I was going to be at the Sankofa World Market (275 Elmwood Avenue, Providence) between 2 and 6pm today, August 28, but it is now Too Wet, and I have bailed. I did have a nice visit with this person, who asked me to take their picture.
[IMAGE: A small child with beaded braids running out over the grass and into the rain, carrying a blue and white umbrella.]
The market itself continues through October! Please buy some vegetables from local, hardworking farmers and vendors.
I visited this tidepool when I went to Block Island a few days ago. Tidepools are among my favorite ecological phenomena and one of the places where I feel the weight of climate change, and my love of the living world, the most.
[IMAGE: A shallow tidepool with sand, small rocks and large algae-covered rocks, some submerged and some emerging.]
I was here with my parents, who are here most weeks (my dad sharing
art buttons, my mom selling pottery), and many of the people who
stopped for conversations were people my parents know. Some of them
also know me—in a couple cases, have known me since I was very
small.
Most of the people who spoke with me were also in a similar, fairly
narrow demographic—comparatively well off, politically liberal,
white, “professional” or recently retired from being so. This
doesn’t reflect the demographic of people attending the market, which
had a little more range in all categories.
Many people spoke about the Cricket Valley Energy Center, the fracked-gas power plant scheduled to go online this fall about 20 minutes down the road from the market site. There was a fundraising event for the fight scheduled for later that day.
Overall, what these conversations emphasized for me (and thank you to
my dad and sister for helping me think through this) is how much
capitalism and its narratives deliberately and destructively limit
our imagination of how we can participate constructively, lovingly
and sustainingly in the world, even when we have the material ability
to do so.
Nonhuman animal presences: Big butterfly, little butterfly, tiny ant,
pigeons, big grasshopper on my pant leg.
Some conversations:
I’m not gonna be around much longer, but my kids are. You know where I’m going after this? Cricket Valley. I’ve got signs in my car. That’s my big political concern.
How does it
feel to think about it?
Oh my God. I feel helpless, I feel anxious. But I also feel—not hopeful, but I feel angry. The anger has always kept me going. But the anger is hiding the fear. Whatever I can do, I’ll do.
…The thing about Cricket Valley is that there’s supposedly ammonia
on site, more than there’s supposed to be. The high school’s
three-quarters of a mile away. I can walk to the high school from the
plant. I protested outside the high school
How did the
kids take it?
Some gave me the finger, and some looked. Supposedly the people
running [Cricket Valley] are providing story hours, they’re providing
scholarships. I talked to a woman who lived next to the plant, I
asked her, “Aren’t you afraid?” She said no, and I said, “Well,
I’m afraid for you. Do you have kids? I’m afraid for them too.”
*
Several years ago, when I was educating myself more about more about climate derangement and getting more and more despondent about the future of earth and all of its beings, I read something that you guys were doing in Providence that changed the way I started thinking—you were making plans to deal with the certainty of the river rising, and you were actually making plans to deal with the effects of climate change.* So that gave me a different way of looking at this huge issue. And it’s had many effects, one of which is that in our wills we have essentially left all our money to organizations that we feel will be important in meeting the world as a changed world. I have to say how thankful I was to run across that. One of the things I thought was going to be important is how to provide health care, health services…**
How are you
feeling now about it?
I feel personally that I have made as much of a contribution as I’m going to figure out how to be able to make. My thinking about it is that the world and humanity are going to be sorely tested.
**If you’re going to go the donation/financial support route, I usually recommend going with organizations or efforts that are local or semi-local so you can see what they’re doing. If you’re going to go big, look for sources besides their own material that compare their claims to their effects! This article on climate change philanthropy provides a little more context.
*
Hi. I’m really anxious. I think it’s contributing to my dizziness and my gut rumblings and my general discontent and anger at Mr. Trump. I’m very concerned about what he’s doing with the EPA. I’ve traveled quite a bit in the world and I’ve seen poverty—people are going to be in big trouble.
What do you do
when you feel the way you just described?
I give money to the Nature Conservancy and the EDF. I try to breathe deeply. … I work in the garden—that helps a lot. There’s a group of friends that I have, we have a code word, “beagle beagle”–it means, “don’t talk about it right now.” There are certain people I trust not to take it too far and not get into rage. But sometimes you have to let it out.
How do you
direct that anger?
I physically can’t do what [the first person who stopped] does, going
to the Cricket [Valley] protests. I go on doing my art and just being
conscious of my gratitude.
