Links Between Fossil Fuel Companies and Police Groups

By Siona Ahuja ’24

Staff Writer

A new wave of investigations by the watchdog network LittleSis has revealed that major fossil fuel corporations are responsible for funding police groups in several cities. Corporate giants like Chevron and Exelon are official sponsors for police foundations — entities that provide grants to local police departments and innovate policing through new technology. The funds provided add to the 20-45 percent of municipal discretionary funding that already exists, ranging from $160 million to $5 billion annually.

Chevron is a corporate sponsor for the New Orleans Police Department and also has a position on the board of the Houston Police Foundation. The energy provider Exelon is a notable backer of police foundations in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington.

Wall Street firms that are the top financiers of fossil fuels are also inextricably linked to police foundations. JPMorgan, Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have all collectively donated millions of dollars to the police.

Since police foundations are nonprofit bodies and the money is raised through galas or benefits, the gargantuan donations they receive often avoid public scrutiny. Reports from the New York Police Foundation state that it raised roughly $5.5 million from its 2019 annual benefit, the deep-pocketed donors including Goldman Sachs and Blackrock, among others. 

Companies which thrive only through extraction and exploitation are openly weaponizing the police and garnering their support in order to protect their interests in the face of community opposition and environmentalists. Oil and gas companies are disproportionately located in minority communities, which contributes to environmental racism. These areas are often overly policed with little surveillance, creating a dangerous intersection of environmental destruction and racism. 

Demographically, Black, brown and low income communities are disproportionately exposed to toxic wastes and pollutants released by petrochemical facilities, smelters, refineries and waste incinerators. Fatemeh Shafiei, director of Environmental Studies at Spelman College, has found evidence to confirm the adverse effects of living in proximity to such facilities. 

Joanne Kilgour, director of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club, told Pittsburgh’s radio station WESA that drilling for oil is primarily done in low-income neighborhoods because residents cannot afford the legal counsel paramount to combating drilling plans. Kilgour also called these neighborhoods the “front lines” of environmental justice.

For the smooth operation of their industries and to eliminate opponents, oil and gas companies have joined hands in support of conservative legislation that seeks to criminalize pipeline protests. Since 2017, several bills have been put forward in at least 18 U.S. states. Texas, the largest oil producing state (4,637,000 barrels produced every day), recently passed a pipeline protest law that came into effect on Sept. 1, 2019. According to this, an activist having “intent to damage or destroy” a pipeline facility or even trespass a “critical infrastructure” can face a third-degree felony charge, equivalent to that of attempted murder. Similarly, any organization having similar intentions is liable to be fined up to $500,000. 

Enraged activists are pushing for action plans to stop this environmental racism as individuals and in groups. They believe that, to change this situation, a change in white supremacacist ideals in both policing and pollution is required. “The road to solving the climate crisis includes addressing connected predatory systems,” Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, the North America director of the collective 350.org, told the Guardian. Stop The Money Pipeline, a collective of over 130 climate, Indigenous and social justice organizations was launched in January 2020. Their recent campaigns target Wall Street and the fossil fuel corporate giants backed by them, and their demands ring of only one message: to halt investment in climate destruction and racial injustice.  

Shining a Light on the Plastic Industry

By Abby Wester ’22

Staff Writer

Plastic is both a central part of our society and a suffocating pollutant to the earth. Almost anything we buy comes wrapped in plastic, we bag our food in plastic and we wear variations of plastic. Not only does plastic end up littering our oceans and neighborhoods, but over 99 percent of it is made from chemicals derived from harmful fossil fuels. By 2015, over 8.3 billion tons of plastic had been produced, roughly equivalent to the weight of one billion elephants or 80 million blue whales. While this commodity has widespread use, there is little public knowledge about where our plastic goes when we toss it. 

We have all been taught the environmentalist slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle.” This slogan is often accompanied by the calming implication that by throwing your plastic water bottle in a recycling bin, you are helping save Mother Earth. However, in 2014, at the peak of annual recycling in the U.S., only 9.5 percent of plastic was actually recycled. Recent investigations by NPR and the PBS series “Frontline” reported that America’s largest oil and gas companies have known all along that recycling plastic would never be a viable alternative to dumping it in landfills. NPR and “Frontline” detailed that, in a 1974 speech, an unnamed industry insider wrote, “There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis.” 

