Writing by Michael Chase, Drawings by Jenny Hershey
We met Louis, an electrical contractor from Miami, at the NextEra Energy Resources solar farm just south of Bainbridge, Georgia. Louis works for Moss Construction, and he travels all over the south installing and solar facilities. Louis approached us cautiously at a chain-link fence. He thought we stopped to complain because so many other locals have. The installation generates 350 MW per day (enough to power an average of 136,000 homes).“People just don’t like change,” he said to us, “Even when we hire local people to work alongside us, they just don’t like change.” But we were delighted to see such an enormous solar farm. We learned later the biggest fear overwhelming Bainbridge is the proposed construction of a facility to breed 30,000 research monkeys for lab research. “STOP THE MONKEYS” signs were everywhere. Locals are worried that fecal and urine waste from the monkeys will negatively impact the local water supply. Drawing by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on instagram @deeofo.
“When it comes down to it, doomsday attitudes are often no better than denial.”
Hannah Ritchie, from Not the End of the World; How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet
“Put simply, there are many reasons to fear … fear.”
Christopher Bader, from Fear Itself; the Causes and Consequences of Fear in America
Our train was delayed leaving the Birmingham station for over an hour because of a derailed oil tanker car on the Amtrak line. Trains can be relaxing so the delay wasn’t too bothersome to me or Jenny until we realized we were likely to arrive in Meridian, Mississippi, at just around sundown. We didn’t like that at all; it would force us to bike in the dark through a busy industrial section of town, and cross several bridges to get to a supermarket before descending a curvy, pothole-filled highway passing under Interstate 20 to get to our motel.
This is our route as we bicycled from Meridian to Savannah. Drawing by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on instagram @deeofo.
As the train pulled in, we could see Bunky, the stationmaster at Meridian, waiting. Jenny and I said our goodbyes to the train steward Darian, jumped off the train and unloaded our gear on the platform. I walked toward the luggage car to retrieve our bicycles while Jenny caught up with Bunky. We had met Bunky on a previous trip to Meridian, and you can find a drawing and a bit about him in a previous post here. Just as before, he was warm and helpful. In no time we were conversing like old friends while we loaded our gear onto our bikes. Clearly, Bunky enjoys folks who ride bikes in unexpected places, just as we respect his loyalty to Meridian, and loved his wonderful stories.
As cold as it was during the first week of our trip, we layered up with almost all our clothing, and pushed on. We saw this lonely crane at Alabama Point near Perdido Bay east of Mobile on a secluded beach. Photo by Michael Chase. Follow him on Instagram @mjohnsonchase.
We said goodbye to Bunky just as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. There was a cold breeze as we biked past dimly lit and abandoned factories, parking lots, rode over several railroad bridges and a took a steep downhill run almost to the freeway where the Cost Saver is, nestled well off the road behind a large empty parking lot. We got off our bikes, and I stayed behind to watch over them. On the way in, Jenny was told to leave her backpack behind. I looked up, and saw a pudgy and disheveled young man with a gun in a holster on his hip. Jenny said, “Ok”, while I blurted out, “Who are you?” He answered, “Security. Too many people shoplift here.” Another young man was standing nearby, and he lifted up a clear plastic see-through backpack and said, “I work here, but it’s ok for me to go inside with this because they can see what’s inside.”
We met Darian, a steward on the Amtrak Crescent that travels between New York City and New Orleans. At each stop we observed him helping older folks off the train by offering his shoulder, and also gently lifting small children onto the train. Darian loves his job, and he’s also passionate about being a real estate agent and part-time actor in New Orleans. Both Jenny and I agreed he would make a great spokesperson for Amtrak. Drawing by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on Instagram @deeofo.
Jenny handed me her backpack and entered the store. “Do you know it’s gonna get real cold in a few days?” asked the man with the backpack. “Yes,” I responded. “Are you ready for it?” He didn’t answer, but the security officer patted his gun and said, “Yea, I got this.” … I was puzzling that out just as Jenny returned. We already knew a very large and intense polar vortex was coming (we had read about it on the train), but neither of us knew how it was going to affect our bike trip. We packed up our groceries and left the store, and finally managed to check into the motel, feeling relieved to be there and excited to be starting a new adventure. Yet, we were not at all certain how we were going to manage the extremely cold and wintry weather heading our way.
