It was thanks to Artie and Happy Traum, who opened for James Taylor too many decades ago in Greenwich Village, that I got a chance to hear his wonderful song “Fire and Rain” many, many times. I cherish that opportunity to hear him in those early days, and each time he sang that song it seemed as fresh as the first—painful and always powerful.
As is often the case, the personal story artfully told takes on many lives—unplanned but equally relevant. As I once more confronted the climate crisis, I was struck by how resonant these lyrics seem to me in a new yet current context:
Chorus
I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again
Verse 2
Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way
It is coming on 12 years since lymphoma took my incredibly talented friend, Paul, from us. The New York Times described him this way:
“Dr. Paul Epstein, a public health expert who was among the first to warn of a link between the spread of infectious disease and extreme weather events, adding a new dimension to research into the potential impact of global climate change, died on Sunday at his home in Boston. He was 67…
“Dr. Epstein, a physician and associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, published widely in scientific journals beginning in the early 1990s about what were then some of the less obvious potential effects of excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“He wrote about ocean warming-spiked algae blooms, and how they might be the source of recent cholera outbreaks, how milder winters and hotter summers favored mosquito breeding in areas where there had been outbreaks of encephalitis, how the same conditions accelerated the growth of ragweed, and how some particulate matter from coal-burning plants was particularly good at carrying pollen and other allergens deep into the lungs, possibly explaining a worldwide asthma epidemic since 1980.”
It has been more than four decades since I founded the Monterey Energy Project with the late Milly Walsh and we began our efforts to have our small Berkshire town actively confront the energy crisis and promote conservation and solar. The work led to Monterey’s participation in an international competition to reduce electric consumption and “Monterey Lights The Way.” I was excited to fly into the Great Barrington Airport bringing the Governor to dedicate the new Monterey Firehouse.
I still remember a conversation Paul Epstein and I had years later: I was telling him about the work I was doing to pressure General Electric to clean up its PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and my attempt to bring humor to the climate crisis with Penguins United, a group of penguins trying their best to convince humors to acknowledge and take action to reverse the reality of their melting ice.
We were both especially concerned with how best to communicate what we saw as the growing emergencies of the climate crisis—he as a frontline medical professional and public health scientist and me as a writer/filmmaker and community organizer.
I can vividly remember Paul telling me about meeting with the heads of major national and international insurance and re-insurance executives who he said knew better than most the increasing and crippling costs of the intensifying climate catastrophe.
Unfortunately, for decades, even as the scientific evidence has become irrefutable, influential policy makers have time and again chosen a fossil-fuel based “growth” economy over a sensible commitment to conservation and a transition to solar. Meanwhile, most people have been living as if these escalating risks were mainly an inconvenience that could still be ignored. For those of us living in the Berkshires, I offer a single example: All these years later, we have a transportation system that pretty much forces us to drive, often alone in a car, and if we’re not Tesla-able, completely dependent on oil and gas.
As for the victims of climate change: It was somebody else’s home on fire, often far away foreigners whose land was flooded, the unlucky whose lives were wiped out by typhoons, hurricanes. What were the chances it would be my home, my neighborhood, my town?
Well, last week, just as Paul foreshadowed, the insurance industry delivered a message impossible to ignore. Denial is expensive. There’s a crippling cost to the climate crisis. Let’s for the moment put aside placing blame. Believe me, I know about the industrial revolution, imperialism, capitalism. Even about the inherent inequity of a private-, rather than public-, based insurance industry.
Still, most people in America needed a slap in the face. And so the other day, State Farm insurance, followed quickly by Allstate, made it clear that California was under continuing threat from both fire and rain, from flooding and drought. I couldn’t help but think of Paul as I read this headline in the New York Times: “Climate Shocks Are Making Parts of America Uninsurable. It Just Got Worse.” Allstate and State Farm made it crystal clear: Every home in California was vulnerable, and their insurance rates could no longer match the costs of repairing the ravages of the climate crisis and what it costs to rebuild and replace.
The Times explains further:
“This month, the largest homeowner insurance company in California, State Farm, announced that it would stop selling coverage to homeowners. That’s not just in wildfire zones, but everywhere in the state.
“Insurance companies, tired of losing money, are raising rates, restricting coverage or pulling out of some areas altogether — making it more expensive for people to live in their homes.
“‘Risk has a price,’ said Roy Wright, the former official in charge of insurance at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now head of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a research group. ‘We’re just now seeing it.’” (Emphasis added.)
