Climate Activism Takes an Online Shape During COVID-19

by Helen Gloege ’23

Staff Writer

Staying home as a result of the pandemic does not mean staying silent about injustices. It has been nearly a year since the youth-led global climate strikes on Sept. 20 and much has changed. Climate strikes planned throughout the pandemic have been canceled, but the movement hasn’t disappeared.

With the upcoming Nov. 3 election in the United States, networks of youth climate activists have been regrouping with a focus on election campaigning through socially distanced methods including phone banks, social media and organizing. The larger youth-led Sunrise Movement in particular has been training young activists to canvass for candidates who are proponents of renewable energy.

For some activist groups, there has been a step back from demonstrations, strikes and protests and toward education on climate and those involved in climate activism. Website and Instagram account 1 Million Activist Stories showcases stories of various climate activists from around the world. On Sept. 22, the book “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis” will be released. The book is a collection of women climate leaders from 60 contributors including youth climate activist Xiye Bastida and Hadley-based researcher Susanne C. Moser. 

The Re-Earth Initiative is an international youth-led organization that aims to make the climate movement more accessible. The organization’s first action was a global digital protest that occurred on Earth Day of this year and asked participants to make two climate pledges, one individual and one systemic. They then presented activities, toolkits, webinars and more to allow people to accomplish their goals. 

The Initiative’s most recent action has involved launching an open letter urging Latin American and Caribbean governments to sign and/or ratify the Escazú Agreement, which is the first legally binding environmental human rights treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean. The agreement secures rights including access to information and participation and provides legal provisions to protect the rights of defenders of the environment who face persecution and murder.

The #FridaysForFuture movement began in August 2018 after Greta Thunberg and other young activists sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. Soon the movement went viral and now it is a worldwide phenomenon. The movement was partly digital before the pandemic and has continued in that direction. The #ClimateStrikeOnline action is another online movement where people are asked to post selfies from home with protest signs. Additional actions have included joining others across the world in mass calls, tweets and mass email campaigns. 

This semester, Mount Holyoke students are scattered across the world. However, similar to global movements, this hasn’t stopped the organizing and activism of various environmental student organizations. Sunrise South Hadley and the Climate Justice Coalition are attempting to get around the hurdles and difficulties of online activism while the Student Government Association works toward the establishment of a sustainability commission.   

“There is not a lot we can do collectively when we are so far apart,” Emma Sullivan ’22, a Sunrise South Hadley organizer, said. However, they are still finding ways to be active while online. Sunrise South Hadley hasn’t yet gotten into the swing of normal meetings but some of the members are currently focused on phone banking in tandem with the national Sunrise Movement for various supporters of the Green New Deal.

 Sunrise Movement and Sunrise South Hadley are currently putting all efforts into getting as many Green New Deal champions and progressives into Congress and voting President Donald Trump out of office. Sunrise Movement is also supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and has partnered with The Movement For Black Lives. Sunrise Movement has encouraged its members to follow Black organizers and leaders, to address white supremacy and support Black-led groups.

The Climate Justice Coalition has kicked off the semester with a goal for action despite the restrictions of COVID-19 and the need to work on a virtual platform. The CJC hopes to continue creating a welcoming and supportive environment for new and returning members to foster a sense of community. 

“We hope to make actions this semester accessible to everyone,” said Kayla Fennel ’22, a CJC member. These actions include continuing to push for divestment through outreach to students and alums on social media and other platforms. They intend to turn theory into practice with various ideas, goals and tangible steps to support environmental justice. As an organization, they hope to make this semester one of the continued actions despite being apart. The CJC is listed on Embark, the virtual platform for student organizations this semester.

Also at Mount Holyoke, SGA is in the midst of their annual recruitment process and is working on a restructuring of student senate as part of last year's constitutional review. As part of their reconfiguration, they will be exchanging working groups for commissions, which will research various courses of action for SGA. While the commissions are not yet in effect, one focusing on environmental issues and the College’s pledge for sustainability is expected to be formed.

New Book Helps Identify Credible Peer Reviewed Journals

By Zoe Greenberg ’23

Staff Writer

Common guidance for researching scientific information on the internet is to avoid social media, be wary of news coverage and only trust studies published in peer-reviewed journals. However, while the peer review system increases the likelihood that information presented in studies will be accurate, peer-reviewed journals should not be considered infallible sources of information. The peer-review process is indeed flawed and allows for mistakes. 

This is the premise of social psychologist Stuart Ritchie’s recently published book, “Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth.” Over the course of the book, Ritchie reveals that inaccurate scientific findings, such as falsified data and misleading statistics, routinely make it into peer-reviewed journals. 

