 | | | “Now I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature, and I think we're challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature but of ourselves.” – Rachel Carson At this time of year, students across the country spend the month celebrating one of the landmark achievements of modern adulthood, college graduation. After four years of study, finding independence and community on campus, and dreaming up solutions for the greatest issues faced by our society, today’s US college students are hearing pomp and circumstance played with a far different, discordant tune. Their immediate future is threatened by an election that, depending on the outcome, promises a continuation of serious progress in climate policy, democratic inclusion, student debt relief, and the job market, or a potential descent into right-wing authoritarianism. The world scene is painted with pictures of unimaginable violence on imaginable scales, with famine, displacement, and immense injustices. Years of political science classes, staging protests on campus, campaigning with the College Democrats, and hashing out political debates with their peers over dining hall pizza have made these graduates keenly aware of their political surroundings, domestic and international. No placating ceremonies or well wishes will change the anger that has characterized their current view of our world. But amidst the real, often overwhelming, and dangerous developments that frame the post-graduate landscape, the academic community continues to forge new, hopeful ground on the most important environmental, scientific, and societal issues. Our May issue of the RCC Campus Dispatch leads off with a report on the new heights to which campuses are taking sustainability: a team of nine colleges and universities in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, led by RCC Campus Network (RCCN) member, Wake Forest University, is collaborating on a first-of-its-kind, large-scale solar facility.  Other campuses such as the University of Wisconsin (RCCN), Morehouse College, and Dartmouth College are being recognized for their commitments to energy efficiency and research, in no small part due to student contributions. Perhaps most encouraging is the research coming out of universities that sheds light on the environmental injustice of the wood pellet biomass industry, including an illuminating article by Dr. Etsuko Kinefuchi of UNC Greensboro (RCCN), who has been instrumental in mobilizing students for the Rachel Carson Council to oppose wood pellet production in North Carolina.
 And while police attacks on campus tent settlements opposed to the killing of civilians in Gaza and in favor of divesting from Israeli weapons systems have dominated the headlines, long running, difficult conversations about campus investments in fossil fuels investments are bearing fruit. Lilah Burke’s piece from Higher Ed Dive in our “Campus Divestment” section describes in depth a multi-year trend at colleges and universities around the country of withdrawing their funds from the fossil fuel industry.
RCC’s 2024 Stanback Fellows also offer hope that this generation of students are thoughtfully engaged in understanding and solving our climate crisis. They are outstanding campus leaders and members of a select cohort of climate advocates who work to get just investment portfolios, powerful environmental justice education, cutting edge environmental research, and long cherished academic freedom and free speech rights. And, like Rachel Carson, they also persuasively wield the power of the pen. Look for their thoughts in our “RCC Fellows Speak Out” section as they weigh in with commentary on pesticide regulation, logging, indigenous representation, environmental theater, plastic pollution, and more. While it has been harrowing to see widespread denigration of contemporary campuses, along with assaults and arrests of students and faculty driven by the right-wing and Republicans in Congress, a shift in the narrative has begun. As we head to summer, academics, including faculty and their unions, higher education associations, and some administrators, have spoken out against biased mainstream media coverage and the myths they have been promoting about violent students and biased education. In our “Academic Freedom” section, Lois Beckett’s coverage of a study of collegiate protests of the war in Gaza for The Guardian, reveals that in reality nearly all Gaza campus protests in the US have been peaceful. And, also contrary to most news coverage, progressive professors at universities hosting protests are not just protecting, but joining their students to condemn what they see as a humanitarian crisis, even going so far as to get arrested and risk beatings as did University of Massachusetts, Amherst Professor of History Christian Appy who explains why in “What Would Daniel Ellsberg Do?” The world is indeed a scary place for recent graduates. But, as our May issue of the RCC Campus Dispatch indicates in many ways, they are well equipped to deal with the dilemmas and dangers of our time. They are bolstered by the lessons they have learned from each other in building collective power, from the role models they have had of professors who dared to challenge and change minds, and from their own commitment to principle. Americans should be proud that our colleges and universities are producing engaged, democratic citizens, not the demons decried in headlines and Congressional hearings. | | | | | | | |  Claudia Steiner — Director of Communications and Strategic Development
