Climate Change and a Call to Action: Personal Statement

One of my biggest challenges growing up was attempting to define myself outside of my proximity to others. Growing up, this was a difficult task, particularly in my academic life. I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to attend a highly selective High School located in downtown Chicago. Nearly everyone who attended was in the top five percent of Chicago’s income, so I spent my formative years surrounded by people with means who were in a distinctly different situation from my own. I did not grow up poor, the differences between us were far less pronounced. My friends would return from break with presents and experiences from Australia, China, Ecuador, and Iceland. In contrast, I did not feel like anything I would have brought back from my grandmother’s house in Kettering, Ohio could really compare. I was conflicted about whether I really belonged among my peers, but to my relief, this was a feeling that dramatically changed once I discovered environmental activism.

My passion for environmental activism began in my sophomore year. I took an environmental science class, primarily because the teacher was the soccer coach, but to my surprise, I ended up loving the subject. It was a nontraditional environmental science class that instead focused on the humanitarian consequences of climate change and the destruction of our ecosystem. The class perfectly demonstrated the urgency of the situation, and I was enthralled. As the class continued, I realized that I gravitated towards both legal and policy solutions as potential answers to climate change. I had no idea just how impactful my new interest in the environment would be on the trajectory of my personal and professional life.

Two years after my first class, when we were applying to college and choosing the path our lives would take, I thought back to the plaza in downtown Chicago that was filled with hundreds of chanting high schoolers, all waiting with bated breath for change. I recalled my time in our school’s environmental club, but most importantly I thought about my family: my cousins who had come face to face with the California wildfires; and my choice was easy. I wanted and needed to do something for our environment.

In my freshman year at American University, I was invited into a three-year advanced Politics and Policy program to study Law. For the first time in my life, I had a concrete plan. On the first day of my intro to law seminar, we went around listing the types of law we were interested in. From the back, I heard “environmental law”. I was startled. I had no idea environmental law even existed, let alone being a major legal specialization. I had always loved the environment and been interested in studying law, but this was the first time I could realistically use my two interests cooperatively. So, I eagerly began a hopeful future as an environmental lawyer.

I was initially interested in the UK Fulbright program because of the United Kingdoms’ fascinating history with the environment and sustainability. The UK was the birthplace of the first Industrial Revolution, which was one of the most consequential contributors to global warming in history. On the other hand, the United Kingdom was the first country to legally mandate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through the Climate Change Act of 2008. Studying environmental solutions in a country with such a rich history would be an incredibly advantage. London also consistently ranks within the top ten major cities for sustainability. Learning in a hub that is so well known for the topic that interests me would hopefully transform and widen my views on the subject.

While I believe that studying abroad at the Fulbright Summer institute can teach me the history, knowledge, and skills to continue down an environmental career path, its true strength comes from the connections I will make with individuals who share a similar drive and passion. These individuals will all have different ideas and perspectives to solve our common goal. This opportunity would be transformative because it would dramatically broaden my perspective of climate change and sustainability questions. This Fulbright opportunity would provide me with opportunities to interact with a wide array of people: driven students, accomplished teachers, and influential policymakers, each with a different perspective on climate change solutions. This diversity of perspectives present at UCL’s summer school would definitively change the way I see the world and the United States’ environmental policy. A foundational characteristic necessary to become a great lawyer is a deep level of care and understanding for the people you represent. My hope is to represent the earth and I am certain that the UK summer institute will equip me with the proper care, connections, and understanding to turn that hope into reality.

 

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The Lies They Sell: An Exploration of Exploitation in Fast Fashion

For so long in my life, I was a king in a phony castle. I stared at a twenty-dollar bill in my hand with no real understanding of what it meant. To my adolescent self, it meant toys, candy, and most importantly for myself growing up: clothes. I would venture through seas of clothing and piles of polyester being consumed with immeasurable amounts of joy. Here is the process of change. In its place, I now only feel disgust. Why was the kingdom so important to me? And why was my textile empire built on the backs of the rest of the world?