We met Louis outside Ellisville, Mississippi, as we were adjusting our gear at an abandoned gas station. Louis was driving by, and made a sudden u-turn, pulled into the station and jumped out of his truck. We didn’t have time to react before he asked in a booming voice, “You got a weapon?” “A weapon?” Jenny replied, “We’re from New York City. We don’t carry weapons. Do we need them here?” Louis shrugged, and walked back to his pickup, bringing back a box cutter. He handed it to me, and I almost took it, but then I said, “I have a knife in my gear (I did, although it would take me about 10 minutes to find it), so I don’t need that. But thanks!” We fell into chatting, learning that Louis had lived his whole life in Mississippi except for one week in Missouri and he came back because he was homesick. Jenny admired Louis’s beard. He told us he grew it for his sister-in-law who makes wigs for kids with cancer. He cuts it for her every three years. “My beard is coarse so it makes great wigs for black kids. Here, feel it.” Jenny did. Then he touched his head, “My hair up top is softer. It’s for the white kids.” As we finished talking, Louis reached out and hugged Jenny, and waved me over to share a group hug (to our complete surprise) before he jumped back in his truck and drove away. Drawing by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on Instagram @deeofo
According to a recent article in Scientific American, the cold snap that hit the US was one of the most impressive Arctic outbreaks of this century, bringing deadly cold to 231 million people. It was caused by a polar vortex, a high-altitude swirl of counter-clockwise flowing winds that usually keeps cold air trapped in the Arctic. As the atmosphere heats up, the polar winds become disrupted and they slow down, causing their oscillations to increase. Think of how a spinning top becomes wobblier as it loses speed. The polar jet stream becomes wobblier and the polar vortex is increasingly likely to dip southward. The vortex this past January was highly unusual in both depth and width, covering almost all of the United States in one fell swoop. Don't forget that 2023 was the hottest year on record, and the Arctic is warming up four times faster than the rest of the planet. Because we are in an El Niño cycle, next year could be even hotter which, counterintuitively, may make polar vortexes even more extreme.
The January, 2024, vortex was deeper and wider than this image indicates. Image courtesy of weather.gov and NOAA.
As a result, Jenny and I are more vigilant about checking weather patterns and planning for unusual events on our cycling trips. Interestingly, weather challenges only add to the fascination of our trips. Sometimes extreme weather becomes the climate story itself, eclipsing what we learn about liquified natural gas export terminals, sacrifice zones, local pollution issues and poor development. And, just as often, the weather is tolerable; we woke up to about 25 degrees and 10-15 mph winds out of the south. Not bad, given that our NOAA weather service app was predicting 13 degrees for the next night in Meridian. We headed south toward Laurel, taking it one day at a time. We had hoped to go to Hattiesburg next, where we had spent a lovely afternoon a year ago on a different trip, but instead decided to go directly south in search of warmer temperatures. So we headed toward Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast. We survived the worst part of the arctic blast, although we were forced to stay inside our motel for an extra day. We did venture out on foot to visit the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (definitely worth a visit!) and eat sensational crab cakes at a nearly empty local restaurant. It remained in the 20’s and 30’s with intense winds out of the east for the rest of the week, and we soldiered into the wind, staying as close to the coast as possible.
According to ProPublica investigative research, these gorgeous Pelicans are in a “sacrifice zone” neighborhood near Pascagoula, Mississippi, that is at risk of cancer 3.4 times more than what EPA says is acceptable. Photo by Michael Chase. Follow him on Instagram @ mjohnsonchase.
For anyone paying attention it’s hard to miss that last year the world broke yet another record for the sheer volume of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. Consequently, we are witnessing a disturbing acceleration in the number, speed and scale of broken climate records. 86 days were recorded in 2023 with temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. In fact, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data on billion dollar weather disasters indicates significant increases in both the frequency and the cost of such disasters during the period from 2003 to 2022, compared to 1983 to 2002. More alarming, this trend appears likely to continue: by the end of 2023 there had been 28 weather and climate disasters just in the United States that had resulted in over $1 billion in damages. The total cost of disasters in 2023 alone in the US was at least $92 billion dollars.
Given there is a lag between when emissions occur and when their effects are felt, it is already clear things will get worse before they will get better, no matter what we do now. After all, it takes time for the physics to work itself out, and that time is more likely measured in years than months. Scientists know this, and that is why there is already wide agreement we are going to permanently surpass the aspirational limit of 1.5 C degrees of warming that was set at the Paris Accords.
We met Christman at a boat launch in Bayou Cumbest outside Pascagoula, Alabama, near where I took the Pelican photo above. Christman explained how to spell his name like he’d said it hundreds of times - “It’s Christmas with an N, and it’s a family name.”Christman works as a mate on a tugboat in the river, and was fully dressed in camouflage as he set out on his skiff as the day was ending. Having just finished his shift, he was hoping to kill a deer or a boar with his bow and arrow, although he said he preferred venison over boar meat. Christman was headed for the closest barrier island, where he would have to bushwhack half a mile through the marshes to find prey. He needed the food because his refrigerator was empty. We had no idea if Christman knows about the elevated cancer rates in this “sacrifice zone neighborhood.” As outsiders we didn’t think it was our place to ask. Drawing by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on Instagram @deeofo.
