Author: Ethan Sontarp

Climate Change on a Local Scale: Decreased Ice Skating Ability on Lake Carnegie

Author: Grace Liu ’23

Most of you living in Princeton are probably pretty familiar with Lake Carnegie, and if you’ve been in the Princeton area for a while, you may have noticed that it hasn’t been freezing over recently. In fact, the last time that Lake Carnegie froze solidly enough to allow for ice skating was over 5 years ago!

File:Lake Carnegie Skating.jpg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_Carnegie_Skating.jpg

The summer after my freshman year, I researched lake freeze for my HMEI internship. Two of my mentors, Professor Vecchi and Dr. Jeevanjee, conceived this research project because they noticed that Lake Carnegie hadn’t frozen over for a few years. We wanted to see whether we could attribute this decrease in ice skating ability in recent years to climate change.

In order to answer this question, we had to take a look into the past. I wanted to figure out which years Lake Carnegie froze and which years it didn’t, so I dug into newspaper archives for mentions of ice skating or lake freezing.

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Newspaper archives mentioning ice skating on Lake Carnegie

One of the most interesting findings was a newspaper from 1960 which expressed surprise that the lake didn’t freeze that year, suggesting that it was very uncommon for Lake Carnegie not to freeze back then. However, in 2007, people were surprised that the lake did freeze, instead of the other way around! These archives indicate that not only are freeze events decreasing overall, but also that climate change is actively shifting people’s expectations, from assuming the lake would freeze every year to being surprised when it does freeze.

On the plot below, we indicate every year with safe ice skating at the top and every year without safe ice skating on the bottom. The years without data are not present. The logistic regression curve shows the probability of safe ice skating in a given year, and we see that within a matter of decades, the probability of safe ice skating has decreased from 100% to 20%.

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Time series of ice skating on Lake Carnegie

This reflects the newspapers we examined earlier, except now we’ve actually quantified the reversal of expectations. It makes sense that in the 1960s, everyone would be surprised if the lake didn’t freeze, because it had frozen almost every single year before that. Today, with a 1 in 5 chance of lake freezing, ice skating is treated as a rare and special occasion.

Overall, this was a really cool project to work on because I got the chance to use both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how climate change is impacting communities. I’m now a senior, and in all my time at Princeton, the lake has not been safe for ice skating. With any luck, it will freeze over this year, and I’ll finally experience the joys of skating that I’ve read so much about in the newspapers.

Why Earth is my history

By: Tecla Mafa ’24

This poem is inspired by the complex historical and present relationship between blackness and the environment. It follows the journey and ancestral experiences from the continent of Africa (my Shona ancestors) onto the mid-Atlantic passage to the plantations relaying, a spiritual carrying of the black soul, as well its conflict with nature which was used against it. The poem ends with a hope for healing of both the black soul and the earth which were and are both oppressed by imperialist capitalism.

Why Earth is my history

The black water licked your skin cold, salting and healing the deep cuts from the chains, rusty seaweed

Blindfolded on a march to splintering vessels, losing gravity, losing your name

Living Bulwark, Swordofthespirit.net

Your grandfather told you that the soil on the earth held treasures and golden insects

And that our hearts also carried treasures and golden insects

Your healer cut the purple flesh of your chest with a hot stone to protect you 

A hot stone wrapped in herbs and the earth – the earth carried your faith

Housed your ancestors in the trunks of her trees, and sang to you each night in the passing waters

Mvura hupenyu, but that very same water carried you away through dark depths where death was

The ocean’s water is bitter with our brother’s blood, scarlet ribbons lacing the blue

Those who chose to swim with Yemaya1

To be buried in Olokun’s sediments2

Omio Yemaya, https://artelaguna.world/paintings/omio-yemaya.25840/

Arriving on alien earth that did not beat with your ancestor’s loud booming breaths

Being cut to bleed by strange herbs, strange plants that are foreign to you

Soft cotton, murdered your spine, peeled your palms red

Your blood watered the earth, your blood gave the ground life

bearing strange fruit, the earth stole away your breaths and locked them away deep beneath

where they buried your souls and those of your ancestors to be

When your relationship with the earth is converted into oppressive turmoil and toil in the heat

When they broke your back so you could break the ground to bear them broken fruit

When your God is turned against you by a man in khaki trousers and black polished leather shoes

Forced to cut down the trees you worship, miti hupenyu3

Your estrangement from your faith becomes your desolation, your death

They ask you why you look disturbed in nature?

