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Mental Health and Activism in 2020

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future, Racial Justice, Uncategorized December 16, 2020December 16, 2020activism, black lives matter, climate change, mental health, pandemic, racial justice

Earlier this year, the previous Climate Justice Now blogger, Dominique, wrote an article entitled Taking Care of Yourself and the Environment. As 2020 winds down, I think mental health, especially as it relates to activism, the events of this year, and racial factors, is an important topic to readdress. No one’s life was unaffected by COVID-19, but rather than giving into the despair that sometimes accompanies massive upheaval, many people focused on working toward positive change in areas they felt more control over—addressing racial injustice, making progress in the climate movement, and (particularly in the U.S.) political campaigning to ensure that we have forward-thinking leaders to guide us into the next year.

While admirable as a coping mechanism, and a necessary part of creating change to protect others in the future, those who engage in activism often experience adverse mental health effects because of their work. Often, the issues that people fight for are deeply personal, fueled by identity and trauma. Having such a stake in the outcome of one’s work makes for powerful activism, but also poses a threat to the emotional stability of those who engage in it. Activists are at a higher risk of developing PTSD and suicidal ideation when their identities are wrapped up in the causes they champion, and even those whose identities aren’t experience vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue, which also pose a risk. This organization points out that movements struggle to hold onto their most passionate, committed activists because of burnout. For people who make careers out of activism, the effects are magnified: the hectic schedules and low pay associated with activism can result in stress from familial tension, a lack of access to medical services, and anxiety about the future in regards to retirement or even homeownership. Those in the field emphasize that addressing activist mental health is essential to the protection of both individuals as activists and the movements themselves.

While mental health has long been an issue in relation to activism, this year, with the added stress of the pandemic and all of its associated disruptions, our collective mental state is perhaps more precarious than ever. The WHO explains, “Fear, worry, and stress are normal responses to perceived or real threats, and at times when we are faced with uncertainty or the unknown. So it is normal and understandable that people are experiencing fear in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.” In addition to the very-valid fear of microscopic particles floating about, ready to send any non-mask wearing person to the ICU, there’s the added burden of isolation from all the joys of life that usually help with coping: seeing family and friends over a meal, working out at the gym, and browsing one’s favorite stores, for example. Added to this, the fact that unemployment is rising, many people have lost loved ones to the virus, and living situations are altered, the rise in anxiety, depression, substance abuse, insomnia, and other mental health conditions is unsurprising. To compound the issue, the pandemic has disrupted or halted critical mental health services in 93% of countries worldwide at a time when they are most needed. As Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, urges, “World leaders must move fast and decisively to invest more in life-saving mental health programmes—during the pandemic and beyond.”

As the sun sets earlier and people retreat indoors, people who struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) are more at risk than ever of experiencing overwhelming symptoms of low energy, poor mood, and social withdrawal, among others. Dr. Desan of Yale Medicine states, ““We are seeing an obvious increase in the number of people seeking help for anxiety, and that’s not unreasonable. People are anxious about catching COVID-19, among other related issues,” Dr. Desan says. “This is a major mental health event.”

As with most other major issues, the collective suffers, but a particular segment of the population feels the effects most acutely. On the topics of both mental health as it relates to activism and mental health during the pandemic, while U.S. adults reported considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions this year, younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers reported having experienced disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, according to the CDC. Particularly for people of color, who this year led the Black Lives Matter movement through emotional protests deeply tied to their identity, heightened rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide compound the pressures associated with the discrimination they protest in the first place, in addition to the pandemic, and the climate-related problems, and so much more. It’s no wonder that the term self-care was coined by black woman activist Audre Lorde when she famously said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” After a year like 2020, everyone, but especially those most impacted, must look after themselves—starting with mental health.

The language we use for particularly successful activists—”champions” of a cause—reveals the underlying psychology that fuels the mental health problem in activist movements. Linda Sarsour, one of the founders of the Women’s March and a Muslim Palestinian-American activist, says, “Activists often become caricatures to people, for some even super-human. Many don’t realize the deep depression and anxiety we experience. The work is overwhelming and [it’s] compounded by not feeling safe and worrying about your life and the lives of your children.” Recognizing that caring deeply for the world is a kind of emotional labor that taxes the mind and body is a good first step in the direction of protecting one’s mental health. Next, mental health care needs to be made more accessible to everyone, especially those from marginalized communities who most need it. And finally, until then, the most powerful tools activists, and anyone struggling with mental health has, is self-care.

Dominique’s blog wisely recommends that people feeling overwhelmed spend time in nature, reach out to others, and “remember that anxiety is rooted in love for the people and places in your life.” I think that last one is particularly important—gratitude is perhaps the strongest cure for despair. It is a privilege to love something so deeply as to ache at its absence, its obscuring. Acknowledging that pain is often rooted in one’s ability to imagine better means that hurting and hoping go hand in hand. This is the power of language: we can rephrase the problem. 2020 changed almost everything for almost everyone. This is a time of opportunity, not of crisis. We’ve ripped the bandage off of a wounded world and it burns. The world in 2020 is a messy gash with still-drying blood, but without the bandage, we can imagine what the skin will feel like when it’s healed.

Healing, despite its poetry, is a science. The world will not heal with hope and imagination alone—certainly, those need to be there, along with despair at how things are now, but most of all, we need science. Thought and logic and clear-headedness drives movements. Science makes up vaccines and holds the solution to climate change. Logic battles the judgement we have for the parts of us that are struggling: what is more logical a reaction to the horrors of 2020 than to, in fact, feel horror? And then to acknowledge it, and then to channel the horror into yet more logic, that needed to solve the problem. All is not as it should be—but only because the work isn’t quite done yet. We’re getting there. Painfully, hopefully, and with science and gratitude.

