in the days following then-tropical storm ida, i studied its catastrophic impact on the region i call home — philadelphia — from 140 miles away at my university in washington, d.c. my social media feeds were filled with dystopian images of flooded below-ground highways, bridges nearly submerged by water, and residential streets that looked a lot more like venice than the northeastern american city.  

the vine street expressway (i-676) in #philadelphia, before and after #ida. pic.twitter.com/o5v19dahhe

— todd chappelle (@toddchappelle) september 2, 2021

one visual stood out to me in particular — a twitter video, below, of so-called “vine street swimmers” jumping into the submerged expressway in a characteristically unhinged philly-fashion, despite officials’ warnings to stay out of the water. my inner germophobe reeled: gross.

philly wild right now pic.twitter.com/72cllpybha

— bradford pearson (@bradfordpearson) september 2, 2021

it turns out that my casual disgust was worthy of more attention. i took it upon myself to do something i never thought i’d do: to research the inner workings of my city’s sewage system.

what i found was fittingly unsavory: tropical storm ida was another reminder of the intense pressure put on philadelphia’s centuries-old sewage system by weather events intensified by changes in our climate, like hurricanes, increased precipitation, and flooding. the makeshift pool the vine street swimmers enjoyed was mixed with both wastewater and potentially toxic materials.

some 60% of the city has what’s called a combined sewer system (css) — an apparatus that accumulates sewage, industrial wastewater, and rainwater runoff into one channel, which is sent to a sewage plant for treatment, according to the epa. but when the collected water exceeds the plant’s capacity, untreated water enters nearby waterways and streets.

such an event is called a combined sewer overflow (cso) — the phenomenon that i witnessed on my social media feeds as a result of ida. the impacts of a cso are also made worse in urban areas where water can move swiftly on asphalt surfaces, unabsorbed by green spaces, according to the philadelphia inquirer. 

so, why does this matter? storms happen, places flood, and we clean up and move on with our lives.

as a college student a few states away, i’m relatively unaffected by philadelphia’s climate problems. i live in the suburbs anyway — a 20 minute drive from center city — and visit home sparingly for holidays and breaks. 

schuylkill river flooding from ida in the manayunk section of philadelphia @phillywx @stormhourmark @stormhour @jimcantore @spann @stephanieabrams @garyszatkowski #idaaftermath #ida pic.twitter.com/c7c8ijqjdf

— weather brewed (@weatherbrewed) september 2, 2021

but what if the problem expands? the green lane bridge in the manayunk neighborhood of the city, a mere four miles from where i grew up, was nearly submerged by ida. i can’t help but think about my aging mom, and the house and vibrant garden she’s worked so hard to improve and beautify, becoming submerged by not just floodwater, but contaminated water. and having grown up in the region and witnessed the deep inequities in housing, education, and infrastructure across the city, i’m concerned that these extreme weather events and their putrid consequences will affect vulnerable communities the most.

my personal concerns coincide with observed trends and the potential future impacts of extreme weather events on philadelphia’s wildlife, people, and economies. the 2018 national climate assessment indicates that the northeastern united states as a whole has seen, and will continue to see, some of the highest rates of sea level rise and ocean warming in the country as a result of human-related greenhouse gas emissions. rising ocean temperatures strengthen and intensify hurricanes with extra heat energy. philadelphia in particular will see extreme flooding every year by 2050, according to nbc10 philadelphia.

frank kummer, an environmental writer for the philadelphia inquirer, has reported the most extensively on the impact of climate change on the city and its sewage system, specifically. his reporting demonstrates the multitude of ways in which climate change will wreak havoc on the area.

in his article, “the secret scourge of climate change? more raw sewage in philadelphia’s waterways,” he shares data that shows philadelphia’s rainfall average for the 21st century — 2000-2018 — was up eight inches from the 20th-century average. additionally, he writes, waterways polluted by a css overflow can cause water oxygen level drops that can harm aquatic life — a drop that was observed in a local creek after a quick afternoon storm in september. further, in another article, “climate change is straining philly’s 19th-century sewage system. ida was a ‘wake-up call,'” he explains that after ida, the schuylkill river was designated “red” by the water department, meaning that bacteria levels were so high, the water wasn’t suitable for boating, wading, and fishing.

