a spiral in the earth using the land itself. For Cummings, the underlying message is communicated through the use of sustainable materials.

In her piece Vermont Wastescapes, she uses recycled and reclaimed materials from each county in Vermont to showcase the waste production from a state that advocates for green living and practices.

Although purely sustainable alternatives do not exist for some materials, such as adhesives for collages, Cummings believes that eco-art continues to develop each decade.

She says, “I think that’s where art, design, and science are ways of coming up with the solutions.” With communities coming together to create solutions for climate change, she sees modern eco-art as being at the crossroad of industrial development and environmentalism. The collaboration between artists and scientists is where solutions are made that connect community members to environmental problem-solving. Stormwater runoff systems, eco-infrastructure, and architecture all hold the potential to harness ecoart to create something functional, yet beautiful for the community.

Sustainability in the art community is a slowly but surely emerging practice. Although sustainable and biodegradable materials are foundational for Indigenous cultures in lifestyle and art, they are still largely unpopular amongst communities of artists who are accustomed to relying on mainstream, artificial art mediums with larger carbon footprints. The works of the Goulds and Anne Cummings exemplify sustainable art in New England while also creating spaces to share culture and expression through nature.

They reveal the importance of supporting local and indigenous artists to encourage dialogue around the intersections between sustainability, environmentalism, and art. H

Art by Katelyn Lipton

REFLECTIONS ON THE DAO OF NATURE

By Sharon Newman

T

he Vermont winter was beginning to wane as I walked a long the trail still thick with snow. I savored the beaming sun as if it were my first time soaking in the warm rays. A small, partially frozen creek lined with leafless oak trees guided my path. My crampons balanced me as I edged along narrow stretches of ice and made my way closer to the waterfall. Grateful for these spikes that protected me from slipping and irritating my injured knee, I thought about how my knee injury made me truly appreciate my ability to hike here on this beautiful day.

This thought reminded me of an old Daoist proverb I’ve heard about an ancient Chinese farmer. This farmer owned a strong, snow-white stallion. His neighbors would often visit and praise him for having such a sturdy and beautiful animal. He would respond stating simply, “good or bad, who’s to say?” One morning, he went outside to his fields and noticed his horse had run away. The neighbors returned, this time to console him for his loss.

However, to their confusion, he was not upset. He only remarked, “good or bad, who’s to say?” A few days after-

that, the horse returned, this time bringing a herd of wild horses along with him. Once again, the villagers came by to congratulate him on his good fortune. To this, he once again responded “good or bad, who’s to say?” The next day, while training these horses, the farmer’s son was thrown off one of their backs and broke his leg. The neighbors came by, upset and feeling sorry for the family, but the farmer only said, “good or bad, who’s to say?” Much later, army recruiters came by to gather young men to serve. The son was excused due to his injury and to the neighbors surprise, when they came to celebrate, the farmer once again calmly returned with, “good or bad, who’s to say?”

This proverb reminds me that we can never judge single moments. The universe is complex and it is impossible to tell if a situation is inherently good or bad; we never know what fortunes may come from a misfortunate event.

Daoism is a religion and philosophy that originated in China in the sixth century. Its wisdom has helped guide and center me, especially during the time I spend in solitude outdoors. Daoism is guided by the Tao Te Ching, a text consisting of riddled guidance for living according to the Tao. The book is said to be written by a man called Lao Tzu, who left his position in the government to seek solace in the mountains. As he rode horseback into the wilderness, he was recognized by a guard who implored him to write down his wisdom and thus the book came into being.

As a westerner, it is impossible to fully comprehend the depths and dimensions of Daoism; however, I have found peace in its philosophies, which I’ve begun to practice in my own life. Growing up outside Washington D.C., I felt weighed down by the pressure to abide by societal norms.

These expectations encouraged me to eat fast food, minimize sleep in order to be productive, find a job that allowed me to work my way to the top, and one day, move to a suburban neighborhood and continue this human-centric cycle by raising children with these same values. I have long felt the need to stop and think deeply about the impacts my lifestyle has on the environment and whether I truly enjoy following this mechanized American track. In my own life, Daoism has provided an alternative path, a way of connecting to cycles in nature and my place within them.

It has helped me to maintain calmness and joy, especially in the wilderness. In hopes of gaining more background knowledge on Daoism, I talked with Sin yee Chan, a professor of Chinese philosophy at the University of Vermont.

Daoism is more of a felt philosophy than one with a true written doctrine. Even so, I hope to provide my own perspective (which in no way can capture the elusive essence of Daoism).

In Chinese, each character represents a small story,

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so words are much more complex than words in English. That is what makes defining the title of Lao Tzu’s book so difficult. With that said, Tao represents the way of all things, the way the universe flows. Te is virtue, the essence of things, the magic within everything, and Ching is book.

Tao: I continued my hike walking along the stream, which wove between icicles and snow-covered stones. The stream was gentle as it careened over sleek ice, but strong as it carved its name upon impenetrable rocks. When frozen, its waters were strong enough to support my body weight, but when melted, they were gentle enough to fill my water bottle and nourish me. Water is a key teacher in Daoism.