*
I have dystopian fantasies about where we’re headed. Earth isn’t
gonna be able to sustain its existing population. Climate
catastrophe, migration—and what’s gonna happen to the next
generation, and how are they gonna deal with that? I think it’s the
number one problem in the world. It’s terrifying.
How often do
you think about it?
Probably every day. Particularly because our political system is so frozen. I feel paralyzed by the magnitude of the problem. … All of a sudden I woke up this winter and I was like, “Oh my God, this is a crisis.”
*
I think I’m more worried rather than anxious. It’s pushing me to see what I can do about it. Changing from a gasoline powered car to an electric car. Asking what I can do in my town. It started with the election of Trump—I would go to town board meetings just to know what was going on. And I started going to planning meetings for zoning changes for solar energy and wind energy, and I got myself on the planning board. It’s an eye-opener. A lot of people on the planning board are very into, “Let’s develop.” I keep asking the questions [that challenge that], but I haven’t been involved in any actual decisions yet. Maybe it’ll happen, or maybe we’ll agree. But I do worry that at some point it’s gonna be our turn … Things have been happening all over the globe. What’s our turn?
What are some
things that you could see the planning board doing that would make
“our turn” less destructive?
That’s
more of a town board thing than a planning board thing. The planning
board is more like okaying or turning down new projects. The ones
that are really egregious—those are the ones to stop. I spent half
a year going to these town board meetings, and sometimes I was the
only person there.
Why do you
think that is?
Where I am, I’m kind of blessed. People who are struggling, it’s like
the struggle takes everything they have.
*
This is what’s not fair. This is really unconscionable. We can
pollute the water, the air, the ground, but what about the animals?
What about their rights to have clean water and air? I read that in
North Carolina, Duke University polluted about thirty miles of river.
What about the fish and the wildlife? It’s so cruel. I can filter the
water, but the deer can’t, the raccoons and the beavers and the fish
can’t. We seem to be so callous to the environment. We live here. Who
put that trash there? It’s the number one issue facing us today.
There’s no tomorrow, there’s no “wait till next year.”
…I’m seeing our [CT] reps Monday night. I want to know where Jahana Hayes stands on impeachment. … One impetus for immigration is the environment. They can’t survive, they can’t grow enough food. Yet we’re standing idly by. … Especially when I look at what’s happening to this administration–I am, I am upset. We can’t have this rapacious appetite when it comes to resources. I actually think we’re on the path to extinction.
*
The thing that gets me is personally I’m very sensitive to weather and have been my whole life. What I notice now is more extremes that last longer and are more powerful. It doesn’t just rain, it’s a deluge. … Or the heat—it’s cold until May and then it’s hot. Two months ago we were underwater, now we’re in a serious drought. The pond behind my house—I had to [let some of the water out]. Now you can see the backs of the fish rippling the water because it’s too shallow. I don’t even want to think about what’s gonna happen in a couple more weeks. I feel disappointed and disgusted by my race.
What’s it like
to carry that feeling around?
It’s actually becoming part of my identity. Because even though I’m doing what I can … The feeling for me is that there’s some awareness but [we’re] swimming upstream, swimming against the tide. Until I’m not throwing anything away anymore–
*
[Person 2 is the adult child of Person 1.]
Person 1: What’s gonna become of us? There’s really a constant cloud,
because I know that the world as we know it—even already it’s not
the world as we knew it, and I despair for the future. And I
truthfully, even though I would love the hell out of them, I’m not
sorry I’m not having grandchildren. I would welcome them if they were
to appear.
Person 2: You liked reading dystopian novels, but now—
Person 1: Now it’s become too real. Every other month the magazine I work for comes out, and there are more and more stories [about terrible futures].
How does it
feel to imagine how bad it can get?
Person 1: For my lifetime, I’m not likely to be impacted. Except for
my kids, who are in their thirties and forties. Unfortunately, there
are so many crazy issues right now. This and income inequality are my
two biggest issues.
Person 2: We don’t talk about the climate, we talk about politics.
Person 1: Because the climate is so overwhelming.
Person 2: And we’re on the same page about that. I don’t eat meat, I
live in the city so I live in an aprtment, I don’t use as much gas.
But it all feels futile.
What would feel
less futile?
Person 2: Stopping the Koch brothers? I don’t know. I just feel like everything is tied together.
*
Right now I’m concerned about the birds. The Arctic is getting warmer and the summers are getting hotter, so the birds are going to have to adapt—or not adapt.
