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Klyza gave a nuanced view of Obama’s first term and what might come next.

The question mark was key. In a recent talk entitled, “Change We Can Believe In?” Christopher McGrory Klyza, the Stafford Professor in Public Policy and professor of political science and environmental studies, parsed President Obama’s environmental record for progress, setbacks, and possible future action. Not surprising for the co-author of an award-winning book about recent U.S. environmental policy, Klyza went beyond a mere scorecard to suggest the subtleties of achieving any gains in the current political climate.

Klyza began by giving the full Orchard at Franklin Environmental Center some political context: Obama’s actions (or lack of them) must be weighed against his having taken office while the U.S. was fighting two wars and suffering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Add to that a Congress that has been gridlocked—and worse—since 1990. Klyza quoted California Congressman Henry Waxman’s 2012 comment: “I have never experienced as much hostility toward the environment than exists in Congress today.” In fact, Klyza noted, recent studies show political party polarization has reached levels not seen since Reconstruction. “There’s virtually no environmental middle,” he said, referring to a graph of congressional environmental voting that showed red bars crowding the anti-environment extreme and blue bars crowding the pro-environment edge. Meanwhile, although most Americans support environmental protection, that support is too shallow to pressure politicians. “There’s support, but not salience,” he said.

Still, the Congress and Obama managed to pass two significant laws in the first term. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act consolidated 159 bills and produced the greatest expansion of the wilderness system in 15 years. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus act), invested $80 billion in energy efficiency, public transit, and renewables. What Congress and Obama didn’t pass was a comprehensive climate bill; in both the House and Senate climate and cap-and-trade bills died, Klyza said, due to overcomplexity and failed tactics. After Republicans took the House in the 2010 midterm election, Obama and the Democrats fell back into defending the “green state” from attack. (The “green state,” Klyza explained, is “the set of laws, rules, institutions, and expectations regarding conservation, pollution control, and resource management”—such as the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Forest Service, and the Antiquities Act.) That defense was successful, he said, quelling 39 anti-environmental riders attached to the House’s 2012 Interior-EPA appropriations bill designed to weaken greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation and vehicle fuel efficiency and to promote oil and gas leases in wilderness areas.

Klyza then considered some of Obama’s executive actions. His appointments of Lisa Jackson (EPA administrator), former EPA chief Carol Browner (energy czar), Van Jones (green jobs czar), and Steven Chu (energy secretary) were environmentally credible. When the EPA roused from its Bush-era slumber to respond affirmatively to the Supreme Court’s charge (Massachusetts v. EPA, 2007) that the agency determine if greenhouse gases are a “danger to public health and welfare,” the gates opened to stronger regulation of motor vehicle and power plant emissions.

For example, Klyza explained, California has the right under the Clean Air Act to seek a waiver from the EPA allowing it to require stricter motor vehicle emissions standards than those nationally set. The Bush administration denied the waiver; Obama granted it. A state and federal collaboration helped establish national greenhouse gas standards for cars and light trucks that translate into stepped limits of 35.5 mpg by 2016 and 54.5 mpg by 2025. Higher mpg standards for heavier vehicles were also established.

Klyza also noted that a 2011 rule requiring 90 percent cuts in mercury emissions from fossil-fueled power plants by 2016 resulted in utilities closing many older coal-fired plants (mercury pollution’s greatest source) rather than incur retrofitting costs. The EPA also tightened standards for other air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, but in a major disappointment, Obama wouldn’t support ground-level ozone reduction.

Despite a gridlocked Congress, environmental progress continues through what Klyza called “green drift.” “Green state” laws often include provisions that require review and action based on the best available science, he said, giving the example of the health consequences of particulates. New data show that lower levels than anticipated can damage human health, which requires the EPA to adopt stricter air quality standards—unless Congress intervenes. Since gridlock renders that unlikely, stricter standards accrue. In this scenario, GHG could, through green drift, decline to levels close to what the defeated Waxman-Market climate bill would have achieved through 2020, but not beyond. Unfortunately, he noted, “green drift will not lead to the fundamental changes in the U.S. economy and society that are necessary to make far deeper cuts in GHG emissions.”