besides the fact that the consequences of human-induced climate change are brutal for ecosystems, they’re incredibly costly to the communities they impact. from a national perspective, the total cost of extreme weather events to the american people has exceeded $1.1 trillion since 1980, according to the 2018 national climate assessment.

and now zooming into philadelphia, in another kummer article, brian rademaekers, a spokesperson for the philadelphia water department, said that a plan to redesign and construct a new sewage system that could handle extreme weather events would cost billions of dollars. city officials are hoping that funding from biden’s infrastructure will aid in this investment. 

so now, i feel that i’m back at square one. we can improve our infrastructure, but we can’t stop the inevitable: climate change is altering our hometowns, our country, and our world in scary ways. flooding in philadelphia is just a microcosm under the vast umbrella of climate change’s wrath. and for those who deny climate change, or refuse to act on it — especially in the philly region — well, its impacts might soon submerge their city. and it’s really going to be shitty.

—

editor’s note: check back each day during cop26 for more pieces in planet forward’s climate hits home series.“

rising sea levels and flooding are growing problems in virginia, and hurricane ida just showed us the devastating impacts. according to the national climate assessment (nca), increasing temperatures in virginia, sinking landforms, and changing ocean currents are causing sea levels to rise significantly higher than the global average. these extremely high levels have caused flooding all across the state. in my neighboring town of norfolk, “sea level rise has led to a fourfold increase in the probability of exceeding nws thresholds compared to the 1960s,” according to the nca.

virginia beach, alexandria, and richmond are especially prone to flooding because they are coastal cities. in my hometown of chantilly, virginia, we had two floods within the last month. it feels like it’s becoming a trend that every week we’ll face another natural disaster. according to the national climate report by the national centers for environmental information, some of the wettest locations this month included virginia, with precipitation totals 150% to 200% more than normal. virginia is becoming the new flood hotspot.  

the frequent road closures and risks to infrastructure, transportation and ecosystems are some of the immediate effects we’ve witnessed due to flooding, according to the nca. the nca said that the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa) measured as much as “1 to 3 feet of local relative sea level rise in the past 100 years in low-lying areas of the southeast.” this causes “critical levels” of high tides and daily risk to all areas of life, including to businesses and neighborhoods. i can remember fear consuming my body as i got ready to drive, get on a bus, or even metro, because of how dangerous the weather conditions were. i remember having to find alternate routes because roads were closed and streets were evacuated. one too many times i have heard a tree fall in my sleep, only to wake up and realize it’s actually on the road. roaring winds are a default noise to my ears, though they make it sound like my house is on the verge of collapsing. it’s a normal day when i’m begging my windshield wipers to go faster to keep up with the torrential downpour.

according to the intergovernmental panel of climate change (ipcc), sea levels are forecasted to rise about 55 inches by the year 2100. to contextualize, a process that should have taken 400 years with natural levels of warming has now been accelerated to 79 years. according to the noaa, sea levels are currently rising “about one-eighth of an inch per year.” growing up an athlete, i remember waiting for the calls and emails announcing that after school activities were canceled due to inclement weather. by the year 2100, my grandkids may get that call nearly everyday. 

the nca projects that this flooding will become more serious, disruptive, and costly as its frequency, depth, and inland extent grow with time. but not all hope is lost. while norfolk is known for its floods, sealevelrise.org states that they have allocated over $1 billion of proposed projects to protect against flooding by 2035. similarly, virginia beach and hampton roads have set aside money for stormwater projects and sewage systems respectively.

there are other steps we should be taking now to prevent more flooding in the future. reducing carbon emissions would address the problem at the source, because fewer carbon emissions means less warming. protecting our wetlands is another step we should be taking. these wetlands provide natural areas for the water to be stored. maybe, if we take these steps and others—while taking climate change seriously—virginians won’t have to purchase a boat in the near future just to get around town.