[This person also emailed me the following, later:]
Loved visiting you all today in Millerton. Anything that takes the impersonal and makes it a part of personal consciousness helps the cause. My concerns for migrating birds moving from melting northern climes to the overheated southern climes and back involves so many unknowns. Who knows how the migrating birds will be able to adapt. We’ll have to find out, while paying attention as best we can the the disrupted climates and the effect on birds, much less other flora, fauna and humans.
*
I saw an article in a magazine about climate scientists and their battle with their emotional state—they know too much, they know what’s gonna happen. I can completely relate to these people. I’ve been an activist now for twenty, maybe twenty-five years. … I got run out of college my first year for drinking and drugging, and I went to Washington DC, and this PIRG approached me to come work to help clean the oceans. So I went door to door. My rock is activism, my rock is change.
Is there a
campaign you’ve been part of that you’re really proud of?
Silo Ridge. Over in Amenia, they wanted to put up a walled compound for the 1%, keep everyone else out. I was hired by the next door neighbors, who were the gun club. They were just bullies and I don’t like bullies. I put in probably 7000 hours and I made $7000.00. But I proved to some very wealthy people that if they would have been on my side from the beginning–
…I work with people on a sporadic basis. For a massive project—I’ve got to get better at that.
*
It’s scary. I feel really frightened for my grandchildren. I think you have to maintain hope in the next generation, because our generation really screwed it up.
*
My feelings are all over the place, but I’d say the incline—feeling it’s been on a steep incline, and that makes me feel terrible … Do you know know that poem “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith? I often had that feeling when my kids were growing up. Right now I’m trying to sell myself the world. They’re in their twenties and they know everything is kind of an exquisite mess.
What is the
world? I mean, in this scenario?
I don’t need to sell myself many things in the world. If I’m walking or just taking in the world, I am there. It’s really when I hear about just a lot of the materialism and the way Trump’s whole scam for bringing out the worst in people and their tendencies.
What’s the
relationship for you between enjoying and despairing?
Enjoying lives here in a circle with ten other people enjoying. And
once I enlarge the circle more and more, that’s when I head toward
despair.
*
I’m a journalist from a long time ago, and I recently retired from a job in PR for the UN. I went to a forum at Columbia last spring … on journalism and climate change—how to get climate change covered properly. I thought it would be something to get my head away from the deep Trump depression. But in the end it just doubled my depression because I started paying more attention. I’ve been aware of climate change for more than 30 years. Since I retired, it’s been more about how we’re allowing ourselves to be driven off this cliff. People aren’t stopping the Kochs and the Trumps. I can be pessimistic—I have a science background, and when I see science being ignored—I have a hard time looking for the hopeful side of this.
More specific is how I relate to how you live your life. When I get off the train in Wassaic, I see a hundred cars waiting there and they’re mostly SUVs, and they’re getting ready to drive to their second homes. That’s who I am, I’m a privileged second homer. I have a large footprint. I’m guilty, and I’m angry about the inadequacy, and I’m pissed off at how we tolerate this culture of inequality. I live in Chelsea, where they just built these new multimillion dollar apartments. When we do get people aware of climate change, it seems like the only action that we’re allowing for is individual.
*
Here is a picture of my mom, me, and my dad, as well as a stopper and a very small passerby.
[IMAGE: Three people are stationed on an expanse of grass, two people are standing/walking. The leftmost seated person, a white woman in her 70s, is sitting behind a table of pottery for sale and a sign that says “Freedom of speech / Freedom of worship / Freedom from fear / Freedom from want.” The middle person, a white woman in her 40s, is sitting behind a booth that says “Climate Anxiety Counseling 5 cents / Here to listen,” and a gray-haired white person with their back to the camera is talking to her. The rightmost person, a white man in his 70s, is sitting at a small table with a box of art buttons that says “You are free to take one.” A small white child with a blonde ponytail is walking past, looking at all of them.]
Today is my last day this season at the farmer’s market in Miantonomi Park, in Newport’s North End. Come and share your climate anxieties and other anxieties with me and, if you wish, with Elizabeth Malloy of Living on Earth (you can choose whether or not to be recorded).
[IMAGE: Close-up of a recording device with a gray furry sound muffler over the microphone part, balanced on a person’s knee as she sits cross-legged on the ground. Her knee is on sidewalk, her hand leaning on grass.]
When people say that climate change is what you get when your starting points are capitalism, exploitation, colonization and genocide, the burning of the Amazon is the kind of thing they’re talking about. This is the destruction of a world. It could mean the destruction of all the worlds we know.
