Climate activists gather to protest with demanding President Biden stop the Willow Project by unfurling a banner on the Lafayette Square in front of the White House on January 10, 2023 in Washington D.C.
Celal Gunes | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The Biden administration approved a major and controversial oil drilling plan in Alaska, known as Willow, just one day after unveiling protections for more than 16 million acres of land and water in the region.
The $8 billion plan, led by Alaska’s largest crude oil producer, would produce about 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years and generate around 278 million metric tons of carbon emissions, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Under the plan, ConocoPhillips will be allowed to develop three well pads within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 23 million-acre area that is the largest expanse of public land in the U.S.
The approval of Willow is one of the president’s most consequential climate decisions. Environmental groups have long condemned the plan, arguing it undermines the administration’s pledge to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The project’s emissions would be about equivalent to what 66 new coal-fired power plants produce in a year.
Proponents of Willow, including the state’s congressional delegation and some Alaska Native tribal governments and residents of Alaska’s North Slope, have said the plan would create about 2,500 jobs, deliver up to $17 billion in revenue for the federal government and boost U.S. domestic energy security.
Prior to the president’s decision, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management released an environmental analysis last month that proposed lowering the number of drilling sites from five to three under the project. The Interior said it had “substantial concerns” about Willow, including its direct and indirect emissions and its impact on local wildlife.
In an apparent effort to offset criticism about Willow, the administration on Sunday declared the Arctic Ocean off limits to oil and gas leasing and said it will also impose regulations to protect nearly 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
“While we celebrate the administration’s unparalleled protections for Alaskan landscapes and waters, the decision to approve the Willow project may very well wipe out many of these climate and ecological benefits,” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in a statement.
The Willow Project is a decadeslong oil drilling venture in the National Petroleum Reserve, which is owned by the federal government. The area where the project is planned holds up to 600 million barrels of oil, though that oil would take years to reach the market since the project has yet to be constructed.
By the administration’s own estimates, the project would generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year – equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads.
The approval is a victory for Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation and a coalition of Alaska Native tribes and groups who hailed the drilling venture as a much-needed new source of revenue and jobs for the remote region.
But it is a major blow to climate groups and Alaska Natives who opposed Willow and argued the project will hurt the president’s ambitious climate goals and pose health and environmental risks.
The project has galvanized an uprising of online activism against it, including more than one million letters written to the White House in protest of the project, and a Change.org petition with millions of signatures.
Environmental advocates are expected to challenge the project in court. Earthjustice, an environmental law group, has been preparing a case against the project and intends to argue the Biden administration’s authority to protect resources on Alaska’s public lands includes taking steps to reduce planet-warming carbon pollution, which the Willow Project would ultimately add to.
Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen blasted the administration’s decision on Monday.
“We are too late in the climate crisis to approve massive oil and gas projects that directly undermine the new clean economy that the Biden Administration committed to advancing,” Dillen said. “We know President Biden understands the existential threat of climate, but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goals.”
The venture was approved with three drilling pads instead of two. In recent weeks, the Biden administration had looked at reducing the number of approved drilling pads down to two and boosting nature conservation measures to try to assuage concerns climate and environmental groups had about the project.
But ConocoPhillips and Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation aggressively lobbied the Biden White House and Interior Department for months to approve three drilling pads, saying the project would not be economically viable with two.
Ultimately, the administration felt they were constrained legally and had few options to cancel or significantly curtail the project – which was initially approved by the Trump administration. The administration determined that legally, courts wouldn’t have allowed them to fully reject the project, two government sources familiar with the approval told CNN.
Many oil drilling leases on the site were decades-oil, which the administration felt gave ConocoPhillips certain existing legal rights. Reducing the drill-pads to two would have allowed the company to drill about 70% of the oil they were initially seeking.
Still, the final scope of the project will cover 68,000 fewer acres than what ConocoPhillips was initially seeking, the sources said.
CNN has reached out to ConocoPhillips for comment.
Biden on Monday is also expected to announce sweeping new protections for federal lands and waters in Alaska in tandem with Willow approval.
Biden will declare the entire US Arctic Ocean off limits to future oil and gas leasing and will announce new rules to protect over 13 million acres in the federal National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska from drilling. In all, the administration will move to protect up to 16 million acres from future fossil fuel leasing.
The protections will extend to the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay special areas – places that are important habitat to grizzly bears, polar bears, caribou and migratory birds. On Sunday, an administration official said the administration views the new actions as a “firewall” against both future fossil fuel leasing and expansion of existing projects on the North Slope.
This story has been updated with more information.
WASHINGTON — In a sign of a deepening rift among Democrats on energy issues, conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin says he will not move forward on President Joe Biden’s nominee to oversee oil and gas leasing at the Interior Department.
Manchin, of West Virginia, chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and has great influence on energy and environmental issues in the closely divided Senate. In an op-ed Friday, he cited a leaked memo signed by nominee Laura Daniel-Davis that proposed charging oil companies higher rates for drilling off the Alaska coast.
Manchin said the higher rates backed by Daniel-Davis for the proposed drilling project in Alaska’s Cook Inlet “were explicitly designed to decrease fossil energy production at the expense of our energy security.”
Even though he had supported Daniel-Davis in the past, “I cannot, in good conscience, support her or anyone else who will play partisan politics and agree with this misguided and dangerous manipulation of the law,” Manchin wrote in the Houston Chronicle.
The dispute over Daniel-Davis’s nomination comes as the Biden administration nears a decision on a major oil project in Alaska that many environmental groups say would be a blight on Biden’s climate legacy.
Climate activists are outraged that Biden appears open to the huge Willow project on Alaska’s North Slope, which they call a “carbon bomb” that would break his campaign pledge to curtail oil drilling on public lands and waters.
Approval of the project would risk alienating young voters who have urged stronger climate action by the White House as Biden approaches a 2024 reelection campaign.