—

editor’s note: check back each day during cop26 for more pieces in planet forward’s climate hits home series.

we watched waves pour over our front yard, our mailbox looking like it had been mistakenly plopped down in the middle of the ocean. waves hit the windows on our second-floor deck, water rushed past our windows, and i began to wonder if we might float away, too.

when the storm had mostly passed, the neighborhood began to come out of hiding to check on each other and fulfill our curious natures. the massive jersey barriers – made of concrete and bolted down with steel – had been pushed across the street onto our lawns. our backyard was covered in inches of sand, and there were starfish lying prone in the driveway. the ocean we all loved so dearly came closer than ever before to pay us a visit, and maybe to give us a warning.

the following year we evacuated for hurricane sandy and returned the following day to find that the sand beneath the state road had been washed away, leaving the road suspended in the air. the granite blocks in front of our house had dropped into the ground as it opened up, and i remember staring at the hole where my front yard used to be and feeling that we were in over our heads in more ways than one.

for me, growing up in a beach house in a town that comes alive in the summer was paradise. but it will soon be paradise submerged.

the seawall

at a neighborhood meeting in may 2018, i lingered at the back of the room, letting my parents and their neighbors contend with the reality of their disappearing property. familiar faces leaned over the map held by a state civil engineer who seemed too young to be in charge of saving a neighborhood.

the state of connecticut is building a $5.8 million seawall on the state road that stands between the long island sound and my neighborhood, which consists mostly of old beach cottages set back less than 50 feet from the place where land gives way to water. the state is aiming not to protect houses but to protect route 146, since it was severely undermined when hurricane sandy washed the land out from beneath it.

the u.s. army corps of engineers estimates the long island sound will rise 6.24 inches higher in the next 15 years; the road is only three feet above the current high tide mark, so it’s no wonder the state is starting to worry.

the people who built my house and others like it in the 1920s looked at an undeveloped beach and saw only opportunity. then the deadly hurricane of 1938 and countless other hurricanes and nor’easters hit the town with growing intensity, but beachfront houses continued to pop up on my street like elaborate sandcastles just waiting for the tide to come. perhaps unsurprisingly, the desire for beachfront property remains constant even as the beachfront creeps ever closer. 

we severely underestimate the power of the ocean, just as we underestimate the impacts of a changing climate. whether the year is 2018 or 2033, a category 3 hurricane like hurricane katrina or hurricane irma would flood my family’s entire property with a layer of 11 feet of water, while another category 1 storm like hurricane sandy would dump five feet of water on us. nor’easters and hurricanes become more extreme as they’re fueled by increasing ocean temperatures and they reach further onshore due to sea-level rise, meaning we can expect more starfish in the driveway every year.

climate change and the resultant sea-level rise is the most significant reason we need a seawall, but rarely was the phrase “climate change” uttered at that neighborhood meeting. there’s a major cognitive distance between sea-level rise as an abstract concept and a sea-level that could reach our driveways in less than a century.

but in 2019, the town of branford did something amazing — something that surprised me. the town invested $1 million in a new coastal resiliency fund as a way to save for the future climate costs like repairing washed-out roads and bridges. quietly, without any fanfare, branford made a commitment to its future and acknowledged the threat of climate change in a major way.

the sandcastles

i have this apocalyptic vision in my head of fish swimming by the stop sign where i once waited for the bus, of my childhood bed floating through sunlit water long after my parents have fled for higher ground. there’s no violent destruction or fear in my vision because i’ve grown up with this reality. maybe the next hurricane will knock the house down, but in my head, my childhood home stays in the same place as the ocean overtakes it, a symbolic reminder that the land was never ours to begin with, and that humans have majorly screwed up.

in some ways, i believe my drive to become an environmental journalist stems from my life experiences of reckoning with the rising sea. it’s hard to grow up with hurricanes as a character in your life story and not develop a curiosity about the climate. i’m not trying to save myself – seawall or not, i believe it may be too late for my neighborhood – but i want to help turn our trajectory around for other people, if i can, or at least help people adjust to the new world we’ll be living in.

