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(11/13/14 5:06am)
In late September, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced its plan to divest its money from investments in fossil fuels. The fund, with nearly $860 million in assets, announced that it would divest roughly seven percent of its funds currently invested in fossil fuels.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, established by Rockefeller heirs in 1940, is a smaller organization in assets than the better-known Rockefeller Foundation. The fund’s announcement of divestment, a small amount of money when compared to the vast amount of capital in the fossil fuel industry, attracted great attention.
The announcement, part of a broader initiative, was timed to follow several large environmental marches around the world, and to precede the United Nations climate change summit in New York City.
At the College, the announcement triggered discussion and reinvigorated the divestment movement that had started. The move by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is of particular interest to the College because it is divesting its investment from Investure, the money manager the college entrusted its endowment to. Students from two campus organizations, the Sunday Night Group and Socially Responsible Investment Club, gathered last Sunday to discuss their plans to carry the current momentum to campus and push for change.
Greta Neubauer ’14.5, a leader of the divestment movement at the College, stressed the importance of the movement. “I think divestment is important is because of the power we have as an institution to shift the narrative around the fossil fuel industry... I believe Middlebury has responsibility to use its social capital and its real capital to make a statement that is in alignment with its mission by divesting from fossil fuels,” she said.
She added, “The movement is saying that we need to take this part of our orbit into consideration. What happens on campus is not all that happens. Our institution actually has an impact in other places and we cannot be actively funding the extraction of fossil fuels.”
The College’s one billion dollar endowment is currently in a collective fund that has around three percent of its money in the fossil fuel industry.
Talking about her motivation to join the movement, Taylor Cook ’18 said that she was shocked by the fact that the College, a symbol of sustainable environmental practice, is invested in fossil fuels. She wants to join the movement to push the College to a higher standard.
Sophie Vaughan ’17 talked about her motivation to join the movement. She said, “If we don’t help push for a sustainable planet, who is? Because if you look historically, a lot of movements have been powered by students.”
The primary obstacle for divestment comes from the outstanding performance of Investure and its close business relationship with the College.
Neubauer commented on this complication in the process. “The board doesn’t want to leave Investure. Investure has done really well for the College, especially in the recession, and since the college has worked with them, they have gotten really good returns for the College, done better than peer groups, peer financial managers... We think that there is a way the College can divest that won’t hurt the endowment,” she said.
Neubauer talked about the long-term risk of fossil fuel investment in the context of the worsening climate crisis and emerging renewable energy prospects. She said that it seems that either Investure has to change or the College has to leave for the divestment to happen. Good investment return is not good enough, she claimed.
Last month, Governor of Vermont Peter Shumlin, responded to questions regarding the divestment of Vermont’s pension fund from fossil fuels during the governor’s debate. “It is not the sharpest tool in the drawer,” he said. He stressed his effort spent on the renewable energy implementation in the state.
“Peter Shumlin, as governor of Vermont, has a lot of tools in his toolbox. And I would like him to use some of them,” Jeannie Bartlett ’15 said in response to the governor’s opinion. Neubauer agrees that the state should use some of its tools more effectively than it does now.
Though the record of success of the movement is mixed, the momentum of the movement seems growing. Harvard and Yale both declined to divest. Stanford agreed to divest, but only from coal, while still invested in fossil fuels. However, in recent years, a huge number of individuals and organizations have pledged to sell assets tied to fossil fuel companies. The amount pledged by individuals and 180 institutions, including pension funds and local governments, is worth more than $50 billion.
“We want the College to divest in conjunction with carbon neutrality. We would love to see that the College divests by 2016, so that we are really, honestly and truly carbon neutral in all of our operations. And we also think that it would be really powerful for [President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz] to divest before he leaves the school. He is going to leave a legacy, and to leave a legacy of not divesting from fossil fuels when that is the direction of history is not the one that we think he should choose. So we are really hopeful that Liebowitz, who is committed to making Middlebury a climate leader, makes that choice,” Neubauer said.
(11/13/14 3:42am)
While most states have elected governors and legislators who will begin their terms in 2015, the identity of Vermont’s future governor still remains in question and will be decided in a secret vote by the 180 person State Legislature in 2015. Election Day ended with incumbent Governor Peter Shumlin (D) holding 47 percent and Republican candidate Scott Milne holding about 45 percent, with 92 percent of voting precincts reporting. Dan Feliciano of the Libertarian Party was the next runner up after Milne. Both Shumlin and Milne declined to declare the election either a victory or a loss, opting to wait until Wednesday when all the votes were counted.
Once all the votes were counted, however, Shumlin ended up with 89,883 votes, at 46.4 percent, and Milne with 87,788 votes, at 45.3 percent. This gave Shumlin a margin of about 2000 votes over Milne, a low enough margin for Milne to demand a recount. Vermont has a long history of strong third party candidates who notably affect the election, and this year was no different. Including Shumlin and Milne, there were a total of seven candidates running for governor. Feliciano, a Libertarian, ended up holding 4.4 percent of the vote. Emily Peyton, an Independent, came in next with 1.7 percent. Pete Diamondstone of the Liberty Union Party held 0.9 percent, independent Bernard Peters held 0.7 percent and independent Cris Ericson held 0.6 percent.
Although Shumlin won more votes than any other candidate, the Vermont Constitution requires that the governor be elected by winning 50 percent of the votes, plus one. If this does not happen, the decision then goes to the Legislature. It is not uncommon for the Legislature to have to choose the governor. A single gubernatorial candidate has failed to win the simple majority 23 times in Vermont history, including in 2010, when Shumlin first ran for governor against the Republican candidate, the then-incumbent Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie. Shumlin received 49.5 percent of the popular vote in that election and was chosen by the legislature. In 2012, Shumlin had a decisive victory, winning 58 percent of the popular vote.
The fate of the governor is now in the hands of the Vermont House and Senate, both of which have a Democratic majority. The Legislature typically chooses the candidate who holds the plurality of votes, but legislators are technically free to choose whichever candidate they would like. However, the last time the Legislature chose the candidate that did not hold the plurality was in 1853 when incumbent Erastus Fairbanks of the Whig party held 43.9 percent of the popular vote, but Democratic candidate John S. Robinson, winner of 31.0 percent of the votes, was chosen by the Legislature instead.
The absence of definitive election results leaves room for speculation about the future. The lack of a simple majority and unexpected success of a Republican candidate challenging the incumbent make a clear statement about the current political climate in Vermont.
“We’re hearing a very clear message, that folks are frustrated, that they’re hurting, that with all the talk of economic recovery that’s going mostly to the top 1 percent, too many Vermonters are still struggling to pay their bills, working too many jobs to make ends meet,” Shumlin said.
“I am incredibly grateful to all of the Vermonters who cast their ballots on my behalf yesterday,” Milne said.
The close nature of the race surprised voters and candidates alike. The most recent polls before the election predicted Shumlin winning 47 percent of the vote, but with a 12 percent lead over Milne. Candidates and voters expected Feliciano to draw more votes than he ultimately did.
“It was never evident to me that Scott Milne had a chance to win,” said Darcie Johnston, Feliciano’s political strategist. Feliciano and his campaign team do not regret his staying in the election, even though had he chosen to duck out of the race Milne may have gotten his votes and won. Johnston suggested that some voters may have come out for Feliciano who would not have considered voting for Milne. Feliciano and his campaign team did not think either Feliciano or Milne would stand a chance against Shumlin.
Milne received minimal outside support on his campaign. Most notably, the Republican Governors Association chose not to invest in Milne, assuming he would be no competition for Shumlin.
Former Vermont Republican Governor and Executive-in-Residence at the College Jim Douglas ’72 was surprised that Feliciano drew so few votes and was disappointed that Vermont’s Republican minority failed to unite for Milne.
“When it comes down to it, they say, ‘I ought to pick someone who’s got a shot,’” Douglas said of voters who chose Milne over Feliciano. Such voters made Feliciano less of a serious candidate.
Shumlin could become the first incumbent governor in 50 years to lose to a challenger. The situation speaks strongly to how Vermonters are feeling about the direction of the state, and Shumlin recognized that fact.
“It’s a time for me to regroup,” Shumlin said. “You would have to be tone deaf not to be hearing voters’ concerns.” This may have implications for how Shumlin conducts his next two years as governor, as he sees that there is currently discontent and division among Vermont’s electorate.
“What is clear is that the majority of Vermonters do not agree with the path that we are on,” Milne said, referring to the fact that the majority of votes went to candidates other than Shumlin.
“I’m voting against whoever (are) the incumbents, just to shake things up,” Rene Churchill, a resident of Waterbury Center, said. Some voters appear to have just been looking for change, whatever the change may be.
The next two years will show whether Shumlin listened to the electorate or continued with projects that were controversial, such as transitioning Vermont to a single-payer healthcare system. However, the power to decide who ultimately becomes governor still lies in the Legislature when they convene in January of 2015.
Other elected positions in Vermont were not nearly as close as the gubernatorial rate. Incumbent Peter Welch of the Democratic Party won Vermont’s only seat in the US House of Representatives with 64.4 percent of the vote. He was running against Republican Mark Donka, who won 31.1 percent. Three candidates ran as independents, including Cris Ericson, who also ran for governor. Matthew Andrews ran for the Liberty Union Party.
Senators Bernie Sanders, Independent, and Patrick Leahy, Democrat, were not up for reelection this year. Sanders and Leahy will both be returning to Washington and to a Republican dominated Congress.
“Whoever controls the Senate it’s only going to be by one or two votes,” Leahy said. “Either way, whether it’s the Democrats or the Republicans what I would urge is let’s try working together for a while.” Leahy is hopeful about the future and does not view being in the minority party as a bad thing. Leahy, about to begin his 40th year as Senator, cited seniority, rather than majority, as being more important for holding power in the Senate.
Sanders, on the other hand, fears that a Republican majority Congress will cut spending for education, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as give tax breaks to the wealthy.
“That is not a good agenda for the American people,” Sanders, who is in the second year of his second term as senator, said.
(10/22/14 7:37pm)
In the fall, American voters will most likely turn their Congress red. This would be a mistake. Phil argued in his article last week that Americans would (and should) elect Republicans to the House and Senate because Americans want to see economic reform. He is not entirely wrong, but what he and any American who casts a red ballot overlook is the damage a Republican Congress would cause to the United States.
The 2014 Gallup poll illustrates that Americans see economic issues and healthcare as top priorities, while they see social issues and global warming as low ones. I won’t refute this, but I will remind readers that 70 percent of Americans also do not know what the constitution is. Thus, just because polled Americans do not see social issues or global warming as pressing, it does not make those issues unimportant.
In fact, I would say that this is one of the fundamental differences between the GOP and the Democratic Party. Republicans heed that Gallup poll because they stick to the status quo in order to appease Americans. Democrats, however, push the limits and initiate necessary change. In the case of 2014’s midterm elections, we therefore have two options: 1) A static or even backwards nation under Republicans or 2) An advancing America where Democrats take on the critical issues to which Republicans turn a blind eye.
What’s the first issue that Democrats are addressing? The economy. Obama receives a lot of flak here, but I think that we should re-examine some facts. The economic stimulus package that Obama and the bipartisan Congress passed in 2009 turned GDP growth positive again and reignited economic growth. Doing so has helped add more jobs to the economy. Phil argued that September’s 5.9 percent unemployment was not perfect, (which is reasonable) but we cannot deny that this is a whole lot better than the 9.1 percent just after President Bush in 2009.
To stress the benefit of blue even further, personal disposable income has grown about six times more under Democratic presidents than Republicans throughout history. GDP has grown roughly seven times more under Democratic leadership. Corporate profits have grown under Democrats while they actually decreased under Republicans, and Republican presidents contributed two and a half times more to national debt than Democratic presidents.
