RCC Fellow Essays
2026 Rachel Carson Campus Fellows and Stanback Fellows Articles
Even I Felt Bad for the Birds
Jordan Ross
07-10-26
Growing up in California, I quickly learned that birds and I did not get along. One of my earliest beach memories as a child was eating a turkey sandwich and chips in the sun while my family watched. Everything was fine until a seagull stood a few feet away, eyeing my lunch. As I watched it, another bird swooped in, snatching my sandwich. Suddenly, birds surrounded me. I screamed while birds grabbed everything; my parents claim it was only a handful. Then a seagull landed a “good luck” present on my head, making me burst into tears until my dad carried me back to the car.
Now in my twenties, that experience has shaped my fear of birds. They are loud, aggressive, and seem to target me wherever I go. This summer on a Southern California beach, I saw something unexpected: many dead birds scattered along the shore. Even with my personal war against birds, this was upsetting. Wildlife centers report a surge of emaciated, dehydrated birds. Seeing this firsthand was disturbing, but there is a larger, unfolding story. Read more
Crackle, Pop, Smoke: Fireworks in Parks and Their Consequence
Coco Zhang
07-03-26
Fireworks are symbols of victory, innovation, and celebration. They carry wishes, world records, and wonder over the dozens of generations since their invention over 2,000 years ago. Today, it is tradition to set off fireworks at the scale of their celebrations, and the upcoming 250th anniversary of America is no exception.
Firework shells are essentially mini-cannonballs; inside their decorative casings, explosives and hazardous chemical pellets are packed in, ignited by a fuse burning to the center when the shell reaches the right altitude. When these chemicals react, they release a number of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen oxides. Along with these emissions are heavy metals, which dissolve both in the air and waterways. Read more
Redrock, White, and Blue?
Ava Kocher
06-29-26
An elegy for dying deserts and a lament of patriotism that excludes the land
The desert heat makes sleep hard but dreams easy. You need to live half in a dream for this landscape to make sense, to explain expanses of sage that are both bushes and a wash of green on a sea of red. The redrock dreamscape is a hypnotic suite of pastels – lavender, mauve, rose, slate, indigo – always changing against the shifting sun, always impossibly in the distance until you’re suddenly amongst them. Read more
Our Forgotten Love for Cockroaches
Maya Hunter
06-29-26
“The more clearly we can focus on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”—Rachel Carson (Sense of Wonder, 1965)
Sometimes, I wonder how many cockroaches people kill per day. It must be thousands to millions, because I witness multiple of them every day. I’ve seen them get stepped on, squished, swatted, screamed at, and then forgotten; their flattened bodies swept into the trash.
I’ve never understood the cause of the normalized and widespread hate and fear of cockroaches. Cockroaches don’t bite, they don’t sting, and I’ve never seen them poop. They’re only passive carriers of disease, unlike mosquitoes or ticks. No one screams at the sight of a mosquito. Read more
The Answers We Find Carved into the Blue Ridge Parkway
Angela Zhao
06-29-26
Cold. Your eyes open to frigid air curling around your limbs. A breeze ripples the tent’s fly-cover. One fist, two fists … no, more like one-and-a-half fists past sunrise. You muster up the courage to venture out of your sleeping bag and into this strange world.
Here, numbers are meaningless. Time is an abstract concept, a gentle reminder to find a water-filtering site before sunset and a circular repetition of dusk and dawn that will continue long after our footsteps fade. Watches and phones are nowhere to be found. Read more
Flooded Histories: The Submerged History of Lake Lanier
Jocelyn May
06-29-26
Lake Lanier, the perfect recreational spot to escape the landlocked metro Atlanta area. Nearly 14 million visitors a year frequent the over 90 parks for swimming, fishing, boating, and hiking. The lake is marketed as an idyllic venue of natural beauty, outfitted with amenities for all ages. However, Lake Lanier also has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous lakes in the United States, with over 700 deaths in the past 70 years. Beneath the surface of the lake, there are roads, foundations of homes, entire forests, and even a bridge that was not demolished before the water rose. Lake Lanier is more than just a lake; it’s an engineered environment shaped by displacement, infrastructure, and environmental management. Read more
Broken Cycles: Food, Soil, and Us
Ran Lan
06-29-26
On a quest to secure ingredients for dinner, I walked into the grocery store near my house. I was immediately welcomed by a blast of air-conditioning and shelves filled with products from around the world: spinach from California, mangoes from Thailand, and Chinese la mian made in Malaysia. Each of these foods was grown or produced in a different part of the world, and each had traveled thousands of miles to arrive at my local grocery store, packaged, labeled, and neatly lined up on the shelves. Their constant abundance in the store further erased the enormous amount of work needed to bring them there. Read more
Fish as Friends and Food
Lily Mesnik
06-29-26
This is Lily. At 11-years-old, octopuses are her favorite animals. She refuses to eat fish or shellfish, as those are the primary food sources for octopuses, and she doesn’t want to deprive them of their survival needs. As a child, the thought of the death of even one octopus was deeply upsetting, but as she (I) grew older, those perspectives changed.
