Students

Emily Wright

Sophomore, EPC

“UNICORNS, LEPRECHAUNS, CLEAN COAL!”

I was one of hundreds of young environmental activists chanting this on the West Lawn of the Capital building on March 2. The rally on Capital Hill was the final event of PowerShift 2009.

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A few weeks ago I was one of six Northwestern students who joined over 12,000 other young people from across the country to attend Power Shift, a four-day conference about environmental problems in Washington, D.C. The conference offered a plethora of panels and workshops to choose from, including “Population, Reproductive Justice, and Climate Change” and “The Road to Copenhagen: The Future of International Climate Agreements”. During each of the six sessions, I learned the seemingly endless extent of climate change’s effects and I heard how very different people were finding unique solutions that addressed climate change, poverty, and other cross-cutting issues. We also had training sessions to learn how to lobby Congressmen and their aides and then I joined my fellow constituents to talk with Wisconsin and Illinois lawmakers and share our personal stories about our connections to the environmental movement. That day, Power Shift activists held over 200 meetings with representatives from all 50 states, and even some territories, solely to present a unified platform to our leaders, asking them to take action now on climate change, clean energy, and a green economy. Reflecting on my experience at Power Shift, I realized that this was not just an opportunity to learn more about clean energy, green jobs, and other parts of the environmental movement. The conference also reminded me about the diversity within the movement and it refreshed my passion and drive to help make change happen. Most importantly, it showed me that although the road ahead of us seems very daunting at times, we are all in this together and will endure together

Stephanie Jarzemsky

Senior, Political Science and EPC  

This summer I worked for Carbon Solutions Group, an environmental asset-consulting firm based in Chicago.  The firm offers a variety of services, from consulting on greenhouse gas reduction projects, to giving carbon workshops in order to build capacity within companies, in addition to trading carbon offsets and Renewable Energy Certificates.  After guiding clients in identifying and executing greenhouse gas reduction projects, CSG monetizes and trades the assets generated by the project on the US's voluntary carbon markets.  Interning with Carbon Solutions Group was a great experience for me because I learned about the US's quickly expanding carbon market first-hand.  It was very exciting to watch renewable energy technologies and the carbon market grow in the US and abroad, and I got to learn about some pretty creative ways to generate renewable energy!  I played a flexible role as an intern.  My tasks included policy research for CSG's white papers on environmental legislation, negotiating with clients interested in or working on GHG reduction projects, and navigating carbon markets around the world in order to work with some of CSG's international clients.  The whole experience really showed me the future of carbon projects in the US, and I can't wait to see how new environmental policy shapes this emerging market.   

Jesse Sleamaker

Senior, Political Science and EPC

Last summer I interned in San Francisco's Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). The park is largely in an urban setting and because water, dense city, and roadways separate its areas, park managers are presented with a very different set of challenges than "traditional" national parks like Yosemite or Yellowstone. I was tasked with writing a green purchasing policy at GOGA - the Park's first, and what was hoped to be the most comprehensive in the Park System. My daily routine was varied and exciting. I spent half of my time in the office working on product research and policy writing and the other half outside. One of my main challenges was creating "buy in" from various park staff, which involved traveling and having conversations with people concerning their inventories, philosophies of management, and challenges they were facing in "greening" the park. Highlights were working with the Nike Missile site (a historical cold war era nuclear missile silo) to purchase environmentally friendly hydraulic fluid, visiting WWII-era bunkers in Fort Miley, and doing a presentation to the senior staff of a 4 million + visitor/year park. 

The experience was fantastic. I learned a huge amount about NPS and what it takes to design and implement environmental measures within a large government bureaucracy. My work always felt more like concerted advocacy and activism than it did "working for the man". I always felt incredibly welcome in the NPS family. My time at the GGNRA has left me with an understanding of federal natural and cultural resource management, as well as with a more intimate knowledge of the place I was born and raised, and a group of new friends there that I will never forget.

Julia Steege

Senior, Environmental Policy and Culture minor

Anthropology major

I fulfilled a lifelong dream when together with Elizabeth Henley anthropology /international studies/geography major (’09) we created a children’s book while studying abroad in Bolivia last year. The bilingual (English/Spanish) book, Esperanza, focuses on how it feels for one person to leave her childhood home in rural Bolivia as a teenager, then return home as an adult. I wrote the book and Elizabeth illustrated it after we spent two weeks interviewing the book’s protagonist, Esperanza Angelo, at her birthplace in Tambillo, Bolivia, and photographing places and people relevant to Esperanza’s story. We are currently working on getting the book published in Bolivia. We are also trying to secure funding to return to Bolivia to write more bi/trilingual oral history-based children’s books reflecting Bolivia’s cultural diversity. I believe that my academic background in environmental policy and culture and anthropology has given me the perfect training for my passion and helped me understand how cultural diversity supports ecological health and how important individuals’ stories are for learning the cultural history of societies.  

Meryl Summers

Senior, Music Performance, Political Science and EPC 

Last summer I was an intern at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. In this part of Alaska, which is about five hours north of Anchorage, there is nothing but enormous mountains and vast open space everywhere you look. Over the course of two months, I wasinvolved in many projects including filming and writing a script for a Pod cast that will eventually be on the park website, and working on the Tanada fish weir which collects data about sockeye and king salmon to determine if commercial fisheries are over fishing, and also toinsure that there are enough resources for the Natives who live in and around the park to live sustainably. I also did a significant amount of research on climate change, and displayed my results on the informational boards in the visitor's center. Throughout my summer, it was alarming to actually be able to see the effects climate change is having on the boreal forest in this area. Trees are falling over due to melting permafrost, and invasive species such as thespruce-bark beetle are traveling further north, turning once-healthy spruce trees into gray, deceased, Dr.Suess-like looking ones. I loved making friends with the residents of the small community of Slana where I lived. Everyone I met had incredible stories of how they came to live in this remote area of Alaska. They all lived, what an urban community would call, an incredibly simple life-style-living off the land by eating salmon, picking blueberries, hunting, and chopping firewood, and often times functioning without running water or electricity. These people are so connected and have such a deep appreciation for nature, which I loved engaging myself in. 

Elisa Redish

Sophmore, Communication Studies and EPC 

This past summer I was a policy intern at the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago. ELPC is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization composed of lawyers, lobbyists, and MBAs who work on environmental policy in the Midwest. I loved getting firsthand experience with real world policy and knowing that the research I did was directly contributing to craft advocacy programs, speeches, and help bills get passed in the various state legislatures.