So, what does this mean? First, the facts above show that Republican policies do not work in our favor; we need appropriate governmental intervention, as Democrats offer, that responds to problems in the modern world of finance and politics. Secondly, this means that we should keep our Congress in line with the party of our president, (as much as possible at least). Let’s not forget October 2013 when the Republican House chose to go into government shutdown rather than fund the Patient Protection Act along with Senate Democrats. (Wasn’t that a great example of Republicans having Americans’ interests at heart? Rejecting a plan meant to lower everyday medical costs and alleviate the number one cause of America’s fiscal problems!)
But the benefits of having Democrats in power do not stop there. Another advantage of a blue Congress? They will keep the country green! There is no section on climate change in the GOP’s 2012 platform -- actually, the platform opposes cap and trade programs and advises Congress to “take quick action to prohibit the EPA from moving forward with new greenhouse gas regulations.” I do not think that I need to prove climate change to Middlebury readers, but I will emphasize that Democrats are working on it. With a Congress that was at least half blue, Obama was able to increase fuel efficiency standards in 2011 and invest $90 billion in renewable technology. Would a fully Republican Congress allow those advances?
And Democrats catalyze change on social issues, too. While Republicans continue to roadblock gay marriage, Democrats have included it in their platform. Democrats have become the party to advance human rights, making sure that the Hate Crimes Prevention Act reached Obama’s desk for a signature while they controlled the Senate. In the process, Democrats were allies for another demographic as well: women. The party galvanizes the rights of women through equality laws, such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, while Republicans allow for those same rights to deteriorate. (Reminder: Senate Republicans tried to block the Fair Pay Act from passing.)
Therefore, when Phil says that Americans cannot afford for two more years of stalled government, I agree. We differ over his opinion that this stalled government comes from a bipartisan Congress and a Democratic president, however. I believe that a fully Republican Congress paired with a Democratic president would generate even more friction, but what’s more, due to erroneous Republican policies, a Republican Congress would weaken the United States. While Phil (and Bill Clinton) were not incorrect when they said, “It’s the economy, stupid,” I think there should be an amendment. It is the economy, stupid, but it’s also the environment and gay marriage and women’s rights... it’s what the leaders of our country offer on the whole, not just the change that they put in our pockets.
Artwork by ZARAI ZARAGOZA
(10/22/14 7:33pm)
Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, will visit the College on Oct. 25 to deliver a lecture. Robinson, the seventh and first female President of Ireland, held the office from 1990 to 1997. After leaving office, she became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, traveling to war-torn regions. Robinson is a member of the group of world leaders known as The Elders, many of them former heads of state who no longer hold public office and work as advocates for peace and human rights. The group was brought together by Nelson Mandela and is chaired by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Robinson has made combating climate change a centerpiece of her international advocacy.
Robinson’s lecture is the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB)’s fall speaker. It is a public lecture that will take place at 7 p.m. at Mead Chapel. Robinson will speak for approximately an hour and will take questions afterward.
MCAB President Zoe Kaslow ’15 said the Board wanted a speaker that could talk about women’s rights and topics that would apply to a community larger than Middlebury. “Mary Robinson was definitely the number one choice, I think especially because she speaks on so many topics that are relevant to the College,” Kaslow said. Last spring, Kaslow was the co-chair of the Speakers Committee along with Robbie LaCroix ’16 and initiated the plan that would ultimately bring Robinson to campus.
Kaslow said when reading the College’s Mission Statement, the values listed lined up with what Robinson focuses on in her work. “I think she is going to be fantastic, she really has a presence and I think her credentials really speak for themselves,” Kaslow said.
Robinson’s endeavors are similar to the College’s efforts to attain carbon-neutrality by 2016 and embark on other projects in sustainability. In a June 2014 speech to the Freedom and Solidarity Forum, she said, “To put it starkly, the physical world faces potential catastrophe because of climate change and we are running out of time to take the necessary corrective action. We need rapidly and equitably to make the transition to a carbon-neutral world.”
In July of 2014, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Robinson as Special Envoy for Climate Change. She is now the President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, an organization that focuses on raising awareness of the consequences of climate change for the world’s poor.
Nicholas Orr ’15 is a co-chair of the MCAB Speakers Committee, along with Izzy Kannegieser ’17. “Students are very excited,” Orr said. “I think it’s a very relevant topic and it’s one of the highest-profile speakers we’ve had in the last few years.” The most recent former head of state to visit the College was President Bill Clinton, who delivered the Commencement address in 2007.
The lecture by Robinson also takes place during Fall Family Weekend. “I think it’s a nice thing to take your parents to as well,” Orr said.
(10/22/14 7:32pm)
We have all seen them: the placards on every table in our dining halls hawking EatReal, a student-run organization seeking to advocate for more socially and environmentally responsible food at the College. The idea is to move toward a food system that is local/community-based, humane, fair and ecologically sound. This is in keeping with the socially and environmentally conscious student body we are fortunate to have here at Middlebury. As someone who cares about the health and wellness of our food system, I applaud the students raising awareness of where the College’s food comes from, how it is grown/raised, etc. However, I do not believe that the EatReal movement captures all that is necessary when it comes to what is important about dining hall food. The sources of our food and the methods used to get it to our plates are certainly very important, but what EatReal has thus far failed to address is what is actually IN the food we eat.
On a number of occasions while at Middlebury, I have walked into the dining halls and looked at the ingredient list for items on the menu, only to be disappointed in what I saw: ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch and corn paste, as well as compounds that utilize seemingly every letter of the alphabet, and require several read-throughs to pronounce. Even items whose ingredient lists are not made available, but which you can tell just by noticing their color, are comprised of unnatural ingredients: things like brightly colored ice cream, nacho cheese, neon desserts, fruit juices (especially that fluorescent Passion Orange Guava juice), sodas and sports drinks. Now, I enjoy sipping an ice cold Gatorade as much as the next guy, but is ingesting the color additives it contains (Blue 1, Red 40 and Yellow 5 are the color additives in the two flavors served in our dining halls, according to Gatorade’s website) really worth it, when their effects on our health are unknown?
Of course, a logical solution to what I have said thus far is to simply not eat anything that contains artificial ingredients: avoid ice cream, desserts, nacho cheese, fruit juices, sports drinks, and the like. But upon closer examination, eliminating everything in the dining halls with artificial dyes/colors and corn-derived additives would leave a scarce selection. While a healthy diet is of the utmost importance, a diet that has variety is important if for no other reason than keeping one’s sanity.
So, why is it even important that we make an effort to eliminate ingredients such as corn-derived additives from the College dining halls? According to Michael Pollan, acclaimed food activist and author of the award winning book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, artificial sugars such as high fructose corn syrup contribute heavily to type II diabetes, obesity, heart disease and diet-related cancers, all growing problems in America. The average American gets one fifth of their daily caloric intake from high fructose corn syrup. According to the CDC, one in three Americans born after the year 2000 will have type II diabetes. Not only do these additives impose serious health risks, they also quietly contribute substantially to climate change. Ten calories of fossil fuel energy are required for every single calorie of food energy when producing foods whose bases are comprised of corn and soy. Eliminating highly processed, artificial foods from the dining halls will not only benefit the health of the College community, but also will further our cause of combating climate change.
I am not calling for a paradigm shift in how the College selects what foods to present in the dining halls. Rather, I am advocating for a subtle, but significant, change of thought, from “local” to “simple.” Changing our dining hall menus to eliminate artificial dyes/colors, artificial sweeteners, and nutritionally devoid additives like high fructose corn syrup and corn starch need not involve extensive campaigns, placards on tables, or go-slash webpages. On the contrary, all it would take to eliminate these fake foods from the Middlebury diet is a quick check by the folks at Food Services to see if these substances exist in what we currently buy, and if they do, simply buy other products that do not contain them. My hope is that some day, Middlebury students will be able to walk into our dining halls and peruse the ingredient lists for any menu item without seeing “high fructose” this, or “artificial” that, or any additive whose composition only a Chemistry major would understand. And let’s face it: if you can’t pronounce it, you probably don’t want it on your plate.
Artwork by JENA RITCHEY
ETHAN SIVULICH '16 is from New Gloucester, Maine.
(10/22/14 7:28pm)
The Middlebury Campus sat down with College President Ronald D. Liebowitz to discuss his time at the College. The conversation ranged from when he first became President to some of the changes he has seen at the College in the past years. Liebowitz will depart the College at the conclusion of the school year.
Middlebury Campus (MC): What was it like moving from a role as a Professor at the College to an administrator (specifically Provost and Executive Vice President), and then to the College President? What was it like, as someone within the College, stepping up to become College President?
Ronald D. Liebowitz (RL): Like many things, it had its advantages and disadvantages. In my particular case, I was a tenured member of the faculty, which means I went through the tenure process and then I served in two major academic positions before becoming president — the dean of the faculty and then provost. Having had these opportunities, I was able to learn a lot about the institution, seeing things from many angles, and working with major committees along the way, all of which was so very valuable and a real advantage for me.
The disadvantage coming “from inside” the institution is that, having had to make some tough decisions, sore feelings sometimes linger. When you come into the presidency with a history, you face some additional challenges when trying to move the institution forward. So, there are pluses and minuses to both, but I feel very fortunate to have known the institution as well as I did when I began my term as president.
MC: And I think a lot of people forget that it has only happened three times in the College’s history.
RL: Yes, I like to remind people who are not knowledgeable of Middlebury’s history that the college has had a president from within three times in 214 years – once in the 19th century with Ezra Brainerd, once in the 20th century with John McCardell and me in the 21st century, so maybe that means we can expect outside presidents for the next 85 years!
MC: Do you think your background as a specialist in political geography influenced the projects that you have embarked on during your time as President? Examples include new schools abroad, new language programs, and Monterey.
RL: I have never given this much thought. I think my background as a Russianist and also as a political geographer had some impact but I would like to think that most academics today, regardless of one’s discipline, would see the changing world in which we live and how that relates to the type of education that our students need and by which they would be best served. I would hope that most academics would see the direction we’ve taken as complementary rather than in competition with a traditional liberal arts education and reflects the changes external to Middlebury and higher education in a smart and beneficial (to our students) way.
MC: Where do you hope to see Middlebury’s relationship with Monterey go in the next decade or so?
RL: I’ve been fairly consistent about this since 2005 – I don’t believe that programmatic (academic) integration can and should be forced where it does not make sense. The great attraction of Monterey was that, while Middlebury and Monterey shared an underlying commitment to linguistic and cultural competency, it was such a different institution from our undergraduate liberal arts college. The differences open up many opportunities for students to engage in courses and programs, plus meaningful engagement with MIIS faculty, whose philosophy about cultural competency is similar to our faculty’s, but whose curricular content and pedagogy are so different from what our students have here on campus. We are not a professional, graduate school – we’re not even a pre-professional undergraduate school! We are a liberal arts college – and the juxtaposition and the complementarity of these two is powerful for those students interested in international careers.
That said, Monterey and its programs are not for everyone. They are intended to be for those students who want to pursue international-related careers. But beyond the obvious complementary curricular opportunities, there is another benefit that comes from the collaboration: the strengthening of the “Middlebury” network. About 30-35 percent of Monterey students are international students (the majority from Asia), and most graduates go on to work all over the world. By expanding our alumni network to include Monterey alumni, faculty, and staff, we strengthen the Middlebury network, which helps current students and recent graduates by opening doors to internships, employment opportunities, and meaningful connections across the globe. This is an often overlooked benefit of our relationship with Monterey. My hope, then, would be that students take advantage of the opportunities to combine a professional international education offered at Monterey with their undergraduate traditional liberal arts experience to the benefit of their post-college plans; that they would use the resources that Monterey offers for both advanced degrees and a robust, international-oriented network.