According to Ritchie and several other researchers who have documented corruption in the scientific community over the years, studies cannot be assumed to be credible simply because they were published in a peer-reviewed journal. When reading any scientific studies, readers should be wary of possible misinformation, whether or not an article has been peer-reviewed. 

The first piece of advice Ritchie gives for accessing the accuracy of a paper is to look at the reputability of the authors’ employers and the outlet the study is published in. If a website looks unprofessional, it may be one of the many untrustworthy journals that exist online. Reputability alone is not proof enough, however — several well-known researchers and publications have been caught publishing false information. 

Readers should also look for proof that participants registered to participate in a study, and for the data collected for the study. Ritchie recommends considering the sample size, as it is easier for researchers to claim that small effects are significant when pulling from a small pool. Larger sample sizes can increase the statistical validity of a study. 

We should also think about both statistical significance and how the study stacks up against other established research, Ritchie says. If a study is so groundbreaking it seems implausible, that may be a sign that it should not be trusted. 

As another metric, Ritchie recommends paying attention to the language used in a study. For example, researchers should only conclude causation if the study is an experiment. The most researchers can conclude from observational studies is a correlation; therefore, Ritchie says, a scientist who claims causation in an observational study is incorrect. 

Other clues found in the language of a study may allude to bias, such as words that exaggerate the findings. Bias also can be detected by looking into the funding behind the study, to see if a social or political group might benefit from the results.  

How plausible findings are — especially in studies that use human participants — and whether the study has been replicated by other researchers are two other metrics that Ritchie recommends readers use to measure the trustworthiness of studies. He suggests looking in news publications for quotes from third party scientists who have weighed in on the research and whether their judgment tends to be positive or negative.

Students and faculty at Mount Holyoke College depend on online scientific information for their own research. The Mount Holyoke News Health and Science section is committed to providing advice on how the community can assess the accuracy of research in addition to practicing these principles in our efforts to provide the most reliable information on the latest health and science news.

Museums, Anthropology and Social Understanding in the Time of COVID-19

Photo by Lily Reavis ‘21

By Anoushka Kuswaha ’24

Health & Science Writer

In the face of COVID-19, museums have had to adapt to the challenges that the virus presents, like every other institution or business. Museums in Europe and North America were quickly able to create a digital presence for themselves on the internet toward the beginning of the pandemic. In the digital museum era, viewers are able to see a larger showcase of individualism. Many museums highlighted their curators and conservationists, as well as the artists that provide their content. Mount Holyoke’s art museum, for example, is highlighting the input of its students, employees, and alumni. 

Currently, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (MHCAM) is highlighting the work of alumna Joan Jonas ’58 and artist Bisa Butler, with a spotlight specifically on the museum’s recent acquisition of her portrait quilt, “Broom Jumpers” (2019). The museum, like many of its kind around the globe, has created virtual recreations of its exhibitions. Others currently utilizing the same virtual model include the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. 

In addition to the creation of these virtual exhibitions on their websites, museums are using social media to continue their work at this time. Some have created prompts for their followers, the most well known being the Getty Museum’s challenge, which asks self-isolators to recreate one of the many paintings in its collection. Upon the museum’s announcement of this online challenge, bored art enthusiasts flooded social media threads with their own at-home interpretations. In the U.K., self-described “museum-weirdos” are creating and posting videos about their favorite art pieces and museums with the hashtag #MuseumAtHome. Their goal is to keep the love for museums alive while they are not accessible to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Museum of Digital Art in Zürich, Switzerland — this writer’s city of residence — is hosting a variety of classes with creative contributors for all ages through live streaming. Close to Mount Holyoke, the National Museum of African American History and Culture documented and collected artifacts from the current Black Lives Matter protests. 

Despite the many inventive ways that museums have gone digital this year, the inaccessibility of technology was made apparent just as quickly as these digital presences became known. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s reports on museums found that only 5 percent of African and Small Island Developing States were able to create and maintain a virtual presence that is comparable to those presented by North American and European museums. In this same report, it is stated that more than 10 percent of museums will never reopen after this period of closure. 

Museums are intrinsically linked to scholarly work and the knowledge of diverse cultures, religions, and societies. They spark inspiration and dialogue, as they hold tangible links to the past. In the time of COVID-19, where human volatility and differences are becoming more and more apparent, the knowledge and appreciation of cultures different from one’s own has become even more important. 

