Hi there,
You’d think that after two years of COVID, there’d be a greater reckoning about disaster planning. But it just keeps coming up again and again, like with the monkeypox vaccine and the Colorado River. How could one of the world’s wealthiest countries be this bad at planning ahead, and not learn from mistake after mistake?
With climate change impacts happening all around us this summer, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And even though I now live in the desert, hurricane season is always lurking at the back of my mind.
Watch
Five Days at Memorial (Apple TV+) is based on a book about a New Orleans hospital where dozens of people died in the days after Hurricane Katrina. I’ve found it to be incredibly gripping and fast-paced, even though you have a sense of what’s coming. The criticism I’ve seen is valid: framing the hurricane as a natural disaster rather than a man-made one that led to the levees bursting; failing to mention a public hospital with far more patients and far fewer deaths; and largely centering white characters in a disaster with an outsized impact on the city’s Black population. With all that in mind, I do think it’s a worthwhile deep dive into a microcosm one of the worst disasters in U.S. history and seeing the consequences of poor planning and corporate health care. It also has a gorgeous intro theme.
Similarly, it’s not out yet, but I plan to watch HBO’s Katrina Babies, a documentary airing on August 24.
If you’re in need of lighter fare to make you laugh, new seasons of Indian Matchmaking and Never Have I Ever are now available on Netflix.
Read
My husband and I briefly lived in South Florida, and in the short time we lived there, I always had at the back of my mind: What if the big one hits? The Displacements brings this idea to life in an extremely fast, gripping read that imagines what would happen if Miami were wiped out by a hurricane. It centers a wealthy, white family who become climate refugees, and while the plot details explaining why this would happen to this particular family annoyed me, but the bigger picture story was well worth reading.
It’s comforting to finish the book and imagine it as just fiction, but climate change is rapidly coming for Miami. If you can stomach it, I highly recommend The Water Will Come, a terrifying nonfiction journey to cities throughout the world that will likely go under water as sea levels rise. There’s a quote from a billionaire developer that has stuck with me years after I finished the book that so perfectly defines why the wealthy and powerful aren’t interested in climate action.
See the full recommendation list.
Follow
My husband has become a cactus rescuer, and he’s now running the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society Instagram (with my editorial input). See his photos and footage here.
Do
I’m enjoying Parched, Grist’s pop-up newsletter on the Western water crisis, which strikes a good balance of tone and information on an anxiety-inducing topic. How to Save a Planet is good at this, too - it’s an excellent podcast from Gimlet Media that features one of the best U.S. climate reporters, and the show also provides lots of useful solutions-based information and calls to action on the website.
To me, climate action is all about figuring out what you as an individual can do to have an impact. Some of that comes down to thoughtful personal choices, but it also means things that bring you joy and purpose, like rescuing saguaro cacti or starting a group for journalists to collaborate on drought coverage. (If you know any journalists covering water issues in the West I should invite, let me know!)
Until next time,
Rachel