Daoist philosophy holds many teachings of how humans can embody the Tao of water. It works in harmony with all that surrounds it, freezing in winter, rushing in spring, and nourishing plants with warm rain in summer. Like water, I think about the flexibility that I can have when I don’t try to change what is already there, but instead flow and adapt to my surroundings as they are. The environment is constantly changing and accepting this change allows me to enjoy things as they presently exist, and not become hung-up on the way I hope they could be. This idea is central to Daoism and is called wu wei. When we understand our own inner nature, then we can learn to work with the natural laws around us. Instead of fighting the way things are, we accept them and use them to support us.

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Te: As I followed the creek around the corner of the towering shale cliffs, I felt delighted as if a little frog was leaping around in my chest. My vision blurred as I stood before Moss Glen Falls, colossal and completely frozen. Icicles ranging between sizes of a pinky finger and a baseball bat hung from every possible place. A horsetail-like stream trickled and splashed down from the highest point, feeding into the ice. Water passed swiftly through an icicle veil, pouring into a larger partially frozen-over pool. Each droplet of descending water was freezing one by one, a magical force whose power resides in change, or Te. There is an effortless beauty and grace alive in nature, and I saw this as I watched these tiny droplets fall.

In nature, flowers blossom from leafed plants, and fruit ripens on vines, seemingly like magic. Alan Watts, a British philosopher who studied Daoism, explained magic as the wonderful and felicitous events which come about spontaneously, without the direct effort of humans. Although this magic is obvious when witnessing the awe-inspiring way of nature, I like to remember that as a part of nature, I embody this magic too. There are times when I fear change in my life. I fear losing a loved one; while delighting in a delicious meal, I fear finishing the food and ending my satisfaction. However, I have begun to think about change in a new light. Change is what brings excitement and opportunity, and when I am open to it, change and opportunities

come about freely and on their own. Fear lives in the future, worry lives in the past, and we live in the present.

Change also lives in the present, and represents potential.

Within our lives this force is just as beautiful as a patch of summer strawberries ripening, or winter coming and turning a cascading waterfall into an icy wonderland.

Like all parts of nature, our troubles too ebb and flow. Remembering that I am part of these greater cycles brings me peace of mind. Humans exist and play a role within cycles that allow all living beings to survive. Patterns of life and decomposition, day and night, the earth’s rotation around the sun are ingrained within us, and Daoism suggests that aligning our lives to them leads to greater happiness and

Ching: My frozen fingers squeezed tightly to my copy of the Tao Te Ching. For the past few months, beginning after my knee injury, I read a passage of this book every morning, throughout the day contemplating what I read.

Allow yourself to yield, and You can stay centered.

Allow yourself to bend, and You will stay straight.

Allow yourself to be empty, and You’ll get filled up.

Allow yourself to be exhausted, and You’ll be renewed.

Having little, you can receive much.

Having much, you’ll just become confused

Photography by juliette fredericks

I deliberated this verse as I backpacked through Yosemite last summer. Seeing the ancient strength of the titanic waterfalls, I thought about the cyclical, yin-yang nature of all things. Yin and Yang are two principles relative to one another and present in all aspects of experience.

They constantly build and collapse into one another. As the pools under a waterfall empty into rivers, they are refilled by the ever-pouring stream. The difficult and meandering terrain that the water follows gives it strength, creating the rushing roar that can be heard far away. Observing this reminds me that yielding and bending to circumstances makes difficult situations easier and adds dimension to our lives, and that emptiness creates opportunity.

As I swam in the freezing Yosemite falls, chilly water pounded behind me while I made smaller splashes in a pool nestled between large boulders. I felt trivial, like one of the tiny droplets that made up the massive fall. Sin yee Chan talked about Holism, which is the Daoist idea that all things in the world are connected, and humans are a tiny part of nature. Feeling small in the face of the sublime gave me perspective on how relatively meaningless my hang-ups were in the face of a rushing waterfall.

deep connection to the sources of life. I strive to fall asleep and wake up according to the times of sunset and sunrise, paying attention to the vibrant shades of color that wash over the sky each morning and night. Eating foods that align with the seasons where I live also gives me a sense of place and alignment with cycles of growth. Our bodies are reflections of nature, so living in accordance with nature puts me in a more comfortable and natural state.

Yin and Yang are the sources responsible for all changes in these cycles, representing the balanced relationship between opposites. They symbolize that ultimately, everything is interrelated and connected. I am just a tiny droplet of water in a waterfall, flowing in the direction I must flow whether I like it or not. Tao is the energy that moves the waterfall forward. Allowing it to move me and becoming united with the water droplets around me creates meaning out of meaninglessness and peacefulness within chaos. In nature, I can experience the Te, the magic in the ordinary. I have found that through my breath I can observe the flow of all things, yin as I breathe in, yang as I breathe out. The sage knows the way without stepping out of the door, the way of nature lies inside of all of us. H

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Two Sides of the Same Lake

By Ella Weatherington oil on vinyl The subject of this piece is Lake Michigan, a place close to my heart and where I grew up. For this piece, I wanted to show how different two sides of the same lake can be and communicate how we must protect our lakeshores from the pollution of the cities. Looking across the lake from Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan, you can see the haze rising off of the cities, threatening to poison the natural landscapes nearby.