At the same time, Alaska Native leaders with ties to the petroleum-rich North Slope support ConocoPhillips Alaska’s proposal. They say the Willow Project would bring much-needed jobs and billions of dollars in taxes and mitigation funds to the vast, snow- and ice-covered region nearly 600 miles (965 kilometers) from Anchorage.
Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and state lawmakers also support the project.
Daniel-Davis, who currently serves as Interior’s principal deputy assistant secretary for lands and minerals management, would not directly decide the fate of the Willow project, but Manchin and Alaska’s two Republican senators have criticized what they consider her lukewarm support for oil drilling on public lands and water. Daniel-Davis oversees Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
She was first nominated for the assistant secretary position nearly two years ago, but her bid has stalled because of the concerns of Manchin and Senate Republicans. Biden renominated her for the post in January.
In a statement Friday, the White House said Biden “nominated Laura Daniel-Davis because she has worked to conserve public lands, protect wildlife and address climate change for three decades, while prioritizing a collaborative and partnership-based approach. She is well-qualified for this position and we look forward to her moving forward in the confirmation process.”
Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, said Interior was “very disappointed” to learn of Manchin’s opposition to Daniel-Davis after he supported her during two committee hearings and votes over the past two years.
“Laura Daniel-Davis has served this administration, as she has two others, with a dedication that we should aspire to see in every public servant,” Schwartz said. “She will continue to lead this portfolio at Interior and implement President Biden’s direction, stated consistently and clearly since Day One, with respect to carefully balancing the role that public lands and waters play as we face the climate crisis.“
Daniel-Davis is one of several Biden nominees whom Manchin has opposed. Another is Gigi Sohn, who withdrew her nomination to the Federal Communications Commission after Manchin opposed her.
Manchin also voted against Daniel Werfel’s nomination to lead the Internal Revenue Service. Werfel was confirmed Thursday with support from several Republicans.
In his op-ed, Manchin sharply criticized the Biden administration’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, a key climate, tax and health care bill that Manchin helped craft.
“While the Biden administration has continued to play political games and incorrectly frame the IRA as a climate change legislation, the truth is that the IRA is about securing America’s energy independence for the coming century,” Manchin wrote
“The Biden administration continues to ignore congressional intent on critical components of the IRA … to illogically advance a partisan climate agenda and appease radical activists,” Manchin added. He said the Interior and Treasury departments “have explicitly and unabashedly violated the letter of the law … in an effort to elevate climate goals above the energy and national security of this nation.”
Manchin has repeatedly slammed Treasury for issuing guidelines that allow car makers in Europe and Asia to bypass requirements that significant portions of electric-vehicle batteries be produced in North America.
March 10, 2023 – Of all the consequences of climate change, here’s one nobody counted on.
A team of European researchers digging into Siberian permafrost discovered and revived 13 types of prehistoric viruses. As the ancient frozen ground slowly loses its “perma” label due to rising temperatures, more and more microbes that have never encountered modern humans are resurfacing.
The researchers coined the isn’t-that-just-great term “zombie viruses” to describe previously dormant viruses that had been frozen in ice for tens of thousands of years – 27,000 to 48,500 years, in fact.
The first question is obvious: This is fascinating, but is it a good idea? We’re still dealing with a certain mutating virus our immune systems have never encountered before.
The second question: What does it mean?
No Humans Were Harmed in This Study
The quick answer: The viruses observed here were only able to infect amoebae. But viruses that can infect humans do indeed exist in environments like permafrost.
The possibility that an unearthed, unknown virus will one day appear from seemingly nowhere and result in another pandemic is not necessarily zero.
“There is an objective risk, and it is increasing,” says Jean-Michel Claverie, PhD, the lead researcher and an emeritus professor of genomics and bioinformatics at Aix-Marseille University in France. “However, we cannot put a number on this probability, specifically because we refuse to work with and revive human- and animal-infecting viruses. It would be much too dangerous.”
Based on Claverie and his team’s results, human- and animal-infecting viruses can indeed survive deep within the permafrost for extended periods of time.
“From our research, we can deduce that other viruses present in the permafrost are likely still infectious,” says Claverie. “By sequencing the total DNA, we can detect the presence of viruses similar to those infecting animals or humans today.”
That said, the chances of something catastrophic happening from, say, humans exposed to thawed permafrost are slim. “[The microbes] would be quick to decay once they’re exposed to heat, UV light, and oxygen,” he says.
Also, in places like Siberia where permafrost exists, people generally do not. So, some science fiction-inspired fears (we see you, fans of John Carpenter’s The Thing) are pretty unfounded. But if more people or companies begin to migrate toward the areas where these microbes are being released, the chances of a virus successfully infecting a host could be greater.
But What If …
So, what would happen – hypothetically – if the next deadly virus to overtake our planet came from the Arctic permafrost? Would we even be remotely prepared?
“There is a small risk that a frozen virus that gets unearthed is able to start an infection chain that ends up in humans,” says Adrian Liston, PhD, an immunologist and senior group leader at the Babraham Institute, a life sciences research institute at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Liston was not involved in the research discussed here. “On the one hand, we would not have preexisting immunity against it, so the initial ability to combat the infection is low. On the other hand, the virus would not be adapted to infect (modern-day) humans, so the chance of an initial infection being successful for the virus is extremely low.”
That’s something a lot of folks don’t understand: Today’s viruses and other infectious microbes are infectious only because they exist today. They have evolved to work within our modern immune systems – either for good or ill.
“‘Entry events’ do happen, very rarely, and they can shape human evolution,” says Liston. “Major examples would be smallpox (a virus) and tuberculosis (a bacteria), which strongly influenced human evolution when they entered our species, selecting for the type of immune system that was able to fight them and killing off individuals with the ‘wrong’ type of immune system.”
And not all organisms are harmful.
