Federal officials charged with regulating the use of the toxic chemicals have been dragging their heels.
NINE YEARS AGO, I traveled down to the bustling Louisiana bayou fishing town of Venice, where the road south along the Mississippi River comes to an end. I joined colleagues from the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental policy group, to investigate the blowout of the titanic Deepwater Horizon rig some 40 miles offshore. The bayou area had turned into a veritable war zone as an army of Coast Guard, National Guard, state police, and oil cleanup personnel converged to address the fallout from the massive rig explosion that killed 11 workers and busted a drilling pipe a mile below the surface, allowing 200 million gallons of reddish-brown crude to spew into the sea.
I can remember riding offshore with local fishermen and seeing their expressions turn from curiosity to fear as we found the thick, nauseating slicks floating toward shore. They realized their livelihoods would be turned upside down by the powerful explosion. It was America’s greatest oil spill disaster, a catastrophe that left a tarry trail of toxic oil and dead marine life across four states. And for many people who live in the region, the calamity is still not over.
Jorey Danos is one of them. A construction worker from the Louisiana town of Thibodeaux, Danos worked on the armadas of small boats — the Vessels of Opportunity — paid to help clean up the seemingly unending waves of crude. Above them, transport planes flew, spraying thousands of gallons of Corexit, a chemical oil dispersant designed to break up floating oil patches and sink them into the sea, so they would not pollute the marshes and shorelines. Danos says the planes sometimes flew near his boat, their mist making it hard to breathe. He says he was not issued a respirator. Boils broke out on his neck and he developed headaches. Eventually he suffered from seizures that forced him to stop work.
Danos is one of thousands of workers and residents who reported health complicationsfollowing exposure to dispersants during the Deepwater Horizon cleanup. Yet, in the decade since the oil spill, government agencies have set no major rules governing the use of the toxic chemicals. And with President Trump rolling back drilling safety regulations and pushing for new drilling in areas like the East Coast and the Arctic, the matter has taken on new urgency: The next big oil spill may be just around the corner.
Following climate change science is like tracking a snake, slithering along a rocky path that disappears into the dark crevasses of the unknown. Every once in a while, in the chance of a successful encounter, it lunges towards its prey to bathe in the sunlight of a sudden discovery. Science is like that, full of fits and starts, particularly climate science, which in recent years has been a lot more successful in its hunt for the truth.
I have the utmost respect for the researchers who toil at the forefront of our rapidly changing climate. They are mix of Paul Revere and Jeffrey Wigand, part watchman and part whistleblower. Climate scientists have not had an easy road over the past 30 years. They’ve been attacked and maligned, threatened by political cronies and pseudo-scientists connected to the most powerful industry on earth. Distinguished scientists have been accused of manipulating facts to meet their preconceived notions, forced to defend themselves from theft of personal and intellectual property, and trapped by complicated legal challenges that would drive most people underground.
To top it off, an administration adverse to science and the global threats that climate change represents has added the government’s weight behind the list of abusers, shutting down agency science projects, stripping mentions of climate change in reports, and threatening federal science staff in an atmosphere of intimidation and fear.
Until recently, the mainstream media, particularly the broadcast media, has done climate scientists few favors by keeping them at arms-length in their reporting, off panels of pontificators that are overly concerned about giving two sides to a story that deserves only one: the scientific truth. Fortunately, the media’s freeze-out of real science is starting to thaw. NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd was embarrassed by a conservative policy wonk who claimed that temperatures are cooling and was never challenged on his show; so Todd decided no more climate deniers would be allowed on his program. Small steps, but it’s important for people to know what’s real.
Despite overwhelming adversity, climate scientists have not gone underground. The Michael Mann’s, Jim Hansen’s, and Gavin Schmidt’s of the world have all pressed forward with their research, and just as importantly, voiced their views. Without them, it’s unlikely we would be shaken out of our slumber before the pot called Earth boils over. It’s our duty to report on their work and to include their voices, because if they don’t speak out, we can’t report the whole story. And the public will remain confused and in the dark. I see it time and time again, often in people who I would never expect.
Just last weekend, at a dinner with friends of my daughter’s high school team, I was asked about climate change by one of the parents, a professional lawyer concerned about her daughter’s future. “So, is it true?” she asked, “Do you really think it’s caused by people?” I was taken aback, and I explained that her question showed just how successful the fossil fuel industry has been in muddying the waters. “If more than 97% of oncologists thought you had breast cancer, would you believe them?” She nodded and looked away.