According to Californiaglobe.com: “Allstate gave their reasons on Friday, noting … ‘We paused new homeowners, condo and commercial insurance policies in California last year so we can continue to protect current customers. The cost to insure new home customers in California is far higher than the price they would pay for policies due to wildfires, higher costs for repairing homes, and higher reinsurance premiums.’”
The climate crisis manifests itself in a multitude of ways. In a multitude of American communities. The Times continues:
“In parts of eastern Kentucky ravaged by storms last summer, the price of flood insurance is set to quadruple. In Louisiana, the top insurance official says the market is in crisis, and is offering millions of dollars in subsidies to try to draw insurers to the state.
“And in much of Florida, homeowners are increasingly struggling to buy storm coverage. Most big insurers have pulled out of the state already, sending homeowners to smaller private companies that are straining to stay in business — a possible glimpse into California’s future if more big insurers leave.” (Emphasis added.)
You can forget about artificial boundaries like town borders, the demarcation of neighboring states, even nations when it comes to fire or rain. USA Today reports:
“Smoke from wildfires in Canada continued to drift into the U.S. on Friday, prompting air quality alerts across the Midwest, Northeast and mid-Atlantic. In addition, a wildfire in New Jersey caused travel problems in that state and added to the air quality issues in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.
“Fires in the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia have prompted air quality warnings Friday in U.S. regions as far south as Virginia and Maryland.
“It’s been a ferocious spring for wildfires in Canada. In total, more than 3 million acres have burned in 1,981 fires in Canada so far this year. As of Friday, Canada has 165 wildfires burning out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, including dozens in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Quebec alone has 116 active wildfires.”
This time it is Canada’s eastern provinces, but in May of this year, Canada’s western provinces were on fire. Newsweek reports that huge smoke plumes from fires in British Columbia and Alberta were captured by a NASA satellite:
Newsweek wrote:
“… the huge plumes of gray smoke can be seen billowing out across the landscape from the multiple wildfires in Alberta and British Columbia.
“As of May 8, over 29,000 people have had to evacuate due to these blazes, which numbered around 100 across the two provinces. Some 27 of the fires were considered out of control in Alberta, with British Columbia having four fires out of control. On May 6, Alberta declared a provincial state of emergency … [and] the smoke pillars may have reached up to 39,000 feet tall, as far as the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere.
“The Alberta fire season usually begins in early May, with dead vegetation being uncovered by the snowmelt and becoming available as fuel for fires. However, this year the fire season may be particularly bad, as it has been unusually hot and dry in Alberta. In Alberta’s capital Edmonton, temperatures soared to around 88 F late last week.”
Yes, Canadian forests are on fire, engulfing the homes of those out in the country and those in what we thought were the seemingly safe suburbs. I imagine most of you have been to Times Square in New York City. You might appreciate the bizarre oddity of this notice in the New York Times of June 7, 2023: “The skies above Times Square are hazy with wildfire smoke on Wednesday morning.” And the headline: “Millions in North America Face Hazardous Air Quality, Driven by Fires in Canada.” Yes, their fire, but our air.
The Times continued their reporting:
“An eye-watering and cough-inducing smoky haze from Canadian wildfires smothered a swath of the eastern and northern United States on Tuesday, with officials warning residents with health risks to stay indoors and keep their windows closed.
“Health alerts were issued from New York to the Carolinas, and as far west as Minnesota. In New York City, the smoke could be tasted as well as smelled, and it wrapped the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Manhattan’s other landmarks in a blanket of orange-gray haze.
“IQAir, a technology company that tracks air quality and pollution, said New York’s air quality was among the worst in the world on Tuesday night; the city usually does not rank in the top 3,000.” (Emphasis added.)
The headline from the Washington Post put it this way: “Smoke from Canadian wildfires engulfs East Coast, upending daily life.” And wrote: “‘It looks like Mars outside,’ said one Syracuse business owner, describing the poor air quality that spanned multiple states on Wednesday … Smoke from hundreds of wildfires raging across Canada engulfed the eastern United States on Wednesday, upending the rhythms of daily life for tens of millions of Americans, creating a sea of ‘Code Red’ air quality alerts as far south as the Carolinas and prompting widespread health worries.”
Last year when smoke from fires in California’s wine country spread across San Francisco skies, the New York Times interviewed Dr. Kari Nadeau, a physician and scientist at Stanford University, who was thinking “about the people who were most vulnerable.” The times reported:
“She worried about the workers at local wineries who raced to protect their harvest; and the children who lived near refineries and breathed in pollutants every day.
“During that August, September and October, she watched the air quality routinely reach unhealthy levels for anyone without a mask. At the time, Dr. Nadeau said in a public panel that being outside and breathing that air was similar to smoking seven cigarettes a day.
