Hurricanes and Hard Truths

There is no safe place.

Dear friends,

Many in Appalachia are still cleaning up, clearing roads, getting their bearings, and searching for sources of water and other essential supplies after the devastating flooding caused by Tropical Storm Helene.  

Observers and climate hawks are calculating the potential costs of the storm in a region where virtually no one has flood insurance. Others are making recommendations to Kamala Harris’s campaign managers about how to take advantage of a prime opportunity to bring climate (and the role of Big Oil and Gas) into the election conversation in a new, more urgent way.

I went to graduate school in Swannanoa, outside Asheville, North Carolina and it’s a truly gorgeous part of the world. Seeing the images from afar has had a particular kind of resonance for me. So I’ve been trying harder than usual to sit with the larger-than-life feelings it evokes and the way it has activated my psoas muscle, or the part of my body that is literally primed to fight or flee, from a few thousand miles away.

Helene has put the lie once and for all to the idea that hurricanes and tropical storms only impact coastal communities. At 2,100 feet above sea level, and 300 miles inland, Asheville sits on the side of a mountain and has often been seen as a climate haven. This storm and its aftermath has the potential to do away with one of the remaining layers of comfort in many people’s minds: the deeply held assumption that one might escape or avoid the impacts of the climate crisis if they are smart, wealthy, or diligent enough.

Photo by Tom Fisk.

Much like the wildfire smoke that engulfed the east coast last year, Helene is one more in a series of reminders that while there are certainly patterns at work as the atmosphere warms, there is no easy way to know where the next climate disaster will strike, who exactly will be in its way, or how one should prepare.

It's a deeply disorienting reality in which we find ourselves, to say the least. And yet it’s one of those inflection points where as each of us has a choice to: 1) acknowledge our shared vulnerability and look clearly at how climate ultimately levels the playing field in important ways or 2) Hold tight to the idea that we will be different, and that the needs of other stand in the way of our ultimate escape.

People in the thick of disaster are a little more likely to embrace the former approach, and that’s reflected in the formal mutual aid groups and electric cooperatives all across the SouthEast that have gone to work to help people get the basic supplies and support and to bring back power to the region little by little. But all this has me asking: What exactly can you and I do to cultivate interdependence and resiliency in my neck of the woods before the next hurricane, flood, or wildfire hits.

Climate news you might have missed:

Punishing the protestors

The Guardian published an in-depth investigation into the increasingly punitive anti-protest laws being passed around the U.S.—now in 22 states and counting—and found that many had been drafted and shared by oil and gas lobbyists who work behind the scenes with local lawmakers. The laws, typically called “critical infrastructure protection acts,” aim to protect property such as oil rigs, gas pipelines, and dams from protesters who engage in civil disobedience such as chaining and handcuffing themselves to vehicles and other equipment. Reporters Hilary Beaumont and Nina Lakhani found that all of these laws have come about since—and were likely spurred by—the notorious Standing Rock protests. The new laws typically impose five year prison terms and large fines. In West Virginia, for instance, where a group of activists have spent years actively protesting the development of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, they faced a maximum five-year sentence and up to $15,000 in fines.

“By design, these tactics are not just targeting individuals in isolation, but are trying to dismantle broader movements,” Kirk Herbertson, senior policy adviser for EarthRights International, a non-profit that tracks legal action linked to fossil fuel companies, told The Guardian.

The snowballing climate impacts of AI   

Karen Hao over at The Atlantic published an impressive piece of reporting on how Microsoft is selling its AI technology to fossil-fuel companies to help them find and develop new oil and gas reserves and boost production—despite the company’s numerous public claims about efforts to reduce its own carbon footprint.

The Guardian also did analysis of what it calls “the real emissions” from the company-owned data centers belonging to Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple and found that they may be as much as 600% higher than what the companies are reporting. That would explain why so many new gas-fired power plantsare still being built all across the country.  

And finally, NPR has a good piece about the way Elon Musk’s company xAI is impacting South Memphis, a neighborhood already steeped in industrial pollution. The company has brought in several methane gas generators that “visibly emit a steady stream of hazy smoke into the air” and yet appears to have little government oversight in the city.

Butterfly emergency

I’m seeing noticeably fewer butterflies in my backyard these days and apparently, I’m not alone. This summer, conservationists and volunteers all around the UK took part in The Big Butterfly Count, a community science project that asks participants to count the butterflies they see in a 15-minute period. This year’s average was seven butterflies, which is 50 percent of what the average was last year, and the lowest in the history of the effort, which has been going on for 15 years. The organizers are calling on the British Government to ban all neonicotinoids—widely used insecticides that work on a systemic level, meaning they make entire plants toxic to pollinators.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S., Monarch butterflies have their fall migration south and the Xerces Society will be administering a count over the next three months.