MC: On the topic of the undergraduate experience, in the time that you’ve been here, how do you think the student body has changed? Have you seen changes in the typical Middlebury student?
RL: The student body has changed over thirty years, yet the influence of the institution itself on each generation of students remains stronger than any specific change I might highlight. One example: a characteristic of the student body that I noticed immediately upon arriving at the College is that students are incredibly civil towards one another. We have disagreements, altercations, and skirmishes for sure. Yet, the culture here is very forgiving to individuals who in other environments would face far greater challenges. I suspect this is because the student body as a whole recognizes that over their four years here each member of the larger community is going to rely primarily on the 2,450 other undergraduates for one’s intellectual, social, and cultural sustenance. On campuses in urban areas or at institutions with a graduate population, this might not be the case; the environment is different. Here, though, the undergraduate experience is not diluted, it’s a close-knit community, and this cultural aspect has remained a constant and has been present for a very long time. It is something that first-years learn early on so by the time they are sophomores, juniors, and seniors, they themselves pass this on to incoming first-years.
There’s a flipside to this characteristic of the Middlebury culture. Although ours is a very smart student body, many faculty see less “mixing it up” intellectually in class than one might find at a Columbia, a Harvard, a Yale, or a Wesleyan – places located in more urban environments. If this is true, I believe it’s a fair trade-off. I think without the cultural characteristic of students being civil toward one another, less competitive, more supportive, and more collaborative, a lot would be lost here in terms of the overall quality of the educational experience for students.
But to your question, what has changed? The student body has become a lot more socioeconomically, culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse. Though we strive for greater diversity still, those of us who have been here a long time see great changes on this front. When I first got here, about 1 in 20 students were American students of color or international; now, that ratio is greater than 1 in 3. That’s a huge change. We know that a more diverse student body translates into a richer educational experience as a result of students sharing different perspectives and life experiences both inside and outside the classroom.
Other changes: students today are obviously more conversant with technology. They are more apt to volunteer not only in town, but across the country (alternative break service trips) and across the globe. And many of my colleagues report students are more visibly focused on jobs and employment, which is understandable given the changed financial circumstances they face at graduation than 30 years ago. So there has been change, yet the overall dynamic of the student body – being supportive of one another, collaborative, and open-minded – remains and still is the general feel one gets here.
MC: I want to talk a little bit about the carbon neutrality initiative, the Franklin Environmental Center and the Solar Decathlon entries as examples of how Middlebury has become an environmental leader in the past 10 years. Is there one achievement that stands out to you from all those?
RL: No, not really. In the last 10 or 11 years during my time as president, a number of notable things have occurred and the spotlight should be on the students; in almost every case the students have been at the center of these initiatives.
The whole idea of carbon neutrality at Middlebury didn’t start with the administration and it didn’t start with the Board of Trustees; it started with a student back in the 1990s who shared his work from a senior seminar and passed it on to younger students interested in climate change and environmental stewardship. About a decade later, when the Sunday Night Group formed, students in that group were the ones who brought forward the proposal for the institution to reduce its carbon footprint and eventually to pursue carbon neutrality. Some Middlebury faculty worked with students to fine-tune their pitch to the administration and eventually to the Board of Trustees. Their presentation was excellent: they admitted when they couldn’t answer a question and pledged to get the answer to the Trustees later (and they did); they had a deep command of the issues; and succeeded in getting the trustees to adopt their resolution, which was never a foregone conclusion. Seven years later, with the coming implementation of our bio-methane initiative, we are almost there – becoming carbon neutral without purchasing any offsets.
For the Solar Decathlon, the idea was first proposed by my wife, Jessica, and with the guidance of faculty and staff in the sciences and environmental studies, the students more or less took over the project. The institutional commitment was significant to support the effort, though the rest was on the students, and they showed remarkable maturity in overcoming some real challenges that they had never encountered in their traditional liberal arts education. It was not just about the academic challenge or learning about solar power, renewable energy, engineering, and more; it was also a huge challenge of working together as a team, respecting one another, accepting opposing views, and compromising on so much along the way. We don’t have a graduate program in engineering, or even an undergraduate engineering program. Nor do we have a graduate school of architecture, and so the students had to rise to the occasion to learn things on the fly and they did. Yes, they were mentored by faculty and staff in a significant way, but they needed to use their skills and knowledge gotten in the classroom to draw on the expertise from around the state of Vermont to help them as well.
If you go through almost every environmental initiative over the last 20 years – the start of recycling, the establishment of our composting program, sustainability initiatives, biomass gasification, carbon neutrality, real food, plus others – most have been student-led or the idea was student generated. I think that’s the key thing that we should take away and really applaud: that the institution is a leader in sustainability, but that wouldn’t be the case without the students.
MC: When you stepped into the role of College President in 2004, did you think about what you wanted your legacy to be when you eventually depart?
RL: I think almost every President probably steps in saying, “If I could leave the institution in a stronger position upon departing than when I began, I’ve done well.” All the more when one inherits an institution of the quality and stature of a Middlebury. I think what has made these last 10-11 years so interesting has been our need to recognize, for really the first time in many decades, the external forces that have created some great challenges for higher education, including Middlebury. If I would have been told in 2004-05 that we would face the worst recession in a century just 3-4 years later, I would have said, “Wow, what are we going to do?” You don’t plan on such an occurrence – higher education financial models seem to show variables all moving in the positive direction, year after year, and fail to include stress tests or “worst case scenarios.” And, there is no blueprint or plan sitting in a desk drawer in the president’s office awaiting you when an issue of this magnitude arises.
It is easy to ignore the external pressures mounting on higher education and continue with a “business as usual” approach to operations, but such an approach will no longer do. I believe getting some tough issues on the table for discussion and action, no matter how much people wish to ignore them, is an important part of the past 10 years.
MC: On the subject of the recession in 2008, can you talk about what it meant to manage that crisis?
RL: The most challenging thing about the recession was that we didn’t know when it might end. We needed to judge and judge early, the level of cuts we would need to make in order to address what we had estimated would be $30 million 4-5 years out, yet it could also have been worse: we just did not know. Since compensation amounts to roughly half the institution’s budget, it was clear the only way to make real headway into a projected deficit would be to address staffing. But when you make a decision to reduce staffing through layoffs, it can be devastating to a small community if it is not handled well and with great sensitivity. Though we knew we needed to reduce staffing, we didn’t know how many jobs needed to be cut.
In the end, I thought the institution – faculty, staff, students, administrators, alumni, trustees – did a remarkable job because we were one of the first schools, if not the first school, to engage our community, letting them know that it was likely we would need to begin a process to determine how best to address the economic crisis. We didn’t have any specific answers or recommendations, of course, but we tried to prepare the community for a process that would result in significant cuts. The challenge at that early date was the unkown: how much would our endowment drop? How would our students’ families be affected? How many people’s financial situation would change? So the greatest issue was the unknown - not knowing when the crisis would end.
I think back to the changes the recession brought to other institutions and I am grateful we were able to preserve what our students, faculty, staff and alumni told us was most important to them for us to preserve. Though there were some differences among the priorities for each group, everyone emphasized that we needed to avoid involuntary layoffs: that was the biggest concern among all the groups. As a result, we offered voluntary and early retirement programs for staff and faculty through which medical coverage continued until age 65 and individuals received payments that provided security and were based on years of service. Between 2009 and 2011 about 110 staff positions were eliminated through these programs, and 12 faculty colleagues chose to retire early. We also reduced services at Atwater (no meal-plan dinners and only a continental breakfast); reduced significantly catering options for departments; reduced some budgets between 5 percent and 10 percent; froze salaries except for the lower end of the pay scale; and increased the size of our student body by 50 to provide more revenue to make up for the endowment decline.
However, the alternatives to our major cutbacks were severe. Some peer institutions ended need-blind admissions, others had to delay library and science center projects, and still others cut faculty positions. We didn’t freeze the size of the faculty and in fact added 11 new faculty positions as was planned, we had no involuntary layoffs. We did not sacrifice the excellence of our academic program.
Moving early and decisively, having feedback from so many constituencies through the extensive surveys, and being able to focus on what was most important to each of the groups helped us to come out of the recession as well as we could have hoped.
MC: Are there other difficult choices that you had to make in your time here that come to mind?
RL: There have been a number of challenging or difficult choices surrounding policies, but that is to be expected. The Monterey opportunity, allowing military recruitment on campus, accepting a gift to create the (Chief Justice) Rehnquist endowed professorship, and establishing Middlebury Interactive Languages stand out. All of these represented contested issues, and a lot of the differences in opinion, in my view, stemmed from the different time horizons that a president and board must take when considering opportunities and institutional direction. Students, faculty, and staff, if I can generalize, tend to view things in the shorter-term – those things relevant to a student’s four years here, or for faculty and staff what is related to the here and now or to one’s career. A president and Board must look beyond that time horizon to project what is in the best interest of the institution long term. Some disagreements are rooted in true philosophical differences (e.g., “what is the relationship between a liberal arts education and our students’ finding jobs after graduation?”), yet I would say there is greater agreement than there are difficult and contentious debates. The difficult issues, however, bring out passion and sometimes anger, and sometimes overshadow all that we do agree on as an institution.
(10/22/14 7:25pm)
Over the past few weeks, there was a flurry of construction along South Main Street where workers dug a trough and buried a natural gas distribution line leading to the College’s service building to provide the campus with a new source of energy. This is the local extension of Vermont Gas’s highly contentious Addison Rutland Natural Gas Project — a 41-mile service extension south from the Burlington area to Middlebury that, despite growing controversy in the state, is now partially in the ground and will soon be operational.
Back in March 2011, the College wrote a public letter of support for the pipeline project along with many other businesses in the area hoping to diversify their energy options and support economic development in the state. These letters, in combination with testimony from the community and many of Vermont’s agencies and departments, were presented to the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB).
In Dec. 2013, the PSB granted a Certificate of Public Good (CPG) to phase one of the project, finding that natural gas’s lower cost and cleaner emissions would be benefit the state economically while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions. The project will also create opportunities for biomethane development.
The PSB decision in favor of the pipeline authorized Vermont Gas to establish lease agreements with Vermonters whose land would be affected by the proposed path of the pipeline. Many of these landowners, however, refused to accept Vermont Gas’s offers.
“Landowners objected for a number of reasons,” said Isaac Baker ’14.5, an Environmental Studies major who wrote his senior thesis on the pipeline. “Some felt that they were being bullied into signing a lease they weren’t happy with, some wanted a lawyer present but couldn’t afford one and many environmentalists objected to the idea of investing in fossil fuel infrastructure on principle.
As opposition grew along the path of the pipeline, signs reading “Stop the Fracked Gas Pipeline” began popping up along the roadside throughout Addison County. In 2012, the state banned hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the extraction process used in Canada to supply much of the energy in Vermont Gas’s pipeline. The towns of Cornwall, Shoreham and Monkton all passed non-binding resolutions against the pipeline, while Vergennes and Middlebury, which will receive more distribution, voted in favor of the pipeline.
At the College, a student group led by Cailey Cron ’13.5 and Anna Shireman-Grabowski ’15.5 gathered over 1,000 signatures in a week with their online petition, encouraging the College to revoke its support of the pipeline. Many professors simultaneously signed letters prompting the Administration to reconsider its position.
On May 6, 2014, President Ronald D. Liebowitz wrote an all-school email indicating that the Administration had noted the community’s concerns, particularly around fracking, but remained unchanged in its support for the pipeline.
“Ultimately, we believe the pipeline will contribute to the economic welfare of the region,” wrote Liebowitz, “and that it would be unacceptable for us to stand in the way of real and measurable progress toward goals broadly shared in our community.”
Beyond these broader economic goals, the College also supports the pipeline project because it is tied to the 2016 carbon neutrality goal.