Why are you not a vocal environmentalist?

Explain to me how the oppressed becomes the oppressor

Kazmaleje https://www.pinterest.com/pin/595741856932294580/

How will I learn to heal? How will the earth heal?

Little did they know that by wounding me they were wounding the earth.

By killing me, they were killing the earth

A complex relationship- is not a pretty relationship

When you have been at war with something you’ve loved for years

When your love bleeds black crude oil beneath the earth

When they turned you against each other then condemned you for it

Why it’s hard to forget, to not remember

Why it’s hard to connect to the roots that feed your ancestors

I want my rest unbroken in the fields of southern earth;4

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/opinion/sunday/black-bodies-green-spaces.html

A history buried beneath the ice, heavy sedimented rock

Pain unknown, entangled with heavy vines of life green

A history that has travelled with the water, with the soil and the grey winds

Water has memory, the fingerprints of those lost at sea, the scent of the living dead

We shall plant justice, seeds of remembrance, seeds that become heirlooms

To carry a heritage lost and suppressed

And those seeds will bloom flowers

The sweet-smelling, night-blooming cereus flower5

Notes

[1] Goddess of the ocean in Orishi tradition, dwells on the surface waters

[2] Her twin, dwells in the depths of the ocean

[3] Trees are life

[4] Excerpt from Southern song Poem by Margaret Walker

[5] From Southern song poem by Margaret Walker

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/opinion/sunday/black-bodies-green-spaces.html

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/25/drexciya-how-afrofuturism-inspired-calls-for-an-ocean-memorial-to-slavery

Level Up Your Leftovers #2: Creamy Israeli Salad and Garlic Bread

By: Naomi Frim-Abrams ’23

Hello everyone, welcome back to the second installment of Level Up Your Leftovers, a series where I (Naomi) take your leftovers and turn them into a refreshed recipe! For this post, we have an anonymous submission: “I have tomatoes, bread, and yogurt, [and] I am looking for a savory snack/meal.” The post also graciously included some photos to show us what we’re working with:

The supplies include: almond milk yogurt, bread, and grape tomatoes.

This one was a bit of a challenge for me, as I don’t often work with almond milk yogurt, nor do I combine tomatoes and yogurt all that often. But after a bit of research, I think I’ve found a great and healthy meal that you can make with just a few extra ingredients! You can turn the tomatoes and yogurt into a creamy Israeli salad, and that bread looks perfect for a quick toasted garlic bread to eat on the side.

This recipe was adapted from Tori Avey and Food52.

Ingredients

Israeli Salad

Image Credit: https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/israeli-salad-week/
  • 1 package of grape tomatoes, diced
  • 1 large cucumber, diced
  • 1 bell pepper and/or 1 small onion, diced (optional)

Yogurt Dressing

  • ½ cup yogurt (regular or non-dairy)
  • ¼ cup lemon juice
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, very finely minced or crushed
  • ¼ cup fresh parsley, minced
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • Salt, to taste

Garlic Bread

Image credit: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/garlic_bread/
  • 1 loaf of bread, sliced
  • 3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
  • ⅓ cup olive oil or melted butter
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • Fresh parsley or other herbs, to taste (optional)
  • Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)

Preparation

For the salad and dressing: 

  1. Combine all diced vegetables in a bowl. 
  2. Whisk together all of the dressing ingredients before pouring over the vegetables. Stir to coat. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

For the garlic bread:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
  1. In a small bowl, combine the olive oil or melted butter with the garlic, herbs, and spices. Stir to incorporate.
  2. Lay out slices of bread on a baking sheet. Using a spoon or pastry brush, generously coat the tops of each slice with the garlic oil/butter mixture.
  3. Place in the oven until the edges of the bread turn a deep golden brown, for around 5 minutes.
  4. Take out of the oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes, then enjoy with the Israeli salad!

