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(09/20/18 9:59am)
As the Carolinas reel from the destruction caused by Hurricane Florence, the quiet coast of Maine is experiencing climate change in a much slower, yet still threatening, manner.
Kathryn Olson ’05 discussed the impact of climate change on this area in her talk entitled “Farms, Fish and Forests: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Maine.”
In Maine, temperatures have risen twice as much as those in the rest of the United States, and the Bay of Maine is the fastest-warming body of water in the world. Maine has a highly resource-based economy with industries in fishing and forestry, and for the past several years, Olson has been using ethnographic interviews, demographic surveys, observations and visual data to inform her work.
Olson has focused her recent research on what she calls the “Living Change Project” in which she investigates the subtle changes in identity, work and place in the wake of climate change, especially in her home state of Maine.
Farmers have been adapting to winters with shorter freezes and drought alternating with heavy precipitation in the summers and longer falls. These changes in the seasons have had a harmful impact on harvesting seasons and crop yield.
Foresters, too, are experiencing environmental and economic changes. With unpredictable freezing and thawing patterns, new populations of invasive species of animals and plants are wreaking havoc in Maine. Despite these obvious concerns, Olson found that foresters are more reluctant to admit the negative impacts of climate change, and they tend to view the forests as controlled by man rather than by nature.
Fishermen have faced perhaps the most significant plight. The number of soft shell clams, a specialty from the coast of Maine, are down by as much as 70 percent in some places on the coast due to a recent explosion in the population of green crabs, an invasive species that thrives in warm waters. Development of houses and tourist destinations along the coast has also greatly diminished fishing areas accessible to fishermen.
These challenges have forced the industry to adjust. For example, some have turned to aquaculture, the practice of farming fish, as a way to protect soft shell clams, as well as mussel populations, from the green crabs. Many Maine locals in the culinary industry are beginning to harvest the green crabs and popularize them on the market, with slow but promising success. According to an interview that Olson conducted with a fisherman, the fishery is only able to produce around ten percent of what it once could.
Olson’s talk drew the attention of many students and faculty, as her presentation highlighted the imminent issues facing local communities due to climate change. Here in Vermont, farmers and beneficiaries of resource-based industries are at risk in ways similar as those in Maine.
“Having spent the summer living [on] sailboats along the coast of Maine dodging lobster pots every day, I was particularly interested in the invasive green crabs and in the lobstermen’s pragmatic view of climate change,” Hannah Redmon ’20 said. “I appreciated how [Olson] examined the effects of climate change on Maine’s major industries through the eyes of people working in these industries every day. The way she combined science, sociology, creative writing and photography made her project both useful and engaging, no matter where her readers are coming from.”
Alec Fleischer ’20.5 said that Olson’s talk “clearly showed [that] climate change is already altering Maine’s formerly-stable marine and forestry sectors.
“These highlighted effects only mark the beginning of unprecedented problems that our generation will face in Maine, in Vermont, and across the world,” he said. “We need to rapidly transition [away from] fossil fuels and begin investing vast sums in climate mitigation.”
Maine’s future, according to Olson, lies in economic diversification and developing long-term sustainable industries.
Throughout this project, Olson has spent much of her time engaging with climate change skeptics and deniers, and encouraging tolerance and understanding of other perspectives.
From enacting large-scale policy changes for mitigating climate change to bolstering grassroots participation in the fight against climate change, Olson encourages working beyond academia and using social media and blogs, to spread positive messages. Olson left the audience feeling positive about how experts are addressing climate change, noting that the people she interviewed from all different economic and social backgrounds were working hard to adapt to the changes coming their way.
For more information on Olson and her work, see her blog:
www.livingchange.blog/
(04/04/18 11:08pm)
On Tuesday, March 20, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, gave a talk via Skype to the Middlebury community entitled “Climate Change: Communicating Across Divides.” Environmental Studies Scholar in Residence Bill McKibben introduced Dr. Hayhoe, framing the talk around two questions: Who do you want to engage in challenging conversation of climate change? And how would you like to approach that? Hayhoe, an atmospheric and climate scientist who was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2014, spends much of her time traveling the world giving talks and thinking about these questions.
After McKibben’s introduction, Dr. Hayhoe began by discussing the idea of not believing in climate change. Today, our news headlines are telling the story of destruction by climate change, yet some people who are experiencing the effects of climate change first-hand and from afar still deny the facts.
Dr. Hayhoe showed several charts produced by studies that broke down study participants by political affiliation, which is the best predictor of how people view climate change science. One study asked if recent extreme weather events add to evidence for climate change, and while 80-90% of liberals said yes, only 30-35% of conservatives said yes.
Despite the fact that climate change is purely a matter of science, Dr. Hayhoe explained that people often make climate change an issue of faith and belief, which makes it difficult to challenge. This is due to the notion that a person’s ideas of climate change are often an integral part of their belief system. People have been told for decades that climate change is a “liberal hoax,” and ideas like that are difficult to change.
Particularly in our polarized political state, it is important to bridge the gap between parties and encourage politicians who have a plan and a credible idea of how to act on climate change.
With this introduction about belief in climate change, Dr. Hayhoe addressed McKibben’s questions of who to talk to about climate change and how to talk to them. Dr. Hayhoe categorized Americans in terms of their beliefs in climate change in six ways: alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful and dismissive. Dr. Hayhoe spends little of her time talking to dismissives, which she approximates at around 10 percent of the population, because their disbelief in climate change is likely unchangeable. Instead she spends most of her time trying to move disengaged and doubtful people into the concerned group, which will encourage long-term action instead of producing unsustainable anxiety about climate change.