“The gas pipeline will provide a means of storage and conveyance of renewable natural gas that will be produced by a manure digester at the Goodrich Farm in Salisbury, Vt.,” Director of Sustainability Jack Byrne explained in an email. “The College has contracted with the developer of the digester to purchase enough of the gas generated by the digester to eliminate the purchase of 640,000 gallons of #6 fuel oil.”
The College explored other ways of bringing the renewable natural gas to campus, but found that connecting to the Vermont Gas pipeline would significantly reduce costs. The renewable natural gas from the farm will enter the pipeline in Shoreham, and the College will withdraw an equivalent amount at the Service Building, depending on its heating needs on any given day.
“Using the pipeline,” wrote Byrne, “made the digester project economically feasible because the alternative of building a storage system for the gas on campus was not affordable.”
According to Vermont Gas’s website, the College will receive natural gas service by the end of 2014. Over the summer, the College spent $1.7 million to convert its boilers to be able to burn natural gas in the central heating plant. The construction on South Main Street over the past few weeks connects the College with other large, industrial energy users in the area and awaits connection with the main high-pressure line coming south from the Burlington area.
The main pipeline construction north of Middlebury has so far not gone according to plan. Many landowners along the path of the pipeline have continued to refuse to sign Vermont Gas’s leases, which caused the company to threaten to take the land via eminent domain this past summer.
“The power imbalance between Vermont Gas and an individual Vermonter is completely unacceptable,” said Baker. “It is David versus Goliath every time a Vermont Gas lawyer knocks on a door and asks a Vermonter to sign a lease without legal counsel.”
Rising Tide Vermont, a direct action group focused on opposing fossil fuel expansion in the state, is planning a protest in Montpelier on Monday, Oct. 27 with 350 Vermont and the Vermont Workers Center. A small group of students associated with Sunday Night Group, the campus’s environmental organizing student group, are planning to join Vermonters for a mass-protest and sit-in at the state’s capital, calling for the state to reject the pipeline.
“I think the pipeline is the wrong decision for Vermont, and the College is taking the easy way out by using fossil fuel infrastructure to achieve our carbon neutrality goals,” said Baker. “Biomethane is a great energy choice, but not if it means supporting a company like Vermont Gas, which has repeatedly shown its preference for profit over people throughout the review process. I will be at the protest on Monday.”
Other students, however remain undecided. Campus Sustainability Coordinator (CSC) president Teddy Kuo ’15 expressed concern with the environmental impacts associated with fracking, but noted the significant benefits of the pipeline as well.
“It’s hard to determine the benefits of the pipeline,” said Kuo, “because of personal perspectives and what people think creates more benefit, such as a cleaner environment or a more affordable energy source.”
Ultimately, Baker and Kuo each individually expressed a preference for renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, while acknowledging the clear economic benefits of natural gas.
“There’s no denying that natural gas is cheap and will help local businesses in the short term,” said Baker. “But the problem is bigger than that. This pipeline is a 50 to 100 year investment in fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when we are already feeling the negative impacts of climate change. If we can’t bring ourselves to care about the Canadian communities that energy companies are fracking, we should at least consider the long term pricing for natural gas and make efforts to limit our carbon emissions with real investments in renewable fuel sources.”
(10/09/14 2:44am)
President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz updated the College on the development of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) progress outlined in a mass email sent Sept. 23.
The development of stronger ESG principles for the investment portfolio, the creation of ESG guidelines to help monitor operations on campus and the pledge to increase the amount of the endowment directed toward ESG investments, including those focused on clean energy, green building projects, and other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and benefit the environment were the steps outlined followed by the actions taken.
Jeannie Bartlett ’15, an advisory committee member of the Socially Responsible Investment Club (SRI) was “glad to see that Pres. Liebowitz felt the pressure of the accelerating national fossil fuel divestment movement. His statement was clearly a reaction to the preceding day’s incredible press coverage of fossil fuel divestment by Rockefeller Brothers and 50 other endowments, amounting to $4.2 billion, and the People’s Climate March in NYC.”
Sharing similar sentiments, Teddy Smyth ’15, a staunch advocate of divestment and a member of SRI and SNG (the Sunday Night Group) said, “President Liebowitz’s announcement was in direct response to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund ditching Investure to divest from fossil fuels. Middlebury could have joined with the Rockefellers and divested, but instead we got placating partial measures.”
Allie Cohen ’16.5, co-president of SRI, is pleased with the work the administration is doing to implement ESG factors. “Research and Investment in Sustainable Equity (RISE) has completely taken off, with a large group of students pitching sustainable and socially responsible companies to each other and voting on which ones they’d like to invest in with the portion of the endowment we manage. I think it’s great that the school has given students a tool to engage with the endowment in a meaningful way, and I know I have learned so much about investing and ESG from RISE.”
Nate Cleveland ’16.5 was excited to see the creation of RISE, a group that he helped form that now manages and invests $150,000 of the college’s endowment by considering ESG in the investment process. “I think that this group has been extremely successful in teaching people about ESG and how it can be implemented in real world situations.”
Cleveland was, however, surprised that there was almost no mention of divestment in the email from President Liebowitz. “In the statement from over a year ago, he said that divestment would continue to be considered, and I’m not sure that that has actually been the case,” he said.
Cohen shared Cleveland’s sentiments, because while acknowledging that the administration is making great progress in this field, felt important factors were left out. “Divestment is definitely one factor that I think should be continually addressed, but there are others that need consideration as well. One of these factors is transparency,” she said.
Cohen cited the new tailgate policy as an example. “Middlebury students are not always clear about how decision-making works in the administration and why certain decisions are made. It’s wonderful that the administration is taking strides to incorporate ESG principles into how the school is run, but shouldn’t students be able to know more details about this process than a summary in an email once a year?”
She added, “I think students would be much more conscientious in their dealings with the administration (and would have even more respect for the administration) if they were informed about how important decisions that directly affect them are made. SRI hopes to make this push for transparency a key part of our agenda this year, along with our desire to see divestment be continuously considered.”
Bartlett continued, “One great thing about the President’s email is that it introduced new students to some of what students and administrators have achieved in socially responsible investing in the past few years. Students on the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing continue to meet with administrators, and are advocating for fossil fuel divestment, transparency, and enhanced student involvement.”
Virginia Wiltshire-Gordon ’16, co-president of SRI, said “We see this statement as a very positive one. It not only shows how Middlebury is committed to aligning its investments and investment practices with the college’s stated values and mission but also shows that the administration is open to changes and an evolution to reflect the growing risks and opportunities for financial returns that are offered based on factors that have not traditionally been included in analysis, such as ESG factors. Looking forward, we are excited to improve the rigor and depth of ESG principles in our endowment, and to look at our investments not simply to bring “attention those companies that are practicing good ESG principles” but to look objectively for ESG risks in our portfolio as well as the opportunities.”
(10/08/14 6:12pm)
As of 2012, the estimated population of Americans belonging to the so-called “millennial” or Generation Y numbered around 80 million, making those born between the mid-1980’s and late 1990’s approach one-third of the total population. Of these 80 million, only 41.2 percent that were of voting age bothered to cast a ballot in the 2012 national elections, according to the Census Bureau’s 2012 Voting Report. As a member of this generation and a friend or colleague of many who abstained, I can hardly blame them.
I am extremely doubtful that anyone of my age could view a Congress comprised almost entirely of rich old white men (and one that is seemingly incapable of functioning as a legitimate governmental organ, no less) and genuinely believe that they understand our interests, let alone have them at mind. The fact of the matter is that these Exxon-bankrolled octogenarians will not for long continue to inhabit the nation that they are currently (mis)shaping — sometimes I wonder if Dick Cheney was even alive in the first place. However, while our deceased lawmakers sip celestial piña coladas and gaze down at us from that Great Big Corporate Consulting Agency in the Sky, we millennials will be frantically attempting to pick up the pieces of the Republic for which they supposedly stood.
Or at least we would, if any of us could be bothered to do anything beyond the occasional agitated Facebook post or impassioned student newspaper article. No one should care more about the precarious state of the Earth’s environmental, political and economic systems, yet most of us are content to conveniently ignore all of them. And why not? Unmitigated consumer capitalism, a gargantuan national security apparatus and climate change are all terrifyingly large and difficult problems ideally solved by someone else.
This collective political shrug is reflected in our voting patterns mentioned above. Although polarization between Democrats and Republicans has never been higher, they are far from representing the entirety of political opinion in America; other than a few new pieces of large legislation (e.g the Affordable Care Act and 2009 stimulus), Democrats spend much of their time attempting to protect what’s left of government regulatory systems and the social safety net while Republicans try to eviscerate them in a bloody, Randian fervor. What’s more, both parties are nearly unanimous in their support for hundreds of billions of dollars in annual military spending, fossil fuel subsidies and other means of corporate welfare. Coupled with district gerrymandering, suppressive voter ID laws and continuous wars under both Republican and Democratic administrations, it’s really no wonder that so many have become jaded.
All this being said, I remain quite hopeful. Generation Y was not born with an inherent sense of political apathy; rather, the main channels through which we can express our opinions and sentiments have become terribly inefficient and uninspiring. There has been a pervasive sense of smallness that causes many (including myself) to believe that even if we did attempt to mitigate our nation’s ills, it would be to little or no effect. However consider this: only 126 million out of nearly 206 million eligible Americans voted in the last national election, meaning a block of 80 million millennials carries incredibly significant and underutilized electoral weight.
Millennials have an energetic and better-suited approach to a world that is now considerably different from when our parents came of age — in only two decades, our tastes, habits and innovations have largely reshaped how the world communicates. Our exposure to world cultures, knowledge and beliefs through global connectivity has produced one of the least insular and open-minded groups of people to ever exist. Regardless of the myriad complaints and analyses written by most news/culture outlets, I remain truly inspired by what I’ve witnessed my peers being capable of. We have been unfairly dropped into a flawed system not of our making, but have the opportunity to change it, through both national and local actions.
Consider the impact of 80 million voters on progressive third parties — 60 percent of my generation didn’t vote because they believed the act futile, their views unrepresented. 2,500 ballots from the Middlebury student body may seem like a pittance nationally, but oftentimes local election margins are in the hundreds of votes. Research your state’s elections; request an absentee ballot; attend meetings or contact campaigns. The aforementioned establishment politicians continue to win because they count on our disillusionment. Yet however cynical we may be about the seemingly rigged nature of US politics, it is still a democracy and can be shaped by the actions of voters. The Populist and Progressive movements of the early 20th century began as largely a localized movement, one that came about from a similarly disenchanted base yet went on to completely revolutionize the country. We are now overdue for a new wave of organized change, one that is in tune with the real existential threats our society faces and led by those with the unique mindset and emotional investment necessary to see it out.
TEVAN GOLDBERG '18 is from Astoria, Ore.
(10/01/14 6:13pm)
Last week Erin, in support of the “People’s Climate March,” argued for policies called “cap-and-trade” which essentially set emission caps on companies and then allow them to buy and sell these emission permits with each other. However good or bad this program may be, it is not the only “pro-climate” program being proposed and implemented. When evaluating climate and energy policy, the most important component is a simple cost-benefit analysis. I will admit, all this information so far was covered last week; however what was never discussed were the costs and the benefits themselves.