In middle school, when looking for a charity to fundraise for, I was disappointed to learn that there were few charities simply dedicated to the appreciation and welfare of octopuses. The organization I eventually chose to donate to was Blue Ventures, and this choice led to a reframing of my perspective on conservation and a valuable lesson learned about ethical consumption and regenerative systems. Read more
Unclean Isn’t the Same As Dirty
Ashton Bailey
06-29-26
I learned quickly not to search for familiar sights on any “Most Beautiful Beaches in the United States” list I came across growing up. For us Texans, the festivities surrounding “the beach,” the road trips, cookouts, and fishing charters, are much more appealing than the beach itself. The waves breaking on our shores are brown more often than they are blue. Mud squelches beneath our toes more often than sand. The horizon is broken up not by candy-striped lighthouses but by the tangled, industrial silhouettes of petrochemical complexes. They serve the same purpose, albeit for a different kind of traveller; those towering reactors and storage silos alert those on land, destined for the water, that danger awaits. Read more
Playing with Ponies: Human Wildlife Interactions on Assateague Island
Jordan Cox
06-29-26
Beach days on Assateague Island hold treasured memories for over three million people who visit the national seashore’s coastline and estuarine waters every year, myself included. Growing up just a two-hour drive away from Assateague, I have always admired the intricate ecosystems that comprise the barrier island and its inhabitants. The best-known long-term resident species on Assateague is the wild pony, which roams the sandy beaches, saltwater marshes, and maritime forests. There are park regulations in place that make it illegal to pet, feed, or approach these animals within 40 feet of them, for both the horses’ safety and ours. Yet, on my most recent trip to Assateague in May 2026, several visitors did not follow these strict rules, and no one was there to enforce them. Read more
If The Power Goes Out, Face The Sun
Aditi Hongalgi
06-29-26
The rain started up again, a soft drizzle against the plaza I was standing under. Like many Caribbean nations, Puerto Rico was not immune to daily showers. I peeled off my slick rainjacket once shielded by the plaza roof and shifted my focus back to the conversation at hand led by Dr. Arturo Massol Deyá. Dr. Massol Deyá is the president of Casa Pueblo, the community self-management organization committed to protecting the environment and community of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico.
He detailed the history of the plaza and its significance to Adjuntas, pointing out the solar panel-covered rooftop, community art gallery, and urban gardens that form an energy hub for the town. For Adjuntas, this hub symbolizes proof of an inspiring climate resilience puzzle that many island nations are struggling to solve in the face of intensifying natural disasters, heightened temperatures, and rising sea levels. Read more
All is Fair in Love and Weather: The Performativity of Climate Protest
Coco Zhang
06-29-26
Climate change captures an innumerable audience. There is no barrier for entry to say you care about the future in relation to global warming, and it’s an issue that everyone who is anyone can claim a relation to. Unlike other issues like racial inequality or immigrant rights – issues that press against the specific shape of a life–, climate justice can be an issue of contention for any person regardless of their background; you need no particular wound, history, or reckoning. You just need to say: “I like the world I live in. I want to protect it”. Read more
The Disappearing Act
Isabella Briones
06-29-26
Magic tricks were ubiquitous in my childhood. No, my brother never pulled a coin from behind my ear, and the infamous card trick never existed in my household. The one thing I did witness constantly was a trick I coined The Disappearing Act, and it goes like this.
Five mango trees. The boat. The deck, shredded to pieces, strewn across the lawn. A manmade seawall, eroded. Beautifully pink hibiscus, torn from their roots. All of it magically disappeared, or so I thought. Each year my family and I visited my grandparents, The Disappearing Act would commence. My younger self could never crack the trick or figure out why the island of my memories was foreign. Now, after learning about our constantly evolving world, I can attribute this trick to climate change. Read more
The Other Side of Coachella
Jordan Ross
06-29-26
As a California resident, I’m no stranger to the mass migration to Indio, California every April. For two weekends, the Valley transforms into a carefully curated world of glitter, celebrity sightings, desert sunsets, and social media posts for Coachella. Friends of mine spend months planning outfits, coordinating group photos, and debating how early they need to arrive at stages to get the perfect view of their favorite artists.
Growing up in California, Coachella always felt less like a music festival and more like a cultural phenomenon of luxury and escape. But beyond the festival grounds and resort entrances exists another side of the Valley that rarely appears on Instagram feeds: communities living with contaminated drinking water and decades of environmental neglect. Read more
Conservation Hegemonies in Vermont and Flood Resilience
Josette Chun
06-29-26
This April, I led a few Middlebury students to the Wild Branch River in Wolcott, Vermont. Climate change-induced flooding causes much of the river to flood beyond its riparian buffer zone. There were roads and homes on one side of the river, and forested areas on the other side of the river. To protect individuals, wildlife, and habitats from getting flooded over and over again, riparian zones need to be resilient. Thus, with the help of over 15 other Vermont River Conservancy volunteers, we planted over 100 trees (native willows and shrubs) along the river. “Attention is the beginning of devotion” — Mary Oliver Read more
Bike to Work: Save Money, Help the Planet, and Extend Your Life
Pranav Hooda
06-29-26
Most mornings, the choice looks small: reach for the car keys, check the bus schedule, or pull out the bike helmet. One option feels automatic, another feels practical, and the third can seem slightly inconvenient. But that decision at the start of the day carries more weight than it seems. Commuting by bike is not just a lifestyle choice for people with expensive gear or unusually strong calves. It’s one of the simplest ways ordinary people can save money, cut pollution, and build exercise into lives that are often too busy for it. Read more
When The Winds Shift
Scarlett Schwimmer
06-29-26
In March 2026, I had the privilege of being able to visit the island of Maui and the big island of Hawai’i as part of my Geology of Hawai’i field course. In total, we were there for 10 days, and had incredible adventures such as visiting the peak of the Haleakalā volcano, hiking into the Halemaʻumaʻu crater, and venturing into the Kaūmana lava tube caves. We also learned firsthand the human impacts of natural disasters through a visit to Fissure 8, where thousands lost their homes to lava flows during the 2018 Kilauea volcano eruption.