An environmental advocate around the clock, Claudia serves as the Director for Communications and Strategic Development at the Rachel Carson Council. She is a graduate of the American University where she studied International Studies and Environmental Science. As an undergraduate, Claudia organized with the university’s student-led divestment movement, helping to secure full divestment from the fossil fuel industry in 2020. | | | | | | WFU Partners With Eight Colleges and Universities For Large-scale Solar Facility Wake Forest University and eight other colleges and universities in North Carolina and Pennsylvania are joining forces to bring an innovative, large-scale solar facility online in western Kentucky. By collaborating on this Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), Davidson College, Dickinson College, Elon University, Haverford College, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, Muhlenberg College, Swarthmore College and Wake Forest University are accessing the benefits of renewable energy through a deal typically only feasible for large customers. | | | | | | | | DOE Recognizes Better Buildings Challenge Partner Morehouse College for Leadership in Energy Efficiency The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recognized Better Buildings Challenge partner Morehouse College for its achievements and leadership in energy efficiency. The Atlanta-based college, which operates more than 1.6 million square feet of building space across its 60-acre campus, has reduced its energy intensity by more than 30% since 2023, achieving its Better Buildings Challenge goal and accelerating progress towards its internal net-zero targets. | | | | | | | | UW-Madison Launches Ambitious Environmental Sustainability Initiative The University of Wisconsin–Madison has a rich history of advancing environmental sustainability through its excellence in fields ranging from ecology to wildlife biology to satellite technology. Building on this tradition, the university is launching a new cross-campus initiative focused on environmental sustainability, centered around five goals that include the launch of an interdisciplinary research hub. | | | | | | | | Beaufort’s Barrier to Raging Storms The dedicated nature preserve’s five uninhabited barrier islands, totaling 2,315 acres, protect historic downtown Beaufort from the ravages of ocean winds and tides. “You can see just how vulnerable the town of Beaufort can be during storms coming through that Beaufort Inlet,” Central Sites Manager Paula Gillikin said early Friday afternoon from the boardwalk on Carrot Island, one of the five islands making up the site. | | | | | | | | Creating Bird-friendly Buildings — On Campus and Beyond The Yale Bird-Friendly Building Initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of bird-friendly design to reduce deadly collisions. More than 1 billion birds are killed each year as a result of window collisions in North America alone, making buildings the leading human-caused driver of wild bird mortality. To help reduce these collisions, the Yale Bird-Friendly Building Initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of bird-friendly design on Yale’s campus and beyond. | | | | | | | | New Peer-Reviewed Research Finds Bioenergy Causes Disproportionate Share of Air Pollution Using biomass and wood pellets for energy production may be far costlier for public health and air pollution than previously thought, according to newly published, peer-reviewed research. The use of biomass for energy has sometimes been cited as a renewable or clean energy alternative to fossil fuels. However, researchers at the UNC-Chapel Hill and the NWF found that unit for unit, biomass and wood pellet production may have worse impacts on air pollution than the fossil fuels they seek to replace. | | | | | | | | Burning Forests: the Wood Pellet Industry’s Framing of Sustainability and Its Shadow Places Woody biomass energy has exponentially grown in the last decade as a renewable energy alternative to fossil fuels. The growing trend of burning trees amid global climate crisis suggests that the wood pellet industry has been grossly successful in positioning itself as a sustainability leader. What communicative frames and strategies has the industry harnessed to communicate sustainability? What do the frames and strategies leave