I’m a fan of good news first, so let’s start with the benefits of cap-and-trade, renewable energy mandates, and other “green” initiatives. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the goal of these programs is to actually combat climate change. Well, unfortunately that is hard to assess, but the inconvenient truth for the eco-liberals (cue Thomas Steyer) is that the science at best is inconclusive (I’m sure I will get an earful about this). I will be the first to admit that climate science is not my expertise, so let us consult the experts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 produced a global report on this very issue. The IPCC estimates that by 2100 we will see a three degree Celsius increase in temperature. Obama, being a man with many strategies, has a plan to reduce emission to 17 percent less than 2005 levels. The American Enterprise Institute (a well-respected think tank in Washington, DC) has used the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s climate simulator to estimate that even if the entire world adopted Obama’s plan, it would only reduce warming by 0.15 degrees Celsius. Those are the long-term benefits. It is worth noting that the IPCC also mentions in their report that we have reached a “pause” in climate change, which contradicts original projections and trajectories cited by the aforementioned eco-liberals. The IPCC also failed to find any significant increase in extreme weather or evidence that would suggest sea-level increases in years to come.
The other side of the coin are the costs. Most environmental-protection plans, like cap-and-trade, seek to shift the “costs” to the firms themselves. This is essentially done by putting a price tag on pollution and the like. These new taxes and regulations can cause businesses to cut jobs, close altogether, or move. This is a simple explanation for the costs of measures like cap-and-trade and carbon taxes, but policies like the renewable energy mandates are harder to grasp.
Renewable energy mandates are programs in which states decide how much of their energy supply must come from renewable areas like wind, solar, and water. Sounds great, right? Well, renewable energy sources pose some issues. First and foremost they are reliant on the weather, which is unpredictable. In addition, wind and solar farms take up massive tracts of land.
In 2010, California generated 20 percent of its power from renewable sources, but California’s energy prices were double that of other states without such a mandate, according to the Institute for Energy Research. The biggest problem with these mandates is that they distort the markets and hamper competition. These mandates harm cleaner, but not renewable energy sources, like nuclear and natural gas.
Nuclear plants produce electricity with zero carbon emissions. We also have an abundance of natural gas, which burns much cleaner than other energy alternatives, like coal. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is a big supporter of natural gas. The Democrat from San Francisco famously said: “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels”. The now minority leader is half right. These mandates, even though they promote certain sectors of our energy production, actually hurt our energy diversity, which is key to keeping prices down and insuring our energy security for the future. The increased energy prices, as an effect of energy mandates, result in an increased cost to households and businesses in California, which already face their fair share of economic hurdles.
Now that it has been established that heavy-handed governmental programs like cap-and-trade and renewable energy mandates are costly and won’t even come close to solving our possible climate problems, I feel it is important to discuss the direction we should be headed. I feel the goal of environmental policies should be to reduce local pollution, in order to keep our cities and neighborhoods clean. This task is best solved on the demand-side. In other words, because energy is a necessity, it is sounder to try to reduce consumption, and I think this is best done at the individual consumer level, through incentives. There are many things individuals can do to reduce their carbon footprint that the markets and the government should, and often are incentivizing. First and foremost, fuel efficient and electric cars. One thing the state of California does that is very good is it allows fuel efficient cars to drive in the carpool lane and avoid paying tolls in rush-hour. This law has incentivized my family to own a 2003 Prius (which is covered in stickers, including one for Romney), a 2012 Prius plug-in, and a Tesla Model S. On top of that, everybody likes saving money at the pump. The second is solar panels. A tax credit on solar panels for households could be an effective way to reduce carbon use as well as help families with their electric bills (given that will take time and depends on the upfront costs and value of the tax credit). I believe there are many things each individual can do as a form of environmental stewardship, which is very important in the battle to conserve our nation’s valuable resources. Many of these initiatives save individuals money on electric bills and at the pump, without harming our economy as a whole.
So far I have touched on a lot of issues, all of which are important. However, none of these issues will be deciding factors in any major 2014 race. Many Democrats in key states are backing away from climate issues all together. This list includes Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Natalie Tennant (D-WV), and Mark Begich (D-AK). And then there is Alison Grimes of Kentucky, who thinks she can campaign with coal-makes-us-sick Harry Reid (D-NV) and then claim to be pro-coal. Nevertheless, most Americans will make a decision in 2014 based on the state of the economy and other issues that affect their pocketbooks, not climate change.
Artwork by JENA RITCHEY
(09/25/14 3:03am)
The 2014 midterm election approaches and there is one issue around which I hope every one can rally: the environment. It feels like we have been talking about the problem for a while. You know it as “global warming,” or maybe “climate change” if you are trying to appease the old geezer who “feels like the planet is getting colder, not warmer!” But really, it’s tomayto, tomahto, and it’s time the issue be addressed.
Some people are doing just that. Supporters of environmental policy change converged in New York City this past weekend. They marched on Sunday, Sept. 21 to encourage leaders of the United Nations to curb greenhouse gas pollution.
My question is — will it have an effect? And what’s more, will Republicans uphold any changes made to environmental policy if they take control of Congress? I’d like to think yes, but the realist in me says no, because the unfortunate truth about climate change is that, for some, solving it is not a top priority.
Many Americans (I should specify here — many Republicans) believe that, while global warming itself is harmful, there are costs associated with solving it that outweigh the benefits to the United States.
An example — President Obama proposed an Environmental Protection Agency regulation in June requiring all states to create climate-change plans. New Jersey had been cooperating with the requirement because former Democratic Governor Richard Codey instituted a cap on carbon emissions in 2005. And then ... Chris Christie came to town.
Christie, the current Republican governor of N.J., withdrew his state from the plan in 2011, citing fears that the state’s economic and legal interests were at risk from the agreement.
But wait, Gov. Christie! According to a 2011 study done by Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm, the overall economies of states participating in cap-and-trade programs improved, not to mention that their greenhouse gas pollution declined. Under Gov. Codey’s 2005 plan, electricity bills increased less than one percent while the state collected $118 million from pollution permits.
The International Monetary Fund reaffirms this trend on a global level. The group has projected that measures to limit emissions would either have a negligible effect on economic growth, or maybe even foster it. They point to the effects climate change has on public health and thereby the economy. Their basic example: burning coal causes respiratory problems, which means medical costs and a less productive society.
So, Christie’s logic is faulty, but hey, let’s give the guy a break — we all make mistakes, right? Sure, but this time his choice seems intentional. Gov. Christie appears to have withdrawn from the cap-and-trade plan to appease other Republicans, specifically those who might donate to his 2016 campaign (cue Koch brothers). And this is the problem.
While some Republicans might be on board with fighting climate change (N.J. State Senator Kip Bateman is one example) many Republicans share the conviction that solutions to climate change and a growing U.S. economy cannot coexist. As a result, many Republicans steer away from environmentally (and apparently economically!) beneficial programs such as cap-and-trade.
Alas, change seems unlikely. With this pre-dominant Republican mindset, and a Congress that seems like it could soon go red, I am not sure that our country is ready to make great strides. And because the United States has such an enormous environmental footprint, there is an American imposed limit to any U.N. effort.
Nonetheless, power to the people. I believe that the climate march creates awareness for environmental initiatives while shaming those who do not step up to solve the problem, a powerful tactic. But to fully change the game and give those who fight climate change an advantage, we need to push harder.
This means grassroots protests like the climate march, writing letters to those in charge (local government representatives, business leaders, etc.) to encourage environmental initiatives, and as for the big dogs — the Obama administration — it means showing lawmakers compelling data such as Analysis Group and the IMF studies to force practical change.
In short, it is no longer enough to adhere to the environmentalist stereotype. We cannot be laid-back hippies because this is not a laissez-faire issue. Those who will make a difference need to pair pragmatism with passion and propose cohesive solutions to the inescapable truth of climate change.
Artwork by VAASU TANEJA
(09/24/14 8:36pm)
Over 160 energized Middlebury students, alumni and faculty descended upon the streets of New York on Sunday, joining 311,000 others at the People’s Climate March, a historic climate rally that wound a three-mile, six-hour course through Manhattan.
Hundreds of thousands of people both in New York City and at over 2,800 sites in 150 countries marched with polychrome floats, banners, pickets, placards, and blow horns, marshaling attention to the looming threat of climate change. More than 1,500 U.S. organizations, including schools, labor organizations, businesses, and faith groups, helped plan the protest, which espoused the tagline, “To change everything, we need everyone.”
The single largest demonstration of the climate movement to date, the march preceded the United Nations Climate Summit on Sept. 23, which was called to order by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Dubbed a “political action forum,” the gathering at the U.N. Headquarters in New York will generate a precise framework for forthcoming climate talks in Lima in December and Paris in 2015, during which an international pact on CO2 emissions reductions will be discussed.
“The U.N. has outlined the stakes in the climate fight,” Greta Neubauer ’14.5 said at the march. “Today, people filled the streets and demonstrated that we will accept inaction no longer. The U.N. needs to take serious steps to address the causes of the climate crisis, and it needs to take the lead from the people most impacted. They will lead the path to a just transition.”
The Climate Summit also followed last month’s release of a major report on climate published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report states that human-produced emissions will significantly increase the risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” to the environment in the decades ahead. These environmental impacts (e.g., flooding, heat waves, reduced grain production, and thawing snowpack in the poles) are likely to escalate unless greenhouse gases are regulated with uniform benchmarks set by national governments, according to the report.
“At this point, the urgency of climate change is well documented, so now, it’s time to act,” said Laura Xiao ’17, who helped lead the organizing team at the College for the march. “The march on Sunday was for the record books, and we’re eager to see how this momentum and excitement will boost the Middlebury Climate Campaign this year.”
Led by Xiao and others in Sunday Night Group (SNG), Middlebury’s enduring environmental activism umbrella campaign, began planning for the march over the summer.
“We were on conference calls in mid-July, already thinking about buses, vans, lodging, recruitment, fundraising, and grant writing for the march,” Xiao said. “First, we focused our efforts on the College’s newest students, the members of the Class of 2018.”
Michael Shrader ’18 from Bristol, Va. was one of the first to reach out about interest in the march and recruitment at the College. “Since my interests lie primarily in environmentalism and politics, I was ready to get started as soon as I made it to campus,” Shrader said. “The final result in New York was greater than anyone could have anticipated, and the voice of the climate movement was surely heard.”
Boston-area resident Ethan Reilly ’17, who joined Shrader and the rest of the Middlebury contingent at the march Sunday, was inspired by the throngs of marchers snaking through the city.
“The feeling of solidarity was just unbelievable,” Reilly said. “Seeing a crowd so large and diverse affirmed for me that anthropogenic climate change is an issue that people everywhere take very seriously. I am confident the march sent a resounding message to the U.N. going into the summit Tuesday.”
Moving into the third week of classes, students of SNG are hopeful that those who brought the noise in Manhattan will channel their enthusiasm through initiatives back on campus. “This is one of the most exciting moments in the climate movement in my four years here,” Hannah Bristol ’14.5 said. “The march was beautiful and showed how diverse and intersectional this movement is. I can’t wait to see how that energy transfers back to campus.”
(09/24/14 2:38pm)
In honor of the endless technological innovations that shape the way the College community communicates, learns and engages, the 2014 Clifford Symposium centered on the theme of “Transforming the Academy in the Digital Age.” On Sept. 18 and 19, distinguished visiting scholars and faculty members of the College held discussions and gave lectures on the cultural, economic and social shifts caused by rapidly advancing technologies, focusing on the effects those shifts have on the academic community.
The Clifford Symposium’s culminating event on Friday, Sept. 19, “Of Water and Ice,” was a dynamic presentation and performance by New York City producer and intellectual Paul D. Miller, also known by his stage name, DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid.
Born in Washington, D.C., Paul D. Miller studied philosophy and French literature at Bowdoin College in Maine. Soon after, he began recording singles and LP’s under the stage name ‘DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid,” derived from the ‘spooky’ sounds of the hip-hop, techno and ambient music styles he samples, as well as the character The Subliminal Kid in William S. Burroughs’ 1964 novel “Nova Express”.
The performance explored DJ Spooky’s multidisciplinary study of Antarctica through stills from his 2011 text “The Book of Ice,” audio and visual samples of the uninhabited continent’s climate and algorithmically generated musical patterns based on climate data collected and processed in a temporary studio on his trip.