i’m most concerned about people who are far less privileged than i am: people who live in places like the bahamas or puerto rico and have no way to escape the fury of a hurricane. people who have played little to no role in carbon emissions still must watch the sea approach them, suffering the crash of a wave that began on shores far away.

while i may one day lose my house and my neighborhood, other people will lose their jobs, families, and lives. entire countries will be wiped off the map. every island you’ve ever vacationed on could be just decades away from being a memory that geographers point to, identifying the spot where land and lives used to be. not all sea-level rise is equal in effect, and compared to other people in the world, my story is far from a tragedy.

people like my family and neighbors got lucky, living in the middle of a new england beach postcard, and then because of the choices we made, our luck ran out. but maybe we can prolong the daydream for a little longer…

and so we’re building a seawall, which will hold off the storms and seas for some time. but if there’s anything i’ve learned from playing in the sand, it’s that human constructions are trivial compared to the power of the ocean. we’ve seen that with the destruction of levees in new orleans, piers in new jersey, and entire towns in the bahamas. there is plenty we can do to become more resilient in the meantime, like building seawalls and lifting homes onto stilts, but the reality for places like branford is that people will one day have to move away.

high on a cliff over the branford river, there’s a big, sandy-colored mansion complete with turrets and crenellations that we jokingly refer to as “the sandcastle.” but the irony is that that house will survive far longer than the houses on my street. the real sandcastles are houses like mine; hastily constructed too close to the sea with the optimism of a child building sandcastles and believing they’ll be there forever. i long for the days when i, too, thought that the rising sea would never reach me.

from president donald trump controversially tossing some paper towels into a crowd to organizations offering relief, there has been a large effort to give aid to puerto rico. one of the organizations that has helped rebuild puerto rico is the american society of civil engineers, or asce. not only is the asce helping to rebuild puerto rico but they also are updating their infrastructure to last around 50 to 100 years and be able to handle hurricanes with the same wrath as maria according to their standards. 

during the asce-led briefing, the main topic was updating puerto rico’s infrastructure to last and withstand deadly tropical storms in the longworth house office building on capitol hill on sept. 24. the moderators of the briefing called on a joining of forces between the federal government and the asce.

going into the briefing informing people of the asce 7 hazard tool which informs people on how to deal and be prepared for harsh conditions like hurricanes, ice storms, blizzards, and other types of inclement weather was a big point to get across. since the document’s last update in 2017, it now has information on hurricane-prone areas, as well as wind debris.

leading the briefing were multiple high ranking members of the asce: executive director tom smith; héctor colón de la cruz, who is the head of puerto rico’s infrastructure report card; otto lynch, who is the president and ceo of power line systems; and josefa torres-olivo, who is the district iii director of the rural community assistance partnership.

later in the discussion the republican congresswoman of puerto rico jenniffer gonzález-colón to reinforce what was being presented by the asce.

smith described some financial benefits that can be seen when it comes to reinforcing and strengthening communities to be better prepared for disasters.

“according to the national institute of building sciences, every dollar spent on pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness saves 6 dollars in rebuilding costs after a storm,” smith said.

smith also describes what the asce-7 was and just how in depth the document that the asce has presented with their standards is, and just how many people have put the time and dedication necessary to put something like this together.

“asce-7 is an 800-page document,” smith said. “we have hundreds of engineers who work on this document analyzing infrastructure and how it has performed across the world and testing it in labs.”

throughout the briefing, asce pushed their standards and explained how that can benefit areas that deal with numerous types of harsh storms.

lynch discussed how the bahamas updated their infrastructure according to the asce guidelines.

“i’ve been told by more than one source that every pole on that line survived hurricane dorian. that’s a category 5 storm that stayed over the island for 36 hours. follow these!” lynch said, as he shook a copy of the guidelines in his hand.

colón de la cruz would go on to explain puerto rico’s infrastructure strain, the aid it is receiving from congress and a new problem facing puerto rico’s reconstruction.

“congress allocated $42.5 billion for reconstruction purposes,” colón de la cruz said. “as of may 2019, only $15 billion has been delivered to puerto rico. it is important that the american government and puerto rico work together to deliver a more resilient infrastructure.” 