“There are many, many microbes that are beneficial to humans,” Liston says. “But generally speaking, these are microbes that have evolved for millions of years to work in harmony with our body, such as our microbiome, or have been selected for thousands of years to do beneficial chores for us, like yeast in making bread or brewing beer.”
Some random frozen microbe is unlikely to impact us directly, but if it does, it is far more likely to be bad, Liston says.
For now, at least, we can rest easy knowing that Claverie and his team have no plans to revive dangerous viruses or retrieve more samples. “Because of the Russian-Ukrainian war, all of our collaborations have stopped. We are now focused on studying the viruses already in our lab and understand how they replicate and interact with their cellular hosts,” he says.
If anything, zombie viruses can at least remind us about the constant increasing effects that climate change will have on our lives and planet in the near future.
“The most important take-home message is that climate change is going to create unexpected problems,” says Liston. “It isn’t simply changes to weather, climate events, and sea levels rising. A whole cascade of secondary problems will be generated. New infections, some of which could go pandemic, are almost certainly going to happen because of climate change.”
Water shortages, weather patterns and global warming are impacting winemakers. Tor Wines owner Tor Kenward joined CBS News’ Vladimir Duthiers and Shanelle Kaul to discuss how the industry is adapting to a changing world.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Opinion by Sudip Ranjan Basu, Sanjay Srivastava (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 10 (IPS) – Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency situation, the UN, along with Pacific member States have deployed personnel on the ground to coordinate humanitarian assistance and prepare post-disaster damage assessment.
Sitting in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Vanuatu experiences frequent volcanic and seismic activity. And along with the other Pacific small island developing States (SIDS), Vanuatu faces existential threats due to rising sea level, ocean acidification and the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters and is on the front line of climate crisis.
The twin cyclones and an earthquake in just 48 hours remind the world that seismic and climate risks are converging and intensifying – no community feels this stronger than those of the Blue Pacific Continent.
On macro-economic impact, in fact, Pacific SIDS face Average Annual Losses from multiple hazards totaling to US$ 1.1 billion in the current scenario. This figure is set to increase to US$ 1.3 billion under moderate and US$1.4 billion under worst-case climate warming scenarios. As a percentage of GDP, Vanuatu, Tonga and Palau are projected to face highest losses – Vanuatu is projected to lose a staggering 20 per cent GDP annually due to disasters.
Figure 1: Tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin track with wind speed zones (UNITAR-UNOSAT)
Intensifying and expanding climate crisis
In ESCAP’s recent report, the analysis shows that at 1.5 to 2.0 °C warming, there are likely intensifying annual wind speeds of tropical cyclones and that the risk of tropical cyclones is expected to expand and include newer areas beyond the historical tracks (Figure 2). Vanuatu in particular, will experience higher risk of tropical cyclone both in terms of the intensification as well as geographic expansion of the riskscape.
As cyclone hazards are intensifying and deviating from their traditional tracks, their greater complexity results in deeper uncertainties in the ability to predict. Our Blue Pacific Continent is not sufficiently prepared.
Figure 2: Intensifying and expanding cyclone risks under new climate change scenarios
Formulating transformative actions
As the climate changes, the riskscape is transforming. These disaster risks compound and cascade to amplify the great hardship experienced by the Pacific SIDS in terms of population and critical infrastructure exposure. The argument for transformative action to mitigate and adapt to intensifying and expanding disaster risks in the Blue Pacific Continent has never been more compelling.
First, early warning for all is an imperative, needs to capture compounding risks.
Relative to other countries in the subregion, Vanuatu’s Target G scores are high, reporting substantial to comprehensive coverage of multi-hazard early warning systems across all indicators. WMO’s Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre in Nadi, Fiji was providing early warnings in the face of power outages and surmounting uncertainties – as a result, there have been no reported fatalities.
Figure 3: Sendai Framework for DRR Target G scores for countries in the Pacific region
Second, transformative adaptation solutions are needed.
To minimize and prevent systemic and cascading risk, we need to make new infrastructure and water resource management more resilient. Improving dryland crop production and using nature-based solutions such as increasing mangroves protection are also priority adaptation solutions.
1.5 per cent of GDP for adaptation investment is estimated to be needed in Pacific SIDS – three times less than the average losses projected. These adaptation investments must be risk-informed and strategically directed towards policy actions that yield high cost-benefits. Where there are multi-hazard risk hotspots across the region, risk-informed policy and transformative actions should capitalize on inter-sectoral synergies and co-benefits.
Third, the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent provides a clear pathway
With the adoption of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent in July 2022, Pacific SIDS have developed a clear pathway to synergize regional priorities with accelerated implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the SAMOA Pathway.
Next generation risk analytics, advances in climate science, geo-spatial modeling, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning must be at the heart of people-centered and evidence-based decision-making. And, the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific is an ideal platform to take forward some of the policy decisions.
Strengthening subregional and regional cooperation platform
Tropical cyclones, often transboundary in nature, require an architecture of regional co-operation mechanisms to effectively manage the shared risks. In this instance, local capacities and regional support mechanisms should be commended. To further strengthen this work, the lesson from Vanuatu’s back-to-back cyclones and earthquake is to have effective, impact-based and risk informed early warning systems that can capture the complexity and dynamisms of a compounding risk.
The Asia-Pacific Risk and Resilience Portal was developed by ESCAP with the goal of creating a user-friendly one stop platform for policymakers to access a vast array of scientific information and decision support tools to promote risk informed policy decisions.
Furthermore, the Vanuatu incidents underscores the need for conducting a rapid post-disaster needs assessment that can support formulation of a long-term recovery strategy and plan for its reconstruction by applying a standardized approach with innovative methodology and framework.
The overlapping and transboundary nature of risks experienced by countries of the Blue Pacific Continent cannot be addressed without solidarity and collective action towards strengthening regional cooperation platform.
