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EMILY RABOTEAU
This Is How We Live Now
from New York Magazine / The Cut
SOME SCIENTISTS SAY the best way to combat climate change is to talk about it among friends and familyāto make private anxieties public concerns. For 2019, my New Yearās resolution was to do just that, as often as possible, at the risk of spoiling dinner. I would ask about the crisis at parent-association meetings, in classrooms, at conferences, on the subway, in bodegas, at dinner parties, while overseas, and when online; I would break climate silence as a woman of color, as a mother raising Black children in a global city, as a professor at a public university, and as a travel writerāin all of those places, as all of those people. I would force those conversations if I needed to. But, it turned out, people wanted to talk about it. Nobody was silent. I listened to their answers. I noticed the echoes. I wrote them all down.
January
Tuesday, January 1
At last nightās New Yearās Eve party, we served hoppinā John. Nim said that when he used to visit relatives in Israel, he could see the Dead Sea from the side of the road, but on his most recent trip, he could not. It was a lengthy walk to reach the water, which is evaporating.
Chris responded that the beaches are eroding in her native Jamaica, most egregiously where the resorts have raked away the seaweed to beautify the shore for tourists.
Wednesday, January 2
After losing her home in Staten Island to Hurricane Sandy, Lissette bought an RV with solar panels and has been living off the grid, conscious of how much water it takes to flush her toilet and to take a shower, I learned at Angieās house party.
Monday, January 14
At tonightās dinner party, Marguerite said that in Trinidad, where they find a way to joke about everything, including coups, people arenāt laughing about the flooding.
Wednesday, January 16
On this eveningās trip on the boat Walter built, he claimed with enthusiasm that we might extract enough renewable energy from the Gulf Stream via underwater turbines to power the entire East Coast.
Moreover, Walter predicted with the confidence of a Swiss watch, no intelligent businessman will invest another dime in coal when there is more profit to be made in wind, solar, and hydrokinetic energy. Economic forces will dictate a turnaround in the next ten years, he said.
Monday, January 21
After Hurricane Irma wrecked her home in Key West, Kristina, a triathlete librarian, moved onto a boat and published a dystopian novel titled Knowing When to Leave, I learned over lobster tail.
February
Tuesday, February 12
We ate vegetable quiche at Ayana and Christinaās housewarming party, where Christina described the Vancouver sun through the haze of forest-fire smoke and smog as looking more like the moon.
Monday, February 18
In the basement of Our Saviourās Atonement this afternoon, Pastor John said heās been preaching once a month about climate change, despite his wifeās discomfort, and recently traveled to Albany to lobby for the Community and Climate Protection Act.
Saturday, February 23
When I see those brown recycling bins coming to the neighborhood, said a student in Amirās class at City College in Harlem, it tells me gentrification is here and our time is running out.
Thursday, February 28
Just between us, Mik said over drinks at Shade Bar in Greenwich Village, it scares me that white people are becoming afraid of what they might lose. History tells us they gonna get violent.
March
Sunday, March 17
On St. Patrickās Day, Kathy, whoād prepared the traditional corned beef and cabbage, conversed about the guest from the botanical garden in her master gardening class, who lectured on shifting growing zones, altering what could be planted in central New Jersey, and when.
Tuesday, March 19
Sheila, who brought weed coquito to the tipsy tea party, said that when people ask her, āWhat are you Hondurans, and why are you at the border?ā she says, āAmericans are just future Hondurans.ā
Monday, March 25
Mat recalled vultures in the trees of Sugar Land, Texas, hunting dead animals that had drowned in Hurricane Harvey, during which heād had difficulty fording flooded streets to reach his motherās nursing home.
April
Tuesday, April 16
After a bite of roasted-beet salad in the Trask mansionās dining room, Hilary spoke of the historic spring flooding in her home state of Iowa, where the economic impact was projected to reach $2 billion.
Thursday, April 18
Carolyn warned me at the breakfast table, where I picked up my grapefruit spoon, that I may have to get used to an inhaler to be able to breathe in spring going forward, as the pollen count continues to rise with the warming world. My wheezing concerned her, and when she brought me to urgent care, a sign at the check-in desk advised, DONāT ASK US FOR ANTIBIOTICS. Valerie, the doctor who nebulized me with albuterol, explained that patients were overusing antibiotics in the longer tick season for fear of Lyme.
Tuesday, April 23
On his second helping of vegetable risotto, Antonius reflected that in Vietnam, where his parents are from, the rate of migration from the Mekong Delta, with its sea-spoiled crops, is staggering.
Sunday, April 28
Due to Cyclone Fani, Ranjit said he was canceling plans to visit Kerala and heading straight back to Goa, where he would be available for gigs, lessons, jam sessions, meals.
Michael said that beef prices were up after the loss of so much livestock in this springās midwestern flooding, and so heād prepared pork tacos instead.