If you have never been driven from your home by violence or disaster, I ask you to imagine the fire–fire set by human hands–taking not just your dwelling, but all your landmarks, your houses of worship, your sources of food and of meaning, driving you and your relatives apart, flattening and poisoning everything that made you who you are.
People are doing this to other people, right now, in what used to be the forest, in order to punish them for existing and to profit from that punishment. If you are neither the destroyers nor the people they’re trying to destroy, what can you do?
Climate and culture writer Nylah Burton has laid out a well-sourced and compassionate explanation of whyboycotting beef is a worthwhile response to this murder and desecration if enough people do it. Remember that the purpose of a boycott is to starve an industry or a practice of profit–clearing your conscience is a side effect. (That thread includes a few actions and choices beyond your own eating habits as well.)
Europe and Asia are presently the main markets for Brazilian beef and soy, so if you don’t live in those places but know people there, please strongly and lovingly recommend this to them. People living in EU countries can also write to or call the office of your MEP (UK residents can do it here) and demand that they block the Mercosur trade deal if it includes no protections for the Amazon (a little background).
Improving tree and plant cover and soil health where you live is not enough to counter the wholesale destruction, but is good practice and may offer some relief, especially if it becomes more widespread. If you use Twitter, @BuildSoil is a good person to follow for suggestions and instructions on how to do this. Local conservation, restoration, permaculture, and food sovereignty/food justice initiatives already often have a body of expertise and effort that you can add your weight to–if you’re not already involved with them, use those terms to search for some near you.
Here is an alternate history about the end of resource extraction. Here’s another one about the Amazon and transforming grief into action and healing. Let’s open our imaginations, recognize our connections, and let both of those inform our choices and actions: it’s true that destruction or life in the Amazon can destroy life elsewhere, just as what happens there when the fires aren’t burning can nourish life elsewhere. It’s also true that what we do on the ground we’re on, in the web of life we’re in, reverberates in places we will never touch or see.
I had Elizabeth Malloy of Living on Earth with me, listening and recording (with permission), to see if there’s a story in all of our stories. She will be back to record at the 8/26 and 8/28 sessions, so come on those days if you want to be on the radio.
Nonhuman animal presences: Two tiny brownish butterflies, ant, white
butterfly, housefly, bronze dragonfly (I can’t figure out what kind
these are), seagull, little green fly.
A rare thing happened: Someone came back to speak with me for the second time and I got to hear what they did after our first conversation. If they can face their fears and expand their capabilities as steps toward participating in the world in a way that’s responsive to climate change, maybe you can too.
Some conversations:
*
What’s the question of the day?
The question of the day is: in a bad storm, what would the strengths
and weaknesses of your community be?
[We talked about this some, and I think I brought up that because Providence is a city, there are a lot of people who have a lot of different skills to share.]
A lot of the jobs here are the same thing, just different places.
Like waitresses. Very few people do construction. People who do
construction aren’t from here.
If a bad storm were to happen like that, all of Newport is just done. There’s water over here, there’s water down there.
What’s the
worst storm you remember?
Have I been through a storm? A lot of the bad storms, I’ve heard
about, I haven’t been through.
*
I noticed that
you wrote on the map, “It doesn’t happen in just one place.” Can
you say more about that?
You can take one place and try and protect it, but that doesn’t do anything about the whole problem. I’m really really frustrated. Nothing seems to be happening and what’s happening isn’t fast enough. The Point section [of Newport], all those very old houses—and a lot of them are for sale. And they can’t move them all. Since I rent, I’m never gonna own, I don’t think of it that way. Superstorm Sandy cut off a road to the wildlife refuge for years. …
I did go clean the beach. I wanted so bad to go down to [the] Allens
Avenue [cleanup], but I don’t drive well on the highway. If I can
still register, I’m gonna just go and be terrified. I signed up for
communication skills [courses], and computer skills—I think I can
learn a lot but computer skills are going to be the most useful. And
I did sign up for the climate discussion at the library. What I’m
trying to do is write down my thoughts so I can keep organized. We
only have a certain amount of time. It’s not funny. This is now.
*
[Person 1 and Person 2 are kids, Person 3 is their parent.]
Person 1: I don’t want the ocean to be dirty.
[To Person 2]
What about you?
Person 2: It’s kinda like the same thing but I don’t want like—you
know how sea turtles, they think [plastic] bags are jellyfish?