This goal in mind, Dr. Hayhoe has a three-step strategy for talking to people in a positive and constructive way about the imminent importance of climate change. The first step is to bond with and connect to the people you are talking to. Dr. Hayhoe suggests finding common, often faith-based values to discuss, noting the profound impact of religious leaders in constructively talking about climate change, particularly among Catholic groups.
The second step is to explain the science and explain why we should care about climate change. Few people think that climate change will harm them but instead will just harm future generations and polar bears.Convincing people that climate change is real and will affect them is crucial. Finding specific examples of how climate change could affect people directly, like how changing weather patterns and seasons are affecting dairy production in Vermont, helps people relate to climate change.
The third step is to inspire the people you are talking to and leave them feeling empowered. When talking about actions, explaining what you can do on a personal and organizational scale makes actions feel manageable. Sharing articles on social media is also effective and can spread messages of hope.
With this action plan of how to discuss climate change with any group of people, Dr. Hayhoe closed by answering questions from the audience about specific instances of creating positive conservations and encouraged us to do research into facts on climate change in order to be able to show people the importance of acting on climate change.
(03/08/18 2:35am)
Frederick Weston ’79 came to speak at Middlebury on Thursday, March 1 in the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest. In his speech, entitled “Decarbonizing an Economy: Electricity, Coal, and the Threat of a Good Example,” Weston discussed topics ranging from his career and his time at Middlebury to more serious topics, such as what he sees as the most significant hindrances to the global adoption of renewable energy.
After graduating from Middlebury with a B.A. in theatre, Weston decided to change paths and enter the world of consulting, working for the American International Group with a focus on the Arabian oil business. After several years there and realizing that there were many issues within the United States yet to be addressed, Weston decided to face domestic environmental problems head-on by working for the Vermont Public Service Board in regulating utilities. In 1999 he joined the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), where he still works today as the director of their China Program. Weston has dedicated his life’s work to creating more efficient and cleaner ways to produce and share energy.
Weston framed his talk around the fact that energy is the cause of and solution to all the world’s environmental problems, going at this idea from several sides of the issue. Weston believes we need to “decarbonize electricity, then electrify industry, transportation and buildings.” With the current technology, changing our energy systems from fossil fuels to renewable energy would be possible and relatively quick. The costs of renewable energy are getting lower, and thus more competitive with the cost of fossil fuels as technology improves. Electric power is getting cleaner and clean cars are getting more accessible and widespread.
Yet many obstacles stand in our way of transitioning to renewable energy, many of which trace back to money, which Weston outlined in his talk. Weston believes we must rearrange our economy so that people, both users and producers, are rewarded and make money by doing the right thing. Some of the more surface-level suggestions Weston proposed are investing in energy efficiency, redesigning wholesale markets to encourage buyers, using electricity more efficiently to use less energy, tracking the demands of energy users and responding economically to change pricing.
More foundational changes that Weston proposed concern mostly policy changes that need to come from coordinated efforts from government officials and energy companies. Two of the most common ways for the government to regulate corporate energy use and climate effects are “cap and trade” (or cap and invest) and “pollution pricing.” “Cap and trade” penalizes companies that exceed a limit on greenhouse gas emissions decided by scientists. Companies that emit less than their limit can then trade (or invest) their extra emissions to other companies, therefore rewarding companies that emit less. The caps on emissions are currently going down, encouraging a reduction in emissions on a broad scale. “Pollution pricing,” similar to a carbon tax, also puts a limit on emissions, but companies that over pollute must pay fines. Weston emphasized the need to reinvest income into renewable energy. Companies could put the money they make from shares of emissions into renewable energy research rather than selling their shares.
Weston concluded his talk by discussing the example set by China, which has issues with air pollution and premature deaths due to climate change and fossil fuel emissions. Like China has done, Weston believes, the United States should introduce a wide-scale limit on carbon emissions, reduce the use of coal in our industries and economy and increase energy efficiency. In Weston’s opinion, this all can be achieved without dislocation in the economy. Good policy and good markets designed to drive results and reward low carbon usage will help us avoid depletion of our natural resources and further harm to our environment.
(02/22/18 2:23am)
On Friday Feb. 16, Dr. Barney Ellison came to the college to give a talk on climate change and renewable energy. Ellison received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Yale after studying biology at Trinity College in Connecticut. He is now a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he also runs an organic chemistry research laboratory. His recent interests are in climate science and the effects of aerosols.
Ellison began the lecture by introducing the practice of chemical testing done to air particles to reveal what dangerous chemicals are present in the air, such as carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. He then discussed the quantities and extent of damage done by such harmful gases and chemicals, showing the audience infrared spectroscopy graphs, which are used to analyze chemical compounds in the air.
Additionally, Ellison discussed the environmental effects of climate change, notably found in the melting of ice in Greenland. All of his findings about these effects were supported by his calculations of the quantities of chemicals in the air.
Ellison reminded the audience that within this century, the world could run out of fossil fuels for energy use and that it is up to students to find alternative energy sources to fix this problem. He proposed that solar and nuclear power would be the best sources of energy in the coming years, noting that France gets the majority of its energy from nuclear sources. However, he emphasized that a safer source of nuclear energy is needed before it can become more widespread.
Ellison also brought up the possibility of chemically removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, though he questioned the ability of this method to combat such an extensive problem.
With such a large Environmental Science program at Middlebury, Ellison’s call to action hopefully resonated with many of the members of the science community. Ellison ended with a call to the scientific community to emphatically dedicate its resources and focus in on climate change research.