While big oil and gas executives learned of the improbability of recycling on a large scale, commercials still aired across the country that, according to NPR, carried the message of “Plastic is special, and the consumer should recycle it.” These commercials were paid for by the same oil and gas companies that knew the industry was doomed to fail, such as Exxon, Chevron, Dow and DuPont. 

For a while, the U.S. was able to hide its growing plastic problem and ineffective recycling programs by dumping plastic waste in other countries, primarily China. But in 2017, China announced a national policy called National Sword to halt the import of recyclable waste from other countries. The U.S. was then forced to reckon with its own plastic addiction. According to The Intercept, after the implementation of National Sword, the U.S. started burning “six times the amount of plastic it’s recycling,” which, in turn, emits toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, including black carbon, which contributes to climate change.  

Other countries, such as Kenya, have implemented groundbreaking plastic bans, looking to limit the polluter. However, the U.S. oil and gas companies have tried to sully these efforts as well. According to a New York Times report, U.S. fossil fuel companies are attempting to lobby Kenya to reverse its plastic ban and continue importing foreign plastic waste. The battle is now between environmentalists in Kenya, the U.S. and abroad and the fossil fuel lobbyists who are backed by the hundred billion dollar industry.

While it is important to limit personal plastic use and continue to recycle plastics when possible, the issue of plastics extends beyond that. The towering oil and gas industry has held environmentalism hostage for decades with the goal of producing plastic, profits and waste.

Weekly Climate News

September 24, 2020

• China recently announced a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, a significant step forward for global climate action. 

• The U.K. is currently developing plans on climate action before U.N. climate talks to be held in Glasgow during the first two weeks of November, but has been challenged by a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. 

• Forest clearance in Indonesia has spiked during the global pandemic as travel restrictions have stopped environmental law enforcement. 

• Arctic sea ice reaches second-lowest ice coverage ever recorded, higher only than measurements from 2012. 

• 1 percent of the world is currently living in hot zones and by 2070, that could increase to 19 percent. Read this article about what this means for the population through an exploration of climate migration.  

• Some U.S. cities are planning “green recoveries” after COVID-19. Read about it here. 

• A newly released book on climate titled “All We can Save” highlights women climate leaders and offers solutions and encouragement. 

• A new data tool by NASA provides near real-time monitoring of forest fires and could  completely change the maintenance of blazes, particularly in the Amazon. 

• BP and other European oil companies have invested billions in the renewable energy sector, while many U.S. companies like Exxon and Chevron commit to fossil fuels. Read this article on why these companies have chosen divergent stances on climate change. 

Quarantine Continues To Impact the Environment in Unprecedented Ways

by Dnyaneshwari Haware ’24

Staff Writer

In March, when most of the world effectively shut down their industries and economies in response to the global pandemic, there was a sense of panic along with a sense of hope as pollution levels across the globe decreased. Many publications and researchers predicted an improvement in air quality, and videos of aquatic life thriving in the canals of Venice, Italy, went viral, alluding to the presence of cleaner water. However, upon closer observation, these positive environmental effects are more complex than they initially appear. 

A modern person’s lifestyle has been designed for consumption. Consumerism has become an integral part of our lifestyles, festivals, celebrations, sorrows and all other displays of emotion. We have personified things to represent factors like class, comfort and luxury. As a species, humans have limited needs. However, under extreme circumstances like the current pandemic, our needs have increased, swallowing some of our previous wants. According to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 42 percent of the U.S. labor force was working full-time from home at the end of June, making internet access and other such amenities a necessity. Because of this, the average consumption of electricity has increased. Commercial and industrial sectors were both found to have experienced decreases of 11 percent and 9 percent, respectively. The consumer electronics industry in particular has major environmental implications as electronic waste is often shipped to developing and less developed countries where limited environmental safety regulations are in place for disposal. Although a growth of about 4 percent was predicted from 2019 through 2020, a report found that COVID-19 has hampered the market and slowed consumerism in this sector. 

Consumption isn’t just restricted to the final goods we consume, but also includes waste generated in the production process. As a result of the pandemic, most of the goods people use are now being delivered, and takeout-only options have increased waste products. Environmental consciousness has largely been sidelined in the decision-making process as many prioritize safety, convenience and affordability. 

