‘Call that profit’

On New Mexico in Focus last week, Russell Contreras sat down with Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, to talk about what’s missing from the Oppenheimer movie. Don’t miss that conversation, which you can watch on YouTube. The Line Opinion Panel also talked about the movie. And on Sunday, The New York Times published a guest essay from Cordova, in which she writes: 

This July has been more tense than usual, as our community waited for the release of “Oppenheimer” — and some recognition of what we have endured over the last 78 years. When I watched the film at a packed screening in Santa Fe, I saw that wasn’t to be. The three-hour movie tells only part of the story of the Manhattan Project, which developed the bomb, and conducted the test code-named Trinity that day in July. It does not explore in any depth the costs of deciding to test the bomb in a place where my family and many others had lived for generations.

The climate crisis

Last week, scientists reported that July is likely the hottest month the Earth has experienced in 120,000 years. You can read Lyric Aquino’s story about this at Grist. Or read the joint report from the World Meteorological Organization, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Leipzig University.

This week, New Mexico Voices for Children released a policy brief about the impact of climate change (including extreme heat) on children’s health. You can read that policy brief online. 

And I’m sure you’ve also seen the headlines about the projected collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC. The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaplan has a useful explanation of AMOC in her story about the newly published study:

Scientists have long seen the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, as one of the planet’s most vulnerable “tipping elements” — meaning the system could undergo an abrupt and irreversible change, with dramatic consequences for the rest of the globe. Under Earth’s current climate, this aquatic conveyor belt transports warm, salty water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, and then sends colder water back south along the ocean floor. But as rising global temperatures melt Arctic ice, the resulting influx of cold freshwater has thrown a wrench in the system — and could shut it down entirely.

In the abstract of their study, Peter and Susanne Ditlevsen write, “We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future emissions.” You can also read the study for yourself: “Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation” (Peter Ditlevsen and Susanne Ditlevesen, Nature Communications) 

Then there’s last week’s record-breaking temperatures in the oceans. Again, The Washington Post does a great job contextualizing what’s happening. Check out “Ocean Temperatures are off the charts. Here’s where they’re highest,” by Tim Meko and Dan Stillman. And make sure you’re reading the work of Tampa Bay Times reporter Max Chesnes.  

Speaking of local reporters, you should always be reading Tony Davis, who just had a story over the weekend at the Arizona Daily Star about how saguaros are suffering and dying due to heat waves in southern Arizona.  

Lastly, The New York Times had a staggering feature (best viewed on your phone, in my opinion) about the impacts of climate change on the Fertile Crescent. I’d hoped the story would acknowledge the role of U.S. military action in Iraq or at least the role that the Pentagon plays in accelerating climate change. But maybe they’re saving that for a future story. 

Other news and studies for you to check out: 

• “‘We’ve never been this close before,’ Downwinders cheer RECA amendment in defense bill” (Danielle Prokop, Source NM)

• “Cannon Air Force Base to lose personnel in Special Ops base shift” (Matt Grubs, KOB)

• “Arizona’s water troubles show how climate change is reshaping the West” (Joshua Partlow, Brady Dennis, and Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post)

• “’Forever chemicals’ flowing from Suncor into Sand Creek spike as Colorado weighs renewal of key water-quality permit” (Noelle Phillips, The Denver Post) 

• “Finding a fix for ‘forever chemicals’” (Sarah Trent, High Country News)

• “Genetic erosion in an endangered desert fish during a multidecadal megadrought despite long-term supportive breeding” (Megan J. Osborne, Thomas P. Archdeacon, Charles B. Yackulic, Robert K. Dudley, Guilherme Caeiro-Dias, and Thomas F. Turner, Conservation Biology)

Coming up later this month, we’ll have an entire show dedicated to nuclear waste and New Mexico, but I wanted to share a few relevant stories ahead of time, including:

• “’We’ve done this before.’ Holtec denied discharge into Cape Cod Bay, in draft state ruling” (Heather McCarron, Cape Cod Times)

• “Activists, lawmakers applaud state’s rejection of nuke wastewater discharge into bay” (David R. Smith, The Patriot Ledger) 

• “Plan to discharge water into Hudson River from closed nuclear plant sparks uproar” (Michael Hill, Associated Press)

Years ago, I printed out a copy of Wendell Berry’s poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. I’ve moved the piece of paper from office to office—it lived its first life tacked up behind the circa 2002 iMac on my desk at High Country News and today, it rests in a pile of papers upstairs at KNME-TV. 

I adore the final lines of the poem, which I’ll let you read for yourself, but wanted to pull a few lines out here, too:

Ask the questions that have no answers. 
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. 
Say that your main crop is the forest 
that you did not plant, 
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Thanks for reading, friends. I know I share all the bad news. But knowing what’s happening also offers the reminder that we know the right things to do—and even, for the most part, how to do them.

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