Climate activists file lawsuit against the Russian government

Photo courtesy of Alexxx1979 via Flickr.
This historic lawsuit against the Russian state demands reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions.

By Lily Benn ’24

Staff Writer

Earlier this month, Russian activists filed the first climate-related lawsuit against the Russian government. According to The Guardian, these activists are “demanding that the government take stronger action over the climate crisis.” 

The New Climate Institute’s Climate Change Performance Index rates Russia’s climate change performance in the “very low” category. This index compares how countries are working to mitigate climate change in categories including renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions, climate policy and energy use. Excerpts of the lawsuit published in a U.S. News article states that Russia’s average temperature has risen by 2.5 degrees celsius over the past 50 years while the world average is one degree Celsius. The article goes on to explain that this fails to meet the goal set by the Paris Agreement to keep the average temperature increase below two degrees celsius “in hopes of averting the worst consequences of climate change.” 

Individuals behind the lawsuit include Arshak Makichyan and Pavel Sulyandziga, according to U.S. News. Makichyan is an anti-war climate activist known to be Russia’s “lone climate activist,” according to The Guardian. Sulyandziga is the chairperson of the Board of the International Development Fund of Indigenous Peoples in Russia. According to U.S. News, they are among the 18 individuals listed as plaintiffs, as well as Ekozashita, an eco-defense organization, and Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia’s oldest human-rights organization.

The current pledges made by the Russian government are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 70 percent of 1990 levels by 2030 and 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2050, according to U.S. News. Activist groups filing the lawsuit believe this will not be enough to reduce Russia’s impact on climate change.

 In an interview with The Guardian, the plaintiffs’ spokesperson Grigory Vaypan expressed that there is a need for “the court to recognise that these [climate] targets are manifestly insufficient to fulfill Russia’s obligation to mitigate climate change, and order the government to set new, Paris-compliant targets.” U.S. News reported that the activists declared that emissions should instead be reduced to 31 percent of 1990 levels by 2030 and five percent of 1990 levels by 2050. 

It is historically significant for the Russian government to be involved with this high-level court case, a U.S. News article said. The article states that this lawsuit was the first of its kind to be accepted by a Russian court. This is especially notable with their past reviews from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which state they have “one of the worst climate change mitigation efforts in the world.” 

The CSIS remarked in the March 2021 article that Russia is resistant to “internal policy changes related to climate change.” It is also dangerous for many of these activists to be speaking out against the Russian government, The Guardian said. Arshak Makichyan told The Guardian that this is more than a case for climate policy — it is also a lawsuit directly contradicting the Russian government. Makichyan and many other activists filing this case are also anti-war activists, and the Russian government has recently been monitoring and eliminating opposition movements in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the article said. Makichyan himself has since moved to Germany, as he believes the country has become dangerous and called it a dictatorship.

According to The Guardian, Russia faces deadly and widespread consequences of climate change, “ranging from severe health impacts due to recent heatwaves and outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, to increased exposure to anthrax disease and infrastructure damage due to melting permafrost.” According to an NPR interview with Joshua Yaffa, two-thirds of Russia sits atop a layer of permafrost, which is melting at an extreme rate. Yaffa explains that permafrost melting can destabilize land which cities and communities build on. It is also a global issue, he said, as the melting releases more carbon dioxide and methane. For The Guardian, Makichyan remarked, “I don’t understand how Russia will negotiate any climate deals … they have been lying to people about the climate crisis.” He also stated that by pushing this lawsuit through the government, more people will be able to see the truth about the Russian government and how they have been neglecting the suffering caused by climate change.

‘Shotgun scientist’ Angelica Patterson becomes Miller Worley Center for the Environment curator of education and outreach

By Yuyang Wang ’24

Staff Writer

On Aug. 1, the Mount Holyoke College Miller Worley Center for the Environment welcomed Dr. Angelica Patterson as the new curator of education and outreach. 

According to Christian Feuerstein, director of news and media relations at Mount Holyoke, “Patterson received her bachelor’s in natural resources from Cornell University and her masters, master of philosophy and doctorate degrees from Columbia University in plant ecophysiology.” According to a recent interview with Dr. Patterson for Mount Holyoke News, she worked at Barnard College as a research assistant in a plant lab and as an administrator in its Environmental Science Department for seven years before coming to Mount Holyoke. Patterson said she loved this work and was inspired by the feeling of being immersed in a community of passionate students eager to lead progressive changes in their fields. “When I saw the opportunity to once again work and collaborate amongst inspiring young leaders again, I leaped at the chance,” Patterson said. 

“When I saw the opportunity to once again work and collaborate amongst inspiring young leaders again, I leaped at the chance.”

— Angelica Patterson

When discussing her main responsibilities as the curator of education and outreach, Patterson said, “I will be responsible for the development and implementation of curricular opportunities for the Center, including the Campus Living Laboratory. This will involve outreach with and general coordination among departments, instructors, classes, MHC organizations and public audiences.” Patterson said a central goal for her work is “to broaden MWCE’s reach across campus and the local community, which will first entail communicating our mission and the resources we have that can be creatively used to support various classrooms and organizations as well as independent projects and learning experiences. I envision the development of larger projects that can better integrate environmental data into the classroom, establish community science opportunities across the Campus Living Lab and utilize more innovative technology in the teaching of environmental sciences.”

Outside of her role at the MWCE, Patterson described her background in plant science with a focus in plant ecophysiology, which she described as “the study of the physiology of plants and their responses to changes in environmental conditions.” According to Feuerstein, Patterson studies trees’ adaptation to global warming. 

