With our recent publication of Writers on Earth, environmental writing is fresh on our minds. From fast fashion to deforestation, land subsidence to air pollution, the topics covered in submissions to our Environmental Journalism Competition showed us that many of you are thinking about the health of our planet, too—and not only thinking, but researching, advocating, and taking action on environmental issues that matter to you.
Today, we’re delighted to share pieces that reveal the personal and global impacts of climate change, as well as words that give us hope for a healthier planet. Below, please find Best Entry, Runner Up, and Best Peer Review.
BEST ENTRY
“Slowing Down Fast Fashion” by charlieashford (Australia)
What really stood out to me in “Slowing Down Fast Fashion” was charlieashford’s ability to combine the important facts of an urgent issue with entertaining and witty writing.
Charlieashford combines personal reflections rich in visual imagery (conjured through the use of concrete nouns like “Ziploc bags” and a “polyester tube top with the Hot Cheetos logo on it”) as well as in-depth research that positions the particular within the universal:
“Fast fashion retailers cause landfills to pile up and exploit vulnerable workers in developing countries. The top players of fast fashion make trendy clothes cheap and accessible. As soon as that skater dress is released, a bodycon dress is already hot on its heels. Because of this, fast fashion brands don’t design their clothing to last and they capitalise off consumerism. Many retailers introduce new stock weekly to keep up with what’s trending. (Stanton, 2019). As we go through clothes faster, landfills pile up at unprecedented rates. In the U.S., approximately 85% of textile waste ends up in landfills. (McCarthy, 2018). This is 21 billion pounds of textile waste dumped into landfills annually. (McCarthy, 2018). Your polyester tube top with the Hot Cheetos logo on it isn’t biodegradable and may not decompose for up to 200 years. (Uren, 2018). I wish I could be there to see the look on an archaeologist’s face in 2220 when they find a Forever 21 top.”
Not only is the problem of fast fashion detailed through thorough contextual information such as that above, charlieashford relates this global issue back to her own life through stories about her grandma who “washes glad wrap” but “bought [charlieashford] a pair of Tommy jeans.” Readers can really see these characters and memories recreated on the page, and perceive the larger environmental significance of daily lived experience.
RUNNER UP
“Wake Up Call: A Nation on Fire” by Rose Mitch (Australia)
In this grippingly powerful piece, Rose Mitch drops readers into the midst of bushfires in Australia, employing sensory details and metaphor (“It conceals the peaks of buildings, stains the white teeth of the Opera House like coffee”) to paint a picture on the page.
“It is Christmas Day. Driving to our cousin’s home in Tumbarumba, a small town in NSW, the car thermometer reads 40C. The black leather is scorching.
Outside, the bushland is bone-dry. Bleached limbs of gum trees moan overhead. Grass is yellow. Cavities lie in the dust where water-holes once were. Clay brown. The usual scurry of wildlife beside the road – wallabies, possums, wombats – is absent. Even the crickets have departed. We arrive, eat lunch at a long table. Even with the doors closed and the fan pulsing beside us, the air is stifling. I listen, with a mouthful of pavlova, as the adults share mutual exclamations about the weather and the risk of a fire. “It’s not a question of if,” my uncle says. “But a question of when.”
Ruth supplements these personal passages with research that allows readers to “zoom out” and comprehend the implications of bushfires on Australia and the world, and the ways in which they serve as harbingers of natural disasters to come in the wake of global warming. Tying her experience to public conversations about renewable energy sources, she guides readers to the understanding that bushfires are not only a problem for Australia, but a problem for us all.
BEST PEER REVIEW
ElenaC’s (Australia) Review of “A Simple Travesty”
ElenaC offers clear and specific feedback in this review. She praises the piece’s strengths, pointing towards examples from the text: “I enjoyed reading about the Whirlpool factory and the Toledo Zoo. You explained them well, and I think you provided enough detail for it to be intriguing, making me want to know more about these projects, but not confusing. Good job!” And she offers suggestions for improvement with equal focus: “I would have liked to read more about why climate change is an issue for Findlay.” Successful editors provide feedback not only on their experience reading the piece as a whole, but also in the form of targeted suggestions on syntax, diction and grammar. ElenaC offers both these levels of feedback in this review, perceiving astutely (to riff off our environmental theme!) both the forest and the trees.