However, the activities of our trip were cut short because of a massive storm–called a Kona low storm–that hit the islands, bringing heavy rain and strong winds that knocked out the power in the town we were staying in for the last two days of our trip (and for almost a week after we left)! Read more
More Than Paradise: A Home
Sophia Liang
06-29-26
Tropical beaches. Golden sunsets. Lush rainforests. Blue oceans. Endless waves. These promises draw millions of tourists a year to the Hawaiian islands, and they painted a picture-perfect image of paradise in my mind as I stepped off the plane and onto the island of Maui. After having just finished submitting my college applications in January 2023, I was beyond excited to start a week-long vacation with my family.
As we drove under mountains and along the coast, the dryness of the landscape surprised me. There were vast stretches of land covered in brown grasses and dry shrubs, a result of the rain shadow effect. Read more
The State of Climate-Informed Agricultural Policy
Miles Levesque
05-23-26
The climate crisis is decreasing agricultural production, threatening both global food security and local food systems through changing weather patterns and weakened ecosystems. Farmers are struggling to meet average crop yield across the globe, and what crops are being grown are often less nutritionally dense than pre-industrial levels. At the same time, the climate crisis has resulted in a number of social vulnerabilities that have led to heightened tension within and between nations. These tensions impact regional food production and trade agreements via changes to international policy and the climate-driven migration of agricultural workers. Read more
Bringing a Marsh Back to Life
Victoria Charles
05-22-26
At first glance, a restored marsh does not look dramatic. There are no cranes, bulldozers, or construction sites announcing that something has changed. The signs are quieter. Small patches of new grass appear along the shoreline, wooden stakes mark where plants are beginning to take hold, and fencing protects young vegetation while it grows. Behind these subtle changes is a long process shaped by research, planning, and patience.
Bringing a wetland back is rarely a single moment of transformation. Scientists study how water moves across the shoreline, engineers track erosion, and ecologists determine which plants can survive shifting tides and sediment. Community members and city agencies often help guide how damaged landscapes might recover. Instead of an instant repair, restoration unfolds slowly as a living system begins to return. Read more
Are Numbers Enough? The PFAS Issue
Symone Franks
05-21-26
This question is what led me to begin my PhD in Environmental Studies.
In water quality science, numbers are often treated as the whole story. Engineers model contaminant distribution and quantify concentrations with precision. There is a quiet assumption underneath all of this that if we collect enough data, the conclusions will speak for themselves. I have never been convinced that this method captured all the dimensions of chemical contamination.
During my PhD interviews, I explained that I wanted to study how people perceive PFAS risk and who carries the burden of contamination. I was told directly that this was not important research. The reasoning was that PFAS is everywhere, universally distributed, and therefore affects everyone equally. That framing ignores the nuance of contamination and inequality in our society. Ubiquity is not the same as equity. Read more
A Consensus Away: Protecting the Southern Ocean
Renee Lutterbach
05-19-26
In 2016, the United States and New Zealand helped create the largest marine protected area on Earth: 1.55 million square kilometers of Antarctica’s Ross Sea. The agreement took over a decade of scientific planning and five years of international negotiation. It was a landmark win for ocean conservation and proof that the U.S. could play a leading role in protecting shared global waters.
That was ten years ago. Since then, three more marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean have been proposed, debated, revised, and blocked. The same institution that made the Ross Sea a Marine Protected Area (MPA) possible has failed to designate a single new protected area. This month, after participating in a classroom simulation of the annual The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting at my university, I wanted to understand what the U.S. stands to gain from pushing these protections forward. Read more
There Are No Barriers Between Land And Sea
Sofia Trigueros
05-16-26
Imagine being a happy sea otter in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, living your whole life within a few miles of the same rocky coastline. Swimming around on your back, playing with friends, and eating tasty sea urchins.