“looking forward in specific infrastructure energy was a headline, the energy blackout but we are also facing a new emergency,” colón de la cruz said. “last year the epa estimated that we only have 5 years left of capacity remaining in our landfills excluding the amount of debris that is going to be a part of the reconstruction efforts. it is also important to mention that only half of the landfills are compliant to epa standards.”

torres-olivo would go on to stress how resources like clean drinking water have been affected by hurricane maria for an area that already struggles to distribute clean water to people living there.

“the reality is that in an island topography and an infrastructure cost investment it is not feasible to perform in for the entire island,” torres-olivo said while describing how difficult it is to distribute water. 

rep. gonzález-colón would not speak until later in the briefing, however she still took advantage of her time. calling on both the federal government and the private sector to work together to help areas like puerto rico.

“one of the biggest challenges i have as a member of congress is that i don’t even have the correct data,” gonzález-colón said. “i rely on the private sector and i rely on ngo’s to gather that information.” 

gonzález-colón also went on to state how important improving puerto rico’s infrastructure will be and she expressed her confidence in the asce guidelines to accomplish that.

“we need to use the american society of civil engineer’s standards,” she said.

asce has the means of doing that.

“this is the only way for people to know what is going on back home,” gonzález-colón said.

the florida keys are making changes as sea levels rise, and every change comes with an immense cost. for example, people are adapting to nuisance flooding by elevating the roads, which is an expensive process for the keys government. in fact, it can cost about $10 million to elevate a mile of road two feet, and the county has over 300 miles of roads.

residents face the expense of elevating their homes, as well. currently, regulations about raising homes are intended to prevent flooding from hurricane storm surges, but this will also help protect homes from the effects of sea level rise: higher storm surges and more permanent flooding in the future.

additionally, if sea level rise deters tourism to the keys, every level of the economy from the government to businesses to individuals would be affected. 

in this podcast episode, hear about economic impacts of sea level rise in the florida keys.

the previous episode covered what sea level rise looks like in the keys. next, in the third and final episode of this series, i talk to keys residents about their opinions on sea level rise. you can find that episode here.

but the 279-acre area is more than just a park.

officially the willow waterhole stormwater detention basin, it’s actually a nature-based flood damage reduction facility that can hold up to 600 million gallons of stormwater. channels slowly drain the water away, which would otherwise have moved downstream, flooding homes and businesses.

the site is part of the brays bayou flood damage reduction project, a massive collaboration between the harris county flood control district and the army corps of engineers. project brays’ 75 elements primarily include widened and deepened channels, which will be able to hold more stormwater, alterations to the bridges crossing those channels and the construction of four stormwater detention basins. willow is one of them.

stephen benigno, an environmental quality section leader at the flood control district’s environmental services department, said that most park-goers have no idea that spaces like willow are multi-purpose. it’s an example of hybrid infrastructure, which combines both nature-based and traditional solutions to problems like flooding.

sarah murdock, director of u.s. climate resilience and water policy at the nature conservancy, said, “when you invest in nature, you can lessen the impact that you’re trying to address, but you also get a host of other benefits.”

not only does willow manage flood risk and provide a recreational space for houston residents, it also helps conserve wildlife and restore the endangered coastal prairie ecosystem upon which houston was built.

willow’s trees will grow into forest, so workers don’t have mow as much grass. plants within the waterhole help filter the stormwater, which otherwise would be carried, along with its contaminants, into the brays bayou and eventually to the gulf of mexico.

“when [hybrid infrastructure] is applicable, the district uses it every chance they get,” said benigno.

and in august 2017, project brays prevented over 10,000 homes from being flooded by hurricane harvey, which dumped about a trillion gallons of water on harris county alone. all of the county’s channels and its four detention basins, which can hold a combined 3.5 billion gallons of stormwater, were at full capacity sometime during the storm.

traditional gray infrastructure – like pumping stations and pipes – alone would have resulted in greater damage.

norma jean mattei, the american society of civil engineers’ 2017 president, said that typical structures like pumping stations are designed to collect water and actively move it out of the area as quickly as possible, but have finite capabilities.

in addition, she said, any hazards that take the systems offline during extreme weather events, even temporarily, will lead to flooding.