Fun Facts

This recipe is incredibly simple, and quite delicious! A few fun facts about our star ingredients:

Yogurt is a great protein option for those trying out vegetarianism – it is very nutrient-dense in relation to the amount of energy used to produce it and has a much lower impact compared to meat. Making a small swap like this is a great way to lower your carbon impact in the long term, and it’s healthy as well!

If you try this recipe, let us know over on Instagram or Facebook. If you want to try and stump me with your own batch of leftovers, send in a submission here! Your recipe could be the next one featured on the Tigers Go Green Blog.

Happy Cooking!

Naomi

The Science of Sustainability: Geopolitics and Dust Storms in China

By: Ethan Sontarp ’24

Trained as a sociocultural anthropologist, Jerry Zee, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and the High Meadows Environmental Institute, just about does it all. His research looks through the lenses of geophysics, literature, feminist studies, ethnography, aerosol science, and more, to fill gaps in our current knowledge of Chinese geopolitics in relation to changing weather patterns. Read this interview to dive into his complex and interdisciplinary world!

Image Credit: Jerry Zee via https://environment.princeton.edu/people/jerry-zee

What does sustainability mean to you? How do you engage with sustainability outside of your work?

Sustainability is an idea that […] there is an ethical, technical, political demand for us to think about what would be necessary that the planet outlasts us. It’s a concept that has roots in the fantasy of the sustainability of the planet for capitalism, but I think that we can tinker it, or tweak it, or undo it, so that it can orient us more broadly toward a relationship with things we can’t possibly imagine yet. I would like to think about it as an open ethical and political injunction, you know, our responsibility to both the past and the future. As an anthropologist, one cannot draw a clear distinction between work and not work.

Could you give a brief overview of your current research? What makes it interesting to you?

I write about what I call modern weather, or a meteorological contemporary in China. What I mean by this is that accounts of modern China are given in political and geopolitical terms, and parallel to this, I try to make sense of how the period that we understand as China’s modernity (its different adventures with socialism, late socialism, experiments with markets, and different kinds of political reform) has also been a time in which the weather across China has been changing in ways that are deeply linked to political transition. The things I think most specifically about are dust and aerosol events, so I’m interested in how in the last several decades, a crisis of large-scale land degradation across China’s interior, most conventionally known as desertification, has deep-rooted relations with the changing nature of Chinese institutions, politics, and society. There’s a tremendous number of strange things happening which confounds conventional ways of understanding what we think the Chinese state is and does, and what we think about the horizons of liberal environmental politics.


A sweeper walks with a broom along a road during morning rush hour as Beijing, China is hit by a sandstorm.

Image and Caption Credit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-weather-sandstorm/beijing-choked-in-duststorm-stirred-by-heavy-northwest-winds-idUSKBN2B703

How do you approach your research problems? What resources do you use to navigate a research journey?

I’m trained as an anthropologist, but I think across a couple of different fields that inform the way I do research. I really like engaging with the humanities, especially in literature, and then I think across feminist traditions and science studies. Ethnographic research in the way I understand is based both on long term fieldwork and what we call participant observation, which means going and living in the rhythms of a certain kind of community or place for a long time – thinking from within the logics and tensions and textures of lives in these places. To think concretely my research involves working with state bureaucrats, scientists, and everyday people in China. That means everything from working with ecologists and geophysicists at state environmental research stations to forestry officials and planting teams from China and Korea to aerosol scientists in the US, to living with herders and pastoralists as they figure out how to manage the degradation of their pastures.

How do you avoid observer bias?

You can’t. We are all people who have backgrounds and who come from places and who are trained in certain ways. One of the questions that, as an ethnographer, I think about all the time is, “How is it that the specificity of who I am shapes the kinds of claims and arguments I make?” One of the things you learn to do is undercut your own arguments and think about the ways that you may be deeply committed to them. I fully believe that if another person did exactly the same project it would be a different question, but at the same time, I’m committed to an empirical truth as it appears through the encounters I’ve had.

