On Labor Day, September 2nd, 1935, a powerful hurricane devastated the Florida Keys. The storm killed hundreds of veterans at Civil Conservation Corps camps with the combined impacts of high winds and high waters. The winds were so powerful that the storm overturned a Florida East Coast railroad train that was sent too late to evacuate the veterans. ​Ernest Hemingway in his article for New Masses entitled “Who Murdered the Vets” described the wreckage. ​

​The loss of life, he charged, was the direct result of United States policy and failed planning. He wrote that whoever put the veterans in the dangerous environment during hurricane season without effective evacuation plans was directly responsible for the hundreds of deaths. There had been plenty of early warning, several days in fact. Ships at sea and communications from Cuba tracked the developing storm. Despite this, government officials in Florida and Washington failed to take measures to protect the highly exposed veterans.

​​​This Labor Day, September 2, 2019, we are again confronted with a powerful hurricane bearing down on Florida. The National Hurricane Center anticipates storm, Dorian, to be a category four storm upon landfall. Unlike 1935, today we have better tools to forecast storm characteristics. We measure wind velocity, water temperature, and barometric pressure and with these values we plot the motion and intensity of storms. Furthermore, we issue evacuation orders and position disaster relief resources for quick response. Federal, state and local governmental agencies are springing into action to mitigate the storm’s impact. Although the forecast contains some uncertainty, few, if any, are denying the facts compiled through scientific measurement. Those who dismiss the warnings risk great peril. 

​The storm is being intensified by climate change. Water temperature is a key variable among the converging weather forces, and global warming is a key factor in rising water temperatures. Storm intensity characteristics of wind and rainfall react to water temperature. Water temperature, among other environmental factors, contributes to rising ocean levels. Ocean levels then contribute to storm surge. A massive storm is the result of the interaction of numerous convergent factors.
 
Some of these factors, those intensified by climate change, can be eased somewhat by addressing climate change globally. The immediate forecast for action, however, is dismal.  The United States, a major contributor of carbon dioxide and methane, two accelerants of climate change, is doing little to help control or reverse the damaging factors impacting climate change. Fossil fuel usage is continuing at unacceptable levels. This, in turn, creates compounded problems. For example, this week the federal government approved mineral mining, natural gas extraction, and forest harvesting at the Tongass National Forest in Southeastern Alaska. This is a double-edged sword disaster. The mineral mining and gas extraction will release methane, plus the gas, at some point, will be burned, spewing carbon dioxide into the environment. Forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Cutting down the forest while at the same time emitting more CO2 seriously intensifies the impact of either activity. Approval for destruction of the Alaskan natural resources comes while the Amazon rainforest is burning.
 
Individually, we can and should continue to do all we can to minimize our own carbon footprint by reducing automobile usage, recycling, reusing, and repurposing. We can support environmental organizations both locally and nationally through money and time. We can continue to press the federal government to act. Republican Senate leadership, specifically Sen. Mitch McConnell, is blocking meaningful legislation. Despite Trump’s failure to attend the G7 Climate session last week, his office should also be contacted. Perhaps overwhelming pressure will prompt administration action.
 
Unlike the veterans on the Florida Keys on Labor Day 1935, we have had plenty of scientific warning about climate change. Failure to globally act has resulted in converting climate change to climate crisis. The veterans died because the government failed to act to protect them from the storm. We cannot permit the continued obstruction and counter-productive measures of the current administration to continue to leave us unprotected.
 
In the United States’ exhausting national political environment, it is easy and understandable to wrap ourselves in an emotional and psychological cocoon. Administration atrocities deepen almost daily and consume us. Kids are in cages. Migrants are in dangerous concentration camps. Farmers are devastated by ill-conceived tariffs. Urban dwellers are insulted with taunts of “rat infested” while at the same time the federal budget removed rodent control funding for cities. We are experiencing the most amoral, corrupt and cruel administration in the history of the United States. Action on so many fronts is more than frustrating, it’s exhausting. Just this week immigrant parents of sick children were notified they have 33 days to leave the country or be deported. Imagine having to remove a child from life saving medical care and, in effect, causing that child to die. Why the government issued a death warrant for these children is beyond me. 