Katherine Schmeiser, associate professor of economics at Mount Holyoke, shared her experience of having to choose between the environment and her personal safety. She highlighted that, before the pandemic, many stores had tried to establish a way of reducing waste by placing recycling bins in stores. Now, as in-store populations have drastically reduced, most of them have established delivery services in which they are left with no option but to use more packaging, especially for frozen items. There are still some efforts being made on a small scale in many communities to find effective solutions to this problem. Schmeiser mentioned an organization with local Facebook groups called “Buy Nothing” where people collect leftover packaging as one of the few environmentally friendly options left. Apart from this, a few e-commerce businesses are choosing biodegradable or plant-based packaging, but that makes up a very small percentage of the entire industry. 

This increase in the consumption of electricity, protective gear and essential items is further burdening an already sensitive ecosystem. Large corporations partaking in the encouragement and supply of this consumerism — as well as the lack of enforcement when it comes to policies regarding the conservation and preservation of the environment — are also to blame for the changes climate scientists are beginning to observe.

The Sierra Club Recognizes Its Racist Roots

by Abby Wester ’22

Staff Writer

This summer saw a widespread racial reckoning across the United States in the wake of protests sparked by the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other Black Americans. Systemic racism became a prominent topic of conversation in many industries, causing companies, organizations and movements to evaluate their own past and present contributions to upholding racism. This reckoning and reflection was not absent in the environmental movement. The Sierra Club, an America-based environmental organization, was the most noteworthy group to recognize the racism of their founder and “Father of National Parks” John Muir.

Muir was a Scottish-American conservationist who lived from 1838-1914. He spent years traveling the world and studying the environment, writing articles about his findings, which eventually garnered a following. He played an instrumental role in establishing many of the first national parks, such as Yosemite National Park, Sequoia and Mount Rainier. In 1892, Muir and some of his followers founded the Sierra Club with the goal of encouraging Americans to explore and protect nature. 

However, like many of his fellow conservationists of the time, Muir spewed racism and anti-Indigenous comments in his writings and upheld a white supremacist view of the United States. While he worshipped nature and all of the creatures around him, he still considered Native Americans “subhuman” and often referred to them derogatorily. Muir was closely associated with advocates for the eugenics movement, such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan. 

On July 22, 2020, executive director of the Sierra Club Michael Brune posted an article to the organization’s website titled “Pulling Down Our Monuments.” In this article, he discussed the racist rhetoric of Muir and other initial members, acknowledged the historic exclusion of people who were not upper or middle class and white, and made a commitment to be more inclusive of BIPOC. He stated that the organization was “redesigning [its] leadership structure” to allow more organizational decisions to be made by BIPOC, as well as investing $5 million in staff of color and their efforts to tackle environmental and racial justice issues. The Sierra Club has also stated they will spend the next year analyzing their history as well as determining which monuments need to be renamed or taken down entirely.

This apology was the first step in recognizing the exclusivity that has characterized the Sierra Club since its origins.

Climate Education Is Changing, but Lacks Uniformity

by Helen Gloege ’23

Staff Writer

Between rampant fires up and down the West Coast and record-breaking heat across the Northern Hemisphere, the disastrous effects of climate change have been becoming more obvious. A poll by NPR confirmed that 80 percent of U.S. parents and 86 percent of U.S. teachers think climate change should be taught in schools, showing a quantifiably large portion of the population acknowledging the importance of climate change. However, many teachers don’t talk about climate change in classrooms and few parents or guardians discuss it with their children at home.  

Teachers face a multitude of obstacles when it comes to teaching about climate change in classrooms, including possible lack of resources, funding, connection to the subject they teach and support from their school districts. In the United States, it is up to individual schools, school districts and teachers to determine whether they will teach about human caused climate change. These issues, compounded with concerns about the reactions of parents and the political jargon that often surrounds climate change, dissuade other teachers from discussing it in their classrooms. In addition, many teachers themselves may not have learned about climate change when they were in school and may feel ill-equipped to talk about it in their own classrooms.  

Despite the struggles that teachers are facing, there have been several attempts to mandate and strengthen human-caused climate change programs. Since 2013, 19 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards that strengthen the science education students receive, including teaching human-caused climate change starting in middle school. The Next Generation Science Standards aim to build a comprehensive understanding of science over time and enable educators to create future generations of scientifically literate students. 

