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Our earth: MADS

Sascha Sylbing

As AUC's sustainability committee, you can be sure of our passion for preserving this planet. However, the way we have to come it is limited by the places, cultures, landscapes and stories alongside which we have grown up. When it comes down to our experiences of natural phenomena, no one earth is the same.

By passing the mic to other students within AUC we hope to create a more comprehensive overview of what sustainability entails; what our planet has to offer; and what it needs from us, humans.

Welcome to Our Earth, an interview series exploring the relationship of AUC's community with our natural environment. This week, we're interviewing Madeleine Sellers, a 2nd year humanities major and devoted environmental activist.


Where’d you grow up and how’d that shape your relationship with non-human nature?

I mainly grew up in Chicago and moved around a lot when I was younger. Because of the moving around, I never had a very clear understanding of fluctuations in seasons in nature until I was 18, when I moved out west in the US. I lived in places like Montana and Wyoming, living close to national parks, in my truck. I would travel between these areas depending on the seasons to work there. I worked any random gig I could find in the towns I found myself in, really, from brewing beer and bartending to gardening and construction. Just any entry level manual or service work that helped me get by and save up to go to university. And I wanted to be near national parks, simply for my own joy, as I’ve always loved being in the outdoors.

I never really noticed many direct effects of climate change until I moved out West and met people who had suffered from things like increased weather fluctuations and intense snowstorms, or even the travelling smoke of wildfires in surrounding states.


One story that really stuck with me, though, was one by one of my good friends’ dad. He would always talk about how the weather has completely changed over the years: winters had become more unpredictable, either much less harsh with much less snow, or extremely harsh with massive snowfall and intense storms. The way that the weather fluctuates had even changed, and skiing has gotten much more dangerous in the mountains because of that; detrimental for a community in which many people rely on skiing tourism.


What’s your favorite natural place?

I got to know a lot of natural places that weren’t part of national parks because I had to just find free open land to camp in. Especially some places near Jackson, Wyoming, feel like home. It is a bit like a valley; the town is very flat. But the mountains are harsh, arrayed in just one line because it’s at the interface of tectonic plates. They seem come up out of nowhere, it’s quite dramatic.


How do you feel about the contentious nature of national parks, seen the history of its separation from indigenous people and being used for US citizens’ leisure activities?

There are so many levels of that, it's very deeply rooted in national parks themselves. During the Trump administration many pieces of public land in national parks were set to be privatised. I fought for the protection of these places as public land. But really if you take it back in history, the land was already stolen from indigenous peoples in the first place. When you’re in national parks in the US you have no insight into that, it’s not acknowledged at all, absolutely no mention of indigenous people that used to live on the land. In Utah you can see some drawings by native Americans, but there’s little to no mention of it.


You're involved with Extinction Rebellion. How did you get involved?

I was always pretty interested in it, but never really got involved until the September rebellion of 2020. I always felt like a lot of my activism didn’t have a lasting effect. Even though showing up for marches and protests is important as well, it was sometimes frustrating to not be part of a group that thought about how to move forward beyond demonstrations. I was ready to commit some time to doing more structural and disruptive activism.


What’s one thing that really keeps you up at night about climate change?

It’s depressing, but the insidious nature of capitalism. It would be so difficult to get the entire world and the 100 biggest companies producing 70% of the world’s emissions to snap out of this capitalistic mindset that exploits land, cultures, people and resources. It’s going to take a lot and that’s what keeps me up at night. People are very greedy and often focused on the immediate goals of their actions and to get everyone to collective stop is quite a big task. It’s difficult to achieve a change of mindset because we will all have to act in line with a global and long-term goal, regardless of where you are located. It’s difficult to consider the sheer power that capitalism holds over the planet, and even more so to change that.


Is modern-day environmental activism doing enough to achieve the necessary changes in your opinion?