Sanjay Srivastava is Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP);
Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head, ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific
Energy-saving smart windows, which include a microscopic coating connected to computer chips, can help buildings use less electricity for heating and cooling. Ben Tracy has more.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
San Jose, California — Inside a factory near Memphis, Tennessee, workers are making an unlikely weapon in the fight against climate change: a smart window.
“Well, like everything in life, right, we look back after you’ve experienced the modern thing, and you go, ‘well that was pretty dumb,’” said Rao Mulpuri, the CEO of California-based View.
Mulpuri describes View’s windows as transition glass for buildings. They track the sun throughout the day, automatically tinting to regulate light and heat. That allows buildings to use less electricity for heating and cooling.
“Buildings consume about 40% of all energy,” Mulpuri said. “They consume about 70% of all electricity. And if you wanna solve for carbon and climate change, you have to solve for buildings.”
Operating buildings account for about 27% of annual planet-warming carbon emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.
Smart glass can help reduce a building’s energy needs by about 20%, according to numbers from the Department of Energy. The Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last year includes tax credits to boost that smart technology, which currently costs about 50% more than regular windows.
Smart windows have a microscopic coating connected to computer chips and can be controlled by an app. They are now installed in hotels, hospitals, office buildings, apartments, and a dozen U.S. airports, including a new San Francisco International Airport terminal.
“You don’t feel the heat beating on you, especially when you want to provide an environment that has a lot of natural light,” SFO airport director Ivar Satero said.
At Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, tests have found View’s smart window’s kept nearby seats 20 degrees cooler than conventional glass, according to tests conducted by the company.
“Every window should be smart,” Mulpuri said. “Once you experience it, you can’t think of life another way.”
NEW YORK—Noting that there would be no reason to be concerned for the future of the planet again until tomorrow morning at the earliest, climate scientists at Columbia University announced Thursday that Earth was doing pretty good today, so everyone could take the afternoon off and have fun. “If anything, Earth could use a little extra carbon today,” said researcher Theodore Kneece, who encouraged climate change activists to take a break from their efforts for the remainder of the day, noting that the planet was doing surprisingly “A-okay” “Throw your soda cans in the trash. Buy a Keurig. Book a private jet. Trust me, the Earth will be fine—for today, that is. Let me be clear, we’ll still be facing a mass extinction in the near future, but today? Hit the beach!” At press time, Kneece added that activists might as well take a climate cheat day tomorrow, too.
In the past week, several airline passengers have been either severely injured or killed when their flights experienced severe turbulence. CBS News senior weather producer David Parkinson explained what causes this phenomenon, and why climate change is making it worse.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
“This action is a victory for multilateralism and for global efforts to counter the destructive trends facing ocean health, now and for generations to come,” said the UN chief in a statement issued by his Spokesperson late Saturday evening just hours after the deal was struck at UN Headquarters in New York, where tough negotiations on the draft treaty have been under way for the past two weeks.
The agreement reached by delegates of the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, better known by its acronym BBNJ, is the culmination of UN-facilitated talks that began in 2004.
Already being referred to as the ‘High Seas Treaty’, the legal framework would place 30 per cent of the world’s oceans into protected areas, put more money into marine conservation, and covers access to and use of marine genetic resources.
Through his Spokesperson, Mr. Guterres said the treaty is crucial for addressing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
“It is also vital for achieving ocean-related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” said the statement, referring to the so-called ‘30×30’ pledge to protect a third of the world’s biodiversity – on land and sea – by 2030 made by a historic UN conference in Montreal this past December.
Noting that the BBNJ decision builds on the legacy of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Secretary-General commended all parties for their ambition, flexibility and perseverance, and saluted Ambassador Rena Lee, of Singapore, for her leadership and dedication.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the ship has reached the shore,” Ms. Lee said last night, announcing the agreement to an extended standing ovation in the meeting room. Delegations will reconvene later to formally adopt the text.
The statement issued by the UN Spokesperson said the Secretary-General also recognized the critical support of non-governmental organizations, civil society, academic institutions and the scientific community.
“He looks forward to continuing working with all parties to secure a healthier, more resilient, and more productive ocean, benefiting current and future generations,” the statement concluded.
Mangroves in Tai O, Hong Kong. Coastal wetland protection and restoration is an example of the kind of multifunctional solution that is needed to address multiple global crises together. Credit: Chunyip Wong / iStock
Opinion by Paula Harrison – Pamela McElwee – David Obura (bonn)
Inter Press Service
BONN, Mar 02 (IPS) – When global crises are interlinked, they overlap and compound each other. In such cases, the most effective solutions are those that work at the nexus of all these challenges.
In September, almost every Government on Earth will gather at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York to take stock at the halfway mark of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of what has been achieved and what remains to be done.
Despite some progress, global development efforts have been hamstrung by unprecedented environmental, social and economic crises, in particular biodiversity loss and climate change, compounded of course by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tackling these interlinked challenges separately risks creating situations even more damaging to people and communities around the world, and exacerbates the already high risk of not meeting the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This is especially true because the myriad drivers of risk and damage affect many different sectors at once, across scales from local to global, and can result in negative impacts being compounded. For example, when demands for food and timber combine with the effects of pollution and climate change, they can decimate already degraded ecosystems, driving species to extinction and severely reducing nature’s contributions to people.
The global food system offers another example of this negative spiral of interlocking crises – where food that is produced unsustainably leads to water overconsumption and waste, pollution, increased health risks and loss of biodiversity. It also leads to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.
Yet policies often treat each of these global threats in isolation, resulting in separate, uncoordinated actions that typically address only one of the root causes and fail to take advantage of the many potential solution synergies. In the worst cases, actions taken on one challenge directly undermine those needed to tackle another because they fail to account for trade-offs, resulting in unintended consequences, or the impacts being externalised, as someone else’s problem.
This is why almost 140 Governments turned to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – requesting IPBES to undertake a major multiyear assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health in the context of the rapidly-changing climate. This ‘Nexus Assessment’ is among the most complex and important expert assessments ever undertaken – crossing key biophysical domains of climate and biodiversity and elements central to human wellbeing like food, water and health. It will also address how interactions are affected by energy, pollution, conflict and other socio-political challenges.