What are some issues with our current understanding of Chinese geopolitics?

I think we need better accounts of China as an environmental agent and state. Many of the accounts that we get in the US either oppose China as an environmental hellscape in which the environment is collapsing in freefall, when in fact there are many kinds of political experiments that are emerging in tandem with the ecological catastrophe that is modern China. On the other side, there are sort of very hopeful and messianic accounts of Chinese environmental politics that pose it as a viable alternative to what people see as impasses in either the American or the international systems. Often people will point to China’s energy sector and its investment in clean energy transition as proof that the Chinese system is somehow better, and I wanted a way of doing research that doesn’t fall either into one of these pools, so that’s what moves me.

Are there any sustainability or climate science resources you know of that you would suggest for readers?

I would check out an organization called APEN, which is the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. They are at the very cutting edge of doing environmental justice work and research in communities that are affected, and they are good at thinking about the inter-relationship of environmental and social processes.

Check out my syllabi – I’m learning new things all the time. One of the more compelling things over the last couple of years since I’ve started teaching is that I learn a lot from the passion and energy and creativity and resolve of students. Learn from yourself.

Plant Blindness & Ecological Resilience in the American Metropolis: Reflecting on a Summer of Conservation in NYC

Author: Joe Himmelfarb ’24

To be frank, I began my work with the Plant Conservation Team at NYC Parks this summer with floor-low expectations about the City’s vegetation. This was my first experience in conservation work, and New York City seemed quite the unlikely focus for biodiversity preservation. America’s largest city, and the epitome of urban life, I’d always carried the impression that such a place would be ‘biologically sterile.’ Situated on poisoned soils and polluted waterways, NYC had to be a lost cause for nature. But I was wrong. I just didn’t have the eyes to see it yet. 

Do you remember anything of the wilderness you pass on the side of the road? The scenes of a stroll through Brooklyn’s Prospect Park? Hiking at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx? For me, I only saw green, and I only remembered green. That’s just how it always went. I was plant blind.

“Plant blindness” is pervasive in our culture. Save for botanists and other plant experts, we don’t really notice vegetation. We don’t distinguish between plants as individuals, and we fail to remember them afterwards. 

But, imagine you learn the language of the trees, the shrubs and bushes, the grasses and sedges. You hop on the Northeast Regional Train and head up to NYC for the weekend to explore vegetation in the City’s natural areas. What do you expect to find? A lack of biodiversity or a lot? Widespread foreign monocultures, or persevering populations of native growers?

This summer, I learned to see the worst of plant invasions and the best of native resilience. One conservation site is now infested with a species originally imported for horticulture. The same few agricultural weeds dominate habitats across the five boroughs, and one sensitive species was squeezed out to extinction. But, beneath it all, there are plants that have grown here since time immemorial. And while there are indeed some native populations that thrive, many species tell the story of rebellion. Ten slick, fragrant herbs that poke between the grasses. Three short, spiky golden flowers growing defiantly in the shadows of a million foreign giants. One majestic lily that finally gets the chance to flower. 

Plant blindness is a bidirectional buffer. We can’t understand the extent of ecological degradation in an ocean of green. Nor can we appreciate the extent of natural perseverance when it’s hidden in plain sight. In overcoming plant blindness, I have developed a new understanding of urban biodiversity. A new set of expectations; a new brand of optimism. It is not a battle of a million versus one––a million invasives closing in on a final plant rebel. Rather, conservation is the hope that one can grow into a million. Don’t give up yet on New York City. 

A photo of me helping manage a native population of mint at a conservation site in Staten Island.

A Senior Thesis Simplified: Sea-Level Rise on the Eastern Shore of Maryland

Author: Wesley Wiggins ‘21

Sea-level rise is a local phenomenon just as much as it is a global one. While melting ice sheets, mountain glaciers, and the expansion of the oceans all have far-reaching impacts, every coastline will experience sea-level rise differently. I focused my senior independent work for the Department of Geosciences on the effects of sea-level rise in one location in particular: the Chesapeake Bay.