This is the threat we face, the never-ending danger of doubt and false hope that pervades not just our politics but our science. It perverts our professional and social circles to a point that if nothing seems certain, why do anything about it at all? Apathy is the mother of inertia. We really only have ourselves to blame if we don’t take dramatic action to fight this existential threat. It’s not an exaggeration. Just ask the experts.
Yesterday, I read two stories that pounded home just how serious things are. In Scientific American, reporter Laura Poppick wrote a lengthy piece on new research that shockingly shows ocean oxygen levels are rapidly decreasing, in some places by as much as 40% over the past 50 years, threatening ocean life around the world. “We were surprised by the intensity of the changes we saw, how rapidly oxygen is going down in the ocean and how large the effects on marine ecosystems are,” the scientists reported.
As if that wasn’t enough, the same day another bone-chilling account, this time by science writer and editor Natalie Wolchover in Quantamagazine, described how new research shows increasing amounts of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere may lead to fewer clouds, ultimately superheating the planet. “I hope we never get there,” one scientist said about the science points us yet in a new dangerous direction.
Despite the gloomy news, we still have time to act (yes we always say this but it’s true). It will take a Herculean effort to rally the global political and business world to act, but if we care about the future we really don’t have a choice. If scientists know one thing it’s that we will reach catastrophic climate change soon if we don’t cut carbon emissions. And there are increasing concerns that unknown feedback loops will cause faster levels of ice melt, greater natural methane and CO2 releases, bigger forest fires, more dangerous storms and changing ocean and atmospheric currents if we just sit around debating the threats.
Climate scientists are not the solution to everything, but they are the pioneers and the truth-tellers who can help us find solutions. We need their free and open judgement, their honesty and technical genius to push us toward a future our kids are counting on. Don’t believe the politicians who look in our children’s eyes and say; “Trust me, I just got elected and I know what to do.” Instead trust the scientists putting their careers on the line to seek the truth.
On Valentine’s Day I am thinking of love, and I’m worried about consumption. Love because it’s the foundation of existence, what drives us to do what we do. Consumption because it will lead to our demise, an addiction that will alter life as we know it. And it is everywhere in the world around us.
For the past 40 years I’ve worked as a journalist on topics ranging from pesticide poisoning in Mexico to gunrunning in Africa. I’ve revealed pieces of truth lurking in dark corners, and battled the frustrations of dead ends and denial. I have been harassed, fired, accused of exaggeration, and hounded by people who never wanted to see my stories see the light of day. Through the hard times I have sometimes thought about leaving journalism, especially as the modern digital age has devastated and squeezed local reporting to the point that few local voices are heard anymore. The media is being attacked like never before. Why would anyone want to do this?
But this week, the answers came to me from two young aspiring student journalists who contacted me separately, asking about stories I had worked on decades ago. They want to know how have things changed, and how they could get involved in journalism. Stay true to yourself I said, tell a good story, and get out and meet the people you are reporting on. We may live in the millisecond world of Twitter, a digital diaspora seemingly devoid of context. But journalists will always have a market for stories that tell a good tale, a yarn people can relate to. The youth of the world will inherit our environmental mess, a crisis that’s greater than ever. But they are smarter than I was at their age, and we must help them tell the stories in the future. For all of us.
Which gets me back to my thoughts of the day. I love what I do because I believe in it. I work on environmental stories because they matter, to my kids, the people I love, for my hound dog who is my faithful companion. Love really is about truth. Though journalists get dinged for getting things wrong, most really are trying their best to get it right. In a time of fake news and political puffery, I believe even more in the mission of the media. We are the message, and we have an obligation to report the facts as they are.
And consumption? Well that is the driving force of what’s afflicting our future. We live in a nation that consumes a quarter of the world’s resources, with a fraction of the population. At some point in the not-too-distant future, Mother Earth will be unable to sustain it. The science is clear; fisheries are rapidly being depleted, animals and insects are dying off in record amounts, forests are withering, our rivers and groundwater continue to be polluted by chemicals that put us all at risk.
But it is climate change that will push us all over the edge. We are already seeing what’s in store. As our political leaders feed us false hopes of a consumer-driven future, we face a destructive path if we don’t change. We live in the petri dish called Earth. We should learn from Native Americans who understood that long before Europeans came: respect Mother Nature or suffer the consequences. The increasing droughts, floods, fires, melting glaciers and oceans of plastic are stark reminders they are right.