Some individual states have gone beyond science education with a focus on specifically climate change based programs. In Washington, a multimillion dollar budget for K-12 science education with an emphasis on climate science was passed in 2017. The result was ClimeTime, which funds training for teachers as well as projects and events that connect public school teachers with environmental organizations in their communities. Within the first year of implementation, about 10 percent of public school teachers in Washington took advantage of the program. The teachers who attended these seminars and trainings said they felt better equipped to teach their students about the topic. This year, the National Center for Science Education compiled 18 pieces of legislation across 10 states focused on climate change education. The bills would increase the amount of climate change, sustainability and environmental science concepts taught in public schools. So far, nine of the 18 bills have died while most others are pending.

Outside of the U.S. education system, other countries are also beginning to tackle climate change education in the classroom setting. Cambodia is leading climate change education in Asia. Cambodian schools are allowing students to become part of the effort to find solutions to climate change. In New Zealand, starting this year, every student will have access to materials about climate change written by the country’s leading science agencies. The program will be offered to all schools that teach 11- to 15-year-old students but won’t be compulsory. On June 17, 2020, a Mexican senator, Clemente Castañeda Hoeflich, presented an initiative that proposes strengthening education on environmental protection and climate change in schools. It encourages students to change their attitudes and behaviors towards protecting natural resources. The Italian government announced that, starting this year, they will become the world’s first country to institute a mandatory course on climate change and sustainable development in all public schools. 

In the international framework, the One U.N. Climate Change Learning Partnership (also known as U.N. CC:Learn) is a collaborative learning platform launched by the United Nations with the involvement of 36 multilateral organizations. Its aim is to help countries achieve climate action through climate literacy and applied skills development. The e-learning platform is the single largest dedicated platform on climate change, with a specific focus on developing countries’ needs. The programs are aligned with nationally determined contributions and the National Adaptation Plan, both of which are part of the Paris Agreement.

Students currently at Mount Holyoke are at the age where the climate crisis was taught as “global warming” throughout K-12 education, if taught at all. With or without a formal classroom education on the topic, students can still imagine what climate change education could look like. 

Acadia Ferrero-Lampron ’23 suggests a more science-based approach with projects and experiments that might highlight concepts or through visuals like documentaries. “[It could be] incorporated into a government class and discussion[s] about laws and polic[ies] that should be made,” said Samantha Pittman ’23. “Once you know what’s happening you can … contact your representatives.” 

Many students have learned about climate change through environmental studies classes or specific Advanced Placement courses. “Environmental science felt like one of the most relevant courses that I took in high school,” said Ellen Switchenko ’23. “Everything we learned was so pertinent as to what’s happening in the real world.” 

Teaching climate change in schools is essential to prepare students for their future of reversing climate change. While we may not know what climate change education looks like at the moment, there is a movement to make sure that students know that climate change exists.

Racism and Class Privilege Prevail Within the Veganism Movement

by Siona Ahuja ’24

Staff Writer

While veganism is championed as an environmentally sustainable movement, the vegan community is intrinsically linked to class privilege and racist ideals. The limited presence of BIPOC within that community cannot be ignored. 

Veganism is not a monolith. It is both environmental and political, and many people interpret it differently. While some health conscious individuals adopt a solely plant-based diet, others strive to eliminate animal products (food, clothing, shoes, etc.) entirely. In its truest form, veganism is the practice of abstaining from any product that involves animal cruelty and exploitation. Purchasing makeup that is tested on animals, visiting zoos and aquariums or even consuming medication which has animal products (like gelatin) are experiences from which vegans abstain.   

Lifestyle products that are free from exploitation often have a higher price tag. Vegan and organic manufacturing is a costly process, and this cost translates to the customer’s purchasing price. Although naturally found vegan food like legumes and vegetables may be cheap, vegan substitutes like nut milk and soy meat are much more expensive than their nonvegan counterparts. Furthermore, most developed countries have subsidized costs for meat and dairy. Due to these price reductions, demand for meat and dairy products has risen dramatically. This is evidenced by the inexpensive cost of meat burgers versus the exorbitant rates for vegan burgers at the same fast food chains.

Because of these cost differences, partaking in veganism is often a class privilege. However, since a majority of the low-income population includes people of color, this class privilege often translates to white privilege as well.  

Jessica Greenebaum, a sociologist specializing in the culture and politics of food, describes veganism as an “achieved status and [an] identity that reflects the shared beliefs, values, and politics of people” in her book, “Questioning the Concept of Vegan Privilege: A Commentary.” 