In my senior thesis, titled Sea-Level Rise on the Eastern Shore of Maryland: Vulnerability, Adaptation, Environmental Justice, I analyzed sea level rise data in Cambridge, Maryland, and conducted a survey to understand residents’ experience with rising sea-levels and their adaptation preferences. I chose to study the Eastern Shore because it is an area close to my own home in Washington, DC. Having visited the Bay many times, I’ve seen the beauty of the environments and the wonderful residents. The Eastern Shore is home to a large African American population, a group that is particularly vulnerable to the effects of sea-level rise because of a lack of access to resources, lack of representation in decision-making circles, and historical discrimination.

Map of the Chesapeake Bay with Percentage of African American Population by County; The highlighted counties (Talbot, Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset) are the counties that I will be focusing on in this study. Adapted from the United States Census Bureau 2010

Sea Level Rise Analysis

From an analysis of local sea-level projections until 2100, I found that the sea level may increase by an average value of 88 cm, relative to mean sea level in 2000, if global temperatures rise 2˚C by the end of the century. If global temperatures rise by 5˚C, then the average sea levels may rise by an average of over 140 cm. Additionally, there is around a 36% probability that sea levels will rise by 1 meter or more in a 2˚C scenario and about 75% probability of this in a 5˚C scenario.

For some historical context, Hurricane Isabel made landfall in Maryland on September 19th, 2003 and caused water levels to rise to 1.26 m. This event flooded almost half of Dorchester County, cut off power to 1.4 million Maryland residents, injured 200 people, and even killed 1 person. The current frequency of a 1.26 m water level rise occurring is 1 in 286 years. By 2100, we will see these events amplified by 2000 in a 2˚C warming scenario with 7 events per year, and amplified by over 8500 in a 5˚C warming scenario, with 30 events per year.

Survey of Residents

In my survey, I asked if residents would support a seawall, a barrier parallel to the shoreline which defends the coast against sea-level hazards, or would rather a relocation program such as managed retreat. The majority of residents supported a seawall, but had mixed feelings towards relocation, with a most opposed to leaving their homes. Community preservation was a big explanation for supporting seawalls, which many saw as a plausible solution when used with other techniques. Some saw managed retreat as the best option while others saw it as a last resort. Others believed that by relocating their homes, their land would be given to more wealthy individuals, which made them unwilling to move. Residents gave many reasons for taking different positions on adaptation efforts, yet many of them are rarely heard by the groups that make decisions. When the voices of the community are not heard, the people that need the most help could actually end up being more hurt than helped by adaptation efforts.

The bar chart demonstrates the survey respondents’ answers (Yes, Maybe, No) to 1) Whether or not they would participate in a government-sponsored voluntary buyout of flood-prone property, and 2) Whether or not they would support the construction of a seawall along the coast. 

It is important to remember: How we take action is equally important to or even more important than taking action. The people who make adaptation decisions should change how they operate to accommodate these communities. This could mean increasing the transparency in decision-making process, increasing the consideration of social injustices in long-term adaptation planning, and engaging in participatory planning. Improving these practices can help to decrease the environmental injustices present in the Chesapeake Bay, but we shouldn’t stop there. These practices should be implemented beyond the Chesapeake Bay in order to pursue environmental justice on a global scale.

The Science of Sustainability: Ian Bourg

By: Ethan Sontarp ’24

Environmentalist Rachel Carson’s famous book Silent Spring (1962) first brought public attention to organic contaminants such as DDT, a common insecticide that caused detrimental impacts to numerous ecosystems until its EPA cancellation order in 1972. Organic contaminants are a wide class of carbon-containing chemicals, encompassing familiar names such as glyphosate (RoundUp) and BPAs. They are created and discarded by human industry and are often transported into ecosystems through runoff water. To get a better understanding of modern research involving these contaminants, I interviewed Ian Bourg, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. Professor Bourg leads the Interfacial Water Group at Princeton, which focuses on understanding the microscopic processes which occur when water is in contact with air, clay, and organic contaminants.