Can we change? Absolutely. We have the solutions, the technology to get us out of the carbon-burning hell we are leaving for future generations. But we won’t change without the political will to get there. At some point, we will have no choice. It will be too late for millions of coastal residents and populations who lack the economic resources to weather the impending disaster.
Call me old school, but the world has proved we were right in our protests of the 60s. Embrace love and consume less on this Valentine’s Day. Find a way to focus on your passions while leaving a lighter footprint on the earth. We owe our kids no less.
In 1987, Sherrill Franklin was pregnant and living in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, when she discovered a rash on her leg as big as a dinner plate. She had been bitten by a tick. She soon began to suffer fatigue, a sore throat, and severe arthritis that made her hands feel “like claws.” It took almost two years, and a three-week course of intravenous antibiotics, for her to get back on her feet.
Two decades later, Franklin got a second tick bite, and this time she developed more extensive neurological symptoms. She lost weight, experienced heart complications, and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance. She was eventually diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an immune disorder that her endocrinologist said could have been triggered by Lyme disease. Today, Franklin is still experiencing symptoms. After countless visits to health care experts, she says she’s spent $50,000 of her own money on medical help.
“The best thing about Lyme disease is you usually don’t die,” Franklin says. “The worst thing about it is that you don’t die.”
By Rao M Sajjad Sharif, Erum Shahzadi and Fahad Munir
Human life is dependent on the dynamics of the Earth’s climate system. The interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, terrestrial and marine ecospheres, cryosphere and land surface determine the Earth’s surface climate. The historical meteorological records over the last few decades show a changing global climate due to natural as well as anthropogenic activities.
Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns that lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years). It is a global, regional, and national problem connected to exponential population growth, industrialization, globalization and urbanization. It greatly influences natural ecosystems, natural cycles, aquatic systems, terrestrial systems, distribution of species, and human health.
Earth’s temperature has increased to 0.74 C, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA). Pakistan is one among the most vulnerable countries to climatic changes as an autonomous country that occupies a strategic location in south Asia, with a variety of landscapes. By geographical region, Pakistan is most vulnerable to climate change due to global warming in a region where the temperature increases are expected to be higher than the global average temperature.
This region mostly consists of semi-arid and arid landscape. Pakistan is an agriculture country and its agricultural land is more sensitive to climate change. Due to its arid and semi-arid climate, water is the single most constraining factor to Pakistani agriculture. Hence the country faces larger risks of variability in monsoon rains, including large floods and severe droughts. Under these conditions the food water flood energy securities of the country are under serious threat.
From 1997-2016, Pakistan suffered from 141 extreme weather events, losing an average of 523.1 lives per year. The mammoth floods of 2010 and 2011 wiped out the entire agriculture apparatus of Pakistan. The floods have reportedly destroyed 71% of the standing rice crop, 59% of the vegetable crop and 45% of the maize crop across the country. Farmers claimed a 50% decrease in crop yields. In 2010’s heat waves, the hottest temperature recorded in Asia was 53.5oC (128.3F) in Mohenjo-Daro, a city of Sindh in Pakistan. It was the fourth highest temperature ever recorded in the world.
Pakistan is ranked in 7th among countries threatened by the vagaries of climate change and global warming. In short, Pakistan is at a serious risk to a changing climate, one of many lower developed countries threatening by rising carbon emissions from more developed countries around the world.
The authors are involved in scientific studies in Pakistan.
On a warm summer day on July 11, moms from around the country came together on the Washington Mall for a “Play-In for Climate Action” to protest Trump administration environmental policies and to fight for the health of their children and future generations. Kristin Mink, a DC teacher who confronted former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in a restaurant just days before he resigned, gives a powerful voice to mothers seeking a better future for their children. “This administration is not protecting us, they’re not protection our children, and it’s not a partisan issue. We’re not going to have it.”
Ron Naveen found his calling counting penguins in the Antarctic three decades ago, lured by the iconic creatures that waddled upright like drunken butlers but swam like dolphins under pristine ice shelves that stretched untouched for thousands of miles. Over the years Naveen created a small nonprofit called Oceanites, named after the aerobatic seabird, and he built a network of colleagues, volunteers and other scientists who helped document penguin population data along the Antarctic Peninsula—until recently one of the fastest warming regions in the world.