To fully address this ‘nexus’, the assessment is considering interactions across scales, geographic regions and ecosystems. It also covers past, present and future trends in these interlinkages. And, most importantly, it will offer concrete options for responses to the crises that address the interactions of risk and damage jointly and equitably – providing a vital set of possible solutions for the more sustainable future we want for people and our planet.
One example of the mutifunctional solutions that will be explored is nature-based solutions – such as coastal wetland protection and restoration. When coastal wetland ecosystems are healthy – whether conserved or where necessary, restored – they are a refuge and habitat for biodiversity, improving fish stocks for greater food security and contributing to improve human health and wellbeing. They can also sequester carbon, helping to mitigate climate change, and protect adjacent communities and settlements from flooding and sea level rise.
To develop and implement these kinds of multi-functional solutions, responses for dealing with the major global crises need to be better coordinated, integrated, and made more synergistic across sectors, both public and private. Decision-makers at all levels need better evidence and knowledge to implement such solutions.
Work on the nexus assessment began in 2021 – with the final report expected to be considered and adopted by IPBES member States in 2024. A majority of the 170 expert authors and review editors from around the world are meeting in March in the Kruger National Park in South Africa to further strengthen the draft report, responding to the many thousands of comments received during a first external review period.
The assessment will also include evidence and expertise contributed by indigenous peoples and local communities – whose rich and varied direct experiences and knowledge systems that consider humans and nature as an interconnected whole have embodied a nexus approach for generations.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the recently-agreed Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework provide the roadmaps for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. The IPBES nexus assessment will offer policymakers a practical guide to bridge the vital interlinkages across the two challenges, to other relevant frameworks, and link to the sustainable development agenda.
For more information about IPBES or about the ongoing progress on the nexus assessment, go to www.ipbes.net or follow @ipbes on social media.
Prof. Paula Harrison is a Principal Natural Capital Scientist and Professor of Land and Water Modelling at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, United Kingdom.
Prof. Pamela McElwee is a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA.
Dr. David Obura is a Founding Director of CORDIO (Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean) East Africa, Kenya.
More than 100 countries reached agreement on a United Nations treaty to protect the high seas, following marathon talks at U.N. headquarters in New York that ended late Saturday.
The High Seas Treaty will put 30 percent of the planet’s seas into protected areas by 2030, aiming to safeguard marine life.
“This is a massive success for multilateralism. An example of the transformation our world needs and the people we serve demand,” U.N. General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi tweeted after the U.N. conference president, Rena Lee, announced the agreement.
The negotiations had been held up for years due to disagreements over funding and fishing rights.
“After many years of intense work under EU leadership, countries agree on ambitious actions,” Virginijus Sinkevičius, EU commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, said in a tweet. “This is major for the implementation of the COP15 30 percent ocean protection goal.”
The European Commission said the treaty will protect the oceans, combat environmental degradation, fight climate change and battle biodiversity loss.
“For the first time, the treaty will also require assessing the impact of economic activities on high seas biodiversity,” the Commission said in a statement. “Developing countries will be supported in their participationin and implementation of the new treaty by a strong capacity-building and marine technology transfer component,” it said.
“Countries must formally adopt the treaty and ratify it as quickly as possible to bring it into force, and then deliver the fully protected ocean sanctuaries our planet needs,” said Laura Meller, a Greenpeace oceans campaigner who attended the talks, according to a Reuters report.
The treaty will enter into force once 60 countries have ratified it.
The Sierra Club’sEquity Language Guide discourages using the words stand, Americans, blind, and crazy. The first two fail at inclusion, because not everyone can stand and not everyone living in this country is a citizen. The third and fourth, even as figures of speech (“Legislators are blind to climate change”), are insulting to the disabled. The guide also rejects the disabled in favor of people living with disabilities, for the same reason that enslaved personhas generally replaced slave : to affirm, by the tenets of what’s called “people-first language,” that “everyone is first and foremost a person, not their disability or other identity.”
Explore the April 2023 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
The guide’s purpose is not just to make sure that the Sierra Club avoids obviously derogatory terms, such as welfare queen. It seeks to cleanse language of any trace of privilege, hierarchy, bias, or exclusion. In its zeal, the Sierra Club has clear-cut a whole national park of words. Urban, vibrant, hardworking, and brown bag all crash to earth for subtle racism. Y’all supplants the patriarchal you guys, and elevate voices replaces empower, which used to be uplifting but is now condescending. Thepoor is classist; battle and minefield disrespect veterans; depressing appropriates a disability; migrant—no explanation, it just has to go.
Although the guides refer to language “evolving,” these changes are a revolution from above. They haven’t emerged organically from the shifting linguistic habits of large numbers of people. They are handed down in communiqués written by obscure “experts” who purport to speak for vaguely defined “communities,” remaining unanswerable to a public that’s being morally coerced. A new term wins an argument without having to debate. When the San Francisco Board of Supervisors replaces felon with justice-involved person, it is making an ideological claim—that there is something illegitimate about laws, courts, and prisons. If you accept the change—as, in certain contexts, you’ll surely feel you must—then you also acquiesce in the argument.
In a few cases, the gap between equity language and ordinary speech has produced a populist backlash. When Latinx began to be used in advanced milieus, a poll found that a large majority of Latinos and Hispanics continued to go by the familiar terms and hadn’t heard of the newly coined, nearly unpronounceable one. Latinx wobbled and took a step back. The American Cancer Society advises that Latinx, along with the equally gender-neutral Latine, Latin@, and Latinu, “may or may not be fully embraced by older generations and may need additional explanation.” Public criticism led Stanford to abolish outright its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative—not for being ridiculous, but, the university announced, for being “broadly viewed as counter to inclusivity.”