Image Credit: Ian Bourg via https://cee.princeton.edu/people/ian-bourg

Why do you study processes at the microscopic scale?

Mostly what we’re doing is trying to understand the fundamental properties of matter, focusing on systems that are relevant to the environment – either in the natural environment or in engineered systems that are being used for protecting the environment. When a typical engineering group is doing work, they’re trying to design ways to manipulate the world and on the human scale to reach certain desired outcomes. Because many engineers work on the macroscopic scale, they use equations that represent the world at the macroscopic scale. In a lot of cases, we think that we can improve these equations if we gain more fundamental insight into how matter behaves at smaller scales.

Could you give a brief overview of your current research? What makes it interesting to you?

I’m interested in water in general because water is cool and water is important. Most water on the surface of the earth, or model that people are familiar with, is […] bulk liquid water, so like water in the ocean or in a glass. The properties of bulk liquid water are pretty well understood by now. Water near a surface remains kind of not that well understood, right? [For example] if I look at water near the water-air interface or near a solid surface or something like that, it changes its properties in various interesting ways depending on what’s on the other side of the interface.

The reason why we study clay is coming from our interest in water at interfaces, in that […] if you look at the average chemistry of the Earth’s crust, it’s mostly oxygen, silicon, and aluminum. There’s one way of packing together oxygen, silicon, and aluminum inside a crystalline structure that is apparently extremely stable and pretty close to the composition of the crust. That clay structure is a kind of structural motif that makes up half of the sedimentary rock mass, half of the mineral mass in soils, and about a third of the rock mass of the surface. If we’re interested in the interfaces between water and a mineral, most of it near the surface of the Earth would be water in contact with those specific minerals. So just kind of like by sheer abundance, if we’re interested in mineral-water interfaces, [clay] is the most logical one to be looking at.


Simulated clay-water interface with organic contaminant PFBS and calcium chloride ions.

Image Credit: Jennifer Willemsen and Ian Bourg via Molecular dynamics simulation of the adsorption of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) on smectite clay, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2021

What are some common obstacles in removing or remediating contaminants in our natural systems?

My Ph.D. advisor always used to say that science doesn’t solve problems, it just replaces one problem with a different problem. It kind of seems a little bit bleak, […] but then, on the other hand, you’re just basically hoping that you’re replacing a big problem with a smaller problem, right? Organic contaminants that are present in natural systems tend to decay naturally with some kind of exponential decay, both through interaction with sunlight, like if they’re in a river or lake and also by being accidentally broken down by microorganisms. There’s some trickiness with that in that it often generates collections of byproducts or degradation products, that in some cases can actually be more toxic than the initial contaminant. A lot of engineered processes for removing contaminants from a system basically just remove them by transferring them to a different system. It doesn’t take [the contaminant] out of the system completely, so it’s always going to be there. Historically a lot of environmental engineering has kind of focused on protecting humans, basically preventing contaminants from coming into contact with humans, whereas a more sustainable approach would be actually removing contamination from the Earth.

What does sustainability mean to you?

I think sustainability to me means thinking about the entire lifecycle of some kind of environmental issue, I guess it’s easier for me to think of in terms of contaminants or carbon. I feel like sustainability kind of in a way also forces you to think more about natural processes. We try to focus on what we think are the most pressing kind of environmental concerns that humanity is facing, and often those happen to be concerns where [the] most pressing environmental issues are the ones where humans are clearly behaving in a very unsustainable way.

Are there any sustainability or climate science resources you know of that you would suggest for readers?

I did read Silent Spring six months ago and I was like this book is amazing! I don’t know why I didn’t read it before, you know. It’s also scary, but interesting.


Image Credit: National Museum of American History via https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1453548

One thing that I try to do in in CEE 207, the Intro to Environmental Engineering course, is to take a 10-minute break and talk about environmental news in like the major news outlets that that came out since the previous lecture. The Guardian has had a ton of really nice kind of environmental coverage for the last several years.