DJ Spooky is at once performer and intellectual, meticulous and improvisational. His focused attention is not just on creation, but the process of how artistic form is conceived through cultural influences and samples of previous works. Professor of Film and Media Culture Jason Mittell explained that this rare and unique combination of talents and interests proved to be a perfect fit for this year’s theme of “Transforming the Academy in the Digital Era.”
“It was really challenging to come up with an artist who would both speak to how digital technologies are transforming their artwork and have an intellectual foundation of that,” he said. “There aren’t many of those, so when my colleague [Assistant Professor of Film and Media Culture] Louisa Stein said that she’d just seen this artist who showed video and audio work and talked about the concepts of remix and digital manipulation and all the various social and cultural issues and creative possibilities of that, I said, ‘Wait a minute, he would be the perfect person!’”
DJ Spooky and his management team pitched a variety of performance options for the Symposium, including a DJ dance party rave or a lecture featuring the academic side of his persona, but the winning pitch, incorporating a variety of mediums from his study of Antarctica, provided a combination of both of these with an added environmental twist.
“For me, what was so appealing about this was, first, that it’s touching on an academic area of research that is obviously very important socially, but also very prominent here at Middlebury, talking about climate change and environmental studies, but also that he’s doing it not from a scholarly perspective, but from an artistic perspective,” Mittell said.
DJ Spooky began running through photos of his trip to Antarctica on his iPad. DJ Spooky’s ‘lectures’ in between songs would be better described as dynamic conversations in which the artist shared the sources of his inspiration and information while providing engaging, efficient examples of the intellectual thought processes of his work.
Using his iPad as the facilitator of the multimedia presentations within the performance, DJ Spooky showed first-hand how digital technologies have truly transformed access to content and tools never available before, making it possible for anyone with technological access to add to this new era of open creative expression.
The performance stimulated the senses through sets of juxtapositions. DJ Spooky engaged in discussion about his music, connecting each work to its intellectual basis before spinning each dynamic, throbbing track of music that will never be created in quite the same way again. This completely digital, revolutionary use of iPad technology and apps stood in stark contrast to the violin player standing on the other end of the stage using a 9th century instrument to both augment and combat the musical motifs of each piece.
DJ Spooky’s motivations for delving into a project steeped in discussion about climate change are connected to his goals as an artist.
“I grew up in a family that was very intensive about information, and my idea was that art and ideas are never separate from social justice or change, so climate issues for me are a part of that,” he said. “One of the things that really blew my mind was just how people are on autopilot about climate change and consumerism, so I feel that arts can help people reimagine and reframe what’s going on. I’m an avant-garde oriented artist, I’m not mainstream and I have no desire to be mainstream, but I do think that you can make room for new styles and new voices and new approaches, which are needed more than ever.”
By setting up a studio in Antarctica, DJ Spooky wanted to explore a way for electronic music to respond to climate issues and examine humankind’s ever-changing relationship with the vanishing arctic poles. By using the urban landscape as a sound tool, DJ Spooky remixed sounds generated from the most remote place on the planet to resemble styles that typically come out of the city like hip-hop and electronica. The first tune he performed, ‘Antarctic Rhythms,’ began with Jason Bergman, a Barnett, VT violinist who performs with the Vermont Philharmonic Orchestra.
All of the musical selections sampled at the performance came from the free DJ Spooky app, which the artist constantly referred to and worked with as his only performance tool. Designed in collaboration with Musicsoft Arts, the app allows users to sample tracks from their devices’ music collection or SoundCloud and use sound mixing features on the app to sample from other works and create original pieces. Downloaded over 25 million times, the app’s popularity is a testament to the prevalence of remix culture and the desire for more innovative technological creative outlets and tools.
Every musical sound and remix of the night came directly from DJ Spooky’s deft use of the app, which was entirely visible to the audience through a large screen projector. During each song, audience members absorbed audial information and the live visual of the violinist playing each of DJ Spooky’s coordinating compositions, the projection of the app in use in the middle of the stage and DJ Spooky at his iPad playing as an improvisational, reactionary force to the preordained violin compositions.
Though violin and iPad are not traditionally paired together, as soon as each performance began, it was remarkable how well the two instruments worked together. The audience, too, made up in equal numbers of both academics and students, buzzed with an electronic excitement at the end of the first song.
Citing one of his favorite filmmakers, Georges Méliès, DJ Spooky pointed to sampling and remixing in the short 1900 film One Man Band, in which Méliès transposes an image of himself seven times in the same shot, each version of himself with a different instrument. This time consuming process had to be spliced and crafted by hand, and is one of the earliest examples of a sampling and remix, a concept that pervades current discourse on artistic innovation.
DJ Spooky explained that every song is fundamentally comprised of loops and layers drawn from sound selections, motifs and elements, emphasizing that music is not something that should be played the same way time and time again, but instead should be revisited and reinvented.
DJ Spooky worked with quantum physicist Brian Greene on “The Book of Ice” to map the sounds of ice as data points that could be mathematically entered into software to generate algorithms of how ice actually forms. Calling this middle ground between poetics and science a form of ‘geek hip-hop,’ DJ Spooky compared patterns present in snowflakes as very similar to patterns that form in genres of music. Within “The Book of Ice,” QR codes unlock hidden data about climate change and the mathematical ice data that went into each piece of music.
In the four other songs he performed throughout the night, the distinct musical sounds and motifs made more and more sense as DJ Spooky explained a new kind of literacy based in the ability to record and recognize patterns in any form of life. While viewing a snowflake at high resolution, the motif matching the snowflake’s data patterns rang true throughout Wilson Hall, and only seconds later, the violin joined in the pattern in a slightly transposed way.
“[DJ Spooky] embodies this hybrid between the analog strings and the digital iPad, and the fact that digital is not just a gimmick but rather the form of the music where the sound generation is tied to the content of the piece,” Mittell said. “This is a perfect summation of what digital technologies can do to transform artwork and cross the boundaries that I think very often feel rigid between creative practice and scholarly research.
Nobody owns the ice, and one of DJ Spooky’s messages during the performance was that open systems allow anyone to remix. He enthusiastically encouraged those in the audience to download his app, listen to and remix any of his music and embrace the digital age’s open flow of information. The artist's work can be explored at www.djspooky.com and www.djspooky.com/antarctica.
Both students and academics attending the performance seemed impressed by the innovations of DJ Spooky’s imagination. His abilities as a DJ alone recommend him to the collegiate setting, but his added intellectualism made him a perfect candidate to fit into all aspects of campus endeavors.
“I think this is a wonderful approach to the topic, and I’m really optimistic that after all the various ways of thinking and disseminating ideas and exploring new possibilities that the lectures and workshops generated over the two days, the artwork of DJ Spooky will make you say ‘Wow, this is what you can do with all this,’” Mittell said.
(09/17/14 3:42pm)
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin recently announced his bid for a third term in office. As the Democratic nominee, Shumlin will be running against Republican Scott Milne and Libertarian Dan Feliciano.
Shumlin’s platform emphasizes economic matters, including job creation, income inequality, healthcare reform, renewable energy sources and resolving Vermont’s opiate problems.
Shumlin insists he has focused on increasing job opportunities “like a laser.” During his time in office, approximately 9,200 jobs have been added to the market. Vermont’s unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the country.
However, Eric Davis, the retired Middlebury College Professor Emeritus of Political Science, says Vermont’s labor statistics are not as clear-cut as they seem. The low unemployment rate fails to reflect the lack of income growth in the middle class or the insufficient income tax revenues that have been plaguing the state.
Davis said that households in the middle class “have seen their incomes be stagnant for the last four years while health care costs are going up, property taxes are going up, and other aspects of the cost of living are outrunning their income gains.”
Shumlin, however, is aware of these challenges.
“The wealthiest are seeing their incomes expand, middle class Vermonters are continuing to get kicked in the teeth and lower income Vermonters are losing ground,” Shumlin said. “So we’ve got a lot more work to do.”
Shumlin has recently implemented a plan to raise the minimum wage in order to combat Vermont’s income inequality problem. In 2014 he signed a bill into law that will increase the state minimum wage, which is currently $8.73 per hour, each January over the next four years until it reaches $10.50 an hour by 2018. Shumlin advocated the gradual increase to mitigate the impact of the bill on business owners.
“Our challenge is to make sure that this state is affordable,” Shumlin said, “that we balance budgets, that we don’t raise taxes, income sales ... which I haven’t done in four years as governor, because we need to keep the state competitive.”
Despite these goals, Shumlin has been accused of ignoring in-state economic problems. Milne criticized the governor for focusing too much on national issues when he should have been addressing issues such as rising property taxes. Vermont has struggled with school properties, and Shumlin acknowledges that rising taxes combined with shrinking school enrollment are unsustainable.
He has stated that his administration will be working to find solutions for schools that are too small to be economically viable. However, Shumlin ultimately feels that such measures must take place on the local level.
“Changes need to come from the ground up and not the top down,” he said.
One of Shumlin’s most significant projects is his push for Vermont to be the first state in the country to implement a single-payer health care system. He has taken strong stances on health care, stating that “[healthcare] is holding us back as a nation.” He further says that adopting a single payer system will help the Vermont economy as out-of-state businesses will want to move their operations here.
“We think we can come up with a much better system moving from premiums to one where you pay for health insurance based on your ability to pay,” he said.
Shumlin has received criticism for the state’s handling of Vermont Health Connect, the state’s version of the federal Affordable Care Act. Technological difficulties made signing up for the program a challenge for many users and have yet to be completely resolved.
“The most frustrating job [I’ve] had to undertake is dealing with the health care situation,” Shumlin said, “There is no silver bullet.”
Vermont Health Connect was created to keep Vermonters’ health benefits higher than the federal exchange benefits. If Vermont joined the federal exchange, Shumlin has said he believes that health care costs in Vermont would rise.
By January, Shumlin aims to create a plan for implementation of the single payer system for the Vermont legislature to discuss, which will include a two billion dollar tax package to finance it. However, as a result of the Affordable Care Act, states cannot go to single payer health care until 2017.
Another key point in Shumlin’s platform is his strong support for renewable energy options.
“Climate change is the biggest challenge that we are facing,” Shumlin said.
He has expanded solar energy usage in Vermont during his time in office, and boasts that Vermont has more solar jobs per capita than any state in the country.
Shumlin is also an advocate of energy efficiency and affirms that his administration is serious about Vermont’s goal of being powered by 90 percent renewable energy by 2050. Shumlin was decidedly in favor of closing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Under Shumlin’s leadership, Vermont became the first state to ban hydraulic fracturing in 2012. Shumlin called the science surrounding the safety of fracking “uncertain at best,” citing potential water pollution caused by fracking.
Despite Shumlin’s strong stance on fracking, he is in favor of the Vermont Natural Gas Pipeline, which will transport fracked natural gas from Canada. In a recent interview on Vermont Public Radio, Shumlin commented that the pipeline would take people that are currently burning dirty oil and move them to a cleaner fossil fuel. He sees natural gas as a “transition fuel on the way to renewables.”
Shumlin is also dedicated to reducing Vermont’s opiate problem. During his 2014 State of the State Address, he spent his entire 34 minutes speaking about the heroin addiction problems plaguing the state. Each week, the value of the quantity of heroin and other opiates entering Vermont totals over two million dollars. Additionally, almost 80 percent of prisoners in Vermont jails are in jail due to drug charges.
Keeping these Vermonters in jail is costly, adding up to approximately $1,120 per week per person. To ease these costs, Vemont decriminalized marijuana in July of 2013, becoming the 17th state to decriminalize marijuana, making possession of less than an ounce punishable by a small fine rather than arrest and jail time.