From the ocean, sea otters have no idea that the same coast is a major agricultural producer of strawberries, artichokes, and leafy greens. This agriculture produces a significant amount of chemical runoff that goes straight into the ocean and contaminates marine mammal habitats. About 350 miles away in the San Pedro Basin, there is also a former dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) dumpsite that has created a deep-water toxic graveyard, contributing further to the chemical exposure that marine life faces. Researcher Dr. Logan Pallin told me that he was surprised to find that sea otters had the highest amount of DDT detected in their blood, especially since they spend most of their life within a two mile area. Read more
Perspectives from the Park
Carina Walter
05-15-26
I’ve always been a pretty bad procrastinator. That, along with a few readings on my to-do list, was why I was only beginning to pack at 10 p.m. for my first ever solo trip. I’d had my computer on “Do Not Disturb” while I was working, but as I began folding up my pajamas for my weekend expedition, I noticed a missed text pop up in the corner of my still-open computer. The unsuspecting text read: “Your booking has been affected by a schedule change. Click here to check the options available to you.”
Initially, I was not too worried. As my flight was scheduled to take off at 6:10 a.m., a slight delay would mean a few more hours of sleep before my arrival in the Gold Coast, Australia. However, upon clicking the link, I was met with a devastating message which stated that my flight was canceled due to “operational requirements.” Immediately, I began searching for new flights, filled with dread knowing that both the hostel and return flight I’d booked were non-refundable. Read more
Paws Off of Big Bend National Park
Tiffany Barker-Edwards
05-14-26
Hiking through the natural landscape at Big Bend National Park is quite spectacular, aside from the cacti, which I am not a fan of! As a Geoscience major attending a university in Texas, I took numerous field trips to this national park. While there, we spent time identifying and mapping various geologic formations, working towards developing our skills as future geologists. These field trips were not like what you remember from elementary school, where students load up on the yellow bus. We were full-on camping. Venturing into the field is sort of a rite of passage for most geology students. Roughing it out in the field is something we can all relate to, no matter what university you may have attended. Our palaeontology field trip to Big Bend National Park was the first time I ever camped overnight! Read more
Oyster Futures
Khushi Desai
05-12-26
As a Marylander, I have always appreciated the Chesapeake Bay. My resonance with the seafood–blue crabs and oysters of the Bay–has always been strong despite being a vegetarian since birth. It is impossible to reside in Maryland without feeling a sense of pride for not only these aquatic species, but the ecosystem which breathes life into them.
The Chesapeake Bay is Maryland’s jewel, the largest estuary in the entire world. It is an economic staple for states in its watershed, supporting 20,000 jobs annually and producing billions in revenue through seafood sales, tourism, and recreation. It is also a victim of climate change, dead zones, and most relevant to wildlife, overfishing. This past year, I’ve found my attention drawn to the oyster and its unique history in the Chesapeake Bay, conducting an in-depth research project of their relations with society with the support of the CEDAR Gallery.
My research has led me to explore many different primary sources—editions of my school Read more
Opening The Arctic
Margaret Young
05-09-26
The U.S. is on a path to unlock Alaska’s resource potential, but at what cost? The Trump administration is implementing its plans to open up a record amount of the Arctic to oil and natural gas drilling. However, while oil companies will be satisfied with their deeper pockets, the diverse wildlife, complex ecosystems, and local Indigenous communities will bear the brunt of these ventures.
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska was originally designated in 1923 as an emergency oil supply for the U.S. Navy. Over time, shifting political priorities have led to changes in how the land is managed, with varying levels of protection and access for energy development. In recent decades, many administrations have imposed strict regulations on drilling, setting aside ecologically sensitive areas as off-limits. While some portions of the reserve have been leased in the past, development has remained relatively limited. However, recent policy changes, particularly under the “Big Beautiful Bill,” mark a significant shift by opening nearly 82% of the reserve to drilling. Read more
Lessons from Silent Spring
Ben Trost
05-08-26
I inherited a copy of Silent Spring from my mother. The pages are dogeared, and her annotations, written before I was born, emphasize passages about the power of life and reproduction. She takes seriously the learning and teaching of care. Whenever she cracks eggs, she breaks the little sack at the top of the shell to make sure all the white slips out. The hen worked hard, she says. I remember in pre-school telling my classmate her tuna sandwich wasn’t healthy. My parents operated under a one tuna fish sandwich a week policy to avoid mercury poisoning, but I didn’t comprehend their reasoning. The teacher told me I was wrong, that tuna was good for you. It’s the first time I realized an adult could disagree with my parents’ authority. Growing up, my mom would organize hikes for me and my friends. She’d stop us to admire elliptical cracks in boulders and sloping cave mouths. The volva of the earth, she’d say. The Goddess yoni. My friends weren’t sure what to make of that. Read more
An Abundance of Nothing
Garret Ordonez
05-07-26
The wind lifts me, carrying me over an open horizon that feels endless. I take in the scene soaring over the blue painted canvas. The ocean stretches in all shades of blue, shifting and folding over itself, hiding everything that hunts as well as everything that is hunted. I steady and embrace my wings, hugging the air around me. Is this freedom?