I don’t think I can say that anyone is doing enough, myself obviously included. But in the past, I’ve had some issues with mainstream environmental activism because I felt it didn’t really tackle the root cause of environmental collapse, such as colonialism, imperialism, consumerism and capitalism. My main issue with it is that it often shifts the burden to individual people. Take people telling others to ‘reuse, reduce, recycle’, for instance, to make their own plant-based milk, or to stop buying fast fashion. All of those things are important, and I wouldn’t want to argue against them, but I do often miss the inclusion of things like the fact that the 100 biggest companies are responsible for 71% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, all of these things we can do to reduce our own individual carbon footprint takes up way too much space in climate activist discourse. We need to be targeting these polluting corporations. We need to be working together to create new economic, social and institutional structures that can bring the ones currently harming both humans and the planet down and replace them. We need more localised forms of production with local workforces who are paid an actual living wage. Even that isn’t really enough, if you ask me. It’s already too late, and it’s sad but it’s the cold hard truth. Many people studying here in Amsterdam and living in a wealthy European nation may not see the contemporary effects of large corporations exploiting people and natural resources. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. If you’re asking me personally, we need a full-on revolution, a shift towards a socialist economy and maybe even a step further. We need to stop kidding ourselves that we can push corporations to be more considerate, that’s never going to happen. Their literal nature is to just make profit, by any means necessary. People have called me a radical for that. I find it realistic.


How do you envision changing that?

A full-blown socialist revolution. One which includes tackling the root causes of climate collapse and includes all the intersecting social issues involved. These issues include our history of colonial ideology in which human and non-human natural resources are exploited, shifted and turned into capital that a nation or corporation gains profit from. It includes stepping away from our current capitalist economic system in which resources are over-exploited, and goods are overproduced. This system is where environmental collapse is rooted.

I deem environmental collapse a symptom of capitalism, as the earth is exploited to produce things that are marketed as to make it seem as if we all need them, so that everyone buys them and they in turn continue to be produced. It’s a vicious cycle. Without a sustainable form of energy, this depletes both human and natural resources. This train of thought is becoming more and more well established, but even so it’s still quite Eurocentric. Too often, it is overlooked that we’re talking about actual people in various parts in the world being exploited at this exact moment, for the sake of large corporations to continue to exist and make profit.


This revolution is something I keep debating with people actually, I have a lot of friends who think that capitalist reforms can help in bringing societies at least closer to being more equitable and environment friendly. Personally, I find that a bit beside the urgency. The revolution vs. reform discussion is complicated, though, because in order to achieve a revolution we actually need to do some reforms. Those two can go together.


What type of reforms do you stand behind?

The type of reforms that I am currently fighting for with activists I organised with against climate change is for established and powerful institutions in society to be held accountable for their role in environmental collapse. This extends to the universities we attend, the political parties in power where we live, the carbon footprint of the building I rent an apartment in, and even to a smaller, micro-level scale, in the conversations we have and communities we form part of. All these governing, bureaucratic and capitalist powers that are in place need to be held accountable towards first of all acknowledging the climate and ecological crisis and the root causes thereof. On top of that, they should take active steps towards joining the fight against environmental collapse. This can look like UvA ceasing to collaborate with Shell or an Amsterdam-based college educated environmental activist group acknowledging their privileged position and consciously deviating from Eurocentric activism to include those that are already most affected by climate change. Third, institutions need to democratise their policies and practices. That means ensuring that they do not take money from large fossil fuel corporations just to make sure that they can keep getting that funding. Instead, they should let the people the community they represent decide where their money goes and who their money comes from. And these things can exist on a small-scale: in our circle of colleagues, our group of friends, our class discussions. We need to implement them on a local level while continuing to fight for implementation at a large, overarching scope. Some movements are already moving towards recognising and seeking to dismantle these structures. University Rebellion, for instance, is actively highlighting the way climate change and oppression intersect.


Do you have a tip for anyone passionate about protecting the environment?

Just don’t be afraid to join a group that’s fighting against climate change. Start wherever and start as soon as possible. You can always contact anyone from Extinction Rebellion, University Rebellion or any activist group, really. I’ve found that most groups are very welcoming and joining one felt empowering. I was actually surprised at how much my views on certain issues became clearer to me through organising actions and exchanging perspectives with a community of different people.


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