idée recyclée #4: climate change histories, slow fashion artisans, and alert fatigue
A bi-weekly roundup of sustainability storytelling
This bi-weekly roundup will have gone live the morning of New Year’s Eve. I’m writing it during “Twixmas,” those odd, foggy days between Christmas and the New Year that I’m relieved to have finally discovered a name for. My 2024 started with a massive New Year’s Eve party in Chinatown. I kissed my boyfriend at midnight, ate Japanese fried chicken, wore a shimmery gold fringe top, drank French 75s, and danced beneath a disco ball. The top snagged on someone or something and had completely unraveled by the end of the night.
I couldn’t be happier to be tucked into my grandparents’ spare bedroom this year. The three of us will toast the New Year together with champagne and cook something at home; my grandmother and I have plans to watch When Harry Met Sally once my grandfather goes to bed. It’s an end to a particularly hard year that feels right in my body. This Twixmas, I’ve read, written, sat by the fire with my grandparents, and taken long walks with the dogs. I’ve been doing all my reflecting on 2024, cataloging my delights and miseries, planning for the year ahead, charting dreams and aspirations, reflecting on how I delivered on promises to myself, fell short on promises to myself, was open and generous some days and weeks and was hardened and retreating on others.
Writing returned to my life in a big way this year after I completed my graduate thesis; in this newsletter, in my journal, in poems written in the notes app on my phone. I’m taking some things from 2024 with me, other things I’m tossing gleefully; some I’m stuffing into my pockets, others I’m taping to the wall above my desk. Keeping track of threads, sources of inspiration, and all the little serendipities has been like signposting my life. Writing long-form pieces and crafting these bi-weekly roundups has felt generative in all the best ways. A sincere thank you for reading my work this year—read on for incredible pieces of sustainability storytelling on climate change histories, slow fashion artisans, alert fatigue, and more.
I love it when, as the year comes to a close, dictionary editors and publications crown a “word of the year.” Dictionary.com chose demure, Merriam-Webster chose polarization, and Oxford chose brain rot for 2024. Grist’s climate word of the year is alert fatigue. The phrase is borrowed from the medical field, where healthcare workers encounter hundreds of medical alerts daily. After getting too many false alarms, they develop “alert fatigue” and begin to ignore them. Climate change-induced extreme weather events are inundating us with weather alerts more frequently. Grist chose the term to highlight how, as we’re increasingly exposed to alerts about extreme weather, we risk becoming numb to warnings about climate change more broadly. The publication’s runners-up for their climate word of the year included: underconsumption core, supercommuter, snow loss cliff, semi-dystopian, hot droughts, climate homicide, category 6, anti-tourism, and carbon cowboys. It’s worth reading the paragraph that accompanies each of the 10 terms to reflect on life in 2024 and how our lexicon for talking about the climate crisis is expanding.
Over the past few months, I’ve really enjoyed The Guardian’s “My DIY Climate Hack” series, which highlights creative sustainability solutions implemented by everyday people. So far, it has featured a lawn converted into a micro-farm, a low-waste wedding, and a pedal-powered home office. In the series’ most recent installation, California professor Eric Haas details how installing a greywater and rainwater system at his home reduced his family’s water consumption to ⅓ of that of a typical Oakland household. The series is incredibly palatable and accessible, and it’s heartening to read about the impact people are making in their yards, at their homes, or in their neighborhoods and communities.
In exciting news, Kathy Hochul signed New York State’s Climate Change Superfund Act into law on December 26th. Over the next 25 years, the state of New York will fine fossil fuel companies $75 billion to pay for damage caused to the climate. Companies that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation determines are responsible for “more than 1 billion tons of global GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions” released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2018 will be fined. Starting in 2028, fines will be paid into a Climate Superfund to ensure the staggering cost of adapting the state to climate change falls on fossil fuel companies rather than New Yorkers. The NY Climate Change Superfund Act follows a similar law passed by Vermont this summer and is modeled after “polluter-pays” legislation at the state and federal levels. This kind of ambitious climate legislation is more urgent than ever at the state level. I’m crossing my fingers for a wave of similar cost recovery laws passed in other states in the coming months and years.
Deborah Coen’s piece “What’s Next for Histories of Climate Change” in LARB is worth at least two or three reads. She breaks down what we can get right and what we can miss when we rely on quantitative tools to understand climate change, the impacts of past climate variability, and previous energy transitions. Coen interrogates concepts like collapse and resilience in the piece as well. It’s a tough one to sum up, but an incredibly fascinating essay. A quote from Coen below:
History will never provide a crystal ball, and that’s not what we should ask of it. Nor should we be limited by theories of historical change that consider “events” only as unusual occurrences that were recognized as such by contemporaries. Change can also be the result of an accumulation of small disruptions that goes unnoticed by mainstream observers. Climate historians know this well, since the variability they study was often unremarked upon by those living through it. And yet, climate historians have taken little interest in processes of change that run bottom-up rather than top-down.
In Atmos, Zoe Suen details the challenges facing Japanese craft businesses and traditional artisans. Once richly reflective of regional specialties defined by micro-ecosystems and natural resources, Japan’s handicraft community is now “faltering amid digitization, ultra-fast fashion, and a rapidly aging population.” The slow fashion artisan community’s deep history and expertise also present a unique opportunity; craftspeople interviewed by Suen emphasize that artisans need to see “the potential in their techniques for new products, consumers, and global markets.” Suen’s piece brilliantly connects these challenges and opportunities with luxury markets and the country’s historical legacy.
Loved this self reflection and the selected articles. She expresses what most of us feel about the holidays coming to a close and how we might spend New Years Eve. The selection of articles is amazing! Thank you.