In general, though, equity language invites no response, and condemned words are almost never redeemed. Once a new rule takes hold—once a day in history can no longer be dark, or a waitress has to be a server, or underserved and vulnerable suddenly acquire red warning labels—there’s no going back. Continuing to use a word that’s been declared harmful is evidence of ignorance at best or, at worst, a determination to offend.
Like any prescribed usage, equity language has a willed, unnatural quality. The guides use scientific-sounding concepts to lend an impression of objectivity to subjective judgments: structural racialization, diversity value proposition, arbitrary status hierarchies. The concepts themselves create status hierarchies—they assert intellectual and moral authority by piling abstract nouns into unfamiliar shapes that immediately let you know you have work to do. Though the guides recommend the use of words that are available to everyone (one suggests a sixth-to-eighth-grade reading level), their glossaries read like technical manuals, put together by highly specialized teams of insiders, whose purpose is to warn off the uninitiated. This language confers the power to establish orthodoxy.
Mastering equity language is a discipline that requires effort and reflection, like learning a sacred foreign tongue—ancient Hebrew or Sanskrit. The Sierra Club urges its staff “to take the space and time you need to implement these recommendations in your own work thoughtfully.” “Sometimes, you will get it wrong or forget and that’s OK,” the National Recreation and Park Association guide tells readers. “Take a moment, acknowledge it, and commit to doing better next time.”
The liturgy changes without public discussion, and with a suddenness and frequency that keep the novitiate off-balance, forever trying to catch up, and feeling vaguely impious. A ban that seemed ludicrous yesterday will be unquestionable by tomorrow. The guides themselves can’t always stay current. People of color becomes standard usage until the day it is demoted, by the American Heart Association and others, for being too general. The American Cancer Society prefers marginalized to the more “victimizing” underresourced or underserved—but in the National Recreation and Park Association’s guide, marginalized now acquires “negative connotations when used in a broad way. However, it may be necessary and appropriate in context. If you do use it, avoid ‘the marginalized,’ and don’t use marginalized as an adjective.” Historically marginalized is sometimes okay; marginalized people is not. The most devoted student of the National Recreation and Park Association guide can’t possibly know when and when not to say marginalized; the instructions seem designed to make users so anxious that they can barely speak. But this confused guidance is inevitable, because with repeated use, the taint of negative meaning rubs off on even the most anodyne language, until it has to be scrubbed clean. The erasures will continue indefinitely, because the thing itself—injustice—will always exist.
In the spirit of Strunk and White, the guides call for using specific rather than general terms, plain speech instead of euphemisms, active not passive voice. Yet they continually violate their own guidance, and the crusade to eliminate harmful language could hardly do otherwise. A division of the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work has abandoned field, as in fieldwork (which could be associated with slavery or immigrant labor) in favor of the obscure Latinism practicum. The Sierra Club offers refuse to take action instead of paralyzed by fear, replacing a concrete image with a phrase that evokes no mental picture. It suggests the mushy protect our rights over the more active stand up for our rights. Which is more euphemistic, mentally ill or person living with a mental-health condition? Which is more vague, ballsy or risk-taker? What are diversity, equity, and inclusion but abstractions with uncertain meanings whose repetition creates an artificial consensus and muddies clear thought? When a university administrator refers to an individual student as “diverse,” the word has lost contact with anything tangible—which is the point.
The whole tendency of equity language is to blur the contours of hard, often unpleasant facts. This aversion to reality is its main appeal. Once you acquire the vocabulary, it’s actually easier to say people with limited financial resources than the poor. The first rolls off your tongue without interruption, leaves no aftertaste, arouses no emotion. The second is rudely blunt and bitter, and it might make someone angry or sad. Imprecise language is less likely to offend. Good writing—vivid imagery, strong statements—will hurt, because it’s bound to convey painful truths.
Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a nonfiction masterpiece that tells the story of Mumbai slum dwellers with the intimacy of a novel. The book was published in 2012, before the new language emerged:
The One Leg’s given name was Sita. She had fair skin, usually an asset, but the runt leg had smacked down her bride price. Her Hindu parents had taken the single offer they got: poor, unattractive, hard-working, Muslim, old—“half-dead, but who else wanted her,” as her mother had once said with a frown.
Translated into equity language, this passage might read:
Sita was a person living with a disability. Because she lived in a system that centered whiteness while producing inequities among racial and ethnic groups, her physical appearance conferred an unearned set of privileges and benefits, but her disability lowered her status to potential partners. Her parents, who were Hindu persons, accepted a marriage proposal from a member of a community with limited financial resources, a person whose physical appearance was defined as being different from the traits of the dominant group and resulted in his being set apart for unequal treatment, a person who was considered in the dominant discourse to be “hardworking,” a Muslim person, an older person. In referring to him, Sita’s mother used language that is considered harmful by representatives of historically marginalized communities.
Equity language fails at what it claims to do. This translation doesn’t create more empathy for Sita and her struggles. Just the opposite—it alienates Sita from the reader, placing her at a great distance. A heavy fog of jargon rolls in and hides all that Boo’s short burst of prose makes clear with true understanding, true empathy.
The battle against euphemism and cliché is long-standing and, mostly, a losing one. What’s new and perhaps more threatening about equity language is the special kind of pressure it brings to bear. The conformity it demands isn’t just bureaucratic; it’s moral. But assembling preapproved phrases from a handbook into sentences that sound like an algorithmic catechism has no moral value. Moral language comes from the struggle of an individual mind to absorb and convey the truth as faithfully as possible. Because the effort is hard and the result unsparing, it isn’t obvious that writing like Boo’s has a future. Her book is too real for us. The very project of a white American journalist spending three years in an Indian slum to tell the story of families who live there could be considered a gross act of cultural exploitation. By the new rules, shelf upon shelf of great writing might go the way of blind and urban. Open Light in August or Invisible Man to any page and see how little would survive.