Featured Image from AmGen

Migrant Climate Activism

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future, Uncategorized November 18, 2020November 18, 2020activism, capitalism, climate change, migration, refugees

In my last blog, I discussed the ways that climate change increases migration rates, and increased migration in turn contributes to climate change. While it is important for policies to address this link, decreasing migration for environmental purposes is not the intended call to action. Talking about the negative impact of migration on the environment also denies the autonomy of climate refugees and overlooks the contributions many individuals with migrant backgrounds have made to the climate movement. Ideologically, the roots of migration and climate change are tangled, and many activists claim that the source of both issues must be addressed for either movement to see any substantive change.

Migration for climate-related causes alone is far less common than migration caused by reasons of climate exacerbated by political and economic issues.”Most importantly perhaps, climate change is a very political and economic issue: it is a form of persecution inflicted on the most vulnerable populations of the world,” this article points out. Maya Menenez, a migrant and activist, describes her view of the shared cause of both global issues: capitalism. Framing capitalism as a means for “individualizing our suffering,” she claims that indigenous movements, migrant movements, and environmental movements must support each other’s causes in order to make a difference, because of the issues’ overlap as products of the same system of power. Another migrant, Niria Alicia, who is a Xicana community organizer and SustainUS COP25 youth delegation leader, describes how her work as an agriculture laborer during childhood helped her to understand the “culture of disposability” that allows the land, and the people who work the land, to be exposed to toxic industrial chemicals for the profit of those more powerful. She connects the way that vulnerable populations like refugees and migrants are abused to the way that the Earth’s resources are depleted, each problem worsening the other for the benefit of corporations, wealthy people, and the function of society in the developed world. She stresses that even policies that are considered more forward thinking, like the Green New Deal, must be rewritten to include migrant justice in order to really achieve equity, with green jobs supportive of migrants and climate reparations included in reform measures.

Perhaps because of the way their experiences shaped their unique views of the world, many young refugees have become advocates for climate justice. Céline Semaan, who fled political conflict in Lebanon as child, founded a design lab in Brooklyn that brings sustainability into fashion—one of the highest polluting industries in the world. She turns plastic and textile waste into new materials for meaningful and ethically-created items, the sale of which she uses to support the efforts of the World Wildlife Fund, UNICEF, and ANERA—a mission that she says is driven by her experience as a refugee, during which she learned “how easily things can be taken away.” Another refugee-turned climate hero is Abraham Bidal of South Sudan, who works to combat one of the most prevalent environmental issues associated with refugee settlement: deforestation. He promotes a movement to plant trees in Uganda, the land that welcomed his people to safety. He explains, “Planting trees is important because trees are life…if one day we go back to South Sudan we can leave this place as we found it.” In Rohingya refugee camps in Myanmar, many of which are in areas effected by landslides and flash floods, refugee-led farming projects are common. Using solar powered safe water systems to reduce the effects of deforestation and erosion, refugees have led the way in using green technology to mitigate their energy costs and emissions.

The work of some of the most vulnerable people in reconceptualizing our norms and bettering a world that has given them so little is inspiring. In emerging from the pandemic, we need this same mindset, which focuses on regrowth inspired by the wisdom of our experiences. We must let the memory of our own discomfort create empathy for others still in the midst of their struggles. We must let pain fuel an urgency to protect others—our children, or our future selves.

Featured Image from New Frame

Climate Migration: A Cause and Effect

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future November 15, 2020November 15, 2020climate change, COVID-19, human rights, migration, natural disasters, pandemic, refugees

We watched the events of this year unfold from our couches. News of the pandemic’s spread had most of the population home and baking, breaking out board games and books to alleviate boredom. When election week got too stressful, or we read about yet another jihadist attack, or another Black American’s arrest gone disturbingly wrong, or the latest statistics on worsening climate change, we fought back with activism, yes, but also with self care. We watch the news on our couches, with our loved ones, light scented candles and buy another fluffy blanket as the cold weather sets in, as we contemplate the world’s most deeply rooted inequities. It is our right—self care is crucial to sustaining mental health so that we have the energy to keep fighting for change. But it’s also a luxury denied to the very people we fight for. As we munch on our homemade sourdough starters and shake our heads at the latest “presidential” tweet, there are people around the world who are so affected by global events that they lose, rather than retreat to, the homes they want to feel just as safe in as we do ours. Migrants and refugees have been a historical reality as long as the concept of borders has existed, but the causes of flight, the perils of that process, and its longterm ramifications are now more interconnected and alarming than ever.

In my most recent articles, I examined the links between climate change and natural disasters like droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires. Events like these, but also places with conditions of less immediacy, which nonetheless experience the effects of a changing climate, make many of the world’s most vulnerable places unlivable, resulting in migration. Such migration can occur within a country but also across national borders and even across continents. These movements and influxes of large, heterogeneous groups of migrants and refugees are both caused by environmental degradation and often unwitting contributors to that very same process. Yet despite, and perhaps because of this vicious cycle, humanitarian efforts to support these groups, especially during a global pandemic, are more crucial both to the wellbeing of migrants and to the environment than perhaps ever before.