That’s when a slight tint of white almost silver, meets with the blue: a mackerel. It’s an unconscious feeling to lock in. My wings fold inward and the wind disappears. The air hardens against my body as I slice downward. The ocean rushes up to meet me. For a moment, the cold water closes around me before I rise against the backdrop of dawn. I clamp my beak shut, barely piercing the fish, holding its weight against the wind, meant for them. I learned quite young that my survival rested on my father until I fledged, or I could take to the air alone. Now, that same burden rests on me. Read more
From Tunnels to Testimony: Why Showing Up Still Matters
Sabrina Kianni
05-05-26
The hum of Logan Airport faded behind me as I boarded my flight from Boston to Washington, D.C., a quiet anticipation settling in. I was not just traveling. I was heading toward something I had been preparing for, something that felt both urgent and uncertain. The Rachel Carson Council’s Advocacy Days would bring together students from across the country, many of whom I had come to know through the RCC National Environmental Leadership Fellowship, all converging in a place where decisions carry weight far beyond the room in which they are made.
When I landed at D.C.’s National Airport, the shift was immediate. Washington moved with intention. Conversations felt clipped and purposeful, as if everyone was aware that time here translated into consequence elsewhere. By the time I arrived at the RCC conference space where we gathered, that underlying energy had taken form. The room filled quickly with students representing twenty eight universities, each arriving with. Read more
I Don’t Want To Change The World
Jae Hee Bae
05-02-26
“I don’t want to change the world. I just want to keep our air and water clean.“
This comment on the margins of a New York Times article reporting on the repealing of the Endangerment Finding caught my eye. It was self-effacing, but far from modest in its demands; in two sentences, it showed how some of the most basic hopes to care for this world are incredibly difficult battles to fight.
In the past year, I went pescatarian for environmental reasons. I became a National Environmental Leadership Fellow with the Rachel Carson Council, advocating for green policy on Capitol Hill. I spent 10 weeks researching sustainable algae in Switzerland and shifted my senior thesis to algae research thereafter. Four years ago, I couldn’t care less about whether my water bottle found its way to the recycling bin.
What changed? I changed. Read more
All That Is Fleeting
Maiya Roelen
05-01-26
It is a most uncommon time to be a young person. People say this to me in conversation almost as often as I think it myself. Circumstances are unprecedented like never before, and we are fighting environmental battles which we have never previously been required to win. It feels odd, then, that I might offer discussion on delight in this heavy and unsettled moment. But are joy and sorrow not inextricably linked? It would be inauthentic of me to pretend that that which has the potential to bring me the most sadness is not ultimately rooted in the impermanence of the things I love the most. Loving is also a fear of losing. The living world in which I now delight, if it were to perish, could indeed transpire as a great source of sorrow. In recently reading the work of Khalil Gibran, I think he says it best:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. Read more
Spring Peepers and the Songs of the Season
Avery Sands
04-28-26
When I was a young girl, I knew that spring was around the corner when my parents started opening the windows in the evening. Fresh, cool air would breeze into our house, carrying a faint scent of rain and earthy soil. Along with the return of flowers and birds, the warmer weather also brought the vernal pool behind our house back to life. Once covered with winter ice and snow, the vernal pool turned into a thriving wetland ecosystem filled with wildlife. Every night, I would stare out the window into the dark, listening closely for a distinct “peep…peep…peep” in the distance. These “peeps” belonged to the aptly named spring peeper, a small tree frog found throughout the eastern United States and Canada. Hundreds of spring peepers inhabited the vernal pool, and their repetitive song would often lull me to sleep. In the morning, I would venture to the edges of the vernal pool with a magnifying glass, trying to spot the hidden spring peepers amongst the leaf litter. Read more
A Letter Across Time
Andy Zhang
04-27-26
In about a month, my time as a National Environmental Leadership Fellow (NELF) will come to a close. Around the same time, I will finish my term as the University of Connecticut’s (UConn) first-ever Chinese student body president. A month after that, I will wrap up my third year working as a sustainability intern at UConn’s Office of Sustainability and graduate with dual honors degrees in economics and environmental sciences.
When you stand at the edge of several endings at once, time starts to feel different. You begin to see the past as a landscape of moments rather than a sequence of busy days. Some of those moments were large and visible. Most were not. They looked like meetings, conversations in passing, drafts of emails rewritten late at night, long discussions about problems that did not yet have solutions. Read more
When Shit Goes South
Benjamin Trost
03-09-26
The conservationists behind Tuscaloosa’s latest effort to curb a long pattern of sewage spills
“No city in the world has finer water than Tuscaloosa,” reads an article from the May 1899 Tuscaloosa Times. “The river itself dashes over reefs and boulders in the bed which constantly tend to purify the water, were there any cause for pollution.” One hundred and twenty-seven years later, the self-purifying character of the Black Warrior River is harder to believe. Read more
When a Marsh Is Asked to Hold Too Much
Victoria Charles
03-03-26
Soundview Park’s salt marsh doesn’t announce when something is wrong. Most days, it looks calm. Grass bends with the wind. The tide moves in and out as expected. From a distance, there’s little reason to think twice about it. But when you slow down and look closer, signs of change begin to appear.
After a high tide, trash sits tangled in the marsh grass. Plastic bottles, food wrappers, and fragments of everyday waste collect where plants are meant to grow. The water carries these items in, and the marsh does what it has always done: it slows the water, catches what floats, and holds it in place. This same process helps protect nearby neighborhoods by absorbing stormwater and reducing the force of incoming tides. It’s also why the marsh ends up holding more than just water. Read more
What Will You Build?