​The good news is that although we can’t ease the current natural hurricane, we can help those who survive it. Likewise, although we can't stop the political hurricane sweeping the nation, we can fight back. In the immediate time frame we can block the cruel deportation of sick kids. Hospitals, doctors, staff, parents, community organizers and activists can physically block ICE access to hospitals. We can do whatever is possible to reduce our carbon footprint, even if just a little. We can become activists and support others who are. We don’t have to take the callousness and cruelty of the Trump Administration passively. We can and should fight back. Finally, we must vote and remove climate deniers from office if we expect to have any chance to alleviate the climate crisis.

These words introduced the world to the reasons for the American Revolution. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...”

​As I look at political actions today through the prism of the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, our first rational justification for National existence, I can’t help but be appalled by the mismatch of ideals with reality. Would refugees be rejected and children caged if the nation believed that all are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights?” 
               
The mismatch is further evidenced by the failure to nationally address the emerging climate crisis. State and local efforts are praiseworthy, but a problem of this magnitude demands coordinated international attention. The Paris Agreement, particularly the concentration on reducing CO2 emissions, was an excellent first start. But once the Trump Administration withdrew the United States from the agreement unilaterally, it devolved to Congress to try to enact climate action legislation to restore national efforts to pursue protection of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Toward that end, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 9 “Climate Action Now Act,” a piece of sensible legislation designed to initiate and execute a planning process for dealing with the climate crisis. It also defunds any activities connected to the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. (H.R. 9 - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/9)
               
But H.R. 9 has not moved in the United States Senate. It has been read twice but appears to be stalled there. This is a point when political activism comes into play. Going back to the Declaration, note that governments derive their powers through the consent of the governed.  The “governed” exert great power under the founding ideology. Great responsibility comes with great power. It is now time to let Senators know that you support H.R. 9. (You can find out your Senator’s phone number and other contact information here:  https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
               
Senators will be taking a summer recess and returning to their states (August 5 to September 6). Try to make an appointment to meet with one or both of your Senators or their senate office aides who focus on environmental issues during this recess. Politicians are beginning to realize that the issue of the Climate Crisis is becoming increasingly important to the electorate.  You can reinforce and extend this realization.
               
​Finally, the Climate Crisis is compounded by intersections with many other issues.  The immediate refugee crisis on the U.S. southern border has obvious or “self-evident” links to climate.  As climate changes force populations to migrate, more and more refugees seek safe haven for their families. In effect, they are simply exercising their “unalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Please let your senators know that, too.

Nature is not a new topic for artists.
 
Ever since the cave paintings of animals, humans have expressed deep interest in nature. Great landscape art evokes a sense of wonder with the scenes unfolding in front of the viewer. For me, the greatest interest lies in studies that place forces of nature in opposition. Generally, the work of the Hudson School captures this conflict for me.
 
Now, with the climate crisis, art is representing the conflict between the results of human activities and the forces of nature.
 
Toward this end, an Internet list entitled “Arts and Climate Change” investigates and informs readers of new and imaginative ways to understand the crisis at hand – through created works in various media that extend knowledge in a meaningful way.
 
See & share:  https://artistsandclimatechange.com/ 
 
There also is a current exhibition, “One Tribe on One Planet,” at the Yocum Institute in West Lawn, Pennsylvania, presenting the artists’ conceptualization of this conflict very well. At the exhibit, one can see knowledge being absorbed or deepened on the part of the viewer. The exhibit designers interspersed sourced “Climate Facts” among the artworks, facts that relate to subjects of the pieces. This was powerful. (Exhibition open through June 27, 2019) Sometimes art, even when portraying a disaster, can be quite beautiful. The fear I had with portraying climate crisis is that beauty would undermine the message. My concern was unwarranted.

Over fifty years ago Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, a scientific study of the impact of humans on nature, especially due to the indiscriminate use of chemicals through herbicides and insecticides. Carson’s work is still powerfully articulate. Afterwards, in 1989, Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature. McKibben’s thesis is that humans are impacting all aspects of nature and that the idea of natural forces acting alone is no longer true.
 