COP participating nations remain committed to the goal of zero emissions by the year 2050. There is increasing evidence we can achieve it, even if we are turning toward change as a large battleship might… slowly and steadily, in spite of obstacles everywhere. While we have still failed to see a drop in global emissions, all indications are that we will in a few years. Recent rapid deployment of renewable energy has breathed hope into global efforts to reduce emissions, and the best informed writers and climate scientists around us are telling us not to let our fears give way to despair. There are many signs of positive change. Interestingly, many of the changes in the US are driven by red states because of the positive economics of renewables in the heartland. An excellent analysis of the extraordinary growth in US wind and solar can be read here.
Jenny frolicks at the Gulf Island National Seashore near Navarre, Florida. This is a delightful ten mile stretch of unspoiled parkland on a barrier island. Photo by Michael Chase. Follow him on Instagram @ mjohnsonchase.
In 2010, global installations of solar and wind combined made up only 1.7% of global electricity generation. By last year, global installations had climbed to 8.7%, which is far higher than what had been predicted. In 2012 the International Energy Agency expected that global solar energy generation would reach 550 TWh by 2030, but that number was reached by 2018, making the growth of renewables more exponential than linear.
At home, the US installed 37.3 GW of wind and solar power in 2022 (a record high), generating 383 TWh of wind power generation, up from 275 TWh in 2018. In the same time span, solar power generation rose from 96 TWh to 212 TWh. These are unprecedented rates of growth and have contributed considerable economic benefits to communities across America. Renewable energy developers pay property taxes, which boosts public funds. Most of the states that have been bullish on renewables also have low electricity prices well below the US average.
Solar panels on display in an aerial photograph of the 700,000 panel solar energy installation near Bainbridge, Georgia, where we met Louis from Jenny's first drawing. NextEra leased the 1,400 linear miles needed (measured by putting the panels side by side). According to WTXL TV in Tallahassee this project, “creates opportunities for the landowners and the farmers to increase their operations while they’re able to rely on the revenue from a plant like this,” said NextEra Energy Resources VP of Development Stuart McCurdy. And farmers and landowners aren’t the only ones benefiting. This project created 350 jobs during the construction period and over the next 30 years it’s expected to generate nearly $14 million dollars in tax revenue for Decatur County. Image above from onXBackcountry.
This photo is a landscape view of the installation above from an easement on a county road. Photo by Michael Chase. Follow him on Instagram @ mjohnsonchase.
In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, David Wallace-Wells writes about an unusually successful effort to defend renewables by explaining an effort in Texas by state Republican officials to shut down the wind and solar sectors, which was was soundly “defeated by Republican businessmen who realized that would “raise electricity bills, harm economic development and imperil the state’s grid, which has been saved from blackouts several times in recent years by new renewable capacity.”
It’s also important to mention the bold step taken by the Biden administration to request environmental reviews of 17 new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals, especially the enormous LNG terminal CP2 near Cameron, Louisiana. Even though the Biden administration has already approved more LNG export facilities than the Trump administration did, there is little division over the decision to delay these terminals in the White House. Halting them is not seen as a major energy security issue, since the United States is already producing and exporting so much gas. Capacity is already set to nearly double over the next four years, making the need for these additional terminals less urgent.
Analysts have said that pausing permit approvals will have little immediate impact on the flow of American LNG exports to European allies, nor will it impede the eight LNG export projects currently operating or halt ten LGN export terminals already approved and under construction. The United States now ranks as the world’s biggest LNG exporter after doubling its exports over the past four years. The projects already approved and under construction are expected to double the current volume of American LNG exports by 2028. For those reasons, and in spite of the spin at Fox News, there will be little, if any, geopolitical downside. Now, a critical calculation can be assessed on whether methane emissions will push the world too far toward a highly dangerous climate scenario. This evaluation reflects the advice of many climate scientists, and has relieved millions of Americans who are worried about the consequences of a rapidly changing climate.
I celebrate at a state line marker between Alabama and Florida on the coast. I have three shirts, one of them wool, plus two Gore-tex jackets and a down vest on. My legs and head are similarly layered. Thankfully, the sun was shining. Photo by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on Instagram @deeofo.