Miles Levesque
03-03-26
Mary Oliver wrote about the importance of each of our miniscule efforts in shaping our collective experience of the world. We’re all crickets pushing individual grains of sand up the hillside. Maybe your grain of sand will be used to build a castle, or maybe it will end up in someone’s eye. Either way, in our ability to choose to roll our little bit of sand this way or that, we hold immense power.
At this time of year, when the turning of calendar pages has compelled so many to plot how they might reshape their lives to fit the mold of some societal ideal, I think it’s worth considering reshaping this mission for self-improvement into one for collective betterment. Afterall, true individual success is reliant on the success of the whole; anything else is simply exploitation. Read more
What Powers Your Cloud? 180 Million Tonnes of CO2
Renee Lutterbach
03-03-26
Hundreds of data centers have popped up across Northern Virginia, earning it the title “Data Center Alley”. These centers are not much to look at from the outside: windowless buildings with a hum of ventilation systems. But these facilities are multiplying fast.
Inside, rows of black server racks stretch under fluorescent lights, blinking green and amber. Cooling fans whir around the clock. All the servers will convert 100% of their electricity into heat. That thermal energy has to go somewhere. Right now, most of it escapes into the air, wasted, while power plants pump out carbon dioxide to keep everything humming. When construction is complete, Data Center Alley’s electricity consumption will match what it takes to supply power to 9.1 million residential homes.
To put this into perspective, such a projected energy demand could sustain three cities the size of New York City. Read more
The Natural Resource Curse
Symone Franks
03-03-26
Imagine being marked for control simply because of the resource lying beneath your feet. That your existence as a resource-rich nation makes you a target. That your land is valuable in a way your people are not.
This is not a thought experiment. This is Venezuela.
Venezuela sits atop the largest oil reserves in the world, a geological fact that has shaped its political fate for decades Rather than providing stability or security, this abundance has invited sanctions, isolation, and persistent threats of U.S. intervention. The story is usually told in the language of democracy, corruption, or drug enforcement. But beneath these shifting justifications lies a far more consistent driver: oil. This is not an argument for oil. Oil is not a virtue or a solution; it is simply there. Yet, its presence alone is enough to warrant the forceful and hostile takeover of an entire country. Read more
The Ecology of Resilience
Maiya Roelen
03-03-26
Leafless. Spindly. Bedraggled. All that was left was a few barren green sprigs poking out of the Earth. I sighed. I wanted to be angry at whoever had done this, but didn’t have the heart to muster sufficient frustration. Wildlife must eat too, and the individuals who consumed the sprightly foliage of the newly planted Red Huckleberry bushes adeptly set their sights on the vegetation’s nutritious offerings. How was I supposed to successfully rewild this plot in the wake of a different herbivore every other week? The suspect could have been anyone. A deer? A rabbit? Insects?
To me, it didn’t seem so long ago that I was gleefully dancing my way through the aisles of a local native plant nursery, lovingly selecting healthy Salal Berries, Deer Fern, Oregon Grape, and Red Huckleberries for reintroduction to my neighborhood. Read more
Living like a Norwegian
Tiffany Barker-Edwards
03-03-26
One of my favorite parts of traveling is getting to be what I refer to as a ‘temporary local’. Although it may be short-term, getting to experience a way of life different than my own makes me a more well-rounded person. In November, I had the opportunity to travel to Norway alongside other students in a comparative education course. As soon as we got off the plane in Oslo, I could tell this place was going to be different from what I was used to growing up in Houston, Texas. Most noticeably, the temperature! However, this didn’t stop me from exploring the natural areas around me. One early morning, I woke up and headed straight to the trails for a sunrise hike in Kristiansand, a city located along the southern coast in Norway. Walking through the forested area, I am reminded of the ‘friluftsliv’. This Norwegian term translates to ‘outdoor living’, and it has become a way of life for many Norwegians, making a commitment to spending time outdoors, no matter the season. Read more
Lessons from the Underground
Khushi Desai
03-03-26
I’ve always felt connected to old-growth forests. Something about the age and stature of the ecosystems speaks to me, and they’ve become a personal symbol of resilience and strength against the changing climate. I’ve read as many books about old-growth forests as I can get my hands on, searching them for lessons I could learn. After all, the ecosystems have been around for so long, I’m sure I could glean some wisdom from them.
My passion for this aspect of the environment was on full display on my family’s trip to Alaska two summers ago. It was a trip full of notable experiences—such as visits to the remote Glacier Bay and Denali National Parks—but my favorite part of the trip was visiting an old-growth forest for the first time. Read more
A Love Letter to New Delhi’s Leaves
Isha Raheja
03-03-26
In early January, I visited my family in India for the first time in over ten years. After my grandparents came to the United States and received their citizenship, the incentive for me to visit dwindled, and I found myself forgetting my memories of the country. But when I first landed at the New Delhi airport, a familiar, and so very recognizable scent permeated the air.