“that’s what the problem is with gray infrastructure,” said mattei. “big rainstorms [like hurricane harvey] are a lot of water.”

climate change could make weather events more intense, putting traditional projects under more stress. a 2017 national oceanic and air administration study projected more severe rainfall and hurricanes for texas as the climate warms.

the fourth national climate change assessment, released in 2018 by the u.s. global change research program, found that sea level rise along the texas gulf coast is twice as high as the national average. a storm surge in galveston bay could put the entire country’s petroleum and natural gas refining ability at risk. during harvey, surges in the area measured from one to four feet high.

nature-based elements could be part of a comprehensive approach toward these developing challenges. that’s something the army corps of engineers’ dedicated engineering with nature initiative is taking to heart. in the organization’s galveston bay district, located right by houston, it’s using a strategy called “multiple lines of defense” to take some of the strain off engineered features.

edmond russo, deputy district engineer for programs and project management at the corps.’ galveston district said, “in the case we only had engineered solutions, the system is more brittle and prone to failure.”

russo described an example in which using miles of wetlands in front of an earthen levee would reduce the daily battering the structure would take from the waves. the project would remain effective for longer.

more engineers are recognizing the potential advantages that nature can bring to infrastructure.

“[engineers] would try to control nature, but we know we can’t,” he said. “there’s always a bigger disaster than what you design for.”

but all this information is just words unless you do something about it. it’s important to recognize that regardless of where you are, you can make a difference. it’s easy to complain about the large organizations for the role they play in relief, but what is more important is that we hold them accountable. some organizations approach disaster relief with ideas already in mind, but it is up to us to tell them what the needs of the community are. we have to insist that they build a relationship with the community first, and not after. people go on vacations and seldom realize the positive the impact that tourism could have, if done correctly. keep in mind where your money will go in the community and make sure you are supporting locals rather than corporations. its also important to realize the environmental impact of vacationing and adopt the “leave no trace” mindset. the island struggling to gain access to water and food, so consider bringing your own of both, and if you’re going to bring plastic, make sure you carry it off. the struggles are not over for vieques, as climate change is only causing storms to increase. after hurricane maria, it was said that the people of vieques were very resilient, and while i’ve found this to be true, resiliency is a term used to describe things over short periods. in addition, i believe the community to be resistant. each year they go through hurricanes and tropical storms, and they still have a thriving community and this is what it means to be resistant. if we all take this lesson and apply it to the way we approach environmental problems, we can begin not to only solve problems for the short term, but find permanent solutions for reoccurring problems.

these photos and the story represent the collaborative experience of the suny college of environmental science and forestry’s students, faculty, and friends. in january of 2019, each of the people in this picture wanted to make a difference and traveled out of their comfort zones to vieques. we spent a week asking the community what they needed and getting involved. while doing so we fell in love with the island, and continue to maintain a collaborative relationship in every way we can.

fern, the food and environment reporting network, thefern.org/
allison keyes, @allisonradio
icyclone footage from hurricane maria, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae96xf293dc

washington – the federal emergency management agency will end its efforts to build emergency energy infrastructure in puerto rico by may 18. but because of a federal law that prohibits updating infrastructure, the energy system that fema built is still inadequate for puerto rico’s needs, as wednesday’s island-wide power outage demonstrates.

before wednesday’s blackout, 50,000 customers remained without power, most in the mountainous regions of the island. 

fema intends to hand off the permanent restoration project next month to the puerto rico electric power authority, an agency with a $9 billion debt and insufficient rebuilding plans to ensure a stable grid. 

the robert t. stafford disaster relief and emergency assistance act prohibits modernizing equipment with federal funds, saying the money is designated for emergency aid, not long-term improvements. that means the infrastructure projects fema and other federal agencies replaced after hurricane maria are only temporary fixtures that resemble what stood in place before the storm.