As she reflected on why she chose this field, Patterson said she was inspired by a paper she read during graduate school at Columbia University. “We read a paper by Richard Pearson called ‘Climate change and the migration capacity of species.’ In the paper, they noted that the percentage of species ‘committed to extinction’ using climate change projections for 2050 was around 21-23 percent with unlimited dispersal with the percentage going as high as 38-52 percent if they had no ability to disperse.” She went on to explain that although plants are immobile organisms, they can still migrate via seed dispersal. While plant distributions across the world have been changing since the beginning of time, rapidly warming climates result in plants migrating up to ten times faster than they did before in order to survive. “I was interested in learning how trees in the Northeastern United States were responding to warmer temperatures and see if there was a physiological mechanism behind their responses and if those responses differed between plants that had historically different geographic range distributions (northern vs. central vs. southern ranged trees),” Angelica said. 

Currently, her research involves measuring the photosynthetic and respiration rates of leaves. Usually, the leaves she wants to study are on the high top of the forest canopy, so she has had to come up with a way to collect these leaf samples. She explained that she “would go into the field and use a shotgun to shoot branches down from the top of the canopy. These leaves are usually growing in full sunlight, so by sampling canopy level branches, we could reduce the amount of variation we would find in their physiological responses to experimental treatments.” 

Feuerstein explained that this practice “... led The Guardian to dub her ‘the shotgun scientist’ in a 2020 article.” 

Patterson went on to describe the results of this process. “In summary, we found that northern ranged trees had the highest rates of respiration (or carbon loss) under elevated temperatures, whereas the central ranged trees, such as the red oak, had similar rates of respiration to southern ranged trees as temperatures elevated.” Patterson explained that these findings mean that central ranged trees — such as the red oak — may be at a disadvantage when it comes to sustaining reproduction and growth as the climate warms due to climate change.

This emotional connection to the forest is one of her reasons for coming to work at Mount Holyoke. When asked about her favorite place on campus, she answered,“I would be remiss if I did not mention the natural spaces that make a part of the Campus Living Laboratory as one of the most resourceful and favorite places at MHC. I especially enjoy the trails through Prospect Hill [among] the trees — a forested area, which always brings me peace and joy.”

Patagonia founder donates company with mixed support

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Former Patagonia owner Yvon Chouinard has a long history of environmental conservation action.

By Catelyn Fitzgerald ’23

Science and Environment Editor

Yvon Chouinard, dubbed a “reluctant billionaire” by The New York Times in a Sept. 14 article, recently donated Patagonia, his multi-billion dollar outdoor clothing company, to help fund environmental initiatives. According to the New York Times article, the company will continue to operate under the new ownership, but all of its profits, equalling an estimated $100 million annually, will go towards protecting the environment. 

The Times article explains that the company’s stock was donated to two organizations created specifically to manage Patagonia’s assets: the Patagonia Purpose Trust and the Holdfast Collective. The Patagonia Purpose Trust took only two percent of the company and is intended to hold the company to its commitment to being a “socially responsible business” as it operates going forward, The New York Times reported. The article went on to explain that the remaining shares of the company, equal to nearly $3 billion, will be given to the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit organization created to direct the money towards “nature-based climate solutions,” such as preservation efforts.

In the same New York Times article, Chouinard explained the inspiration behind his decision to give the company away, saying that his frustration with his own billionaire status was a major factor behind the decision. “I was in Forbes magazine listed as a billionaire, which really, really pissed me off,” Chouinard said in his interview for The Times. “I don’t have $1 billion in the bank. I don’t drive Lexuses.” he continued. 

According to an article in Forbes Magazine, Patagonia has a long history of supporting climate initiatives. The article cites the donation of one percent of the company’s total sales to support grassroots activism, as well as the donation of $10 million, a sum saved from the lowering of corporate taxes by former President Trump in 2018, to climate change-focused organizations. The company has also made efforts to encourage long-term use of its products, Forbes said.

Coverage of Chouinard’s decision to donate Patagonia ranges from praise to criticism. Several news sources, including Axios, Bloomberg and Quartz, have called the move a tax-avoidance strategy. 

According to Bloomberg, if Chouinard had decided to sell the company, he would have had to pay federal capital gains taxes that could have been more than $700 million. Bloomberg explained that by choosing to donate the company shares to the Holdfast Collective, Chouinard owes no capital gains taxes and is exempt from the gift tax, which he would have been subject to had the company been passed down to an heir. Bloomberg points out another key aspect of the Holdfast Collective — its status as a 501(c)(4) organization. 501(c)(4) nonprofits can make limitless political donations. With the addition of the family-run Patagonia Purpose Trust meant to help manage the company’s assets, the arrangement allows the family to continue to control the business while avoiding significant taxes, the article said. 

Axios echoed this sentiment, calling the donation “the ultimate billionaire tax dodge” in an article published last week. The article predicted that Chouinard’s actions might create a blueprint for other billionaires looking to make large charitable donations while maintaining influence over how that money is used. 

Quartz News interviewed New York University law professor Daniel Hemel on the subject, who agreed that the donation of the company’s voting shares to the Patagonia Purpose Trust was to ensure that the Chouinard family could continue “calling the shots” for the company. Hemel said the decision was made “to avoid taxes and use the money for political causes.” 

He added that donating the company’s funds to support environmental causes was admirable, but “one doesn’t want a constructed tax system predicated upon everyone being like the Chouinards.” The article concludes with Hemel expressing that climate change is an urgent issue, but that doesn’t exempt billionaires from paying their fair share in taxes.