Rhiya Trivedi

Middlebury College

I'm Rhiya - a 21 year old Senior at Middlebury College, where I study Environmental Policy, enjoy potlucks, gleaning and snowshoeing, and work to increase the presence of social justice and climate activism on campus. I have worked as a lobbyist and policy analyst on federal cap-and-trade legislation, helped build the international youth climate movement (particularly on the road to the Copenhagen UN negotiations in 2009), and am currently fascinated by the idea of hyper-efficient stoves as a climate solution (an idea I picked up while working to curb deforestation in West Borneo, Indonesia). I am currently a candidate for the Watson Fellowship, and aim to spend my life slowing climate change and building climate resilience in the world's most vulnerable island nations, low-lying coastal regions and tropical countries. I'm susceptible to Marxist thought, anti-zoo, pro-Peterson's projection maps, and a huge fan of Cormac McCarthy novels and Cohen brothers movies.

Articles by Rhiya Trivedi

The Shining City in the 2012 Campaign January 24, 2012 There is despair, President Obama. In the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit, in your shining city. But there doesn't have to be. Deliver a State of the Union address to rekindle the flames of inclusion and equality.

Keystone XL Delay – Cause for Celebration or Concern? November 11, 2011 This past weekend, in Washington D.C, alongside approximately 12,000 other folks, I witnessed environmental testimony unlike any other. But although President Obama is sending the Keystone XL pipeline project back for review, I worry that we have not yet created enough political cover to kill the project.

Young Voters: OccupyElections November 2, 2011 What do the 2012 elections mean to me? Almost nothing. We need not place our hope in our system, for it is an institution too broken to hear, or make good on claims for justice, equality and inclusion. Vote, and vote well, but don’t let it distract you from what really matters.

Climate Change and Our Generation: Reassembling the Environmental Movement October 19, 2011 Less than 24 months ago we were talking about action; we were playing offense on what is potentially the most catastrophic, diffuse, and unpredictable environmental problem we have ever faced. Today, we are playing defense.