This year, museums around the world have taken on a second and perhaps more important role as conservationists. Using the internet and social media, museums have begun collecting, documenting, and disseminating information about the virus and its impact on current and future generations. An example of this is the Museum Europäischer Kulturen located in Berlin, Germany. The MEK is using the hashtag #CollectingCorona on social media to collect videos, writings, photos, and art in any language, asking people all around the world how the pandemic has impacted their lives, their jobs, their mental health, and their families. All of this media will be compiled for a future exhibition at the MEK. In Sweden and Norway, a website called Minnen, or “Memories,” has been created for the purpose of collecting stories from around the world that document the human experience with COVID-19. 

Museum curators using social media currently have the opportunity to hear firsthand accounts from residents of all corners of the world. A small business owner sends in a poem. An autistic student describes his experience with homeschooling. A schoolboy describes the different social media that he uses throughout the morning and how he prepares his breakfast. A six-year-old girl questions how her mother told her to eat eggs to boost her immune system. 

As havens of anthropology, museums are markers for the level of civilization we have achieved as a collective human society. Their work in the time of the coronavirus pandemic serves as a reminder to generations in the present and the future of humanity’s hope, whimsy, courage, hate, and appreciation for the world around us. 

Weekly Climate News

Updates for September 10th

• A record-setting heat wave swept through Southern California reaching a high of 121 F. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning on Sunday, Sept. 6 for areas in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. 

• California is grappling with an unprecedented wildfire season made worse by the historic heatwave. Over the Labor Day weekend, about 200 hikers in the Sierra Nevada National Forest trapped by the spreading flames had to be airlifted out by helicopters. 

• The heatwave and wildfires in the West, a massive derecho in the Midwest and the record-breaking 2020 hurricane season illustrate an extreme climate future. Read about the connection between these weather events and climate change here. 

• The European Environment Agency confirmed on Tuesday, Sept. 8 that environmental factors such as air pollution and heatwaves worsened by climate change contribute to around 13 percent of all deaths in Europe. 

• Ministers from 11 African countries met virtually on Monday, Sept. 7 to discuss progress on implementing the Great Green Wall, an initiative to develop a 15-kilometer-wide and 8,000-kilometer-long vegetation strip across Africa said to be integral in coronavirus recovery. 

• Oil refineries in the Louisiana petrochemical industry have been impacted by recent hurricanes, dumping harmful substances into the environment and disproportionately impacting communities of color.

• EPA relaxes standards that limit toxic waste and regulate wastewater from coal-fired power plants. Environmental groups claim this makes rivers and streams more vulnerable to contamination by corrosive pollutants like lead, selenium and arsenic. 

• Communities permanently affected by environmental damage or economic disinvestment are known as “sacrifice zones.” Read this article about how these areas are currently on the front lines of both climate change and the global pandemic.

• Read about these organizations which are helping the youth of color enjoy the outdoors in the middle of the global pandemic. 

• In Ottawa, Canada, farming techniques that reduce greenhouse gas emissions are being developed. 

Weekly Climate News

Updates for August 3rd

• Are you taking daily sustainable action? Read this article on how to stay eco-friendly during a pandemic. 

• A study recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, revealed that up to 171 million people today face the risks of coastal flooding from extreme high tides and storm surges, linked to rising sea levels resulting from climate change. Not only are the inhabitants of low-lying coastal areas in harm's way but trillions of dollars in economic assets worldwide are currently at risk. 

• At least a quarter of Bangladesh is submerged from heavy rainfall, highlighting how those who have the least impact on climate change are often those who are the worst affected. 

• Lockdowns as a result of COVID-19 have cut energy-related CO2 emissions by 17 percent, a new study finds.

• But as countries and states reopen, global greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise. Read this article (with infographics!) on what this increase implies. 

• Due to climate change, poor governance and the coronavirus pandemic millions of Zimbabweans have gone hungry, but a community in Mwenezi, Zimbabwe, has a reliable food source. This resulted from an innovative plan initiated six years ago by a group of 200 women. Read this article to hear their story!

• A new push in the UK to promote and fund active travel has benefits for people’s health and the environment in curbing pollution. Read about it here! 

• 10 Indigenous guardian projects across the country will be receiving federal funding for a third year. These Indigenous communities will allocate the funds towards monitoring and protecting the environment. 

• COVID-19 shutdowns have produced cleaner air which has increased the effectiveness of solar panels around the world. 

• Read this investigation into how the fossil fuel industry finances police groups in major U.S. cities! 

• Monarchs show us that with climate change, small actions can have world-altering results. Read this article about the butterfly effect.