out? | | | | | | | | | | A Looming Health Crisis Shadows the South’s Wood Pellet Boom As the global demand for clean energy alternatives surges, the wood pellet industry, often touted as a sustainable fuel option, is projected to nearly double in size by 2026. In the United States, the industry’s growth is most pronounced in the rural South, where 91 wood pellet manufacturing plants are situated, constituting 75% of U.S. production. But this growing industry is facing scrutiny over its environmental, health and social impacts; similar to fossil fuel refineries, wood pellet plants are more than twice as likely to be located in predominantly Black and poor communities. | | | | | | | | Faculty Feature: Environmental Justice is a Social Justice Issue “If we can’t achieve social justice, we can never achieve environmental justice. The privileged few may have a clean place to live, but everyone else will live in poverty and toxic sludge,” said Savanna Schuermann, a CFA San Diego member. Since she began teaching in the Anthropology Department just over a decade ago, Schuermann has delighted in watching her students transform as they begin to question their cultural assumptions. | | | | | | | | Environmental Justice Advocates Find Hope, Healing and Community in Pittsburgh May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the Environmental Justice Summit highlighted the need for self-care and connection among researchers and advocates working to advance justice. Exposure to pollution and anxiety about climate change can negatively impact mental health and people who work to right injustices face the risk of compassion fatigue and burnout. | | | | | | | | $1.25M Grant for Asian American Pacific Islander Environmental Justice The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Arts, Languages and Letters (CALL) is set to pioneer a venture into environmental justice within Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, thanks to a game-changing $1.25-million grant from the Mellon Foundation. This funding will propel the establishment of a cutting-edge interdisciplinary initiative, complete with two new faculty positions, a humanities lab to develop new teaching materials, and a dynamic forum for professional development and the exchange of ideas. | | | | | | | | What’s the Outlook For College Fossil Fuel Divestment? This year hasn’t had 2021’s high-profile announcements, but trends say colleges are likely avoiding coal, oil and gas — whether they trumpet it or not. When Harvard University announced last fall that it would be divesting its endowment from the fossil fuel industry, it was part of a deluge. | | | | | | | | Dartmouth's Climate Commitment Today, I am proud to announce the Dartmouth Climate Collaborative—a comprehensive approach that integrates our academic enterprise, campus operations, and community engagement to address climate change in meaningful and sustainable ways. First, over the next five years, Dartmouth will invest more than half a billion dollars in improvements to our physical plant to reduce emissions on campus 60% by 2030, and 100% by 2050—the largest investment focused on sustainability in our history. | | | | | | | | DeSantis Signs Bill Scrubbing ‘climate change’ From Florida Law Florida will eliminate climate change as a priority in making energy policy decisions, despite the threats it faces from powerful hurricanes, extreme heat and worsening toxic algae blooms. On Wednesday, the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signed the legislation, which is set to go into effect on July 1. The measure also removes most references to climate change in state law, bans offshore wind turbines in state waters and weakens regulations on natural gas pipelines. | | | | | | | | Super Spring in California? “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” – Rachel Carson, Silent Spring A year ago, I traded the Blue Ridge for the Santa Cruz mountains, thunderstorms for summer fog, and barbecue for breakfast burritos. Don’t get me wrong, I have fallen in love with the wild wonder of northern (some may protest, north-central) California, but I am still getting used to the brazen drama of this sunny state. | | | | | | | | A Suburban Wilderness Dams, Spillways, Gathering Places, and Decay When I think of suburbia, I imagine decay. In reading much of Rachel Carson’s writing, I can feel the tension she maintains in balancing optimism and grief for the natural environment. Throughout her body of work, she grapples with her concern for pesticides, ecological degradation, and loss of natural splendor. But in her concern, she also asks us to imagine a world of optimisms among the decay. What is worth saving? What is worth remaining curious about? And how can we maintain such curiosity? | | | | | | | | The British Are Coming! The Invasion of California’s Forests? In the midst of wildfires, drought, infestations and wild storms, California’s forests face yet another