While migration can be spurred by a variety of push and pull factors, when one examines the climate/environment as a catalyst for movement, there are several main causes, as outlined in this study. Migration induced by environmental disasters, like those mentioned above, is one. Migration caused by longterm environmental degradation, like resource strain due to overpopulation, is another main cause. Finally, long term effects of climate change like rising sea levels and shifts in disease patterns due to changes in weather regimes and temperature change also drives migration.

While the idea of migration might most readily bring to mind the entrance and assimilation of large groups from political conflict areas into the West, the reality of migration is nuanced, occurring over vastly different timelines and over varying geographic scales. Whether the movement is international or simply regional, the amount of people migrating, the reason for their migration, and the resources available for their support upon arrival all have ramifications both for the environment in the receiving territory and for the migrants themselves. Studies of internal migration show that “settlement into marginal and fragile ecosystems in [Least Developed countries] have led to desertification, deforestation and other environmental degradation.” Another study finds that migration from developing to developed countries causes an absolute increase in global emissions not just from the process of movement but also from environmental damage in the areas in which they settle. In developed countries, this means increased total emissions as migrant populations settle into the energy consumption patterns associated with higher income level urban areas, as well as loss of biodiversity, soil quality, deforestation, water pollution, and deterioration of natural areas responsible for carbon sequestration for migrants who settle in and develop more rural areas. These problems make living in migrant settled areas difficult not just for existing local populations but also for the migrants themselves.

The environmental problems in connection with the multiple stages of migration result from a lack of efficient management and planning. Understandably, the immediate wellbeing of refugee populations is the priority, but approaching the task of planning a refugee settlement cannot be dictated by short-term goals when such settlements are often longterm establishments, existing on average for 17 years. This is long enough to irreversibly damage the local environment of the settlement. Camp overcrowding, while a humanitarian issue, is also an environmental one, as local water and tree supplies diminish dangerously. The UNHCR created a tool to assess environmental impact in 2005, yet the focus remains on a “curative” rather than prevention-oriented approach. In some places, if the potential financial and social burden of supporting refugees does not dissuade a host country from accepting refugees, the damage to the environment that persists long after might act as a disincentive for aid. This article points out that after examining case studies in rural camps like that of 80,000 Nigerian refugees in Northern Cameroon and Syrian refugee camps in urban Lebanon, it is clear that “despite the gradual introduction of the term “environment” as a cross-cutting issue in policies and strategies, environmental issues are generally perceived as being separate from the humanitarian sector…humanitarian crises can have a significant impact on the natural environment, particularly when these are prolonged crises.”

Migration, whether for political, environmental, or other reasons, is predicted to increase in the coming decades, but it must do so in a way that protects both the displaced groups and their destinations. Establishing new urban centers in migratory destinations is one proposed sustainable solution. As a whole, planning and facilitating migration as a lifesaving option for vulnerable groups that does not jeopardize future environmental health must be prioritized in the conversation on migration, not just in addition to humanitarian aims but as a humanitarian aim in itself.

This year, the pandemic raised many questions about borders, international rights, and the priorities of governments. Within weeks of COVID-19’s spread across the globe, travel between the Unites States and Europe, and indeed between European countries, halted—and still has not been completely restored. In difficult times, the instinct of many is to protect those closest to them: family, neighbors, those with the same nationality. Asylum procedures were similarly disrupted. Displaced people became some of the most vulnerable to exposure to the virus due to cramped living conditions and shared resources, and their need was more urgent than ever. The pandemic serves as a powerful reminder of the world’s connectedness, but also of how differently people experience the same problems. Climate change causes migration, which causes environmental degradation and furthers the spread of the virus, which might lead to more inaction on climate change as leaders struggle to deal with the most immediate global issues at the direct expense of ongoing ones; it’s a brutal cycle that can only be broken with empathy, knowledge, and planning.

Featured Image from Climate and Migration Coalition

Drought, Migration, and Climate Change: When Hope Runs Dry

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future November 8, 2020November 8, 2020climate change, drought, migration, precipitation, wildfires

The World Health Organization defines a drought as “a prolonged dry period in the natural climate cycle that can occur anywhere in the world.” While widespread and naturally occurring, droughts impact certain regions far more drastically than others, and they do so with rapidly increasing frequency and intensity due to climate change. Rising temperatures elevate rates of soil moisture evaporation, which in turn decreases plant cover that could capture rainfall in dry areas. Climate change alters precipitation patterns, causing less rainfall overall in certain regions, and also affecting snowpack and melt, which diminishes the water supply. Areas that are already relatively dry, like the subtropics, will in coming years experience worsening droughts, while relatively wet places like the tropics will experience increased precipitation.

While some of the areas impacted by worsening drought conditions are located in the developed world, like the United States Southwest, most impacted regions are South and Southeast Asia—countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia, and Laos, which are under the monsoon climatic zone. In Indonesia, 92% of the country experienced drought due to El Niño last year, impacting nearly 50 million people. Water scarcity impacts 40% of the world’s population.

Severe droughts, exacerbated by global warming conditions, affect every aspect of society, including the agricultural industry, transportation, energy, and public health. Droughts decimate the growth of crops like wheat, soybeans, and corn, some of which are necessary to support livestock and some are necessary for human consumption. This results in food price instability, social unrest, and famine. Droughts are costly for the transportation sector because a certain water level in waterways is necessary for transport barges to effectively ship goods, and water levels drop in droughts. Roads also crumble from prolonged exposure to dry heat, deteriorating crucial infrastructure. Electric grids strain under increased demand during heat waves, and the availability of hydroelectric power decreases during droughts. Yet perhaps the most alarming human impact of droughts is in public health.