“the stafford act does not contemplate, as it’s written, rebuilding an electric system,” said bruce walker, electricity delivery and energy reliability assistant secretary at the department of energy. “by virtue of the way the stafford act is written, it contemplates things being put back the way that they were.”

fema contracted the army corps of engineers for 42 hurricane maria-related assignments, with a budget of $3.4 billion. emergency recovery included installing over 2,000 temporary generators, but only 1,150 have been replaced with permanent power sources and four makeshift micro grids remain in service.

basav sen, climate justice project director at the institute for policy studies, said congress needs to overhaul the stafford act so that disaster recovery is easier in the future.

“in the short run you could save some money by not improving the infrastructure, but merely restoring it,” sen said. “but in the longer run, you are not learning lessons. you are not improving the infrastructure to be able to withstand a disaster in the first place and you are setting yourself up to do those same set of repairs in another three years.”

sen also said federal agencies should remain as the leaders of rebuilding infrastructure on the island. 

“this gesture of saying that the problem is solved before it really is is a way of sweeping it under the rug,” he said. “proclaiming that they are done, mission accomplished, when very clearly you have a problem, that in and of itself is an issue.”

charles alexander, the army corps of engineers’ director of contingency operations and homeland security, said the temporary power system is better able to withstand a storm than the pre-hurricane system, but a permanent replacement system is outside the bounds of stafford act regulations. it’s also outside the bounds of puerto rico, which has a $73 billion debt and is in the 11th year of a recession.

“it’s not the resilient grid that we all recognize is needed, but it’s in much better condition,” alexander said.

alexander said the corps will take on an advisory role to prepa after may 18. a spokesman said the energy department also will offer advice to prepa and the puerto rican government in the recovery process.

“we want to continue to provide and offer expertise from the department and national labs on ways that they can strengthen the resilience of their grid. we can’t provide bulldozers or cranes or anything, but we can provide expertise and provide studies with our partners over there,” the spokesman said.

at a recent house oversight hearing, rep. jimmy gomez, d-calif., said, “i’m concerned that these are temporary measures, and you guys are leaving. we haven’t fully restored yet, and i hope the transition is adequate.”

rep. susan brooks, r-ind, also inquired about plans to prevent further disasters. 

“what have we done in preparation for the next hurricane, or what kind of plans do we now have in place, because the plan we had was incredibly frustrating,” she said.

jeffrey byard, fema’s associate administrator for response and recovery, told the oversight hearing that the only way to provide funding for permanent energy solutions for puerto rico would be to authorize full federal funding – which would require changes in the law to avoid violating the stafford act.

even if that happened, walker said, prepa doesn’t have a model of a reliable, organized energy system.  

“we’re building it for them, but it’s a model that they (should) normally have,” he said.

—

as a child, i held a very intimate relationship with the dirt, the trees, and the geese that flocked seasonally to the green pond of piedmont park in downtown atlanta, georgia – no different than any other child and their respective place of play. it felt as natural as breathing to contain a massive respect for the oceans, wind, and expansive fields of lush, multicolored grasses. both their beauty and purpose left me awestruck. i aimed for the oval office, the united states presidency – the nation’s first black president – not so that i may tackle social issues, improve upon foreign relations, redefine our economic system, or bolster our military. no, i wanted this for my planet.

my immature imagination devised policies concerning alternative, fuel-efficient transportation, installing clean energy infrastructure on public and private estates, creating inclusive agricultural programs that give children not of wealthier backgrounds an equal opportunity to fresh, nutrient-rich produce, and, of course, establishing a “take-a-tree, give-a-tree” program, which does exactly as the name implies.

nevermind that these programs would lead to a largely inadequate presidential campaign, or the years of studying it would take before i could learn the politics it would take to make such a reality possible, or whether the everyone desired to live under this ideology. and if my recollection serves me right (which, otherwise, it is not so apt to do) i was about 9 or 10 years old then. i wished only to start a conversation about something i cared for so much, and everyone will, at the very least, listen to the president no matter outlandish their declarations.

unfortunately, what i was not aware of was that a clear majority of world citizens, let alone those in the u.s., are not quite capable of appropriately communicating similar sentiments to those four or five times as old. removed from that imagination, many men and women find themselves trapped on an island of silence.

