when is it bad enough?
i grew up in the 90s, during the personal responsibility era of distraction from what the extraction and burning of oil and gas has done to our planet. i was already prone to black-and-white thinking and control issues, so getting me to believe that littering was evil and we could fix everything by recycling was an easy sell. in high school and college i followed electoral politics and the circus surrounding them closely. in the Al Gore, let's debate about science era of the 2010s, and got really scared... like too scared to engage.
but i did believe, then, that when things got bad enough no matter how much money the oil and gas industry had, we would collectively shut that shit down.
i was then, and am occasionally still, naïve and optimistic. first of all, it was bad enough before i was born. worse, i had not considered the follow up question that would shape the response most: bad enough for whom?
y'all. it's bad enough. i promise.
here on the coast, we've dodged any major events this hurricane season (i knocked on wood, i promise), but we're facing salt water intrusion into the Mississippi River, which is, for many of us, our source of water.
incase you're as confused as i was about what that means:
For weeks now, a mass of saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico has infiltrated the drought-stricken Mississippi River. The situation is threatening drinking water supplies, causing angst among farmers who rely on the river for irrigation and posing risks to infrastructure. As the “saltwater wedge” continues its march upriver, the mayor of New Orleans signed an emergency declaration. The Biden administration approved the Louisiana governor’s request for federal aid. And the Army Corps of Engineers has raced to safeguard water treatment facilities and slow the saltwater intrusion with extreme measures.
(read more from the Washington Post)
as always we're all we got
many of the organizations that held our community down through the beginning of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and hurricane ida (bitch ass) are gathering funds and supplies now to support our community through this climate disaster in ways that don't just create more waste and plastic consumption.
here are some folks who could use your support:
Support Feed the Second Line here.
something i've been talking about to anyone who'll listen these days, is that though i became an abolitionist for moral reasons, if you want anything in american society to change, you should be an abolitionist for financial reasons alone.
we have the money to solve whatever problems we want, if only we have the political will to divest it from the billions of dollars that go into policing and incarceration.
a lot can be done about urban flooding and stormwater. none of it will be, as long as our public institutions function primarily as sites of extraction for cops and corporations https://t.co/R2wFrd07cY
— Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (@OlufemiOTaiwo) September 29, 2023
i feel like i say this every email, but i really am so grateful for y'all.
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with hope,
katie wills evans