Image from the World Health Organization

Droughts in less developed areas can disturb local health services due to a lack of water, which is especially troubling considering the worsening in various health conditions that droughts lead to in effected populations. The WHO reports that droughts can cause:

malnutrition due to the decreased availability of food, including micronutrient deficiency, such as iron-deficiency anaemia
increased risk of infectious diseases, such as cholera, diarrhea, and pneumonia, due to acute malnutrition, lack of water and sanitation, and displacement
increased health risk in people already impacted by lung diseases, like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or by heart disease, due to lower air quality in connection with wildfires and dust storms from droughts.
psycho-social stress and mental health disorders

In many cases, the above conditions make certain regions unlivable. Thus droughts exacerbated by global warming contribute to the growing problem of climate migration. Up to 700 million people are at risk of being displaced by droughts alone within the next ten years—a number that contributes to the total of migrants fleeing other climate disasters and political instability. The UN reports that “new displacement patterns, and competition over depleted natural resources can spark conflict between communities or compound pre-existing vulnerabilities.” In this way, people displaced by climate issues can be categorized as refugees and receive the international protections entitled to this group. The overlap between climate migrants and those traditionally thought of as refugees is significant, with many people displaced by political and other conflicts facing a secondary displacement because they live in climate change “hotspots.” As long as droughts and other climate issues persist and worsen, such groups cannot return to their home areas, sometimes putting a strain on regional political relations and the distribution of resources. Migration itself can have a negative environmental impact, with refugee settlements built for temporary usage being an unsustainable model of community building.

While it is people in developing countries who most directly experience the effects of climate change, it is the developed world—places like Europe and the United States, which caused much of the environmental degradation that contribute to the rising number of climate disasters. As the cause of these interconnected issues, it should be the responsibility of top-emitting countries to aid governments struggling with the effects of climate change—whether that entails supporting programs to combat the droughts and other such events directly, financing repairs, or giving aid to climate refugees. There are several ways that the effect of droughts in particular can be mitigated: conserving water and enhancing water efficiency in city plans, making available alternative water supplies, planting drought-resistant crops, and increasing energy efficiency in buildings so that less water-cooled power is used to begin with. However, many of these are much more feasible in places like the Southwest U.S. than in rural Indonesia, for example, and all present only superficial solutions to a complex problem.

Worsening droughts are an economic, political, and environmental issue, but most of all, it is a human one—a problem that will continue to take and disrupt lives with alarming rapidity until the underlying cause of climate change is addressed. Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would simultaneously address each of the contributing factors not only to drought conditions, but also to wildfires and hurricanes, and to so many other destructive forces. Substantial progress in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement is the only humane way forward.

Climate Change Intensifies Hurricanes

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future November 8, 2020November 10, 2020climate change, global warming, hurricanes, natural disaster

In 2005, as Hurricane Katrina hurtled its winds and rains with startling velocity over the Atlantic, in the direction of the United States, I went bowling. There were two screens hovering over our small, late-summer birthday party: one with our bowling scores, and one showing the path of the hurricane drawn like a colorful, upside-down party hat.

The hurricane passed over Florida without too much damage—at least relative to Louisiana. Soon after, Hurricane Wilma had my family playing Monopoly on a blanket we spread out between the concrete walls of the downstairs storage room. My 23-floor building lost power, so we stuffed backpacks with the essentials: flashlights, a radio, food, my favorite doll, and we hiked down the stairs. When we reemerged, our apartment was intact, but our next-door neighbor was not so lucky. Her windows had blown out, leaving her apartment exposed to the wind.

Though these two hurricanes stand out in my mind, we’ve had many others since then. They’re so frequent in Miami that any true native knows that you only refresh your hurricane-preparedness supplies and oil the storm-shutters a day or two before, when you’re sure the forecast cone is accurate. The regional grocery chain, Publix, even sells hurricane cakes for those who throw (somewhat ill-advised) hurricane parties—such is the acceptance of the alarming reality of the increasingly-violent Atlantic hurricane season.

This year, the hurricane season, which lasts from June 1 to November 30, has so far had a historic 28 storms. Since the 1970s, intense hurricane activity has increased dramatically as a result of higher seas levels and warmer temperatures. Storms like the infamous 2017 Hurricane Harvey used to be considered a once every hundred years event; now, such a storm is a once in every 16 years event.

So, how exactly does climate change impact the frequency and intensity of these catastrophic storms? While the effect on the number of storms remains unclear, and some research actually suggests that climate change might reduce the overall amount of storms, higher power hurricanes will become more common. This is because as global temperatures rise due to climate change, the ocean absorbs excess heat, which fuels storm surge and rain fall. If the temperature increases by 2 degrees Celsius, there will be a 10-15% rainfall increase within 100 km of a storm, making hurricanes much more destructive. There is also evidence that storms are slowing down, which means that they will hover over an area longer, causing greater destruction. NOAA reported that sea surface temperatures in the tropics are indeed “much warmer than average” this year.