Reviewing several other advances, Klyza concluded that in light of first-term pressures, “Obama’s executive politics are making a difference.” But lack of real presidential action on climate change and land conservation left many feeling “the environment never seemed on the top of his to-do list.”

And the second term? Klyza found Obama’s actions hard to predict. Changes to the National Environmental Policy Act could put “some sand in the gears of polluters,” Klyza said, by allowing some lawsuits over greenhouse gas outputs; a spokesperson for the National Association of Manufacturers responded with, “It’s got us very freaked out.” It remains to be seen what Obama will do about the Keystone XL pipeline and other planned fossil fuel infrastructure, or leasing of federal lands for coal extraction, although Klyza considers it essential that issues such as Keystone and fossil fuel divestment have made it to the front page and popular awareness.

“So how do we influence the president to keep global temperature rise below two degrees Centigrade?” a student asked during the lively question and answer period. Klyza responded, “Ceaseless pressure, ceaselessly applied.”

Mapping Vergennes was just one step students took to suggest safer walking and biking routes.

What keeps residents driving around town instead of biking or walking to school, work, and errands? What could change those habits? Four environmental studies (ES) seniors spent a semester looking for answers by getting to know the people, traffic lights, and crosswalks of the City of Vergennes, VT. On a recent Tuesday evening they presented their findings—3 main causes and 18 recommendations for change—at a joint meeting of the Vergennes city council, planning commission, and recreation committee. A reaction from Shannon Haggett, chair of the planning commission, was typical of the response: “I was blown away by the quality of the work.”

Since the late 1980s, ES seniors have developed community-related projects for their capstone senior seminar, focusing on diverse topics such as land management, climate, energy, and water issues. Last fall’s “Cultivating Community Through Sustainable Transportation” resulted in a 52-page report, a highly professional presentation to Vergennes officials, and hopes that the research could be adapted to other Vermont communities.

The students who chose this project among several transportation-oriented options (18 seniors participated in fall semester’s ES 401) brought a cross-section of ES foci to the task: Aaron Kelly’s is policy; Jessica Lee’s is creative arts and dance; Angela Todd focuses on chemistry, and Carlton “Carly” Westling on biology. Their first concern was “Where do we start?”

Fortunately, the semester’s faculty advisor, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Environmental Studies Molly Costanza-Robinson, is an experienced guide in these seminars. “The transportation focus is newer to me, but I’ve been interested as a citizen for a long time,” she says. She also brought ideas from a recent research project in which she and faculty members from six other institutions visited European cities with model sustainable transportation networks. “I learned more about what’s possible and how it was achieved,” she says.

Working with the students and Costanza-Robinson was Diane Munroe, the College’s veteran coordinator for community-based environmental studies. Munroe’s many local and state-wide partners have come to welcome the collaboration—and results—a team of ES401 seniors typically achieve.

The seminar kicked off with a primer on transportation—intensive reading and discussion on such issues as equity, access to jobs, climate change, and a new federal transportation funding bill. That process, at least, was familiar student territory. As they moved toward fieldwork, familiarity gave way to many moving parts. The students set up selection criteria (resident density, number of nearby employers, etc.) that pointed to Vergennes as a workable site. Munroe’s contacts there and with the Addison County Regional Planning Commission were eager to participate. The students met with local officials and conducted detailed walking and mapping trips in Vergennes to measure its crosswalks and assess sightlines. There were days of surveys about residents’ transportation habits and their perceived barriers to biking or walking. They talked with mothers who struggled to push strollers along broken sidewalks and with shoppers too wary of traffic to walk to the nearby supermarket.