Do you talk to
other people about this?
Person 2: To my mom. And some of my teachers at school and at my
camp.
What do you do
at camp?
Person 2: We go outside and we go sailing. Today I did a learning
thing about the ocean, so we can keep the ocean clean. So [one of the
teachers] did these tests and we did like—and we made our fingers
look like a turtle and we put a rubberband, and it was kind of like a
test of a how a sea turtle feels. And we did a thing where she said
to dump out all the seeds and put it in the plastic beads and we did
that three times. I think all that plastic beads was actually the
pollution that was inside of the birds and sea turtles.
When you learn
about stuff like this, what about it makes you angry or makes you
sad?
Something dying. Something I get mad about is like something on
TV—somebody choking, like an animal. … I don’t exactly tell
anyone about it, I kind of keep it to myself.
Person 3: How come?
Person 2: ‘Cause I like to. Sometimes I even think if someone’s doing
the exact same thing as me.
Person 3: You learned a bunch of songs about not polluting. Do you
remember any of them?
[Person 2 did not want to sing the songs.]
Person 3: I think one of the hardest parts of thinking about climate change is using the right language. Especially with young people … It’s really serious [but] is that going to help the situation, talking about it with young people and scaring them?
How do you talk
about it in your house?
Very experientially—something’s happening and you talk about it in
the moment. For whatever reason, animals are the way to a lot of
people’s hearts. Kids love animals and don’t want to see them hurt.
[And it comes with] the guilt of, “It’s kind of our fault.”
What would you
like to do in response to this that you’re not doing?
It would be great to take them to New Mexico to build an earthship. That’s a really big dream. We’ve gone to a couple protests…I wish there were more options. … They talk about the three Rs, but I think there should be five or six Rs. We should be teaching them about refusing things, and repurposing things…
[Climate change] seems hypothetical because you’re not there. It’s easier to do these experiential teaching things in the moment—like pointing out the cycle of something and the people who made it. …It’s shifting, the conversations are happening more. It wasn’t really a thing to talk about in the ’80s when we were kids.
How has climate
change affected the way you think about your kids and the future?
I’m pretty hopeful. Kids are incredibly resilient beings. I don’t fear for them. The only thing—I guess if I had climate anxiety, which I do, it’s about accessing nature, because it’s—there’s just not going to be as much access to nature in its current state. And the ocean especially, because water is so important to the health of humans. That’s the only thing that I think I’m really concerned about, is losing … that as they get older. My kids and their generation are 100% problem-solvers, maybe because they have to be. [But] one of my pet peeves is when people are like, “It’s up to these kids.” It’s not up to them. It’s up to us to make everything sustainable and [I DIDN’T TAKE DOWN THE END OF THIS SENTENCE].
*
My grandchildren were visiting last week… I’m very concerned that my grandchildren will have no water to drink, and I can’t tell them that. We talked a lot about climate change and why we don’t have dinosaurs. “Maybe we’ll have another ice age.” I just couldn’t get into the Industrial Revolution, from the 1700s and the 1800s…So we’re all feeling pretty confident [about] our lives, they’re not terrified of dying in their lifetimes …
*
Black
woman, 50s, glasses, stylish
I’m definitely anxious and I’m more anxious about the deniers in our government. These rollbacks that they’re doing…I’m frustrated about that and I don’t understand it. The frustration is [with] the “profit over humanity” type thing. I’m worried about changes that I’m seeing in the current weather patterns. We don’t know what to expect … Should I start getting sandbags? Should I get an inflatable raft and keep it in my garage? Am I being paranoid? Am I being silly? Or realistic?
They’re trying to bury the science that’s out there, and it’s up to us to try to fight it… I don’t know if they just have an agenda and they’re putting lies out there or if they don’t get it, they just don’t want to. I think the bigger thing is, our values have to change. We’re very materialistic and I don’t think we’re looking at the big picture.
What are the
values that you think we should either bring back or start having?
Just the simple things in life. Community, education, just being able to live our lives without everything they put in front of us. We don’t ask ourselves [whether we need it]. … If we were to cripple [companies’] profits–
…
What helps you?
Reflection upon it all. My church family. …Having like-minded people around you who can kind of see that perspective—people who you can learn from and who are receptive to things that you’re saying as well. Taking a look inside and asking yourself, “Why do I have to have this?” … A big part of our problem is—as a community—is it’s inconvenient to do a lot of things and I think that’s what’s holding us back. I don’t do too much for the cause in that regard. I think that’s a big reason people don’t want to talk about it.