Slow, powerful, frequent (or even infrequent!) hurricanes tearing up the Caribbean and southern coastal states have a massive human and economic impact. The Congressional Budget Office calculates annual $28 billion in hurricane repair costs, which will increase by almost a third within the next decades because of increased coastal development. Over a million Americans live in areas that put them at risk of substantial damage from hurricanes, including income loss as local consumption, production, and mobility are disrupted. In the U.S., economic activity eventually rebounds with government aid and insurance payments, but in places like the Caribbean, the effects are felt more acutely. With weaker infrastructure to begin with, some Caribbean cities impacted by hurricanes experience severe damage that require huge repair costs—sometimes exceeding the size of the economy, as in Dominica after Hurricane Maria, and taking years to rebuild. Puerto Rico was left completely without electricity after that same hurricane, costing the federal government $2 billion in repairs. This leaves less funding for other essential services, like education and health, and reduces the overall well-being of residents, plunging some into poverty.

Therefore, prevention is essential to mitigating the impact of hurricanes. Improving coastal infrastructure, elevating buildings to avoid flooding, building seawalls, and replenishing beaches are all simple measures that require relatively little effort for the benefits provided. A more forward-thinking approach would be to slow development along the coasts—in addition to the risks associated with rising water levels due to climate change, hurricanes also batter these properties, which continue to spring up every year despite logic and science. Preserving coastal wetlands, dunes, and reefs, which absorb storm surges, would also have benefits beyond hurricane damage mitigation. However, all of these measures together are inadequate unless the source of the storms’ increasing strength is addressed: climate change. Reducing the emissions that cause rising global temperatures is the only way to actually halt the escalating storm seasons, saving billions of dollars—not to mention hundreds of lives annually.

Featured image from the CDC

Orange Skies

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future November 1, 2020November 1, 2020climate change, economy, natural disasters, pandemic, sustainability, wildfires

There’s something unsettling about the virus, this seemingly inescapable, omnipresent, insidious force that keeps us locked in our homes. Some people almost wished for a tangible enemy, something obvious and terrifying but at the very least visible, so that they could justify the sacrifices and fear. The universe granted that wish in a very 2020 way—wildfires swept the west coast with the same force that the Australian wildfires did way, way back in January of this year. Suddenly, the sky was like something out of Dante’s Inferno, and you could taste the smoke particles floating in the air even through a face mask. The landscape matched the gathering feeling of apocalypse, and new numbers, like 4 million burned acres, joined the statistics we sing ourselves to sleep with: 45.1 million global COVID-19 infections, 230,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States eight months and counting of using the phrase ‘unprecedented times.’ An article written by Stanford University student Nestor Walters on the wildfires poses the question: “How many more times do we need to hear words like trying, tumultuous or challenging as adjectives to times before we accept that these are simply the times we live in?”

No one can escape it—not the wildfires, not the pandemic, and not climate change. Rozzi, an American pop singer, released a ballad called “Orange Skies” about the wildfires in her hometown of San Francisco. She said of the song, “Despite the massiveness of the issue, I knew I wanted to make the song personal – because of course the underlying issue itself is personal. Climate change isn’t some mythical thing happening to other people, in other places – it’s happening right now, right outside our doors.”

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk reports 7,348 wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and heatwaves over the past 20 years. These natural disasters resulted in the deaths of 1.23 million people, affecting a total of 4.2 billion people, and caused $2.97 trillion in global economic losses. Most effected are China and the United States. The report unequivocally links these events to the rising global temperature as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, and finds that any improvements to disaster response or climate adaptation will be “obsolete in many countries” if climate change, the source of the problem, is not immediately addressed.

So how does climate change cause forest fires? National Geographic explains that as temperatures rise due to climate change, the hot air “soaks up water from whatever it touches—plants (living or dead) and soil, lakes and rivers. The hotter and drier the air, the more it sucks up, and the amount of water it can hold increases exponentially as the temperature rises; small increases in the air’s heat can mean big increases in the intensity with which it pulls out water.” In California, the rise in temperature is about 3 degrees Fahrenheit, far above the global average of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat combines with parched forest material, which is even dryer due to a persistent drought more intense than any for the past 1,200 years, producing the ideal conditions for a fire to consume forests, in addition to all of the settlements that have increasingly encroached among traditionally undeveloped lands.

Some preventive measures exist, though actual implementation by governments and industry varies. In Australia, nomadic aboriginal groups used to practice surface vegetation burning to prevent outbreaks of fire. Though indigenous populations can no longer engage in that tradition, the method is still emulated by local governments. Urban planning in Australia—where the 2019/2020 season was the hottest on record and driest for 120 years—must prevent expansion into flammable wildland areas, include vegetation-free zones around properties, use fireproof building materials, and plan evacuation and rescue routes in advance. In California, controlled burning of dry brush and excess debris is a common practice, though it contributes to air pollution. Currently, timber companies and biomass industries do not substantially support the state’s fire prevention strategy, so reducing costs of thinning projects would create better incentives for participation on an industry level. Additionally, as in Australia, building codes should emphasize fire-resistance and developing into high-risk areas should be banned. As a whole, these measures could reduce short term damage, but would address only the symptoms of the problem, rather than the problem itself. Unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, and the warming of the Earth slows, these practices will not suffice.

Economically, the stakes are high for leaders to respond effectively. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced investments in the CAL FIRE air fleet, early wildfire warning technologies, fire detection cameras, and permanent firefighting positions, along with related crisis counseling, legal services, and housing and unemployment assistance for people affected by the fires. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on the other hand, was widely criticized for his slow response to the wildfires, though he did expressly link them to climate change—a link that the Australian Finance Minister denied. Though Australia has pledged to reduce its emissions by between 26 and 28% within the next decade, a UN report noted that few of the Conservative government’s policies are designed to reach this target. Studies on the economic impact of wildfires on affected areas show that “large wildfires lead to instability in local labor markets by amplifying seasonal variation in employment over the subsequent year” and that rural areas in particular struggle to recover. Even without the pandemic-induced recession, effects last months and even years in places like rural Oregon. Short term economic gains as local laborers rebuild are overshadowed by the slow economic growth that follows as tourism, logging, and other essential industries drop.