“But now, she said she believes that the health effects of breathing heavy wildfire smoke is probably worse. ‘Cigarettes at least have filters,’ said Dr. Nadeau, who directs the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University.”
There are multiple health risks associated with exposure to smoke from wildfires. The Times continues:
“‘We don’t know a lot about the long-term health effects of forest fires,’ said Scott Weichenthal, an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology, biostatistics and occupational health at McGill University in Montreal. Until recently, fires have been studied as one-off disasters, he said, and we don’t understand how heavy, sometimes recurring short-term exposures to smoke can affect people’s health down the road.
“Experts do know that, even in the short term, particle pollution from wildfires — including tiny bits of ash, dust and soot — can worsen heart problems, reduce lung function and aggravate asthma. In this way, wildfire smoke can affect health in similar ways as diesel exhaust or smoke from cigarettes.
“Wildfire smoke can also include heavy metals like lead and arsenic, and hazardous chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde gas, all of which are present in cigarette smoke and can cause cancer.
“‘There’s enough pieces of evidence that we should not look the other way,’ Dr. Nadeau said.” (Emphasis added.)
It is clear that the insurance companies are no longer looking the other way. Their business is all about risk. So, it makes perfect sense that they, more than most humans, appreciate how rapidly we are approaching a tipping point, recognizing the danger to their survival as sustainable enterprises, and hyper-sensitive to the risks to us all. And they are speaking loudly.
Unfortunately, the plants and animals dealing with an increasingly hostile environment and suffering an escalating extinction unfortunately don’t speak our language, and thus their cries are unheard.
As for our fellow humans, it’s profoundly sad as well that so many of us are unaware of—and ignore—the rigorous analyses and advice of the international scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) and their continuing updates on the risk we and the planet faces from the climate crisis.
They write in “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,” a part of their Sixth Assessment Report: “risk provides a framework for understanding the increasingly severe, interconnected and often irreversible impacts of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human systems; differing impacts across regions, sectors and communities; and how to best reduce adverse consequences for current and future generations.”
Since their 2014 Fifth Assessment Report, IPCC notes:
“… multiple concurrent changes in the physical climate system have grown more salient, including increasing global temperatures, loss of ice volume, rising sea levels and changes in global precipitation patterns … The changes in the physical climate system, most notably more intensive extreme events, have adversely affected natural and human systems around the world. This has contributed to a loss and degradation of ecosystems, including tropical coral reefs; reduced water and food security; increased damage to infrastructure; additional mortality and morbidity; human migration and displacement; damaged livelihoods; increased mental health issues; and increased inequality.” (Emphasis added.)
Many nations are dealing with the increasingly severe impacts of climate change. There are devastating consequences from both too much and too little water. It was less than a year ago that the people of Pakistan suffered from the extraordinary damage of waist-high flooding. The Washington Post of September 29, 2022 reported:
“By the time Pakistan’s government recognized the severity of the unprecedented floods that struck the country this summer and sounded an alert, it was already too late for millions of families to flee the onrushing waters. And nearly all were among the country’s most vulnerable, trapped by poverty and neglect, their lives and livelihoods already a daily struggle.
“Deep inside Pakistan’s disaster zone, the country’s worst floods in recorded history have underscored how the poor, both here and abroad, are often disproportionately exposed to the ravages of climate change.” (Emphasis added.)
The Post continued:
“Long before the government declared a national emergency in August, people here in Sindh province were begging local officials to act — to help relocate families and livestock and to reinforce levees to divert water — according to dozens who survived the floods.
“But they said, in many cases, they were left to fend for themselves until it was too late …
“Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate change minister, said a national emergency wasn’t declared sooner because officials didn’t know the downpour would continue for so long. ‘I don’t think any administration or government could have been prepared for a biblical flood like this,’ she said in an interview. ‘There was no modeling for what we saw.’”
Back to California. On December 22, 2022, the Los Angeles Times wrote:
“Scientists have discovered that the pace of groundwater depletion in California’s Central Valley has accelerated dramatically during the drought as heavy agricultural pumping has drawn down aquifer levels to new lows and now threatens to devastate the underground water reserves.
“The research shows that chronic declines in groundwater levels, which have plagued the Central Valley for decades, have worsened significantly in recent years, with particularly rapid declines occurring since 2019.
“‘We have a full-on crisis,’ said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrology professor and executive director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Water Security. ‘California’s groundwater, and groundwater across the southwestern U.S., is disappearing much faster than most people realize’ …
“’The trajectory we’re on right now is one for 100% disappearance,’ Famiglietti said. “This is the water for the future generations. And it’s disappearing.’” (Emphasis added.)