May
Friday, May 3
At the head of the table where we sat eating bagels, Aurash said we wonāt solve this problem until we obsess over it, as he had obsessed over Michael Jordan and the Lamborghini Countach as a kid.
He added that, just as his parents werenāt responsible for the specific reasons they had to leave Afghanistan, in general the communities most impacted by climate change are least responsible for it.
Balancing an empty plate in his lap, Karthik said that New York City (an archipelago of thirty-odd islands), with all its hubris, should be looking to Sri Lanka, another vulnerable island community, for lessons in resilience.
We have more in common, he went on, with the effective stresses of low-lying small-island coastal regions such as the Maldives, the Seychelles, Cape Verde, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Caribbean than with a place like Champaign, Illinoisā
āIām from Champaign!ā Pamela interrupted, her mouth full. āItās in a floodplain too!ā she cried. Weāre all sitting at this table now.
Tuesday, May 7
āPersonally, Iām not that into the future,ā said Centime, who had a different sense of mortality having survived two bouts of breast cancer. She uncorked the fourth bottle of wine. Weād gathered over Indian takeout for an editorial meeting to comb through submissions to a transnational feminist journal centering on women of color. āBut I can respect your impulse to document our extinction.ā
Sunday, May 19
Eating a slice of pizza at a kidās birthday party in a noisy arcade, Adam reminisced about the chirping of frogs at dusk in northern Long Islandāthe soundtrack to his childhood, now silent for a decade.
āSad to say,ā he mused, āamong the 9 million meaningless things Iāve Googled, this wasnāt one. Itās like a postapocalypse version of my life: āWell, once the frogs all died, we shoulda known.ā Then I strap on a breather and head into a sandstorm to harvest sand fleas for soup.ā
June
Friday, June 7
Hiral, scoffing at what passes for authentic Punjabi food here in New York, was worried about her family in Gandhinagar and the trees of that green city, where the temperature is hovering around 110 degrees Fahrenheit weeks before monsoons will bring relief.
Sunday, June 9
After T-ball practice at Dyckman Fields, while the Golden Tigers ate a snack of clementines and Goldfish crackers, Adelineās dad, an engineer for the Department of Environmental Protection, spoke uneasily of the added strain upon the sewage system from storms.
Saturday, June 15
Jeff, whoād changed his unhealthy eating habits after a heart attack, said, āWe are running out of language to describe our devastation of the world.ā
Lacy agreed, adding, āWe need new metaphors and new containers with which to imagine time.ā
Sunday, June 16
Keith confessed that he was seriously losing hope of any way out of this death spiral.
Tuesday, June 18
We sipped rosƩ, listening to Javier read a poem about bright-orange crabs in the roots of the mangrove trees of Estero de Jaltepeque in his native El Salvador, where the legislative assembly had just recognized natural forests as living entities.
The historic move protects the rights of trees, without which our planet cannot support us. Meanwhile, Javier discussed the lack of rights of migrants at the border, recalling the journey he made at age nine, unaccompanied, in a caravan surveilled by helicopters.
In Sudan, where Dalia (who read after Javier) is from, youth in Khartoum wish to restore the ecosystem through reforestation using drones to cast seedpods in the western Darfur region, hoping to stymie disasters such as huge sandstorms called haboob.
Owing to this monthās massacre, one of Daliaās poems proved too difficult for her to share. āIād be reading a memorial,ā she said.
I strained to hear the unspoken rhyme between the rising sandstorms and the dying mangroves, hemispheres apart.
Wednesday, June 19
Salar wrote to me about the call of the watermelon man this morning in Tehran where groundwater loss, overirrigation, and drought have led to land subsidence. Parts of the capitol are sinking, causing fissures, sinkholes, ditches, cracks.
The damage was most evident to him in the southern neighborhood of Yaftabad, by the wells and farmland at the cityās edge. There, ruptures in water pipes, walls, and roads have folks fearing the collapse of shoddier buildings. The ground beneath the airport, too, is giving way.
Thursday, June 20
āOur airportās sinking too!ā mused Catherine, whoād flown in from San Francisco for this evening of scene readings at the National Arts Club, followed by a wine-and-cheese reception.
Friday, June 21
āItās not true that weāre all seated at the same table,ā argued David, a translator from Guatemala, where erratic weather patterns have made it nearly impossible to grow maize and potatoes.
Retha, Davidās associate, quoted the poem āLuck,ā by Langston Hughes:
Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Then we went out looking for the Korean barbecue truck.
Saturday, June 22
āSay what you will about the Mormons,ā said Paisley, who lives in Utah, ābut theyāve been stockpiling for the end of days for so long that theyāre better prepared.ā
Sunday, June 23
At the Stone Barns farm, where tiara cabbages, garlic scapes, snow peas, red ace beets, zucchini flowers, and baby lambs were being harvested for the Blue Hill restaurantās summer menu, Laura s...