It’s been an overwhelming year, but the pandemic, the wildfires, and climate change are nothing new. We are experiencing the colliding effects of problems we as a global society created and then ignored, until a virus halted civilization and the skies turned orange. The problem isn’t invisible, it’s in everything: it’s the fuel that runs the world we are literally watching burn. But we still have time, just a tiny bit of time, to turn things around, and to lower our emissions by switching to renewable energy, and to rebuild a post-pandemic society sustainably. Nestor Walters puts it best: “We don’t own the past or future; all we have is now. We can’t let hope take away our now, or we’ll find ourselves looking out the window one morning, wondering if the sky used to be blue.”

Featured Image from Bloomberg

A Clear Solution

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future October 16, 2020October 16, 2020climate change, economy, politics, rebuilding, renewables, solutions project

In my last blog, I discussed the importance of keeping environmental sustainability goals in mind when rebuilding the economy as we weather and eventually emerge from this global health crisis. I think it’s crucial to note that not only is it important to rebuild sustainably, but it is also entirely feasible, and actually the strongest option economically. I think the public has this general conception of there being a need to wait for some kind of miracle solution that scientists need to labor over for many more years to come, before the transition to renewables can occur. This is far from the case. Research on solutions to climate change is well supported, the technology needed to transition already exists, and the only thing still lacking is the public’s understanding of the facts of climate change, so that policies will finally support what scientists have long known. The time for the public to come to this realization is now, as we look beyond this year of chaos and horror into a still-undetermined future.

In 2011, Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson co-founded The Solutions Project, an advocacy group with the goal of promoting a policy shift to support 100% renewable energy by 2050. The project’s comprehensive research details how switching to renewables actually leads to a huge cost decrease for top-emitting countries like the United States. As the world’s top emitter of carbon per capita, the health and energy security of the country are at stake if the U.S. doesn’t speed up its transition. If the current energy norms continue, the estimated aggregate private and social costs are $2.1 and $5.9 trillion per year, respectively, whereas those of wind-water-solar energy are both $0.77 trillion per year.

Social cost refers to the full cost to society of adding one additional ton of CO2 to the atmosphere, and is used to understand both current and future climate damages, and to set policies like a carbon tax. 63,000 deaths caused by air pollution-related illnesses in the U.S. could be prevented by 2050 if we switch to 100% renewable energy. The switch would also create two million net long-term, full-time U.S. jobs. As a whole, a complete U.S. transition would reduce yearly aggregate energy costs, health-care costs and mortality, climate damage, and would create jobs—all vital aims after a year that has seen the U.S. plunge into recession, the unemployment rate soar, and the healthcare system become more burdened than ever as a result of the pandemic.

Graphic by A.K. von Krauland and M.Z. Jacobson

The early implementation of renewables will translate to enormous savings in money not lost to rescues after major hurricanes (which are caused increasingly by climate change), infrastructural damage, and abandoned property. The transition would also make the U.S. less dependent on foreign sources of energy, which could be hugely beneficial politically. Fear of attacks on the energy grid would be greatly diminished by the flexibility that renewables provide, making energy infrastructure a matter of national security. In short, if the use of fossil fuels is not rapidly diminished, rising demand for increasingly scare fossil energy will lead to economic, social, and political instability, enhancing international conflict.

Power providers can often build wind and solar farms more quickly than larger‐capacity conventional generating plants. This can enable them to meet incremental demand growth with less economic risk. The employment of renewable energy systems diversifies the fuel mix of utility companies, thereby reducing the danger of fuel shortages, fuel cost hikes, and power interruptions, while meeting demand for reduced greenhouse gas emissions. This translates to a higher energy resilience due to the nature of distributed renewable energy, which is far more difficult to disrupt than a centralized power plant.

Beyond the indisputable facts and figures, I believe so strongly in switching to renewable energy sources because I’ve witnessed the effects of climate change firsthand, where I grew up in Miami, and where the water levels are rising rapidly. I remember tense drives home from school after hours of thunderstorms, when half a dozen cars stalled on the street because the flooding from the rain reached their tailpipes. We had to navigate our car through water that was in some places several feet high. Driving to South Beach on weekends, we complained of the endless construction—as soon as one project to raise the barriers between the canals and the street concluded, the next began to raise them even higher. Still, despite the increase in devastating hurricanes that tear through my hometown almost yearly, another result of climate change, we watch as skyscrapers continue to be built along the few remaining undeveloped stretches of beach. It would be a laughable exercise in denial if it weren’t so sad to think that I have no idea if the city will be recognizable just a few decades from now. Here too, the cost is not just personal, but also financial. A new study shows that if action isn’t taken, the damage to South Florida will surpass $38 billion by 2070. Prioritizing raising and floodproofing streets and buildings, and armoring the coast, over the continued short-sighted investment in real estate could in the not-so-long term save billions of dollars and create countless jobs.

As a whole in my hometown, the rest of the U.S., and the world, transitioning to renewable energy has proven social and economic benefits. We already know what to do, and how to do it, and why it’s important. The miracle solution we’ve been waiting for is this— the realization that we can still fix this, now.

Featured Image from Physics World

Written by Francesca von Krauland, Columbia University Masters Student in Global Thought and Climate Justice Now Intern.