Since the overnight success of the clothing brand Zara in the late 1990s, the clothing industry has evolved in an alarming fashion. Zara rose to prominence because of its new revolutionary business model, Fast Fashion. Fast Fashion—the production of inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends— was marketed as a revolutionary change in the supply chain. When Fast Fashion was first introduced, most of America embraced it as a win-win scenario. By outsourcing labor, companies could produce far cheaper products and, consequently make clothing far more affordable for the average American. So why was I particularly distraught when I discovered the inner clockwork of the Fast Fashion industry? Because I was sold a lie and I ate it up.  

I remember very fondly the feeling of being in an H&M as an adolescent with about twenty dollars in my pocket and the feeling of a king. As I loaded up a cart full of inexpensive clothing, excited to show off my brand new jeans in school on Monday, I had no idea just how much I was really paying for that pair of pants. Because we see the price tag and nothing else matters. This is a narrative that large fashion retailers have been pushing since the inception of Fast Fashion; that they deliver clothing to you at the cheapest price possible and that is all that should matter. But as Lucy Siegle, an environmental journalist for The Guardian, points out “Fast Fashion isn’t cheap. Someone, somewhere is paying”.

The normalization and proliferation of the Fast Fashion industry in the United States is a particularly pressing issue because Fast Fashion itself is built on a variety of environmental, human rights, and labor abuses, in order to satisfy these massive conglomerates’ bottom line. Fast Fashion is at the center of an intricate web of offenses. 

The reason that Fast Fashion is able to minimize cost is due to their extremely unethical outsourcing practices. They make agreements with pseudo-slavery sweatshops in countries thousands of miles away from the labor protections they would usually have to enforce if dealing in the United States. In 2019, Fashion checkers independently audited large Fast Fashion brands and discovered that 93% were not paying their workers a living wage.  A living wage is a far lower standard than the American minimum wage. By contrast, Amancio Ortega, the owner of Zara and the richest man in Spain, is valued at seventy billion dollars. It is a textbook case of labor exploitation with a twist, Fast Fashion industries also exploit the earth. 

While the human rights violations that come along with Fast Fashion are often very apparent, there is a surprisingly less amount of discussion about the catastrophic environmental consequences of Fast Fashion. The issue is that the entire supply chain poses issues to a healthy environment. Fast Fashion textiles are mostly made with cheaper synthetic materials such as polyester, acrylic, and nylon. The production of these cost-cutting materials requires large amounts of fossil fuels and non-renewable resources. Furthermore, the synthetic nature of these fibers decomposes differently than wool and cotton, forming microplastics (tiny non-biodegradable fragments) that are harmful to our oceans and marine life. 

Environmental abuses have been an essential byproduct of Fast Fashion since its creation. The nature of Fast Fashion has led to an increase in production and waste. Today over 80 billion garments are produced each year, which is 400% more than just twenty years ago. Most of those new textiles are not biodegradable and are worn only six times on average before being tossed. The average United States citizen generates 77 pounds(35kg) of clothing waste every year. Without a dramatic change in our business practices, Fast Fashion will bring the earth to ruin.

As I wade deeper into the vast ocean of human and environmental abuses, I take pause. I renounced my claim to the textile throne, so distraught by its consequences, but I, unlike most of the kingdom, had the means to do so. Only the comfortable can soak their hands clean of filth. But even this argument is corrosive to the conversation because the consumers of Fast Fashion have no filth on their hands. They are not at fault. When the eventuality comes that corporations are forced to reflect on their abuses, they will blame the consumer. This is a trend mirrored throughout history. The “Carbon Footprint” was the brainchild of The British Petroleum Company and was created by an advertising agency to shift environmental responsibility onto the consumer. Similarly, the Zara’s and the H&M’s of the world are far more at fault than the Americans who simply rely on their clothing. But the blame game is unproductive because the perpetrators only care for their bottom line. The harsh reality is that change will never come from them. So I implore you to reject your polyester crown, even if it is difficult, and start considering the question: what can be done? Because our world will burn long before the accountable parties stand trial.  

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