As a Californian, I am no stranger to the smell of burning foliage. Northwest of New Delhi, in the states of Punjab and Haryana, farmers burn their summer rice fields to prepare for the winter wheat-growing season, as this is the most cost-effective method for a quick planting turnaround. This smoke is carried by strong winds over the Himalayan Mountains, where it resides in the streets, homes, and lungs of New Delhi residents. Read more
Colonial Nature of Conservation
Garrett Ordonez
03-03-26
My cohort stood on the back of a game truck and gazed across the African savanna. The engine’s hum cut through the wind that filled the silence. Standing there felt tranquil. But even in that moment, I found myself wondering who actually gets to experience scenes like this. Admiration came easily, but I soon realized that even this feeling is shaped by privilege, by who is able to witness and who is empowered to protect wildlife in other parts of the world. I’ve learned that modern conservation was built as a colonial project shaped largely by European and North American institutions that assumed authority over landscapes they didn’t inhabit. Read more
Gradual
Lydia Samuels
03-03-26
Climate change is most often understood as an event. Something that happens to a place, at a moment, after a threshold has been crossed. But lived experience rarely follows this logic.
More often, climate change is encountered before it’s understood, registering through cumulative shifts in temperature, seasonality, and environmental reliability rather than as a single disruptive event.
Warmer days. Shifts in temperature ranges, seasonal timing, and environmental reliability that quietly reorganize daily expectations. Small recalibrations are made without assurance that these adjustments will continue to function. What feels wrong doesn’t arrive all at once, nor in a single register. Some changes stipulate attention; others remain just within the bandwidth of what can [hardly] be accommodated. Not because they are harmless, but because they are encountered at the scale of daily life before they are recognizable as a crisis. Read more
The Greenwashing of Secondhand Fashion
Sabrina Kianni
03-03-26
Secondhand fashion has long been promoted as a sustainable alternative to fast fashion, offering an opportunity to shop responsibly while keeping up with current trends. Platforms like Depop, Poshmark, and Thredup, social shopping apps for buying, selling, and discovering vintage and secondhand clothing, have become a favorite for Gen Z consumers. Known for its Instagram-like interface, Depop combines social media and e-commerce, allowing users to follow profiles, like items, and engage with sellers. However, as an active user on Depop for over five years with more than 300 sales, my experiences on the app have revealed a tension between its sustainability claims and its trend-driven culture. The app encourages browsing, impulse buying, and keeping up with microtrends, often overshadowing the original goal of reducing consumption and waste. Read more
Beyond Polarization: Choosing the Planet Without Choosing Sides
Andy Zhang
03-03-26
In January 2026, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services released the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a document that shapes everything from school lunches to federal nutrition programs. While the guidelines were informed by years of scientific review from an independent advisory committee, the final version contradicted in notable ways from that science. Most striking was a renewed emphasis on animal-based protein, particularly red meat, despite strong evidence supporting more plant-forward diets. Harvard nutrition experts noted that protein intake in the United States is already sufficient for most people. Yet the guidelines framed protein as a widespread concern, promoted full-fat dairy, and prioritized meat over plant proteins. Read more
From Mermaids to Marine Debris
Zoe Farris
03-02-26
Growing up, Ariel was my favorite Disney princess. None of the others came close. What could be better than being part human and part fish? Watching The Little Mermaid, I laughed hysterically when Ariel, eager to imitate the humans, mistakenly used a discarded fork as a hairbrush. During the iconic song “Part of Your World,” she sings about her fascination with the various man-made “gadgets and gizmos” that end up in her underwater oasis. She collects these objects, storing them in a secret treasure trove as they drive her curiosity about the human world.
Unfortunately, the logic of Disney is rarely applicable to the real world. Rather than being collected and cherished by a red-headed, hybrid fish woman, the trash that enters the ocean remains for hundreds of years, severely contaminating marine environments. Read more
Strawberry Fields Forever…With Pesticides
Sofia Trigueros Ufford
02-27-26
It’s hard not to feel pessimistic when it seems like there are never-ending amounts of chemicals being mixed to make more pesticides. People like Rachel Carson, with Silent Spring, and Dolores Huerta, with the UFW, fought to ban DDT and forever chemicals. Yet, we still see communities suffering like in Watsonville, California, surrounded by fields full of pesticides.
Last September, the Watsonville community revved up again to fight against Driscoll’s and other companies in the area, continuing their protest to end the use of pesticides. Driscoll’s has its headquarters in Watsonville, as well as contracts the majority of surrounding fields. The history of Driscoll’s in Watsonville dates back to the early 1900s, and there has been a consistent clash between the company and community. Read more
The Hidden Cost of American Consumption
Margaret Young
02-27-26
Across the United States, Republic Services, a multi billion dollar waste management company, has exhibited recurring landfill failures. This has included PFAS water contamination, methane leaks, air pollution, and mounting lawsuits, which all point to systemic regulatory and corporate shortcomings. These failures have resulted in localized environmental degradation and serious human health concerns. From Tennessee to Oregon, communities living near these facilities report strikingly similar issues, yet see little meaningful change in waste management practices. In many cases, legislative or regulatory action has followed, with numerous lawsuits still pending and court dates set for the coming year. Read more
The Cranes of Decatur
Claire Reisberg
02-26-26
The first thing I noticed was the noise. It was as if the world had started to hum. The sounds of the wind, the rustling of the grass, the laughter and footfalls of families walking on the paths, all of this was obscured, replaced by the trills and chatters and caws of the cranes.
