On any given day in August, I’d normally find myself in a seemingly endless row of traffic, sweating behind the wheel as I anxiously make the journey from Chilmark to Vineyard Haven. Islanders are all too familiar with the seasonal change and how our towns seem to explode with people. We accept that lines are longer, tempers are shorter, and that this is all part of living where we do. You lose track of the bigger picture sometimes. This past August I found myself in a very different place — on top of a peak in Denali National Park in Alaska. The wind was whipping away any notion of summer heat, though the sun would be up until 11 pm.
It was surreal to find myself thousands of miles from the Atlantic, surrounded by mountains taller than anything I’d ever seen. I remember being in my dorm room last November, reading online about the terrorist attacks in Paris. A call from my dad came soon after. He was reeling. We see so much destruction and hate in the news, even a chipper teacher on a small Island has difficulty staying positive. Paris was also going to be the next place my father, Jonah, took Charter School students to learn about environmental politics by attending the 21st Conference of Parties. This was no longer feasible.
However, opportunities arise at the most unexpected times. Last spring, students took a shorter field trip to the Woods Hole Research Center, the No. 1 think tank for climate change. Climate scientist Susan Natali mentioned that she had ongoing projects in Alaska, which students had collaborated on in the past.
Flash-forward five months: My dad has been granted a Vision Fellowship, and Island students are able to travel to the Last Frontier to assist with climate science. Though I’m no longer a high school student, I was lucky enough to giddily tag along. Astrid Tilton, Lily Tilton, Jared Rivard, Lucy Thompson, and Clancy Conlin made up the rest of the team of students. Astrid is currently a freshman at Hampshire College studying environmental policy and photography. Jared’s interest in outdoor education and leadership was the expertise he brought to the table, and Lucy was fresh from through-hiking the Long Trail that follows the Green Mountain range from Massachusetts to Vermont. Each of us had slightly different focuses, but we all shared a few things: We were not climate scientists, but we all had an incredible drive to go out into the world and be a part of something important.
Our first destination was Fairbanks, where for three days we helped build and install sensors in boreal forests with Susan Natali’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE). We took measurements in forests that had gone through fires, and forests that still had healthy understories. I was naive when it came to permafrost, and the concept of thick (sometimes meters upon meters) slabs of ice below the organic layer of soil. We stuck probes in the ground and saw shockingly obvious evidence of permafrost thaw. The probes, which usually gave us a good measurement when we struck the ice, sank straight down with no sign of solidity.
Permafrost holds some of the oldest carbon (a very prominent greenhouse gas), and the thaw causes the carbon held in the ice to escape as gas. Most current climate analyses don’t account for excess carbon in the atmosphere due to permafrost lost.
These are incredibly difficult facts to face. It was humbling yet empowering at the same time to go across the country and feel the energy of people everywhere uniting to face global climate change.
We witnessed incredible changes over 24 hours and 4,000 miles. More than just the temperature, the social norms of the people we encountered were different from the (mostly middle class liberal) locals we knew back home. In Alaska there is a disconnect between rural Alaskans, who see the effects of climate firsthand, and the support of pipelines. However, many people have no other career opportunities.
One of the most important industries — apart from oil extraction — is suffering greatly due to climate change. People travel from all over the United States to fish seasonally in Alaska. We stayed in a hostel in Anchorage and met a Californian who’d been traveling to Alaska for years to fish for salmon. While interviewing him we learned about how Pacific temperature increases are confusing salmon all along the Alaskan coast.
Needless to say, this hit home. If there’s one thing to be said for Island kids, we care for the ocean. The suffering of the salmon fishing industry is not unknown to us. We come home and see the same issues being faced by our neighbors, aunts, and brothers. It doesn’t always take a trip across the country to realize we’re all interconnected and we’re all being affected. However, I didn’t know the realities of permafrost loss increasing greenhouse gas levels globally until I went to Alaska. I was shocked that within the Rubenstein School for Natural Resources and the Environment here at UVM, I’d never learned much about these processes. I have a stronger focus now to connect social justice and climate change issues throughout my studies. These experiences will stick with me forever. Especially those nearing-midnight pink-gold sunsets.
Bella Maidoff of Chilmark is a 2015 graduate of the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School. She is a sophomore at the University of Vermont, studying environmental studies and food systems. She is an on-campus eco-rep, and member of the Slow Food club. She spends her free time hiking, playing intramural soccer, biking, climbing trees, and cooking.