News from a Changing Planet -- #20
Surprise! It’s been a while.
I am writing today with just a touch of urgency. If you subscribe to this newsletter, you presumably care about our planet and all the ways in which it is changing. If that is the case, then I hope (if you’re an American citizen) that you have a plan to vote on Tuesday (or before!) or have voted already.
When people ask me what they can do about climate change in their own daily lives, I always say that the most important climate action you can take is to vote, and to encourage or help others to vote. It doesn’t feel like a lot, and it doesn’t give you the same kind of immediate satisfaction as participating in a beach clean-up or bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store, but it is actually the most consequential action you can take. Changing your consumption habits are good, but they are not enough to address and mitigate the effects of climate change. That takes collective action, from governments and markets and corporations and all of us acting together.
I’m sure I won’t be the first to tell you that this election is really important. Existential even. Actually, every election, when the fate of the planet and our ability to live here is on the line and only one party accepts that reality, is existential. And you may have gotten lots of reminders already and don't need another one, but just in case...here I am!
Even though this isn’t a national election, the stakes for climate change policy across the country couldn’t be higher. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know that a lot of really important environmental and energy policy happens at the state and municipal level. Local governments – your state’s governor and legislature, and your mayor and city council – decide whether your electricity comes from renewable sources or fossil fuels, and what kinds of fossil fuels will provide backup power. They figure out where polluting infrastructure, like new pipelines or landfills, are opened and which ones can be shut down. They set the budget for state and city parks and public transportation. In short, it really matters who is in charge.
And of course, the federal government really matters too! Without the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate legislation in American history, would not have passed.
So no matter where you are (like where I live, in New York, where Lee Zeldin wants to reverse the ban on fracking!) vote like the future of the planet depends on it, because it does.
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I also recently was lucky enough to get to write a profile of Dr. Douglas McCauley,, an ocean scientist at University of California Santa Barbara and director of the Benioff Ocean Science Lab, for the Climate Visionaries series of the Washington Post.
Dr. McCauley works on about 100 different projects, only a few of which I had room to mention in the article. But, broadly speaking, his efforts combine to make visible the many unseen dynamics and consequences of the industrialization of the world’s oceans.
He is trying to save the whales; collect plastic; explore the links between climate change, overfishing and nutrition in the South Pacific; warn about the dangers of seabed mining; track sharks using drones and artificial intelligence; and calculate the benefits to people, animals and the planet that come from protecting broad swaths of the sea.
I am very grateful to have gotten the chance to write about his work and to speak to and meet members of his team – Callie Leiphardt, Diva Amon, and Mirei Endara de Heras among them – who have combined their intellectual interests in the ocean and the environment with a determination to actually do something about the destructive changes they see taking place every day.
I didn’t have room to include their voices in the article, or to get to explain a lot of the work that they actually do, but if readers are interested, I would definitely write another edition of this newsletter about them all and the crucial, fascinating, and compelling work they do in the oceans. LET ME KNOW!
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Until then, make a plan to get to the polls! If your friends and family and coworkers (or strangers!) are undecided or not planning to vote, talk to them about why you care so much, why this matters for climate change, for Dr. McCauley and the whales he is trying to save, and for the rest of us too.
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Also, earlier this year, I also wrote an article about sponge cities, a fun name for the ways in which urban areas are trying to figure out how to deal with water – both too much and not enough. You can listen to me read the article and also speak a little bit more about the issue and some of the innovations in the article, if you like that kind of thing. ;)
And I reviewed a book about the history of graveyards. Spoooooooky!
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As always, I would love to hear from you about what you’d like to read here, and any other feedback - questions, comments - you might have for me.
Tatiana