More recently, David Grinspoon wrote Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet’s Future (2014). Grinspoon posited an idea of a new geologic phase of earth history, “one in which the net activity of humans has become a powerful agent of geological change equal to the other great forces of nature that build mountains and shape continents and species.” The emerging term for this new epoch is ‘Anthropocene’ or ‘the age of humanity (x)’.”
 
A common theme of these works is that humans can learn about forces affecting the planet and could take actions to slow, halt, potentially reverse, or adapt to the trend.
 
Reversing the trend will take knowledge and the will to act on that knowledge. Scientists have established undeniable facts about the climate crisis. Reports are issued almost daily in a torrent of studies that attest to the changes taking place and the process of measuring those changes.
 
Simply being willing as a scientist to learn about global warming, rising sea levels, species extinction, pollution, etc. is insufficient. Science can be complex and confusing to the non-scientist. It takes the arts to translate scientific observations and projections into forms that can be understood by non-scientists. The target is essentially on modifying human behavior. But the appeal is also to the general population, a voting population, that can generate the collective political will to act.
 
Scientists can measure the levels of CO2 in the environment to specific parts per million and calculate dangerous thresholds that are rapidly approaching. The artist can interpret the findings and present them in visual, literary, or musical forms. The arts, then, are vehicles to communicate to the public the knowledge distilled through scientific measurement and experimentation. 

With over thirty works of art in various media, the message of the “One Tribe on One Planet” exhibition was unambiguous. Each work examined various impacts of humans on nature.
 
The artwork ran the range of concrete to abstract. Among the most creative was the work entitled “No Fish” by artist Melody Moyer. The point is clearly and boldly stated in the artwork.

More subtle but equally effective is the work “Tree of Life Trashed,” a mixed media by Marcia Graff Rowe. It targets the effects of littering, a personal behavior that should be easily remedied.

​“Heat of the Night” by Lynn Millar visualizes the massive fires in Californian during the summer of 2018. The intensity and extent of the fires correlate to the increase in global temperatures.  The climate fact card tells of the increase in temperatures.

​For my contribution, I installed a computer workstation that looped Amanda Gorman’s “Twenty-four Hours of Reality: Earthrise” every fifteen minutes. Gorman’s poetic analysis fits the arts concept very well.  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOvBv8RLmo
 
It is hoped that as works such as these and the dozens more in the exhibit are viewed either in person or via social media, a spirit of urgent activism will be fostered. The knowledge amassed via scientific inquiry will inform the public via the educational power of art. The “I’m not a scientist” excuse for denying that the climate crisis exists is no longer viable.

One does not need to be a scientist to understand. One simply has to be willing to learn.

To become active in a worthy cause most people need two things: knowledge and motivation. The knowledge connected to the environmental cause has a deep and rich history that extends into the ancient world, but recent growth in the knowledge transformed it from theoretical and abstract to practical and concrete. A major transformational element was the widespread publication of the famous “earth rise” photograph that revealed for many, including the author, that Earth was beautiful but fragile, seemingly suspended in an infinitely dark and hostile sky.








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That photograph, a singular piece of knowledge, generated remarkable and enduring efforts to protect the planet. We share in that effort today.

Motivations to protect the planet derive from many sources, secular and religious. One need not be religious to be motivated by self-preservation. Impure water and polluted air obviously harm life, all life. Protecting oneself, family, friends, and community are motivation enough for many to become active in efforts such as joining or supporting environmental organizations, writing letters to the editor, lobbying political officials at all levels of government, and participating in protests. Beyond organizational or mass efforts, there are also individual actions that can be taken.

Individual actions are large in number and diverse in character. A simple google search discloses thousands. Many revolve upon the three “Rs” – reduce, reuse, recycle – that are low-cost but effective means to reduce one’s impact on the planet.  For “Earth Day,” individual and public actions abound. A glance at the website “earthday.org” generates seemingly endless ways to participate. We can plant a tree, read an environmental book, even adopt a hummingbird to help protect a single life. We can reduce consumption of Earth’s resources and preserve resources through reuse and recycling. We can assist with the education of the next generation. Every action is meaningful. Furthermore, we can express our concerns to politicians and government officials who seek to weaken or destroy environmental protections or fail to respond to climate change. We can and should become activists who advocate for ourselves, family, community, and generations yet unborn.