Siona Ahuja

Opinion: Chevron has decimated the environment, and is now decimating the judiciary

Opinion: Chevron has decimated the environment, and is now decimating the judiciary

“Contempt of court” took on a whole new meaning for a human rights lawyer who led a three-decade-long fight against the gas giant Chevron. Former attorney Steven Donziger shed light on the company’s control of the American courts, but ended up being disbarred, being subjected to more than 800 days of pretrial house arrest and serving a sentence of six months of federal prison time, which began on Oct. 27.

Donziger was the lead attorney representing 30,000 plaintiffs in a legal battle against Chevron (then called Texaco) for dumping excessive amounts of oil onto Indigenous land and water in Ecuador from the 1970s to the 1990s. According to the Yale MacMillan Center, the spill led to an epidemic of cancer and other related health problems to the extent that it was dubbed the “Amazon Chernobyl.”

Mount Holyoke hosts global conference on sustainability in higher education

Organized by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, the Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education is an annual conference that engages students, administrators, business partners and political leaders in critical discussions on the role of higher education and institutions in overcoming the challenges posed by climate change.

Google launches new wildfire mapping feature

Google launches new wildfire mapping feature

The apocalyptic orange and hazy skies of the United States’ west coast serve as a reminder to the American public of the annual wildfire season, often peaking in September and October. To alert wanderers and provide relief to those affected, Google announced a plan to launch a new Google Maps filter that would show users the location of active wildfires surrounding them. Vanessa Schneider, who works with Google’s crisis response team, told the Mountain West News Bureau that Google Maps would show all major fires throughout the globe. For the United States, the feature will be able to track smaller wildfires due to the data provided by the National Interagency Fire Center, a Boise-based organization and public fire database.

College green spaces are an integral part of student wellness

The lush botanical gardens, lakes and hillocks stitching together the buildings at Mount Holyoke provide spaces for students to decompress, take part in age-old traditions and build new memories — all integral parts of one’s academic experience. Green spaces, like those mentioned above, are recreational areas, which the EPA website says aim to “enhance the beauty and environmental quality of neighborhoods.” The Enrollment Services branch of EAB, a technology and research oriented firm formerly named the Educational Advisory Board, shows that green spaces affect students’ college decisions.

The dark underbelly of the crystal trade

The dark underbelly of the crystal trade

After spending years being dismissed as a mystical, new-age spiritual fad, healing crystals have seeped into the mainstream through a combination of social media aesthetics and the wellness juggernaut. Despite general economic stagnation during the pandemic, the sales of near-gemstones like amethysts and clear quartz skyrocketed in 2020. Since 2015, demand for crystals has more than doubled in the U.S.

‘Nature Under Siege’: Insect Populations Declining Due To Climate Change

‘Nature Under Siege’: Insect Populations Declining Due To Climate Change

In 2020, biologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs decided to extend their annual six-month stay in Costa Rica for ecological research due to COVID-19 restrictions. With extra time on their hands, they reflected on the declining insect population caused by the “heterogeneous blanket” of climate change. While their primary field of research is not climate change, the toll it takes on ecosystems was hard to ignore. The biologists noticed that rising temperatures led to disturbances in the insect population, affecting food webs from the bottom up.

Human-Induced Pollution Reaches New Heights With Space Debris

On Sept. 23, 2020, Jim Bridenstine, head of NASA, tweeted, “Debris is getting worse!” referring to floating junk particles in space, a majority of which lie in the lower Earth orbit. His tweet also mentioned that, throughout 2020, the International Space Station was maneuvered thrice to avoid any collision with the debris moving 18,000 miles per hour.

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