incursion, one that perhaps is not all that new: British expansion. The world’s largest wood pellet producer, Drax, a United Kingdom energy corporation, is attempting to expand the industry into California. Under the cover of a non-profit group called Golden State Natural Resources, Drax is covertly making deceiving permit applications and drumming up public support for two proposed pellet mills in Lassen and Tuolumne counties. | | | | | | | | Echoes of “Silent Spring”: How the Wood Pellet Industry Will Silence Birds I first read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring while sitting on my porch in the evenings after school, surrounded by the vibrant calls of Carolina Chickadees, Northern Cardinals, and American Goldfinches visiting my nearby bird feeders. As I turned the pages, I was transported into a world where the beauty of those same melodies was under grave threat. Carson’s vivid warnings about the dangers of man-made pesticides like DDT to ecological health revealed a hidden menace that had been weakening the eggshells of eagles and osprey and leading to drastic population declines. | | | | | | | | Book Review: A Promise of Hope – Finding the Naturalist in Us All Now, twenty-years-old, and halfway through my college career, eco-anxiety is something I know well—and frankly something many young people of my generation (the infamous Gen Z) have felt deeply one time or another in their lives. There is one incident of eco-anxiety that stands out vividly in mind, one that I interestingly rarely mention when talking about my environmental awakening. | | | | | | | | Rough Seas for a Chumash Marine Area No one said addressing climate change would be easy. In fact, it’s widely recognized that there is no silver bullet that can magically erase decades of greenhouse gas emissions or immediately restore degraded habitats. However, there are some solid solutions that if we mobilize quickly and systematically enough should be able to make substantial improvements for the health of our planet. But how should we proceed when different – but equally commendable climate goals – are at odds with one another? One example of this is occurring right now off the coast of central California. | | | | | | | | From Crops to Courts: Should Pesticides Be Immune? “Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called ‘insecticides’ but ‘biocides.’” – Rachel Carson, Silent Spring Rachel Carson stood firmly in her belief based in science that something built to kill one thing will never target just that one thing. A prime example of this is the case of Johnson v. Monsanto Company (now Bayer). | | | | | | | | Staging Change: Theater and the Environment? Growing up performing in plays and musicals, I’ve been aware of how theater can convey powerful messages by immersing audiences in stories that create empathy and understanding. Through live performances, theater transforms complex issues into relatable experiences, prompting audiences to reflect on social and political themes. This powerful art form can create awareness and a call to action. One critical topic that has been adeptly addressed in contemporary (21st Century) theater is environmental awareness. | | | | | | | | The Fossil Fuel Financed Misinformation Machine Growing up in southern Louisiana, the outsized influence fossil fuel companies had on my state’s economy was always apparent. You can’t make it half an hour down I-10 without passing at least one oil refinery, and everyone knows someone with a brother or an uncle who works on an offshore rig. But after moving out of a state where the petroleum industry accounts for nearly a quarter of our total revenue, it soon became clear that the fossil fuel industry’s reach extended well beyond Gulf state economies. | | | | | | | | Nearly All Gaza Campus Protests in the US Have Been Peaceful, Study Finds Analysis of 553 protests in solidarity with Palestinians between 18 April and 3 May found 97% of them did not cause serious damage An independent non-profit that tracks political violence and political protests around the world found that 97% of campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza that have taken place in the US since mid-April have been peaceful. | | | | | | | | Campus Free Speech is Getting Murky For Republican Governors A wave of pro-Palestinian unrest is challenging lawmakers who cemented campus free speech protections in recent years. Republican states spent years swooping in to bolster safe spaces for conservative voices at public universities in the name of fighting liberal censorship. The Israel-Gaza war is causing many of them to rethink free speech protections. | | | | | | | | UMass Arrests: What Would Daniel Ellsberg Do? Outside a federal court in Boston, Ellsberg was asked if he was worried about going to jail. His response: “Wouldn’t you go to prison to help end this war?” I have been a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for twenty years. On May 7, I