Conversations about the weather fill the small, cozy room in Pingo Bakery and Seafood café. The weather is never far from an Alaskan’s mind. Here in Nome, an outpost of the Seward Peninsula on the Bering Sea, everyone has noticed the striking pace of the weather’s change over the years, from later snows to earlier thaws to more dramatic rains.
The northern lights outside Barrow. Photo credit: Ori Chafe. A few weeks ago, ERG Professor Margaret Torn sent a cryptic department-wide email inquiring if anyone would like to assist in ecological research in northern Alaska as part of the Next Generation Emerging Ecosystems – Arctic project. I thought for a few moments about how disruptive and inconvenient this would be: two days lost in transit, foregone work time with deadlines…
This has been a terrifying year. Earthquakes, hurricanes, heat waves, and floods — the news sounds like a chapter from the Book of Revelation, or a scene from the dystopian future that Octavia Butler envisioned 25 years ago. We know that these traumas and calamities are experienced first and worst by those with the fewest resources and means for resilience, and this truth has played out in the varied impacts of storm flooding in Houston, Puerto…
“We need to jibe now!” I yell as an animal the size of our 39-foot sailboat crashes into the water a few feet off our starboard beam.
The drought has been a talking point for many Californians, but I have often wondered how farmers — whose livelihoods are affected by the drought and who are at the center of the water-use debate —view the drought.
As I made the long drive from Berkeley to Lee’s Ferry–the put-in of the Grand Canyon–I reflected on what may be a slight contradiction in my values when it comes to my own carbon footprint: I willingly drive long distances in order to spend time in the wilderness…Is this carbon impact an acceptable trade-off for the enjoyment and renewal I expected from this adventure?
Klein’s ideas are big, and in many ways they go beyond what’s taught in classrooms in terms of boldness. But how can students translate ideas into action? One of the most exciting aspects of studying energy now is that there are ample opportunities to engage in related advocacy outside the classroom, perhaps more than ever before.
Despite the fact that I come from a country where demonstrations happen every week (for good and for bad) – or maybe because of that – my first thought was: “What in the world is going to change for politicians when a bunch of people take to the streets on a Sunday morning for an hour and a half?” And yet, I found this initiative pretty exciting.
We couldn’t be in the streets for the People’s Climate March, so July Cole and I sent a provocation as part of the Rare Earth Catalog project. Our contribution is a Phenomenisto–an anti-manifesto as call for trans-species solidarity– a method for attending to phenomena that emerge in particular instances of climate chaos and human mitigation strategies–a mobile you can cut out and hang above your bed.
If there is one challenge that California would have wanted to avoid facing this decade, it is the drought.