By Sumi Vora (PO ‘25) At the beginning of October, an underwater oil pipeline off the coast of Huntington Beach in Southern California ruptured, spewing 144,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean. As horrified Californians watched the toxic, viscous, oil cling to beaches and turn the sea black, many were left wondering: “Why is this still happening?” California had its first...
Camryn Fujita (SCR ’21) The Netflix documentary Seaspiracy that came out this past March was not the first attempt to question whether environmental food labels really reflect the “sustainable” practices they claim to guarantee. Although Seaspiracy has faced heavy criticism for selective reporting and their portrayal of aquaculture, climate change, and the state of the ocean, one useful...
Andy Liu (HMC ‘23) The lights first went out three weeks ago, but Texas has suffered from mass utility failure ever since the winter storms of February 10th, 2021. The outages have had a tremendous impact on Texans, leaving five million without power and twelve million without water at their peak. In the political wake of the disaster, local politicians initially blamed the halting of renewable...
By Rohan Ahammed (PO ’24) Australia made headlines at the beginning of 2020 after bushfires devastated large swathes of the country. With climate change shown to increase the risk of bushfires by at least 30%, it is no surprise that Australia often experiences the most extreme effects of global warming along its lush eastern coast. This has placed Canberra’s climate policy under...
By Jon Burkart (PO ’24) Before a crowd in Pittsburgh, Joe Biden promised voters: “I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again: I am not banning fracking.” It’s no wonder then, that running-mate Senator Kamala Harris was quick to reiterate Biden’s stance during the October 8th Vice-Presidential debate. The industry that employs nearly 32,000 people in Pennsylvania alone has...
By: Elease Willis (PO ’22) As a developed country that places a premium on technological innovation and globalization, the United States has prided itself on having transcended the immediate pressure of satisfying the lower tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, like the physiological need for food. Yet not only is food insecurity a reality for a considerable number of Americans, attaining...
By Rafael Santa Maria (PO ’20) A pending Supreme Court case, County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, could determine the future of the Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA), a federal law that regulates pollution and quality standards for surface waters in the US. In particular, a potential loophole in the CWA’s guidelines could allow public and private sector organizations to evade regulation and...
By Lucie Abele PO ’22 With increasingly unpredictable weather patterns across the globe, from raging wildfires in California and Australia to droughts and tropical storms, climate is among the political issues that matter most to voters as of December 2019. The climate policies of each of six potential presidential candidates, selected from the frontrunners of the Republican and Democratic...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) In 2015, over twenty adolescents between the ages of 11 and 21 took the initiative to sue the federal government for its role in climate change. The story received international attention, in large part because of the legal standing of the plaintiffs. Three years after it first made headlines, the case, Juliana vs. United States et al., has yet to undergo a formal...
By Kaela Cote-Stemmermann (SCR ‘18) Interview Editor Over the past year, the Trump administration has continually rolled back the climate policies passed by the Obama administration. From repealing Obama’s Clean Power Plan that reduced pollution from coal-fired power plants,1 slapping trade barriers on imported solar equipment,2 to withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, the present...