“It’s so loud.” I turned to my friends. But, of course, they couldn’t hear me.
“Let’s go see them!” I repeated, louder now, and we followed the crowds of people heading towards the viewing center.
Every winter, 17,000 sandhill cranes and, on average, 15 whooping cranes roost at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Decatur, Alabama, where I found myself this January. It was established on July 7, 1938, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide a refuge for waterfowl during their winter migrations. Read more
Living Lichen
Ava Kocher
02-24-26
I dare you to look down. Not down at your screen but further, to where a bundle of color blooms flat on a rock. Or on a tree, or paving stone. Welcome to the world of lichen.
Here, several millimeters over a barren surface, something thrives. Lichen is not a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of thing. Lichen is not any one thing at all. Unlike mosses, which are an ancient phylum of plants, lichens don’t fit neatly into any category we have for life forms because lichen is not one thing but instead a symbiotic interaction.
Lichen encompasses the relationship between a fungus and a photosynthetic roommate called a photobiont, which can be either algae or cyanobacteria or both. The thallus structure that you see is a fungal frame encompassing a layer of algae. The pair are engaged in an obligate mutualism: they quite literally can’t live without one another. Read more
Reviving Our Rivers
Avery Sands
02-23-26
The South River was once a free-flowing tidal estuary, stretching just 15 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of Massachusetts. In 1640, the South River became the centerpiece of the newly established town of Marshfield. Around this same time, a dam was constructed on the river to power a gristmill for local farmers. From this point on, the natural flow of the South River was blocked. Over the next few hundred years, the dam eventually became a sawmill that operated from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. As the times shifted and industries moved away, the site eventually became a park in 1949. The river wound through grassy salt marshes, under bustling roads, and past quiet neighborhoods. Yet, the dam remained. Read more
Change, the Dreaded Constant: Conserving Point Reyes National Seashore
Claudia Steiner
02-03-26
Clutching the carpeted seat beneath me, focused on slow deep breaths, and straining my neck to get a clear view of the road ahead of me, I wasn’t sure my destination was worth the car sickness.
When we stopped to eat bagged lunches at the Golden Gate Bridge, the journey from Santa Cruz to Point Reyes seemed to be moving at a glacial, torturous pace. The crisp autumn air in the foggy mystique surrounding the bridge at least began to calm my stomach.
My classmates and I piled back into the school van, continuing the trek up Highway 1 to the UC Berkeley Point Reyes Field Station. We pulled into the dirt driveway, stopping for California Quail and letting the excitement accumulate. We tossed our duffel bags on bunk beds and began our epic reporting field trip extravaganza — a trip organized by the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication master’s program, where I began my studies in September. Read more
Home Amongst Herring Gulls
Ava Kocher
01-15-26
This uninhabited island is not so uninhabited. Penikese Island sits at the edge of the chain of Elizabeth Islands scattered off the coast of Massachusetts. On clear nights you can see New Bedford twinkling in the north, the blinking red lights of offshore wind farms in the south, and the Tarpaulin Cove Lighthouse casting its white beam across the water every six seconds with the precision of a metronome. But on foggy days, the mist socks in the island with such totality that you can’t even see the other end of the island out the kitchen window. On these days, when the fog presses in, the only presence you feel is the sea all around you, as salt in the air and the sound of relentless crashing against the rocky shore. On these days, you feel like the island is a ship permanently moored alone in the ocean. On these days, you feel the past lives of Penikese. Read more
In the Quiet After Storms: Still Humming
Lydia Samuels
01-09-26
Just before Jamaica wakes, while hills hold their breath and the world hovers between night and morning, the Doctor Bird is already in motion.
The Red-billed Streamertail (Trochilus polytmus) is endemic to the island, found nowhere else on earth. The males, with their long tail streamers trailing like silk ribbons, often dominate our national imagination, personifying the phrase “likke but tallawah”. But every bird, male and female alike, plays a quieter role in keeping this place alive.
Dr. Birds are pollinators. They stitch the island together one blossom at a time—heliconia to hibiscus, forest understory to hillside shrub. Their work is restless. Feeding constantly throughout the day, they convert nectar into the energy that keeps their heart beating at an astonishing 1,200 beats per minute in flight, and the ecosystem breathing alongside them.
The world beneath those wings is changing. Read more
Climate Change: The Ultimate Human Rights Violation
Claire Reisberg
01-07-26
I missed my last day of high school because of climate change. After spending my freshman and sophomore years largely on Zoom due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I was looking forward to a normal senior year in person. I was especially excited for the end of the year awards ceremony held in front of the whole school, where I hoped to cheer on my friends and maybe win an award or two myself. However, the week before my final day of high school, the sky turned red. Manhattan, where I lived, was covered in smog. Wind had blown smoke and debris from Canadian wildfires into the city. The air quality reached dangerous levels. It was nearly impossible to see, let alone breathe, on the street. My final days of high school were online. Read more