this is as literal as it is metaphorical, as jacqueline patterson, director of the naacp environmental and climate justice program, described to me of her first experience in the dealings of such silence. as a peace corps volunteer located in jamaica during the early 1990s, patterson recounts her difficulties with a contaminated water supply caused by improper management of a shell petroleum depot, “with no recourse for adjustments.” it was immediately a situation of “david and goliath,” she goes on to say. why? the surrounding community’s poor education on environmental issues proved crippling especially when tasked with overcoming such a corporate giant as shell.

with deep roots in women’s rights activism, patterson looks to lay bare the civil rights facet of environmentalism, primarily as it impacts women, and places great emphasis on the skill of storytelling as it pertains to educating as she tells me, “(we need to) move away from the polar bears and melting ice caps, jargon, charts and graphs, and numbers, create a human, personal perspective on the matter.”

personal perspectives such as the domestic abuse women may regularly face based on the rising temperatures accompanying global warming, and inability to produce “essentials” as expected of them – a great conflict for women in post-katrina louisiana, and others feeling the effects of climate change abroad.

and as our planet becomes drastically smaller, the united states, patterson explained, is disproportionately driving climate change; it is no secret to many, our wasteful tendencies. however, whether by improper influences or individual effort (250,000,000 tons of trash are disposed in the united states per year, with no end in sight), we pollute like no other. sadly, the impoverished countries and communities of continents overseas, or abutting, live no better than those impoverished communities her at home. indigenous communities, the original inheritors, inherit no more than run off from extraction processes which occur no further from their home than sits a gas station from mine. black communities are more likely to be located near toxic facilities, even more so than white counterparts who make $35,000 less annually. yet, poor communities on the whole are, by political design (the hardly known, yet largely felt definition of value placed on collections of residences across the country), not going to be protected from environmental devastations such as hurricane katrina, from which some neighborhoods still have not recovered from in more than a decade following the natural disaster.

but i won’t contradict patterson’s wishes any longer and let the numbers, charts, and jargon be to discuss what is most important in the face of these many disconcerting statistics and facts: education and communication. when giving workshops and panel discussions on the topic of climate justice, patterson often received a response similar to, “why are we talking about the environment? the naacp is not an environmental justice organization, i expected this to be on the justice with a social climate.” shortly thereafter, other responses spurred her to emphasize environmental and climate justice as a civil rights issue, battling problems like those prior, and educating several on why it should be considered in that way.

intersectional education within the classrooms of our young citizens, was patterson’s first suggestion of educational reforms. for example, certain social studies courses should include dedicated social justice instruction, of which environmental and climate justice is a topic. for adults beyond the school system, applied education programs covering energy audits, disaster resiliency, and clean energy installation may be partnered with self-testing toolkits, creating a personalized education adaptive to the individual’s schedule and allowing for that convenience we so often require on a topic that we should be required to learn.

as for communication, i simply suggest that we encourage speaking – there is nothing more powerful. simple community meetings, consisting of everyone for older leaders to their promising inheritors, take only the effort to organize, for i have learned first-hand, that people want to speak, but are lost on where to begin or whom to do so with. so, why not each other? plenty of middle america communities bring together members of suburbia to discuss the effects of environmental/climate change as it pertains to their communities, and they occur infrequently enough to let more change occur, and give those participating a chance to observe their change.

if individuals gain a greater awareness of their surroundings, they will begin to self-educate to understand, to build that relationship with their home.

the goals of the environmental movement — fundamentally — is to spread knowledge of the planet, to spread conversation on the planet. and not just with your friends and family, but everyone, including those disenfranchised women, men, and children who reside beyond the conversation, but are no less affected. in fact, as i have briefly shown, it is rather the opposite.

patterson described environmental and climate justice issues as both geographical and political issues; however, no amount of political or big business (as shell so appropriately displayed) strong-arming should impair any able-bodied woman or man’s ability to move into action in their community and communicate, display that courage to speak, with all those living about them. it is a job of the leaders of this movement to remind us of a portion of our purpose as residents of this planet, but it is the duty of all to carry out that purpose.