Shumlin remarked that this was just “common sense,” adding that Vermont’s limited resources “should be focused on reducing abuse and addiction of opiates like heroin and meth rather than cracking down on people for having very small amounts of marijuana.”
To deal with the heroin problem, Shumlin is pushing for the creation of more treatment centers for drug addiction, which would cost $123 per week per person. This would allow the more than 500 heroin users currently on waiting lists to get receive treatment and potentially avoid jail time.
Additionally, Shumlin would like to create a system in which the police direct addicts to treatment centers when they are arrested, as this is the moment when addicts are most likely to agree to treatment. Shumlin also advocates imposing tougher laws to prevent drug dealers from entering the state.
Shumlin is also in favor of increased gun restriction. He has commented that “we should not be living in a country where someone can walk into a school and shoot up 23 little kids.” He added that semi-automatic weapons - like those used in the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting - have no place in society. However, Shumlin does not advocate for a total ban on guns. He wants to allow guns to be used by hunters in Vermont and rural areas across the country.
In May of 2014, Shumlin signed into law a bill that will make Vermont the first state to require foods that contain genetically modified ingredients to be labeled as such. The new law is supposed to take effect in July of 2016 but faces challenges from food manufacturers who threaten to sue and from congressional legislation that would prevent states from implementing labeling requirements.
The implementation of this GMO labeling law and the handling of the state after Hurricane Irene are some of Shumlin’s most important accomplishments. Irene struck in 2011, his first year in office, destroying 500 miles of roads, hundreds of private homes and businesses, and damaging the state office complex in Waterbury. Despite the praise he has received, Vermont continues to rebuild to this day.
Like all incumbent politicians, Shumlin has a number of accomplishments and failures. Seeking a third term in office is a fairly recent phenomenon amongst Vermont governors. However, voters tend to favor incumbents, and Shumlin is currently heavily weighted to win the seat in November.
(09/17/14 3:38pm)
This past Wednesday, a wide variety of voices came together at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Middlebury to speak on climate change in light of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, which will be completed by the end of this year, for an update from the global climate movement. Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, facilitated a series of short talks by Fernando Sandoval ’15, Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics Richard Wolfson, Erick Diaz, Professor of Economics and Director of Environmntal Studies Jon Isham and Marjeela Basij-Rasikh ’15. The talks were organized by students from Sunday Night Group (SNG) in advance of the People’s Climate March (PCM) on Sept. 21.
On Sept. 23, representatives from all over the world will come together in New York City for the 2014 UN Climate Summit to discuss the IPCC’s newest report and work to mitigate the effects of climate change. Leading up to the summit, over 1,000 organizations, including 350.org, are planning for the PCM. According to Laura Xiao ’17, about 120 people from the College will be heading to New York this weekend.
The evening began when McKibben introduced the speakers, stressing the importance of holding an event with speakers from the College in downtown Middlebury.
Sandoval spoke first, focusing on his home country of Mexico, a country “particularly susceptible to climate change” due to its reliance on farming and its high risk for hurricanes. If all other countries had the services and energy consumption of the United States, the world’s carbon footprint would be huge, said Sandoval. He spoke of the challenge of raising the quality of life for Mexicans while simultaneously reducing their carbon footprint. Some families with livestock have begun using biodigesters to create natural gas for energy, without needing to build a pipeline, said Sandoval.
McKibben introduce Wolfson, the next speaker, by detailing two recent news stories, the spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory and the release of the iPhone 6, the latter of which got more media attention.
“The carbon dioxide readings just go up and up and up … they’ve never gone down, they’ve never stabilized, since the 1950s,” Wolfson said. Since levels are constantly rising, records are constantly being set. It was the spike in carbon dioxide levels that made the news, Wolfson noted, not the record carbon dioxide level.
Wolfson began by holding up a book about four inches thick, which was one-third of the IPCC’s new report.
“The old understandings of climate change are good,” said Wolfson in reference to the previous IPCC reports. However, the new report includes better insight into regional differences, changes in temperate climate areas and the dire need to cut carbon emissions.
“Not only do we have to cut emissions to zero … we have to go negative,” Wolfson said.
McKibben spoke of the diversity of age, race, occupation and economic class of the people concerned about climate change and involved in the People’s Climate March to introdce Erick Diaz, a farmer from the south of Mexico who is now working as a migrant farm worker in Vermont because his own farm was destroyed by the chemicals from multinational corporations that farm areas nearby. Diaz spoke mostly on climate change and the effect that it has on people’s livelihoods.
Isham is “a leading thinker in environmental economics and divestment,” McKibben said next. Isham spoke on the pros and cons of economic disincentives foremitting carbon.
A carbon tax “is a bad idea in the U.S. because it’s called a tax,” Isham said. Two other alternatives are carbon caps or a cap and trade system. Isham talked about the recent Healthy Climate and Family Security Act of 2014, which includes three parts: a cap on overall carbon emissions, an auction system to “buy the rights to pollute” and the division of the 200 to 300 billion dollars raised in that auction among anyone in the US with a social security number.
Lastly, Isham said that he felt strongly about the importance of divesting.
“One of the reasons we divest is to try to weaken the fossil fuel industry,” said McKibben before introducing the final speaker, Basij-Rasikh.
“It’s not just an environmental issue in the traditional sense, it’s a social justice issue,” Basij-Rasikh said. Basij-Rasikh is from Pakistan, which was devastated by massive flooding in 2010 and is experiencing other effects of climate change. The effects of climate change are “damaging for the most vulnerable beings,” she said.
The series of talks ended by focusing on the upcoming People’s Climate March.
Bill Huntington of Middlebury was surprised by the diversity of people who spoke, ranging from professors, to students, to a migrant farm worker. Hearing from Diaz brought up how immigration is environmental, not just political, said Huntington.
(09/11/14 2:15pm)
The White House recently asked Governor Peter Shumlin if Vermont can harbor immigrants fleeing their homelands in Central America. Vermont is one of several states being considered to host the immigrants – predominantly children from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
Governor Shumlin’s office responded that the adminstration was “...willing to investigate locations and logistical requirements...to determine if Vermont would be an appropriate host state for some of the children who have crossed the border and are in custody.”
Currently, around 1,500 undocumented immigrants live in Vermont. Most of them – around 80% – work on dairy farms, shoveling manure or milking cows. The wave of immigrants crossing the border in recent weeks often meet up with family members, like the aforementioned farm hands, already settled in the United States.
The sites Vermont proposed to house the new immigrants vary in size and type, from the Vermont Technical College in Essex Junction to the Ethan Allen Cinema in Burlington. Although all of the proposed locations do not meet the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) 90,000 square feet minimum, intended to provide adequate living space for the immigrants, it is unclear whether the requirement will change.
Both of Vermont’s Senators, Patrick Leahy (D) and Bernie Sanders (I), have advocated heavily for immigration reform. Although Leahy was far from enthusiastic about all of the amendments on the failed bill, he vowed to support it and said that “legislating is about making tough choices.”
“Vermont has a long history of supporting refugees in need,” said David Carle, a spokesman for Senator Leahy. “Governor Shumlin and his team reflect that history and that ethic, and Senator Leahy applauds the Governor for the state’s willingness to explore ways that Vermont may or may not be able to help.”
Historically, Vermont has been accomodating to refugees fleeing violence in Central America. In 1987, Vermont Refugee Assistance, now the Vermont Immigration and Asylum Advocates (VIAA) was founded to “support refugees fleeing civil wars in Central America.” The VIAA provides legal counsel to immigrants hoping to avoid incarceration or deportation, provides health assistance to survivors of torture, and “logistical and legal support” to refugees hoping to immigrate to Canada.
State Refugee coordinator Denise Lamoureaux stated that most refugees have adapted extrordinarily well to a climate and culture very different from their own. Still, “...all transitions require effort, flexibility and adaptation,” she warned Seven Days Vermont.
Other outreach workers warn that a combination of xenophobia and economic hardship could endanger the traditionally placid relationship between the immigrants and their host communities.
“We’ve been going through a long recession,” said Laurie Stavrand, an outreach worker for the Colchester-based Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program (VRRP) “and everybody has been trying to look out for themselves.”
For residents accustomed to living within hours of the Canadian border, the immigration issue can seem a world away. Yet racial tension in Vermont could actually be compounded by the state’s ethnic homogeniety; 93.7 percent of Vermonters are white, and only 1.7 percent are Hispanic or Latino.
The White House’s request for shelters comes on the heels of intense debate in Washington over immigration reform legislation, which Congress failed to pass before the midterm break. Although the Senate did pass the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744) in April of 2013, it will likely die in the GOP controlled House.
President Obama has come under heavy fire for failing to secure the southern border, which an estimated 60,000 children have crossed in recent weeks. The head of U.S. Border Patrol has said that Federal agents are inundated with the amount of immigrants, and are unable to fulfill their traditional anti-terrorist and anti-cartel roles.
The President had previously promised to sign reforms into law before the end of the summer, but abandoned the timetable Sunday. Republican leaders claim that Obama is avoiding the volatile subject until after the November elections to avoid endangering Democratic candidates.
After the elections, Obama has warned he will utilize executive action.
“In the absence of action by Congress,” stated President Obama, “I’m going to do what I can do within the legal constraints of my office, because it’s the right thing to do for the country.”
Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said that “the decision to simply delay this deeply controversial and possibly unconstitutional unilateral action until after the election — instead of abandoning the idea altogether — smacks of raw politics.”
(09/10/14 8:26pm)
It’s often said that we at Middlebury live in a bubble. Our little college sits deep in the Vermont woods, hours from the nearest major city and 45 minutes from Burlington, a town that’s hard-pressed to consider itself metropolitan in any way. We’re insulated from societal upheaval and cultural turmoil by the miles and miles of Green and Adirondack Mountains and national forests. And although we’re all undoubtedly fully immersed in the digital age, it’s still far too easy simply never to hear of events around the world. Because we have little to no exposure to the rapid, interdependent world around us, news, announcements and changes can go unnoticed.
In spite of the physical and metaphorical isolation of Middlebury, however, the students here are passionate. Activists, politicians and advocates make up the college. Our 2,500 students are determined, talented and dedicated individuals who want to make a difference. But in our little bubble, this is often a challenge.
And so, what we get is constant small-scale political and social revolution in a self-contained, self-sustained, insulated environment. Instead of protesting the tax breaks for massive oil corporations, Middlebury students push for the college’s divestment from fossil fuel companies. Instead of raising awareness for climate change as a large-scale phenomenon, we call for better efficiency in our heating and cooling. Instead of attempting to tackle homophobia on the societal level, we hold forums, write articles and stage protests against rappers for using homophobic slurs in their songs.
All of these social movements help make Middlebury a more progressive place, welcoming to people of every background. This kind of behavior of students is what made Middlebury a bastion of openness and tolerance. More than this, however, these acts allow students to make a meaningful change in their community. Protesting the investment of Middlebury funds in fossil fuels gives students an achievable goal, one that can significantly alter the way that Middlebury interacts with the outside world. It’s a monumental task to take on homophobia in the United States — but asking whether it is acceptable to let a musician sing homophobic epithets at Middlebury? That’s something manageable. That is something we can change.
At the same time, this isolated, inward-focused community we created brings about its own risks. For example, it’s entirely too easy to forget that the rest of the world even has problems. I didn’t know that a Malaysian Airlines flight disappeared over the Indian Ocean until almost a week after it happened. It took Russia invading and annexing Crimea for a large number of Middlebury students to learn something was wrong with Ukraine, even though the country had been going through extreme turmoil for several months. Most of us probably would say that when we live at home, we generally try to have one eye on current events. But at Middlebury, that habit can slip away.
So we end up with this community of people all concentrating solely on Middlebury. Everyone wants to help facilitate change, and so social movements frequently arise. The biggest danger that arises from this bubble is that people lose perspective. When a protest or a movement catches the College’s eye, it becomes almost a fad to be a part of it. And when activism becomes popular among a group of people contained within a small community clamoring to help, it occasionally can blow out of proportion.