was one of a handful of faculty members arrested for standing in support of hundreds of students who were engaged in nonviolent protest of university complicity in the ongoing slaughter and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. | | | | | | | | Why Was Police Repression a Default Response? An elderly faculty member thrown to the ground, students handcuffed with zip-ties, flash-bang grenades and an errant gunshot popping off, police dressed up in riot gear storming campuses. One might think of Hong Kong at the end of the last decade or Iran in 2022. And while these places did in fact see this kind of repression play out in recent years, what I am describing is what has happened on college campuses over the past month in the United States. | | | | | | | | A Tale of Three Protests: Why Three Campus Protests Attracted Scrutiny An encampment at UCLA sparked violence, while Rutgers and Northwestern reached deals with protesters. Now the leaders of all three institutions must answer to Congress. Following a wave of pro-Palestinian protests at campuses across the nation, three college leaders will speak to Congress today about how they handled demonstrations at their institutions. | | | | | | | | | By Professor Ryan E. Emanuel, University of North Carolina Press Despite centuries of colonialism, Indigenous peoples still occupy parts of their ancestral homelands in what is now Eastern North Carolina—a patchwork quilt of forested swamps, sandy plains, and blackwater streams that spreads across the Coastal Plain between the Fall Line and the Atlantic Ocean. In these backwaters, Lumbees and other American Indians have adapted to a radically transformed world while maintaining vibrant cultures and powerful connections to land and water. Like many Indigenous communities worldwide, they continue to assert their rights to self-determination by resisting legacies of colonialism and the continued transformation of their homelands through pollution, unsustainable development, and climate change. Environmental scientist Ryan E. Emanuel, a member of the Lumbee tribe, shares stories from North Carolina about Indigenous survival and resilience in the face of radical environmental changes. Addressing issues from the loss of wetlands to the arrival of gas pipelines, these stories connect the dots between historic patterns of Indigenous oppression and present-day efforts to promote environmental justice and Indigenous rights on the swamp. Emanuel’s scientific insight and deeply personal connections to his home blend together in a book that is both a heartfelt and an analytical call to acknowledge and protect sacred places. Click here to purchase | | | | | | RCC prides itself on its National Campus Network of 68 colleges and universities. We are working to engage faculty members, students, and administrators in our efforts for a more just and sustainable world. With our growing fellowship program, our presence on campuses across the country has never been greater. Contact RCC today to bring our staff to your campus for lectures, workshops, or meetings to help find the best ways to engage your faculty and students in the efforts against climate change, environmental justice, and the work of the Rachel Carson Council. Campus Visits with RCC President, Dr. Robert K. Musil  RCC President & CEO, Dr. Robert K. Musil, a national leader in climate change, environmental justice and health is again available to book for in-person campus speaking events! Musil has been called “informative, challenging and inspirational all at once.” He is “motivational” with “intellectual depth” and “extraordinary impact.”
Dr. Musil is available for campus lectures and visits involving classes, meetings with campus and community groups, consultations with faculty and administrators, or for Earth Day, Commencement, and other special events. Stays range from one to three days. Reduced fees are in place for 2024-2025 and can be designed to meet reduced budgets. To arrange a campus visit with Dr. Musil, contact the RCC President’s Office at office@rachelcarsoncouncil.org. The RCC also offers talks, classes, and workshops on student engagement, activism, sustainability, and the RCC Fellowship program with: Director of Communications, Claudia Steiner; Assistant Director of Research and Policy and Programs, Theo Daniels and Assistant Director of Research and Policy Programs, Joy Reeves. To arrange, contact Director of Campus and Civic Engagement, Claudia Steiner. | | | | | | | | Exciting Opportunity! RCC is looking to hire an Assistant Director of Campus and Civic Engagement to lead our campus network of 68 campuses and thousands of active faculty and students, as well as Fellowship programs.  | | | | | |  The Rachel Carson Council Depends on Tax-deductible Gifts From Concerned Individuals Like You. Please Help If You can. | | | |  Sign Up Here to Receive the RCC E-News and Other RCC Newsletters, Information and Alerts. | | | | | | | | | | | |
