Eiko Ojala
“Climate Changed.” Illustration by Eiko Ojala.
It is the end of November and Thanksgiving is upon us. But recent headlines have been poking holes in any feelings of joy or gratitude I’ve had regarding the holiday.
That actually seems appropriate, given that Thanksgiving itself is based on a myth—that of happy pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a feast, a story that draws more scrutiny and deserved skepticism with each passing year. And then there is the myth that we’ll be okay without urgently addressing our role in making this planet a hotter, more dangerous place.
In fact, the prognosis for any such transformation is, in a word, bleak.
“ ‘Bleak’ U.N. Report Finds World Heading to Climate Catastrophes,” blared The New York Times on November 26. “New U.N. climate report offers ‘bleak’ emissions forecast,” warned a November post on the American Association for the Advancement of Science website.
The United Nations also just released its annual emissions reduction progress report monitoring the “gap” between where greenhouse gas emissions are, and where they should be to avert a climate disaster. (Spoiler alert: We are in trouble.)
“How much time is left?” a video tied to the release of this year’s report asks ominously, the words sliding across a partially dark image of Earth. It’s almost too much to take.
It’s also impossible to ignore. I live in Minnesota, the second-fastest warming state in the country, and a place where there’s plenty of local bad news about the changing climate. Minnesota is on track for its wettest year on record. Farmers’ fields are flooded, and they are having to fend off new pests and new diseases caused by warmer temperatures. By mid-century, the Twin Cities can expect fifteen to twenty additional days with temps above 90 degrees F.
I’ve been taking note of some of the small ways people here are trying to change course before it’s too late.
Freshwater mussels, for example, once quite prominent in Minnesota’s rivers, and a “crucial element of a river’s health,” are under serious threat according to a riveting report from Minnesota Public Radio. Early generations of white settlers scoured the Mississippi River for mussels and one German immigrant, John Boepple, turned their pearls into highly sought after buttons, before plastic buttons became prominent in the 1950s.
A legacy of industrial pollution, the proliferation of dams, invasive species, pesticide runoff, and now climate change are all posing a twenty-first-century threat to the mussels and their river homes, here and across the United States. But their story isn’t over yet. The MPR report also describes how U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources employees are working to expand public awareness about the need to protect these natural water filterers.
But despite these focused efforts to protect the humble mussel, the state of Minnesota must now contend with another climate-change-related event. Earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil spilled from the Keystone Oil Pipeline in North Dakota.
The spill threatened “22,500 square feet of wetlands,” according to the Native American Rights Fund, which declared that it may be impossible to repair the damage. The group also noted that this latest spill is just one of many, and that these frightening oil leaks and spills have not thwarted TransCanada Energy’s expansion plans for the Keystone pipeline.
And then there is the myth that we’ll be okay without urgently addressing our role in making this planet a hotter, more dangerous place.
Despite the oil clogging up wetlands, despite the violation of tribal rights and native lands, despite the persistent and dire warnings about climate change and the damage wrought by the fossil fuel industry, the company intends—with the blessing of President Donald Trump—to broaden its reach and push the Keystone XL pipeline across Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska.
The environmental impact of this pipeline expansion is expected to be huge.
Sometimes, it seems there is so little we can do, that even the tiniest pro-climate actions become noteworthy. Here’s an example: The city councils in both Minneapolis and Duluth just passed regulations requiring residents to pay for plastic bags if that’s how they want to carry their groceries home.
It’s only a nickel charge per bag, and it’s nowhere close to the outright ban the Minneapolis City Council proposed in 2016. That became impossible after Republican state legislators, upon hearing of the hoped-for action in Minneapolis, made it illegal for cities to ban the use of plastic bags. Can you imagine me rolling my eyes?
It’s just this kind of politically driven, territorial battle that drowns out the warnings about the need to act now on behalf of our collective future. Are we, in fact, all in this together?
Climate change is expensive, after all. Oil spills cost money. Water poisoned by pesticides and bacteria is no good to anyone or anything. Plastic bags are choking our sidewalks, trees, rivers, and oceans.
A .5 cent per bag fee won’t do much to cool this rapidly warming planet. But it is something to perhaps feel thankful for today.