There’s No Vaccine for Climate Change

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future October 9, 2020October 9, 2020businesses, climate change, deaths, environment, facemask, global, local, pandemic

Everything is connected—the world is woven together by invisible threads of causation and carelessness, effects and unintended consequences.

People tend to collapse the world when they imagine it. An American envisioning India, for example, might have a pretty homogenous view of the country, but even someone living in New Delhi inhabits only a small segment of a full reality comprised of a layered social system, an economy, a fraught history, and the lives of millions of people. People get caught up in the immeasurability of community, religion, nationality, and race and how they overlap in so many unique ways, making it difficult to pick up the threads of a global problem in a local community, or conversely to trace local priorities across transnational boundaries.

The difficulty of scale is apparent now more than ever, and as a global problem, the pandemic works its way into every single community in the world. From our homes, we watch our favorite local bookstores and cafes go out of business, we watch our neighbors grow tomatoes for the first time in their front garden, we watch the local supermarket stock packages of disposable face masks by the entrance. These things feel more real than the news that the U.S. has reached 100,000, now 200,000, now 218,000 deaths. More real than the nearly 900,000 people currently infected in India, certainly.

The local/global scale perspective problem isn’t limited to the pandemic. It’s the defining feature of climate change, too. The world as a whole contributes to the worsening of the global environment but the impacts are felt locally in countless different ways. Wildfires and hurricanes are more prevalent than ever, causing life-changing catastrophes for thousands, if not millions, of people. The water level rises down in South Beach, near where I grew up, so that there is almost constant construction on the streets that trace the beaches and canals, always to raise them just a few more inches against the floods that don’t always need rain anymore to spill over.

There’s a quote that’s been floating around on social media: There’s no vaccine for climate change. People have been wearing face masks against the smoke from polluted air since before the pandemic, and should we be so fortunate as to find a cure for COVID-19, people will continue wearing their masks against air pollution after the virus has abated. This is the new normal, right? Except it’s not new, and it’s not something we should accept as normal. Now, nestled away at home in our own communities, we have time to think, to reevaluate how our lives and decisions support a global system that is killing not the Earth but its most prolific inhabitants, humans. Now is the time to tie together the knowledge of what’s happening and rebuild.

This sounds overwhelming, and challenging, and exhausting, because when something is too big and miraculous or terrible to comprehend or verbalize, people focus on the small, and so it is often the small things which count more so than the big. Focus on the small, then—what can you do in your life, yes, during the pandemic, yes, during the most political turbulent time in our lives, yes, despite the fatigue of emotionally dealing with these realities, to better the world?

Small things. Wear a washable, reusable face covering instead of one that will end up in a landfill or strangle wildlife. Buy local produce to reduce emissions from shipping, and if you safely can, eat at or order food directly from local restaurants, instead of ordering food through UberEats or other companies that take a percentage of profits from small businesses already struggling to pay rent.

I know it’s difficult to balance the world’s needs with your own. I typed out ideas for this article while under the heating lamps of a cafe in Paris, where I’m based this Autumn. Those warm, glowing contraptions that make the tables that spill out onto the sidewalk so inviting—the idea being to heat the literal outdoors—were going to be banned in the city starting this year due to their environmental impact, but because of the pandemic, the policy was postponed a year so that restaurants can keep people outside and reduce contact. Hence, my face is as warm as the steaming cup of coffee before me as I ponder questions of how to not kill the planet. We do what we can in an imperfect world.

That’s why it would be tempting to add, don’t order from corporations like Amazon, which doubled its profits during the pandemic, but Amazon in particular has actually been somewhat proactive in minimizing the harm it causes, creating 175,000 new jobs, distributing a $500 million bonus to its frontline workers and partners, and increasing its hourly wages. Whether this balances out the cost to the environment and to local businesses is for you to decide, but perhaps corporations are more aggressive about creating positive change than other powerful entities, like the government, because sometimes they have a financial incentive to do so.

It would seem that governments and corporations have the power to influence the course of the pandemic, as well as of climate change, on every level from the international to the local. Individuals have a more direct influence on the local level, but also have the power to vote both in political elections (like this November—make sure you’ve registered!) and with where they choose to spend money. The local and global, and indeed, the pandemic and climate change, are more interconnected than they seem.

How people value those around them impacts how they perceive and interact with the world. Each person must strive to value the small: every individual is capable of planting a tree, and also of being a virus super-spreader. In addition, each person must attempt to grapple with the big: the forces of history that seem to, but can never fully, overshadow the small, that led to the globalized system that made the spread of the virus and the level of industrialization that is fundamentally altering the environment possible. The world is both too big and too small for human comprehension, but action is still possible, and necessary.

Featured image from Hydroinformatics Institute

Written by Francesca Von Krauland, Columbia University Masters Student in Global Thought and Climate Justice Now Intern.

From Disruption Comes Creation

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future October 6, 2020October 6, 2020climate change, COVID, future, global, pandemic, quarantine, science

As bodies packed together, a mass of glitter, champagne and excitement, to welcome in the new year and new decade just ten months ago, no one thought that such a scene would be unthinkable so soon after. Even then, the virus was beginning to spread. In the coming months, flights would be cancelled, sports seasons called off, museums, theme parks, and universities closed. All the noise and movement, the hallmarks of normalcy in our society, ceased.

It was science, meticulous building and testing and perfecting and creating, that built this complex, shared, unsustainable world. It was science—the way that a virus shuts down a body, lingers on surfaces, spreads to other bodies—that made it impossible for the world to continue as it was. And it was science, or more precisely, the system of technological communication that people have designed, that alerted everyone of the need to shut everything down.