Quien es mas macho?

There is resounding clarity about how the shift to more plants—and less meat and dairy—in our diets stands to act as a powerful climate solution. And yet it can be very difficult to imagine the majority of Americans willingly reducing their meat, and particularly their beef, intake. That’s because men’s relationship with beef is tied to our ideas of both traditional masculinity and wealth. Men do eat more beef than everyone else—but more important is the fact that for most of the time humans have been on earth, even the most masculine men ate much less meat than the average American does now. In cultures where it was was sought after and prized, it simply wasn’t available for three meals a day.

And yet that question of quantity is, strangely, often completely left out of the ongoing (and very heated!) debate about whether it’s possible to produce beef in a less destructive way. There are a wide range of differences when it comes to grazing and beef production and I have seen strong evidence that some approaches can improve soil, help retain water, and regenerate landscapes. But I’m also increasingly wary — and you should be too — of claims that suggest we can simply produce beef differently without producing also less of it. The Environmental Working Group’s recent lawsuit against Tyson, which claims to sell “climate-smart beef” is especially telling. According to EWG, “Tyson, which produces about 20 percent of U.S. beef, chicken and pork, has GHG emissions that exceed those of Austria or Greece.” and “Its beef production is responsible for 85 percent of the company’s emissions.” and yet the company has made promises and put messages on labels that obscure the true impact of its operations. Which all leaves me wondering: What’s so manly about that?

Amazon’s flights

The online mega-retailer has received a great deal of coverage for its growing fleet of electric trucks, but a new report from the global nonprofit environmental organization Stand.earth, shows that Amazon has also been relying on air freight more than ever before. In fact, the researchers found that the company has increased its domestic air freight pollution by 67 percent since 2019. Its emissions from van delivery and marine shipping also grew. The organization estimates that Amazon’s emissions are projected to continue growing 5.5 percent-11.5 percent every year through 2030. Is the convenience worth it?

Graphic chart courtesy of Stand.earth

The pushback

1. A number of climate activists used New York’s Climate Week as a reason to project powerful images on tall buildings and disrupt multiple talks and speeches by powerful decision makers and industry players. Bill McKibben and other activists in New York also turned out to demand that Governor Kathy Hochul pass the Climate Superfund Act, which would require oil and gas companies  to pay for climate action.

2. Earlier in September, the activist and member of European parliament Carola Rackete spoke eloquently before the United Nations about the destructive floods that hit Europe, saying: “We need to shut down, to nationalize and socialize fossil fuel corporations and to use their money to pay for the damages. Unless we hold fossil fuel corporations to account and make them pay for their crimes and these damages past and present in Europe and the Global South we will not be able to adapt!”

3. Here in California, another group of climate activists turned out in front of Kamala Harris’ Brentwood house to demand that she stop promoting fracking and release a detailed climate plan. Two were arrested.

On the brighter side

1. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will codify the state’s new Beaver Restoration Program at the state’s department of fish & wildlife in an effort to slow the movement of water through many of the state’s rivers and creeks, spread that water across the land, and keep temperatures down.

Newsom also signed bills that will fund the clean-up of abandoned oil and gas wells, restrict the locations of new oil and gas development, allow for a series of pilot projects that will decommission gas lines and provide all-electric appliances to home owners at the neighborhood scale, and another that will provide expanded sick leave for farmworkers facing climate-fueled conditions such as wildfire smoke and extreme heat.

2. A movement to preserve and appreciate “legacy forest”—mature forest that doesn’t quite hit the “old-growth” mark—is growing in the Pacific Northwest.

3. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the number of wolves in the state has nearly doubled after an official count found that 30 new pups were born this year.

4. The argument for the rights of nature continues to build. In the latest example, a Brazilian city legally recognized its waves as living beings, giving the ocean legal personhood.

5. California is also inching closer to a new marine sanctuary along the central coast. The sanctuary would be the first set aside in decades and it’s a special one because it was nominated by the Chumash People, for whom the stretch of coastline is sacred. If it is finalized, the Chumash and other regional tribes would work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to manage the new sanctuary.

6. When a controversial lawsuit tanked Berkeley’s gas ban earlier this year, cities all around California banded together to find ways to ensure they didn’t lose momentum in decarbonizing buildings. I wrote about their approach for Inside Climate News.

Take care and take heart,

Twilight