The students had some of their own apprehensions: “How do we organize all this?” and “How will we be graded?” Costanza-Robinson advised, “Don’t worry about the grades. Worry about the process. And don’t be afraid to flail around a bit. That’s where the learning is happening.” After many drafts, lots of feedback from their community partners and their advisers, and a particularly rigorous three-hour session with a white board, they started to clarify the issues. As Aaron Kelly notes, “We came in with an untarnished perspective, so we could offer creative solutions. The persistence paid off.”

So what drives Vergennes residents to drive? Three main themes emerged: safety, connectivity, and perceptions and habits. For example, the truck Route 22A turns into Main Street in Vergennes, and residents worry about not being seen, not having time to cross safely, and about being passed too closely on bikes; the city’s infrastructure doesn’t always let someone walk from here to there;  and people perceive walking or biking as too time-consuming or unpleasant in extreme weather.

Matching these results with data from transportation studies and from local research by the county planning commission, the students crafted 18 recommendations ranging from simple (signage and enhanced stoplights) to more complex and costly (a connecting biking/walking trail on a former railbed). “We designed the recommendations to stand on their own,” noted Westling, “so the city could choose which they could afford without weakening the others.” All of their recommendations held multiple benefits—to residents’ physical health, a sense of community, or the local economy. “They knew they couldn’t sell this only on a ‘save-the-planet’ basis,” says Costanza-Robinson. “They had to show the many benefits of sustainable transportation.”

At the Vergennes meeting, the planners and council members raised fine points about town boundaries and state regulations. The students answered questions about streets and paths as if they’d grown up there. “It was so gratifying that they let us present our ideas,” said Jessica Lee afterward. The City Council’s budget vote this June will determine which changes to adopt and what might need outside funding (the report includes suggestions). The students’ success won’t be measured only in future crosswalks and bike lanes, however. As Westling said, “I remember the moment during this project when I realized, ‘this isn’t just what I’m learning in my class; it’s also how I should live my life.’”

Eight minutes. $3,000.

That’s pretty much what it boiled down to last week when MiddChallenge gave 17 student groups a very brief opportunity to explain why their business, outreach, or arts venture deserved one of its six cash awards.

MiddChallenge, part of the College’s Project on Creativity and Innovation (PCI), is a student-driven annual event that encourages other students to pitch ideas for projects or businesses that can solve problems or enhance society in some way.

Basically you apply, prepare an eight-minute presentation (often with the help of a mentor), make your pitch to a panel of professionals who volunteer their time as judges, and find out whether you’ve won—all over the course of one week.

The winners then spend the summer implementing their projects, and the only follow-up requirement is that each of them must submit a written reflection of the process.

It’s a highly efficient and fast-paced way to get start-up funding for an idea—and then put that idea to the test. And, as Liz Robinson, director of the Project on Innovation in the Liberal Arts, points out, “It’s really less about the ultimate success of a particular project and more about the process—the people who mentor these students and the things they learn along the way.”

And they learn a lot. PCI makes available to all the students a stream of valuable resources—from professional mentors who help with presentations and business plans to opportunities for additional funding from other PCI programs such as MiddStart, PCI’s microphilanthropy network.

The student committee—energetically made up of Joanie Thompson ’14, AJ Guff ’13.5, Kate Robinson ’16, Logan Randolph ’14, Will Potter ’14.5, Hannah Bristol ’14.5, and Olivia Tabah ’16—received 37 applications and, practically overnight, narrowed it down to the 17 who were invited to make presentation pitches in one of the three categories: Business; Education, Outreach, and Policy; and Arts.

“It’s a huge time commitment,” said Liz Robinson, “but they take it very seriously.”

The students invite the judges from the professional community, create the criteria for judging, and organize and introduce the student presenters. The 11 judges included young entrepreneurs Chris Eaton ’99, Eliza Eaton ’05, and Corinne Prevot ’13, as well as former Vermont governor Jim Douglas ’72, widely experienced businessman Charlie MacCormack ’63, and the director of the Vermont Women’s Fund Catherine Kalkstein, among others.