Today, Oceanites has partnered with New York’s Stony Brook University to develop new cutting-edge satellite mapping technology that will allow scientists to further study the populations of penguins that thrive in the brutally cold Antarctic winters made famous in documentaries like March of the Penguins and The Penguin Counters. Oceanites released its State of Antarctic Penguins 2018 report today—World Penguin Day—that provides the most detailed documentation yet of what is happening to penguins in on the world’s seventh continent. And the results continue to be concerning.
Two of the three species of penguins, Adelie and chinstrap, have declined significantly in numbers in the fast-warming Antarctic Peninsula, while a third species, the Gentoo, has risen. Why? No one really knows. It could be a drop off in the food supply, or a changing environment and melting ice. But Naveen’s band of penguin counters believe these noisy and curious flightless seabirds are crucial to understanding what will happen to humanity as the climate rapidly changes and the polar regions pour trillions of gallons of fresh water into the oceans.
“It is through these changes in the Peninsula that we hopefully will better understand how future generations of mankind may or may not adapt to a similar amount of warming in our own backyard,” Naveen says. His organization is working with scientists to come up with new ways to track what’s happening to our fitful feathered friends, trying to explain how rapidly warming regions of Antarctica are affecting penguins—and our future.
There is good reason to worry, since 90% of the world’s ice and 70% of the world’s fresh water are on this largely unexplored icy continent. If the ice melts, penguins and humans will suffer the consequences. So far, recent scientific studies have not been optimistic about the future in the frozen south. Reports show 10% of Antarctica’s massive glaciers are in full retreat, and new research shows melting is taking place underneath the ice sheets due to changing ocean currents, creating a potentially disastrous warming feedback loop.
This is not good for penguins—or us. Scientists are desperately trying to figure out what is happening to the mysterious frozen world that we know so little about. Because as Naveen says, what happens to penguins will happen to us. And that’s a story worth figuring out.
Rocky Kistner is an advisory board member of Oceanites.
TJ Johnson remembers the day he and his cousins were sprayed. Bobbing in two small boats four miles off the Alabama coast, they were using plastic nets to scoop out thick, noxious crude that had gushed to the surface after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded 40 miles off the Louisiana shore. Nobody had protective gear on, and no one worried much about the slimy, foul-smelling oil that stuck to their boats and piled up in the garbage bags they used to collect it.
Suddenly out of the darkening sky a prop transport plane appeared, trailing a silky mist. As the plane flew over, TJ says, the mist floated down, burning their eyes and skin and causing several men to choke and gag. They poured water on themselves to clean the toxic liquid off their skin and headed back to their port in Bayou La Batre as fast as possible. TJ says they were all coughing, and soon developed headaches and rashes.
“The plane probably didn’t see us because it was getting dark,” TJ says. “But that’s just the way it was out there. We were getting sprayed all the time.”
I have worked in all forms of media over the past 30 years—broadcast television, radio, print and online—but there is one powerful element they have common: the story of people. As an environmental reporter and producer working in the field, I know there is nothing more impactful than telling stories of those struggling with natural and human-caused hardships. The fishermen, the farmers, the residents battling refinery pollution and bureaucracies. From the boreal forests of northern Alberta to the polluted refineries of the Gulf of Mexico, I have seen their story-telling power resonate with people all over the world.
Yet when it comes to communicating about science and climate change, we often are not telling those stories very well. Local newspaper cutbacks and the rise of cable punditry has turned off many Americans who tire of people yelling at each other. The election of Donald Trump should be a lesson to us all. The media missed the outrage of ordinary folks, the seething anger with those in powerful political positions and places. The most important voices come from people who experience first-hand what is going on in the world. We need to hear less from the NGO heads in DC and New York and hear more from people on the ground instead. And we need more of the personal stories of the scientists and experts who are leading the efforts to fight climate change, the compelling narratives that we can all relate to.
We have the technology and tools to make it happen, and it does not take a lot of money to produce multimedia stories in the field. Cheaper cameras and editing make quick video stories more doable, and short blogs that accompany them can drive new readership. Social media thrives on visuals from the field, yet I find it rarely done in a way that’s compelling and distinct. I have done it on a shoestring for NRDC and The Huffington Post, and I plan to do it again as we enter a new election in 2018. The environmental community can profit from more journalistic reporting on the ground. These are visual and compassionate stories that can change the world.
Politics is local, and so are the stories that move people’s hearts and minds. We need more of these voices to galvanize a movement to action. Join me and tell your story.