So, the world went home. And at home, people went online. We looked inwards, but we also looked to each other, and the way we did it is a testament to the success of modern technology in creating a new realm for social interaction. People also turned to gardening, cooking, and bread baking as ways to pass the countless hours at home. These, too, are a science: an older kind, a timeless kind, chemicals interacting with chemicals in the heat of a seldom used oven. People rediscovered their own ability to make things, to grow things, as the world slowed down in quarantine. But not everyone was at home and online. More than ever, essential workers relied on technology to hold up what remained of the societal infrastructure. Factories continued, despite multiple outbreaks among workers, to produce and deliver goods to grocery stores. Drivers from food delivery apps dropped food directly at the houses of people who couldn’t safely enter supermarkets. Doctors used ventilators to keep patients with the virus breathing. The phrase “essential worker” was popularized, but each group relied on essential technologies to keep the population fed, home, and safe.

The workings of science did more than just sustain. They also inspired. At the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, NASA launched its first manned commercial rocket, marking the beginning of a new era of space travel. People from around the world watched onscreen as science made something so seemingly magical and otherworldly happen. It was a reminder that it is still possible for people all around the world, all of whom are impacted by the pandemic, to look up at the sky and dream of a future, and to feel proud of what science can achieve.

Science and fiction may have blurred when some articles about nature’s rebirth as a result of the pandemic were popularized, like that of dolphins returning to Venetian canals, but there was some fact in the coverage, too. Pollution levels dipped internationally, if only for a while, demonstrating how intrusive the processes are that fuel our pre-pandemic society. But nature is equally uncompromising in its determination to thrive, and after only a few weeks demonstrated the resilience of its ancient processes. Nature is a reminder that scientific achievement predates humanity.

It’s all science, our lives and societies. Science is behind our education and entertainment, supports our creativity and both fuels and is fueled by the limits of our imaginations. Yet nothing served as so potent a reminder about the human relationship to science as the virus itself. The pandemic showed that despite our ability to create and imagine, and despite the complexity of modern life, people are still just bodies, capable of contracting and spreading microscopic particles that in weeks can bring our world to a halt. No single body can be separated from the vast network in which it operates, and it is our interconnection that makes us so vulnerable. Society flourishes and crumbles around the resilience of our very fallible human forms, which scientists don’t yet fully understand.

Science, ideally, is behind the policies that states adopt to combat the spread of the virus. In much of Europe, public policies informed by science prevented countless infections. In other countries, like the U.S., a denial of the scientifically proven efficacy of masks and a refusal to follow social distancing guidelines has resulted in the highest infection rate on the globe. The outcry against the dangers of COVID-19 echoes that of the climate change deniers. If nothing else, science should be valued for its ability to save lives.

The past few months have given us cause to reevaluate every part of society: our healthcare infrastructure, the way that businesses and governments, from the local to national level, function, the role of international organizations like the WHO, and our values as individuals and as one global collective. The pandemic revealed the flaws and weaknesses in a system that has been plowing forward, slowing for nothing and no one, since the Industrial Revolution. Now, we have a unique opportunity to rebuild every area of society. Sustainability must be the ideology that guides our recovery, with the science of climate justice underlying every decision as we go forward. In the blog posts that follow, I want to more closely examine the global perspectives on the future of climate progress. I hope to inspire readers to think about how sustainability and social equity are interrelated concepts that should be built into every aspect of our shared future. The atmosphere has no boundaries, and neither should our solutions, in this one, shared world. We are experiencing a moment of disruption—next comes creation.

Featured image from Diplomatist

Written by Francesca Von Krauland, Columbia University Masters Student in Global Thought and Climate Justice Now Intern.

Crisis Crash Course

Tatum Eames Uncategorized May 1, 2020May 5, 2020climate change, COVID-19, crisis, disaster, emergency

The third blog in a series of 13 sharing art, articles, and abstract ideas that spark a contagious conversation.

A time of intense difficulty, heightened danger, or prolonged trouble- these are just a few indicators of a crisis. Right now, we are enduring not one, but two generation defining crises. Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic will transform society as we know it. But what exactly is a crisis? How is it different from a disaster, an emergency, or a dark period?

The term crisis comes from the Latinized form of the Greek word krisis, meaning “turning point in a disease.” At such a moment, the person with the disease could get better or worse: it’s a critical moment. It is the fork in the road, a decisive point or situation; a turning point. Both climate change and COVID-19 were made worse by early inaction. They became crises because leaders ignored that warning signs, refused proactive measures, and denied expert guidance. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained how the result of early inaction in regards to COVID-19 likely parallels the results of our climate crisis inaction.

A crisis is any event that is going to lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community, or whole society. Clearly, both of these sicknesses fit this criteria. Both of these sicknesses bring with them prolonged periods of uncertainty, they demand a complete transformation of norms, and they require quick dramatic action. It is because of these factors that COVID-19 and climate change are not simply emergencies or disasters. Let me know in the comments if you agree. Tell me how you define crisis, and if these sicknesses count.

For more information on what qualifies as a crisis, listen to Disasterology (DISASTERS) with Dr. Samantha Montano on the Ologies podcast at https://www.alieward.com/ologies/disasterology?rq=disasterology Check back on the blog next week for more COVID-19 and climate change updates.

Written by Tatum Eames, Western Washington University senior and Climate Justice Now intern.