And then there’s Arizona. The Washington Post notes: “There is not enough groundwater underneath the Phoenix metropolitan area to meet projected demands over the next century, a finding that could threaten the current home-building boom in outer suburbs that are among the fastest growing parts of the United States, according to an analysis of the groundwater supply released Thursday.”
The Post continues:
“The report from the Arizona Department of Water Resources amounts to a chilling warning for the nation’s fifth-largest city and a metropolitan area with more than 5 million people that has been a development hot spot for new residents and high-tech businesses. In Phoenix’s peripheral areas, subdivisions have spread through the desert on a massive scale and hundreds of thousands more homes are planned. The study means that plans for future housing developments that rely solely on groundwater — in outlying areas that have not yet verified their long-term water supply — could not move forward.”
“And as the climate gets hotter and drier in the West, and major water sources such as the Colorado River diminish, dwindling supplies of groundwater as outlined in the new report could portend a vastly different future than the one residents in the Southwest have come to expect …
“Terry Goddard, a former Phoenix mayor, said the message of Thursday’s study is: ‘You’re living on borrowed water … You need to be conscious of every drop. You can’t build unless you know exactly where the water is coming from.’”
Yes, we have to know exactly where the water is coming. So too we have to know about the ice. The New York Times reports on a new study in Nature that suggests that the “Arctic Summer Could Be Practically Sea-Ice-Free by the 2030s.” The Times notes:
“The first summer on record that melts practically all of the Arctic’s floating sea ice could occur as early as the 2030s, according to a new scientific study — about a decade sooner than researchers previously predicted.
“The peer-reviewed findings, published Tuesday, also show that this milestone of climate change could materialize even if nations manage to curb greenhouse gas emissions more decisively than they are currently doing. Earlier projections had found that stronger action to slow global warming might be enough to preserve the summer ice. The latest research suggests that, where Arctic sea ice is concerned, only steep, sharp emissions cuts might be able to reverse the effects of the warming already underway.
“‘We are very quickly about to lose the Arctic summer sea-ice cover, basically independent of what we are doing,’ said Dirk Notz, a climate scientist at the University of Hamburg in Germany and one of the new study’s five authors. ‘We’ve been waiting too long now to do something about climate change to still protect the remaining ice.’” (Emphasis added.)
What might be the consequences for the planet:
“Sea ice reflects solar radiation back into space, so the less ice there is, the faster the Arctic warms. This causes the Greenland ice sheet to melt more quickly, adding to sea-level rise globally. The temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator also influences storm tracks and wind speed in the mid-latitudes, which means Arctic warming could be affecting weather events like extreme rainfall and heat waves in temperate parts of North America, Europe and Asia.”
I would like to now circle back to the contributions my friend Paul made and how his concerns have now become impossible to ignore. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers this analysis of “Disease and Climate Change”:
The report states:
“Mild winters, early springs, and warmer temperatures are giving mosquitoes and ticks more time to reproduce, spread diseases, and expand their habitats throughout the United States. Between 2004 and 2018, the number of reported illnesses from mosquito, tick, and flea bites more than doubled, with more than 760,000 cases reported in the United States. Nine new germs spread by mosquitoes and ticks were discovered or introduced into the United States during this period. The geographic ranges where ticks spread Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, and spotted fever rickettsiosis have expanded, and experts predict that tickborne diseases will continue to increase and perhaps worsen. Longer, warmer summers have also given mosquitoes more time to reproduce and spread diseases. In 2012, a mild winter, early spring, and hot summer set the stage for an outbreak of West Nile virus disease in the United States, resulting in more than 5,600 illnesses and 286 deaths.”
There are many reasons to believe that the many millions who have died around the world, the almost 6.2 million Americans who’ve been hospitalized with COVID-19, and the 1.3 million Americans as of June 7, 2023 who died from COVID have suffered and are still suffering from a disease transferred from human contact with sick bats in China.
From a former copper mine in Mojiang that is home to a colony of bats, to a Wuhan, China market where live animals are sold, we now move to a Delaware beach and a story in the June 4, 2023 New York Times, which states: “The H5N1 virus poses ‘a great unknown threat’ to birds and humans alike. Understanding and thwarting it begins with excrement collection.”
In yet another example of the transfer of disease from species to species, the Times reports:
“It was a glorious day for field work on the shores of the Delaware Bay. The late afternoon sun cast a warm glow over the gently sloping beach. The receding tide revealed a smattering of shells. The dune grasses rustled in the breeze. The beach vines were in bloom. And the bird droppings were fresh and plentiful.