The rationale for equity-language guides is hard to fault. They seek a world without oppression and injustice. Because achieving this goal is beyond anyone’s power, they turn to what can be controlled and try to purge language until it leaves no one out and can’t harm those who already suffer. Avoiding slurs, calling attention to inadvertent insults, and speaking to people with dignity are essential things in any decent society. It’s polite to address people as they request, and context always matters: A therapist is unlikely to use terms with a patient that she would with a colleague. But it isn’t the job of writers to present people as they want to be presented; writers owe allegiance to their readers, and the truth.
The universal mission of equity language is a quest for salvation, not political reform or personal courtesy—a Protestant quest and, despite the guides’ aversion to any reference to U.S. citizenship, an American one, for we do nothing by half measures. The guides follow the grammar of Puritan preaching to the last clause. Once you have embarked on this expedition, you can’t stop at Oriental or thug, because that would leave far too much evil at large. So you take off in hot pursuit of gentrification and legal resident, food stamps and gun control, until the last sin is hunted down and made right—which can never happen in a fallen world.
This huge expense of energy to purify language reveals a weakened belief in more material forms of progress. If we don’t know how to end racism, we can at least call it structural. The guides want to make the ugliness of our society disappear by linguistic fiat. Even by their own lights, they do more ill than good—not because of their absurd bans on ordinary words like congresswoman and expat, or the self-torture they require of conscientious users, but because they make it impossible to face squarely the wrongs they want to right, which is the starting point for any change. Prison does not become a less brutal place by calling someone locked up in one a person experiencing the criminal-justice system. Obesity isn’t any healthier for people with high weight. It’s hard to know who is likely to be harmed by a phrase like native New Yorker or under fire; I doubt that even the writers of the guides are truly offended. But the people in Behind the Beautiful Forevers know they’re poor; they can’t afford to wrap themselves in soft sheets of euphemism. Equity language doesn’t fool anyone who lives with real afflictions. It’s meant to spare only the feelings of those who use it.
The project of the guides is utopian, but they’re a symptom of deep pessimism. They belong to a fractured culture in which symbolic gestures are preferable to concrete actions, argument is no longer desirable, each viewpoint has its own impenetrable dialect, and only the most fluent insiders possess the power to say what is real. What I’ve described is not just a problem of the progressive left. The far right has a different vocabulary, but it, too, relies on authoritarian shibboleths to enforce orthodoxy. It will be a sign of political renewal if Americans can say maddening things to one another in a common language that doesn’t require any guide.
This article appears in the April 2023 print edition with the headline “The Moral Case Against Euphemism.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
Pennsylvania man charged with attempting to bring “explosive” onto Orlando-bound flight; Extra pandemic-era SNAP benefits end for over 30 million people
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
A winter storm front which has battered California is expected to bring severe weather to the South through Friday, including heavy rain and possibly tornadoes. Meteorologist Mike Bettes with The Weather Channel has the forecast.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Gondolas are docked along a canal with a low water level during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Some of Venice’s smaller canals are running dry amid unusually low tides and a lack of rainfall, making it difficult for gondolas, water taxis and ambulance boats to navigate the Italian city.
Dwindling water levels in the canals are linked to a combination of issues, including a prolonged spell of low tides and a lingering high-pressure weather system over much of Italy. The muddy canals have disrupted some transportation and tourists services in a city that doesn’t have cars.
The situation in Venice, which is historically known for its regular flooding, comes after weeks of dry winter conditions in Italy that have prompted fears of another drought emergency after the dry summer last year.
The Italian Alps have received roughly half of their normal snowfall this winter and the country’s longest river, the river Po, currently holds 61% less water than normal during this time of year, according to Italian environmental group Legambiente. Last July, Italy declared a state of emergency for areas surrounding the river Po.
Take a look at some photos from the past couple weeks of docked gondolas in Venice’s canals:
A gondola is docked on a dry canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. Some of Venice’s secondary canals have practically dried up lately due a prolonged spell of low tides linked to a lingering high-pressure weather system.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Gondolas are docked along a canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
A view of a dried canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Boats are docked along a canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Gondolas are docked along a canal with a low water level during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Gondolas are docked along a canal with a low water level during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.
Zimbabwe is losing 262 000 hectares of forests destroyed every year. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
by Jeffrey Moyo (harare)
Inter Press Service
HARARE, Feb 28 (IPS) – In New Ashdon Park, a medium-density area in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, at new homes that have replaced a once thriving forest, makeshift fireplaces have become common sights as residents solely depend on firewood for energy.
City dwellers like 34-year-old Neliet Mbariro, a married mother of four, live in a house that has not yet been connected to electricity.
Like many of her neighbors, Mbariro has had to depend on cutting down some trees just across an unpaved road near her home.
“We cut the few remaining trees you see here so we can make fire for cooking every day. We can’t do anything about it because we have no electricity in this area,” Mbariro told IPS.
Hundreds of trees that used to define Mbariro’s area, where homes have fast emerged, have disappeared over the past two years since construction began.
As building structures rise, vast acres of natural forests are falling as construction of dwellings and indigenous industrial facilities gather pace in Zimbabwe.
Arnold Shumba (32), a builder operating in New Ashdon Park, said with his team working in the area, they have had to do away with hundreds of trees to build homes for their clients.
“I remember there were plenty of trees; in fact, there was a huge forest area here, but those trees are no more now because as we worked, we cut them down. You only see houses now,” Shumba told IPS.
According to environmentalists, the impact of deforestation is problematic.
“Very soon, towns and cities will have no more trees left as buildings take their place,” Marylin Mahamba, an independent environmental activist in Harare, told IPS.
For instance, as Mahamba notes, Harare is no longer the same, with scores of open urban spaces taken over for construction and trees uprooted.
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, is even worse, with Mahamba claiming the city has been pummeled by deforestation left, right, and center as more residential areas rise.
Yet it is not only the rise of more buildings across towns and cities here that has led to deforestation but electricity deficits, according to climate change experts.
