June, 2022 – Ecosystemic Magazine

19Jun

By Sophie CaoNo Comments

Community News & Policy

Washington D.C.’s Hidden Methane Issue

By Sophie Cao with contributions from Doug Siglin of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network If you would like to read more, background information on what will be discussed, you can find it on this doc, this doc, and this doc. Many thanks to Doug Siglin for doing the interview. When thinking about air pollution in Washington D.C., one may think of big, polluting industrial factories, people smoking or vehicles releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, there is one contributor lurking in the darkness that is often overlooked: methane. The name might ring a bell, but most do not know much about it. Most do not know how methane can harm us, and how it can poison us. Its effects are not immediate; it is a slow killer, chipping away at our immune systems and our atmosphe...

A Bill to Establish the District of Columbia Youth Environmental Sustainable Development Council

19Jun

By Elson BankoffNo Comments

Community News & Policy, Resolutions

A Bill to Establish the District of Columbia Youth Environmental Sustainable Development Council

By Elson Bankoff It is time that the youth get a say in local policy relevant to sustainable development. Similar to the mission statement of the Los Angeles Youth Climate Commission, the D.C. one would seek to uplift narratives, provide a forum for passionate discourse, and learn from diverse perspectives. These benefits would exist within the context of fighting environmental inequality; making a structural change to our city, connecting with youth and all residents, collaborating with people in positions of authority, and providing spaces to organize and educate our peers. The benefits of establishing a Youth Environmental Sustainable Development Council (YESDC) stretch beyond the existence of a Youth Advisory Council or a Purpose: The Council develops plans and objectives for t...

Composting: What It Is, Where It Is, and Its Impact on the Climate Movement

19Jun

By Lucas FlahertyNo Comments

Community News & Policy

Composting: What It Is, Where It Is, and Its Impact on the Climate Movement

By Lucas Flaherty Composting is a vital method of food waste management. Although an extensive issue, composting is often neglected in public policy. The process from farm to table is a long journey with numerous checks to ensure the food is “acceptable” to eat. Composting targets consumers directly who, unlike retailers and manufacturers, have a choice as to what happens to their food. Many cities in the United States, especially those on the West Coast, have already implemented composting programs. Washington D.C., for example, has experimented with composting programs through education on composting and the establishment of centers where residents can compost food scraps. Even with these programs, this is not enough. Luckily, in recent months, D.C. Council’s Committee on Transp...

19Jun

By Elson BankoffNo Comments

Art & Multimedia

Posters to Shatter the Echo Chamber!

Below are some posters to print out on lawn signs, fliers, and wheatpastable paper to put around the city. Contact seasncontact@gmail.com to help us put these up in D.C. or in your school! Here is the link to all of the files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1e2w0ij17cgb-fjieV9YXU-sbW5KX4vVO?usp=sharing By Lia Nathan L By Kidist Getachew By Elson Bankoff By Jasmine Flowers By Jasmine Flowers By Sam MacIsaac By Kidist Getachew By Sam MacIsaac

Metro Must Switch to Zero-Emission Buses Faster

18Jun

By Isabel LimaoNo Comments

Notes From the Editors

Metro Must Switch to Zero-Emission Buses Faster

By Tillie Owen, Isabel Limão, and Filipe Limão Earlier this week, I saw an article in The New York Times that said the Great Salt Lake is drying up. The article explains that, among other effects, this could lead to the air in the area occasionally turning poisonous as wind storms pick up arsenic in the exposed lake bed and carry it around the highly populated area. This dystopian-seeming event could become a reality if we don’t act soon enough to change it. This truth applies to various aspects of the climate crisis, especially public transportation. If DC wishes to meet its ambitious agenda to switch to renewables, we need clean transportation and we need it fast. By Dilinna Ugochukwu The current zero emissions transition plan is moving too slowly. Metro, or Washington M...

4Jun

By Laila KostorowskiNo Comments

Art & Multimedia

50s Style Eco-Advertisements!

By Laila Kostorowski For my final project in Environmental Science, I decided to put my graphic art skills to work. In this project, I aimed to create vintage advertisements and posters to comment on how much sooner we should have addressed environmental issues. This is an ad for an electric car. I hoped to convey the power of advertising and American consumerism. I intended for this piece to be more like a poster concerning the rising temperature at the poles. This is also a poster but a bit more specific than the others. Large-scale deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest began in the 1960s and is still in progress; this truly is an issue that could (and should) have been managed decades ago.

Dear people who care: 4th Grade Student’s Call to Act

4Jun

By Krish KubbaNo Comments

Community News & Policy

Dear people who care: 4th Grade Student’s Call to Act

By Krish Kubba Dear people who care about the environment, Polar bears are going extinct. That’s the simple explanation. There are too many greenhouse gasses in the world, the polar ice caps are melting, and 36.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide will not disappear while you sit around watching TV and eating Doritos. The faster we ruin the planet, the faster it will die. There are many ways to help. All of you have probably heard about polar bears going extinct because of climate change but not a lot of people know why. Greenhouse gasses are the reason. Most of the people reading this have probably heard of greenhouse gasses. But do any of you actually know what they are and how they work? Greenhouse gasses are actually good for the planet, but you know the quote you can have t...

4Jun

By Lane WorthingNo Comments

Notes From the Editors

Mountain, Appalachian: A Short Story

By Lane Worthing Forward Throughout Environmental Science this year, we have learned so much about the fundamental forces of nature that govern our world and how humans have affected them. In my final project, I wanted to discuss some of the most interesting and important topics we learned about, but from a slightly different perspective, so I wrote from the perspective of a mountain (that’s why some information is in footnotes - it’s relevant, but I didn’t think a mountain would know or care about the obscure terms we’ve come up with for things like the Laurentide Ice Sheet, for instance). Overall, I wanted to convey the sense that the history of the natural world goes back so much farther and is so much bigger than human history, yet we are still drastically changing so m...

4Jun

By Rhianna SearleNo Comments

Literature

Shifting Biomes, Shifting Minds

By Rhianna Searle Our climate changes and our society stagnates. We’ve grown among deciduous forests, but the biomes are shifting. So why aren’t we? Dirt is a derogatory word– don’t you see! How can we elevate the ground we walk on? Get down in it, Go out and touch it: the turtles with scarred red geometry the frozen pond with spider cracks the native oaks, fathers of the forest. This is how you translate dirt into soil. This is how you personify the pie charts. This is how you shift the science into the streets. This is how you peel the world off the page and into action.

The Climate Crisis is an Adult Issue–– So Why Have We Turned to Youth?

4Jun

By Kendra WangNo Comments

Notes From the Editors

The Climate Crisis is an Adult Issue–– So Why Have We Turned to Youth?

By Kendra Wang Our world is slowly dying. Our Arctic Sea Ice Extent has been down 13 percent since 1979 (NASA, 2022). A report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) revealed that all polar bears could be gone by 2100 (BBC, 2020). California forest fires have forcefully evicted thousands of people. The pandemic has rendered up to 7,200 tons of medical waste every day (MIT, 2021). And amidst all the chaos, the burden to “fix” the world falls upon the shoulders of our next generation: teens. Greta Thunberg’s protest in 2018 urged students to leave school every Friday to stand their ground against climate change. Strikes for climate change make a statement. We tell the world that youth want change, that we are willing to do whatever it takes. And yet, many of us are merely ...