The whole event, which took place over two days in Axinn, held an air of professionalism and pragmatism. These were not pie-in-the-sky ideas, but well-thought-out ventures that would in some concrete way add to our society and address an immediate need. Students presented detailed implementation plans and proposed budgets. Several of the groups included first-years and sophomores who were as articulate and poised as their senior peers in presenting and discussing their goals.

This year’s winners include the development of a new method for managing the invasive Eurasian milfoil in waters across Vermont using a patented process called MiddFoil®; Uncle B’s Firenuts, a spicy snack food that a student started last year in a Middlebury Entrepreneurs class and wants to expand this summer; two food-related projects: Share the Surplus, which will deliver untouched and leftover dining hall food to local communities, and Middlebury Foods, which will provide low-cost and highly nutritious grocery items to people who don’t have access to grocery stores; a creative mixed-genre film about the Los Angeles music collective WEDIDIT; and a multimedia narrative featuring stories from people who have experienced bullying in New England schools. For a complete list of the winners, as well as the groups of students involved, see below.

MiddChallenge 2013 Winners:
Business:
Uncle B’s Firenuts
Ben Stasiuk ’14

Uncle B’s Firenuts is a spicy nut snack, based on a recipe developed by Stasiuk’s Uncle Bill, that blends the intense heat of homegrown heirloom hot peppers with the flavors of bourbon and wood smoke. Stasiuk started a business selling Firenuts through the Middlebury Entrepreneurs course last January and hopes to expand the family business over the summer.

Integrated Milfoil Management
Austin Ritter ’13, Greg Dier ’13, with Samuel Carlson ’10, Professor of Biology Sallie Sheldon, Meghan Short

Waterbodies across North America are threatened by Eurasian milfoil, an invasive plant that inhibits recreation, lowers property values, and decreases native species diversity in its surroundings. In the 1990s, Professor Sheldon discovered a native insect that selectively feeds on the milfoil plant. She developed the MiddFoil®  process to efficiently grow and distribute this insect. After a decade of research has shown the MiddFoil® process to be a safe and effective method for providing lasting milfoil control, Integrated Milfoil Management intends to bring the MiddFoil® technology to waterbodies in Vermont.

Education, Outreach & Policy:
Share the Surplus
Cailey Cron ’14, Molly Shane ’14

Addison County is home to nearly 4,000 food-insecure people while Middlebury College dining system produces 300 tons of food waste a year, a portion of which is untouched and servable. In collaboration with Dining Services, Share the Surplus will collect excess prepared food from the dining halls and make it available to local people in need.

Middlebury Foods
Nathan Weil ’15, Harry Zieve Cohen ’15, Chris Kennedy ’15, Jack Cookson ’15, Oliver Mayers ’15, Elias Gilman ’15, Eduardo Danino-Beck ’15

Through Middlebury Foods, Vermonters will be able to purchase supermarket-quality food at fast-food prices. High-quality meats and vegetables will be bundled in food boxes and sold at local delivery sites including churches and community organizations. Each box provides a week’s worth of affordable and nutritious food for approximately $1.50 per meal by eliminating overhead costs and piggy-backing on the established purchasing power and infrastructure of Middlebury College.

Arts:
WEDIDIT
Moss Turpan ’14, Dylan Redford ’14

The project is a mixed documentary/fiction film about WEDIDIT, a collective of electronic musicians based in Los Angeles and one of the few in which members collaborate on work but release music individually. The film will explore the unique collaborative creative process and will employ documentary language to investigate the creative process of the artists and fictional language to represent the emotional experience of the music.

War at Home(room)
Aidesha-Kiya Vega-Hutchens ’14, Jun Chen ’14

The War at Home(room) project will compile oral histories of bullying in New England school systems. The coordinators will travel throughout the region documenting how these experiences follow people over the course of their lives and then produce multimedia narrative that illustrates the struggles endured by those bullied as well as those who eventually rise above their experiences.