“The Zimbabwe Power Company is also to blame for failing to provide enough electricity. Gas is expensive, and many people can’t afford it. They opt for firewood because it is cheaper, and that’s why more urban trees are now vanishing,” Kudakwashe Makanda, a climate change expert based in Zimbabwe, told IPS.
But Makanda also pinned the blame for urban deforestation on rural-to-urban migration.
“There is now excessive expansion of towns in Zimbabwe. Obviously, this does not spare the forests. By nature, people would want to settle in urban areas, and by virtue of people wanting to settle in towns, people cut down trees establishing homes,” said Makanda.
Makanda also blamed local authorities for fueling urban deforestation, saying, “the town councils are to blame. They allow people to occupy land not suitable for occupation resulting in trees being felled.”
With joblessness affecting as many as 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s population, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Makanda said in towns and cities, many have switched to firewood for livelihood.
“People are making a livelihood out of firewood, meaning more trees are disappearing in towns as dealers sell firewood which has become a source of income for many who are not formally employed,” said Makanda.
But for areas like New Ashdon Park with no electricity and with many residents like Mbariro having to depend on firewood while other areas contend with regular power outages, Makanda also said, “power cuts are causing deforestation in towns, especially in areas with no power connection, people rely on firewood.”
Yet stung by joblessness, Makanda said urban dwellers are clearing unoccupied pieces of land to farm in towns and cities, but at the cost of the trees that must be removed.
To fix the growing menace of urban deforestation in Zimbabwe, climate change experts like Makanda have said, “there is a need for incentivizing alternative power sources like solar so that they become affordable in order to save the remaining urban forests.”
Denis Munangatire, an environmentalist with a degree in environmental studies from the Midlands State University, claimed 4000 trees are getting destroyed annually across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities.
According to this country’s Forestry commission, these are among the 262 000 hectares of forests destroyed every year in Zimbabwe.
Like Makanda, Munangatire heaped the blame on local authorities in towns and cities for fueling deforestation.
“Urban councils are responsible for the disappearance of trees in towns and cities because they are leaving land developers wiping out forests, leaving few or no trees standing in areas they develop,” Munangatire told IPS.
Coastal and river communities in the U.S. today face increased flooding as climate change creates conditions linked to stronger hurricanes, But there’s another, less-known danger: More powerful winds that can down power lines, blow roofs off homes and cause billions in property damage, according to new research.
By midcentury, hurricanes will endanger an additional 13.4 million properties that are not currently threatened, found the First Street Foundation, a climate change nonprofit that calculates damage from weather disasters. In addition to increased flood risk along the East Coast, more properties located inland and northward — outside of what residents think of as a typical “hurricane” zone — face the prospect of severe wind damage.
“Proportionately, we’re expecting to have more major storms — more category threes, fours and fives,” said Ed Kearns, chief data officer at the First Street Foundation.
“Because these storms are more likely to be stronger, they are more likely to penetrate further inland,” he added. “Those storms that do hit the coast, they will go further inland with higher wind speeds before they decay.”
Today, Florida and the Gulf Coast are the epicenter of wind damage, with Florida accounting for 90% of the nation’s hurricane damage. By First Street’s calculations, the state will continue to face hurricane damage in the years to come, but the worst of it will shift from South Florida northward, closer to Jacksonville.
First Street’s model shows that “further inland houses and properties are going to be exposed to tropical storm and hurricane force winds that have not experienced this before,” Kearns said.
Windy cities
The East Coast is no stranger to storms. Today, wind counts as the biggest source of damage for homes under traditional homeowners insurance, and “there have been countless high-impact Nor’easters and East Coast hurricanes,” said Carl Parker, hurricane, storm and climate specialist at The Weather Channel, in an email.
“Certainly Sandy stands out for producing a massive area of fierce winds, which caused tens of billions in wind damage, apart from the coastal flood damage,” he said of the 2012 hurricane, also noting that Hurricane Bob in 1991 produced wind gusts over 140 miles per hour in New England.
Today, these storms are considered an aberration. But research suggests they will become more frequent over the next 30 years as climate change makes stronger hurricanes more common.
As the oceans and the Gulf Stream warm, “There will be even more potential energy for both Nor’easters and tropical cyclones in the future,” Parker said. “In a nutshell, more ocean warmth means more potential energy — and more potential for major windstorms on the East Coast.”
First Street’s calculations show that areas of eastern and central Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York are at risk of stronger wind gusts — brief, sudden increases in a storm’s wind speed that can do the most damage, dislodging roof shingles or snapping tree branches. And cities as far inland as St. Louis and Chicago are also likely to face more intense winds, according the the nonprofit.
Because the past decade has seen relatively few hurricanes, First Street predicted the changes by creating 58,000 hurricane models, using the characteristics of today’s storms, and subjecting them to current and expected climate conditions.
“The biggest surprise was, with proportionately stronger storms, how much further they can be expected to impact,” Kearns said, adding that damages could reach as far inland as Kentucky and Tennessee.
Meanwhile, the highest dollar values for potential increases in property damage are in Brooklyn, New York; Long Island, New York; coastal Virginia; and even as far north as Massachusetts.
In extreme weather situations, the storm’s capacity to surprise forecasters can be as important as its severity. Indeed, a storm that would be considered mild in one place used to adverse tropical weather can wreak untold damage in cities less prepared for it, especially the dense suburbs of New Jersey, New York and New England.
Individual homeowners can take some precautions, especially if their property has factors that make it more vulnerable to wind damage, like being taller than neighboring buildings and being close to trees, power poles or other objects that can snap off.
Storm shutters or similar window covers can help safeguard a home during a storm, as can protecting the roof.
“Keeping the roof intact is vital, as a breach often leads to significant wind-driven water damage,” Parker said. Options include garage door braces, bolts that connect the roof to the foundation of the house or simple clips that can strengthen the roof-to-wall connection.