The lack of intersectionality in veganism is harmful as it can create perceptions that veganism requires affluence, assumes whiteness and first-world privilege and can perpetuate self-righteousness toward nonvegans, which prevents people from diverse groups from joining the movement.

This is in opposition to the history of veganism as plant-based diets have been encapsulated by various ancient cultures. It is a cornerstone of many age-old Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Rastafarianism has adopted cruelty-free eating in which followers eat unprocessed plant-based food. The Black Hebrew Israelite community of Dimona also believes in vegan eating, as it was said to be the secret to eternal life. 

The modern vegan movement, which originated in the 1940s after these cultures, has failed to acknowledge its deep cultural roots, thus creating an “all white” persona for itself. Additionally, several nonprofits that advocate for vegan practices such as the Humane Society of the United States, Mercy for Animals, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Humane League are largely staffed by white officials and patrons.

With the revival of the Black Lives Matter movement this summer, many members of the vegan community faced backlash for social media posts that held racist content. Backed by PETA, some members of the vegan community started a movement to end speciesism, the discrimination of animals because they are seen as inferior to humans. Some of these animal rights protestors started to equate animal discrimination with racism istead of contributing to the uplifting of the Black community through BLM protests. Responding to this countermovement, A. Breeze Harper, founder of the Sistah Vegan Project, wrote a letter to PETA in which she says, “Black people will continue to be treated as animals … until post-racial, post-humanist, ‘I don’t see color’ power-holders like [PETA], practice the tenets of Black Lives Matter.”  

Several movements are rising to encourage the inclusion of the Black community in the vegan world, including the Black VegFest, a vegan festival started in New York City in 2018, and the Veganism of Color Mini Conferences originating from Dublin. Many contemporary POC activists are spreading awareness in the community that going vegan is a return to their cultural roots, not a new trend started by the modern West.

California Wildfires Suggest a Future of Climate Migration

by Catelyn Fitgerald ’23

Staff Writer

As climate change increasingly disrupts the environment as we know it, people across the world have had to flee to safer land. This process, referred to as climate migration, occurs when people must leave their homes as a result of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, droughts and other climate change effects. In California, the hundreds of thousands of residents evacuated to escape wildfires are indicative of a more permanent migration that may need to occur in the near future. It is estimated that up to 13 million people in the United States could be driven from their homes by the end of the century due to climate change. 

Coastal communities are at the highest risk of displacement, and some state and local governments are preparing to evacuate residents of these areas before it is too late. One of these regions is New York City, which is investing $10 billion into adaptation measures such as building seawalls and constructing sand dunes to extend lower Manhattan into the East River. Not only do at-risk towns and cities need to prepare for the impact of climate change, but “safe zones,” regions that are less vulnerable to climate change, must be identified and prepared for incoming migrants.

This is not the first time the U.S. has seen a significant population movement due to climate-induced events. In the 1930s, prairies in the United States experienced a period of severe dust storms known as the Dust Bowl. This event caused a mass exodus of refugees from southern states to the West Coast, all of whom had to look for work after the storms left them economically devastated. The difference between the Dust Bowl and climate migration is that the events driving current and future movements of people are not isolated — they will only worsen as the effects of climate change accumulate.

However, not everyone in the U.S. has the option to migrate to avoid future climate disasters. As fires rage though the West Coast, farm workers continue to labor in evacuation zones amid unsafe air conditions. A large portion of these workers are non-English speaking migrants, and a lack of emergency information in other languages makes it difficult for them to know the status of fires and evacuation orders in their areas. Even in evacuation zones or areas with unsafe working conditions, many farm workers are given the option to continue working, leaving them with an impossible choice between paying their bills and staying safe. 

In a Washington town, farmworkers were forced to evacuate unexpectedly, and many had to sleep outside in a city park until they could be placed in emergency housing. While most of these workers were soon placed in alternative company-provided housing, the COVID-19 pandemic caused difficulties in housing the workers safely. Without home insurance, workers whose housing was burned or damaged by the wildfires were left financially devastated. This serves as an example of what the future of climate migration may look like for those who cannot afford to leave their work or travel to find new housing. Efforts must be made to plan for the safe evacuation of low-income and undocumented people from at-risk areas.