“’Here’s one,’ said Pamela McKenzie, a researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, pointing a gloved finger at one tiny white splotch and then another. ‘There’s one, there’s one, there’s one.’
“For the next two hours, Dr. McKenzie and her colleagues crept along the shore, scooping up avian excrement. Their goal: to stay a step ahead of bird flu, a group of avian-adapted viruses that experts have long worried could evolve to spread easily among humans and potentially set off the next pandemic.”
The CDC warns that the climate crisis is likely to propel increased cases of the following illnesses: Anaplasmosis, Anthrax, Antibiotic-resistant infections, Cryptosporidiosis, Dengue, Ehrlichiosis, Fungal diseases like valley fever and histoplasmosis, Giardiasis, Hantavirus, Harmful algal bloom-associated illness, Lyme disease, Plague, Rabies, Spotted fever rickettsiosis, Salmonellosis, Vibriosis, and West Nile virus disease.
First, their alert, then the recent news from the CDC:
“Scientists predict that climate change will have devastating effects on freshwater and marine environments. For example, we could see more frequent and more severe instances of harmful algal blooms, which are the rapid growth of algae or cyanobacteria in lakes, rivers, oceans, and bays. Warming temperatures in Lake Erie have contributed to extensive toxic blooms that last into the early winter months. Harmful algal blooms can look like foam, scum, paint, or mats on the surface of water and can be different colors. They endanger our health when we eat contaminated shellfish. They also can harm pets, livestock, wildlife, and the environment. While no human deaths caused by cyanobacteria have been reported in the United States, some of these toxins can make dogs and other animals sick and possibly even cause death within hours to days. Dog deaths have been reported after dogs swam in or drank fresh water containing cyanobacterial toxins.”
I don’t know if you remember the tagline for the ads for the second “Jaws,” but it went something like this: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.” Well, it’s not so safe. It’s hard to beat this headline in the UK Guardian: “Clumps of 5,000-mile seaweed blob bring flesh-eating bacteria to Florida.” The 5,000 miles worth of seaweed is one thing I’d like to avoid, but despite anything Florida Governor DeSantis has to say, the flesh-eating bacteria would keep me far from the beach at Disney World.
The Guardian writes:
“But now giant clumps of the 13m-ton morass labeled the Great Atlantic sargassum belt are washing up on Florida’s beaches, [and] scientists are warning of a real-life threat from the piles of decomposing algae, namely high levels of the flesh-eating Vibrio bacteria lurking in the vegetation.
“The alarming discovery by marine biologists at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) lends a dangerous new aspect to the brown seaweed onslaught, which is already threatening to spoil the state’s busy summer tourism season as coatings of decaying goop exude a pungent aroma akin to that of rotting eggs.
“Even more worrying, the researchers say, is the role of ocean pollution in the proliferation of the bacteria, which can cause disease and death if a person gets infected. Samples tested from the Caribbean and Sargasso Sea within the Atlantic were abundant with plastic debris, which interacted with the algae and bacteria to create a ‘perfect pathogen storm [with] implications for both marine life and public health’.
“‘Our lab work showed that these Vibrio are extremely aggressive and can seek out and stick to plastic within minutes,’ said Tracy Mincer, assistant professor of biology at FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Harriet L Wilkes Honors College.
“He said the seaweed belt stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the African coast provided the perfect breeding ground for ‘omnivorous’ strains of the bacteria that target both plant and animal life, and associated ‘microbial flora’ potentially harboring potent levels of pathogens.”
I’d be remiss if I did not acknowledge the worsening threat to my penguin friends. An article in last December’s UK Guardian offers the heartbreaking news:
“Two-thirds of Antarctica’s native species, including emperor penguins, are under threat of extinction or major population declines by 2100 under current trajectories of global heating according to new research that outlines priorities for protecting the continent’s biodiversity.
“The study, an international collaboration between scientists, conservationists and policymakers from 28 institutions in 12 countries, identified emperor penguins as the Antarctic species at greatest risk of extinction, followed by other seabirds and dry soil nematodes.
“‘Up to 80% of emperor penguin colonies are projected to be quasi-extinct by 2100 [population declines of more than 90%] with business-as-usual increases in greenhouse gas emissions,’ it found.”
It’s so very hard to acknowledge and confront the climate crisis, so very painful to fully appreciate the depths of human stupidity and out-of-control greed that has brought us to this point. To destroy the very place that provides us life. I can’t say it better than James Taylor:
Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way