This sounds counterintuitive at first glance — a social movement gaining popularity is bad? But it’s too often true: the zeal with which students respond to these movements can have unforeseen, and sometimes counterproductive, consequences. The exclusion of contrary voices is often the most obvious of these. One of the generally overlooked harms of zealous activism is the growth of the divide between a group and the rest of the community around it. We do not want activism to be driven by an “us vs. them” mentality. That isn’t conducive to equality and open-mindedness in a community.
We have to break down the bubble. We have to, as individuals and citizens of this world, take it upon ourselves to understand global events. As a result of Middlebury’s geographic and social isolation, it’s not easy to acquire knowledge and perspective of the eternally changing world, but it’s necessary. Each of us needs to put in the time to follow the news, even superficially, just so we have perspective. The more we know and the more we are aware of, the more tolerant, inclusive and effective our social movements will be. You can’t change a problem without understanding the complex background and issues that made that problem arise.
(09/10/14 2:10pm)
The College is a surprisingly busy place during the summer, with its hodgepodge of researchers, employees, Bread Loaf students, and language learners. This summer, 11 students attending the new Middlebury School of the Environment also joined the mix. The program ran for six weeks, from June 20 to Aug. 1.
The School of the Environment is the brainchild of its director and Professor of Environmental and Biosphere Studies Stephen Trombulak. Trombulak initially proposed the idea of a summer school in the late 1990’s. After years of planning, the Middlebury board of trustees approved the school in the spring of 2013.
Trombulak thinks the College is uniquely positioned to start a successful environmental summer school because of its long history of summer programs, large network of alumni in environmental careers and strong, pioneering environmental studies department.
“Middlebury has had an environmental studies program as part of its academic curriculum for almost 50 years,” Trombulak said. “In fact, Middlebury’s program in environmental studies was the first major anywhere in the country, founded in 1965. We have worked tirelessly over the years to build a program that highlights the best of what is needed to offer a full spectrum of exposure to the study of the environment.”
Despite being the school’s first summer, students thought it was a success.
“It was an amazing summer,” wrote Isaac Baker ’14.5 in an email. “Given that it was the first year of the program, I had my reservations, but the faculty really showed up and put in the time to make it an incredibly immersive and valuable experience.”
Students took three courses. Two courses, including Sustainability Practicum, equivalent to Middlebury’s Environmental Studies Senior Seminar, and Understanding Place, a course focusing on Lake Champlain as a case study, were mandatory. The third course was an elective. Kaitlin Fink ’16 explained they were not typical college courses.
“I came into this program thinking that I was enrolled in three environmental studies courses; what I came away with was a whole new method of approaching complex systems in general – not just the environment – and a set of skills that has given me greater confidence in my ability to hopefully affect broader change in the future,” she said.
Baker agreed that the courses were more hands-on than normal college courses.
“We had reading, and plenty of it, but most days were spent doing things like working on a project, going to a museum, taking a historically-oriented hike, interviewing folks a few years into their environmental careers, or taking core samples on the College’s research vessel [The RV Folger],” he said.
For a four-week project in their Sustainability Practicum course, students were tasked with identifying problems the College could face in the future because of climate change and formulating solutions. The School of the Environment will consider and possibly implement their ideas.
“We chose to propose the purchase of a high-voltage generator for extended power outages, the burial of all above-ground power lines on campus, and the implementation of a rainwater collection system for several of our campus buildings” Fink said. “It was amazing to get to have this sort of ‘real world’ experience. I’m hoping to continue to work on our proposals throughout the rest of my time here at Middlebury, and maybe help to push along the path toward implementation.”
On a typical day students were busy from nine until dinner with breaks in between. Fink found that the small size of the school had several benefits.
“We were all taking the same set of courses, so, unlike during the standard school year, we could draw on ideas or readings from one course in discussion with another. Our conversations in class would spill over into our meal periods, which our professors attended with us, making for an incredibly rich intellectual environment where it was entirely normal for dialogues about Marxism or animal rights to exist alongside standard lunchtime chatter.”
The school had ten visiting speakers - called “practitioners in residence” - come to talk about their experiences working for positive environmental change. The speakers included Schumann Distinguished Scholar Bill McKibben, renowned activist and founder of 350.org, Gus Speth, environmental author and former member of the President’s Task Force on Global Resources and Environment, and Alden Woodrow, business team leader for Google’s Makani airborne wind turbine project.
“What’s really unique about the school and what makes it so exciting is that we’re embedding not just information about the environment, but the skills necessary for students to become leaders in the field and to do something with the information,” Trombulak explained. “[The practitioners in residence] will not just talk about the skills in theory but how those skills have played out in their own settings and their own sectors they’ve been working in.”
Baker agreed that the visiting fellows were a highlight of the program.
“The mix of people the school brought in was what kept each long day feel manageable, while also making it exciting and meaningful,” Baker said.
The school was located in Middlebury its first summer but Trombulak thinks it will eventually move to a different location.
“There are many exciting possibilities,” Tromhulak said. “We could establish a campus in a city to explore issues associated with urban studies, or hold the school in a coastal region to explore curricula associated with marine studies.”
For Fink, her summer at the school was a motivating experience.
“The School of the Environment reignited my passion for the environmental challenges facing our world today, and I feel like I have started to develop the tools that will enable me to dive in somewhere and be able to effect positive change,” she said. “I don’t have all the answers yet – I don’t think I ever really will - but I know that I care, and now I at least know how and where to start.”
(04/30/14 10:59pm)
The Rotten Tomatoes description of Noah says that it succeeds in “… bringing the Bible epic into the 21st century.” That’s a case of damning with faint praise if I’ve ever seen it. What does it mean to “modernize” an old, canonical story? What sorts of prejudices are inherent in that kind of project? The recipe for Hollywood modernization often reads something like the following. Begin with the basic outline of a very famous story, preferably one that might inspire controversy so as to attract attention. Contort the story’s structure to fit a conventional action-movie plot-arc. Cast attractive people, preferably very famous attractive people. Saddle the thing with as many banalities and love scenes as it can handle before it collapses under the weight of its own clichés. For example, look to Dante’s Inferno, Beowulf, that Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters thing from last summer and so on.
I would have immediately assumed that Noah would follow the above checklist – where “modernize” is a synonym for “let’s make this story super badass, bro” – if not for the bizarre fact that Darren Aronofsky, of all people, is Noah’s director. Aronofsky is a man who made his name with the hallucinogenic math thriller (math thriller?) called Pi, which cost him a whopping $60,000 to make. Aronofsky has since directed strange, personal movies like Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan. With Aronofsky at the helm, Noah is at least willing to take some chances here and there. It’s in the first 10 minutes that we are introduced to a gang of giant rock men, fallen angels called “the watchers,” who appear precisely like you’d imagine Bible-era megatrons to look.
This degree of outlandishness proves good for the film. Certainly one of the appeals of Noah is the slow unveiling of the original tale: how it depicts the actual arc-building and the animals boarding the arc. These revelations are more interesting when mixed with Aronofsky’s strange vision. At the same time, because we do know the basic narrative, the obligatory sweeping battle scenes exist purely as visual spectacle. Noah will build an arc and the animals will board the arc, regardless of the fight’s outcome. These enormous battles simultaneously lack drama and feel totally irrelevant to everything else in the film.
The world of Noah, like the battle scenes, strongly resembles a fantasy epic à la Tolkien, but the film’s visual tone is inconsistent. In one breath we get the giant rock men grunting and lumbering around with a huge sense of scale, and in another we are snapped back towards a claustrophobic, faux-documentary handheld style that recalls Aronofsky’s unique imagery in Pi. The contrast is jarring, as if the bizarre fantasy that Aronofsky wants to make is at war with another, more standard special-effects driven epic. This feeling colors most of the final product.
To its credit, Noah does gesture in the direction of Genesis’ themes, particularly in the characterization of Noah the man. Russell Crowe seems like an inescapable casting choice as Noah, but his presence forces the character out of the stereotypical noble and upright caricature that we’ve seen in other retellings of the flood story. Instead, this is a narcissistic, broken man who believes that the human race deserves to die. More than that, there is no woman who might bare children to begin humanity anew; humans have wrecked the earth completely and utterly. There is a very clear attempt at a statement about climate change with Noah. However, we only see the bones of themes like this, or of any real artistic vision, because they are buried beneath computer generated images and genre conventions.
So I suppose Aronofsky has succeeded in modernizing the Noah story, which essentially is to say that Aronofsky has succeeded in producing a loud, hulking Hollywood action movie with just the occasional glimpse of imagination to pull us along. The movie is obnoxious in parts (many parts) and just kind-of boring in others. Now here I am complaining about an action movie starring Russell Crowe being loud and obnoxious though. It is what it is. It could have been much more than what it is, but if you want an action movie you’ve got Noah, which is no more interesting or insipid than the rest.
(04/30/14 10:57pm)
Since 2011 the United States has increased its hydrocarbon production faster than any other country. As mentioned in this column before, this tremendous growth has been driven almost entirely by the combination of two independent drilling technologies, as well as the practices of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to exploit gas and oil locked within shale rock formations. The economic benefits from increased domestic hydrocarbon production are evident and quantifiable — from lower energy costs, new jobs and the possibility of an American manufacturing renaissance, to a rebalancing of the trade deficit, along with increased GDP growth. However, even as politicians on both sides of the aisle demand to be recognized as fracking’s biggest supporters, a storm of negative public sentiment rooted in environmental concern is growing across the country. In 2010, New York State — which sits atop the Marcellus Shale Formation — placed a moratorium on fracking. In 2013, Boulder and Fort Collins, Colorado placed five-year bans on fracking, and the nearby town of Lafayette, Colo. prevented the drilling of any new oil and gas wells. As the spread of fracking continues, communities from Pennsylvania to North Dakota to Wyoming are questioning the utility of these wells.
It is often claimed that, in balance, the increased production of natural gas and the subsequent conversion from coal-fired power generation to natural gas power generation is beneficial for the environment and helps mitigate climate change. The burning of natural gas reduces air pollutants such as mercury and sulfur dioxide, which cause acid rain, and releases far less carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere. However, due to a lack of regulatory oversight and slow adoption of energy industry “best practices”, this statement lies in the realm of possibility and not truth.
There are four main environmental concerns for the production of natural gas. Throughout all stages of production, methane — a greenhouse gas that during its first 20 years in the atmosphere is 84 times more potent than CO2 — has the possibility to be released into the atmosphere. During the drilling process, chemically-enhanced fracking fluid can contaminate water sources. Drilling sites could also cause local air pollution such as smog, and fracking could possibly lead to increased seismic activity. All four of these concerns are rooted in the real-world experiences of drilling sites around our country. In a research poll conducted in September 2013, 49 percent of respondents opposed fracking, whereas just 44 percent favored it. The energy industry now faces crisis of confidence and needs to change the fundamental facts of natural gas production.
Through a combination of government regulations and the adoption of industry norms such as new emissions controls, better waste-water management practices and increased methane capture efficiency, shale gas production will be cleaner and more efficient. If the energy industry can realize the same magnitude in efficiency gains as they have in production gains going forward, the transition from coal to natural gas will be both environmentally and economically beneficial.
All this being said, shale gas is still a non-renewable resource that releases greenhouse gasses during production and consumption. It is most certainly not a solution to climate change and a warming planet. However, what it can do when implemented in its cleanest possible form, is create a technological bridge from the current hydrocarbon system to the renewable system of the future. The shale revolution gives us the ability to slow down the rate of greenhouse gas emissions while we accelerate the transition to a truly clean energy framework. That is the end goal we should not lose sight of.