… I need to start putting myself in a mindset to live on the bare minimum. [On the island that] my parents were from, the island that we used to visit, they had no electricity. Do I prepare myself to go back to that? … It’s not gonna kill me to use an outhouse. My family back in Anguilla, when those two hurricanes hit, we were so worried, we didn’t hear from them for a week and a half, and when we finally got in touch they’re like, “We’re fine.” My cousin had food in the fridge and they took the food out and they had a barbecue for everyone. They knew how to do the manual labor, they knew how to put the houses back together. The thing that I find different here is that people here are all about that profit—people [with those skills] are gonna be thinking, “What’s in it for me?”
[IMAGE: The components of the Climate Anxiety Counseling booth (plywood table, wooden stool, cardboard signs, map of worries, canvas bag for other materials) packed onto a red handtruck. Nestled in the bottom of the upside-down stool is a container of cherry tomatoes.]
Bring me your climate change and other anxieties TODAY (Wednesday, August 21), 2-6pm, at the Sankofa World Market (275 Elmwood Avenue, Providence). This is my second-to-last appearance at this market for the season, so if you’ve been wanting to talk with me and putting it off, now would be a good day.
You can pick up some food items, too. Teo and Margarita had honey in the comb last week, and someone–maybe Lia?–has bitter melon, but for that you might have to get there early.
Schedule a clothing swap for you and your co-workers. Donate what’s left, if it’s in good condition, to something like this, or bring it to something like this.
Alert them to the possibility and benefits of joining a community or bulk solar program, either by announcing your intention to do it or lamenting your inability to do it; if the business owns its premises, sometimes there are commercial options too.
If you drive to work, see if there’s anyone it makes sense to carpool with, even on some days (putting up a flyer or sending around an email is a good place to start, but eventually you may end up using an app or program).
Talk with your co-workers about campaigning for a green roof (again, if the business owns its premises), pension divestment (if you have a city or state job), or offering in-kind donations or pro bono services to environmental justice organizations in your area (obviously this depends on what your office does).
This September, organize a walkout for this climate strike. (There’s a map of already-planned ones at that link if you scroll down.)
I don’t usually do lists like this because people, not to mention companies, can always find specific reasons why general suggestions are impossible for them. I’m doing this one because people are talking to me a lot lately about recycling and plastic waste, especially with reference to the places where they work.
The things on this list obviously have different levels of commitment, effort, risk, enjoyability, etc. What they have in common is that they involve working with your co-workers, rather than yelling at them or talking down to them; they have the potential for social benefits as well as environmental ones; and although none of them are pure or perfect, they also have the potential for a little more intermediate impact** than recycling, which at this point is not really happening.
[IMAGE: Three pale-skinned people, with a range of body shapes, holding up some clothes to look at and standing in front of more piles of clothes. This photo is from a gender-affirming clothing swap held at Binghamton University a couple years ago.]
*If you do, in fact, work in an office.
**By intermediate impact I think I mean something between “keeping everything exactly the same/with no appreciable difference” and “building alternatives to capitalism that allow us to leave extractive practices behind,” but we can talk more about that if you want.
I’ll be at the Miantonomi Farmers’ Market on Hillside Avenue in Newport’s North End today, August 19th, 2-5pm. If you’re in that part of the world, please come and share your climate-change-related and other anxieties with me, and buy a tomato like this one.
[IMAGE: A small egg-shaped yellow-and-brown tomato, resting on a half-written notebook page in a three-ring binder.]
Today (Saturday, 8/17), for the first time ever, I will offer Climate Anxiety Counseling in the area where I grew up: in Millerton, NY, just over the state line from my hometown. The farmer’s market there runs 10am-1pm, and I will be there to listen to your climate change anxieties and other anxieties. My father, Joel Schapira, will also be there sharing art buttons, as he has for the past few years, and my mother, Diane Schapira, will be selling the pottery she makes. Come and see us.
I’ll be at the Sankofa World Market TODAY, August 14th, 2-5pm, to listen to your climate-change-related and other anxieties. Elizabeth Malloy from Living On Earth will be there as well, and can record our conversation for a radio story if that’s something you’d like. You can also, as always, talk with me without being recorded and even without me taking any notes.
I’ll be leaving early today to go to this demonstration for migrant and refugee rights, which starts at 6:30pm and is meeting in Jenks Park in Central Falls (details are at that link). Maybe you can go too!
climateanxietycounseling 