I particularly treasure a newsletter on Substack called “Sustainability by Numbers” by a 35 year-old Scottish climate scientist named Hannah Ritchie, author of a fascinating book called “Not the End of the World”. Ms Ritchie works at a European organization called Our World in Data. Here are some of their core beliefs:
“It is possible to change the world. To work towards a better future, we need to understand how and why the world is changing. In important ways global living conditions have improved…. While we believe this is one of the most important facts to know about the world we live in, it is known by surprisingly few. Instead, many believe that global living conditions are stagnating or getting worse and much of the news media’s reporting is doing little to challenge this perception. It is wrong to believe that one can understand the world by following the news alone and the media’s focus on single events and things that go wrong can mean that well-intentioned people who want to contribute to positive change become overwhelmed, hopeless, cynical and in the worst cases give up on their ideals.”
In Chipley, Florida, I went looking for drinking water while Jenny went to the local Walmart to buy food. While checking out, Jenny met Ella, who kindly helped Jenny use the Walmart app. On a hunch, Jenny asked Ella, “So? How’s that governor of yours working out for you?” “He’s not MY governor,” Ella quickly retorted. Now 24, Ella began her transition from a man to a woman at age 20. She acknowledged that Florida is a very difficult state for younger kids in need of hormone treatments. Even so, Jenny learned that Ella’s co-workers are quite supportive, and Ella has learned how to roll with the punches when customers react uncomfortably to her. She remains calm, “stays in her lane” and doesn’t react. Ella isn’t a marcher or an activist for transgender rights; it’s enough for her to do what she can to live a good life and enjoy herself - particularly her life with her girlfriend. Drawing by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on Instagram @ deeofo.
One afternoon, after we sought shelter sooner than we usually would because of very cold winds, I came across a body of work in sociology that complements Hannah Ritchie’s. While researching how apocalyptic thinking permeates viewpoints about the solvability of our climate crisis, I googled the sociologist Christopher Bader. I was delighted to discover the book: “Fear Itself; The Causes and Consequences of Fear in America” by Christopher D. Bader, Joseph O. Baker, L. Edward Day, and Ann Gordon.
Fear Itself, and its related project the Chapman University Annual Survey of American Fears, addresses the more pernicious aspects of fear on American life. We know that persistent fear can negatively affect our decision-making abilities and cause anxiety, depression, and poor physical health. But what we often miss is that fear also harms communities and society by corroding social trust and civic engagement. One needs only to look at our current divisive politics, and the ways that politicians effectively leverage fears to garner votes. It is quite clear that fears are driven by the kind and volume of news and social media we consume. Consider survey data about the impacts of daily viewing of highly partisan news on both conservative and progressive news outlets: “The more frequently our survey respondents reported watching Fox News, the greater their number of fears related to Obamacare, gun control, illegal immigrants, and other “horrors” frequently addressed by Fox. The effect is quite strong. Someone who reports watching Fox News every day is, on average, afraid of three times as many conservative political concerns compared to someone who never does. Across the political spectrum from Fox News sits MSNBC. Their viewers are hardly immune from fear; they just fear different things. Fear of Trumpcare, white supremacists, anti-immigrant groups, sovereign citizens, and extreme anti-tax groups steadily increases the more frequently someone watches MSNBC. Those who watch every day are fearful of almost twice as many of these concerns compared to those who never watch MSNBC.”
I don’t mean to suggest that being uninformed is better than being informed, but I am suggesting that we need better ways to assess reality, and are wrong to assume that watching highly partisan news is going to teach us what is truly happening in our world. As Ritchie suggests, we are better off paying less attention to what is new, and more attention to what is important. Or put another way: let’s pay less attention to problems, and more attention to solutions.
The graphic above features Conservative and Liberal Fears: Percentage Afraid by Political Orientation (2017). Notice how there are significant fears by respondents from both parties, although what is feared is distinctly different. Graphic from “Fear Itself; The Causes and Consequences of Fear in America.”
For example, if you study crime statistics it is quite clear that fear of crime in America is considerably out of proportion with the reality of crime. I regard this misperception as an example of Ritchie’s point that we need to focus on what's real through data, and not succumb to misguided fears.
The Chapman survey verifies increasing high fear levels of crime since 2016, even though - in reality - the national violent crime rate in the US decreased by 1.7% in 2022, consistent with the trend of a long-term decline in violent crime since 1993. Crime rates for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Georgia has been steadily decreasing in all categories except shootings. What’s more, crime has been steadily decreasing in New York City for years, making it the safest large city in America right now. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) reports that the major felony offenses of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny of motor vehicle, have declined by 28.6% from 2012 to 2022.
However, some types of crimes, such as shootings and hate crimes, have increased across the nation in recent years. The old phrase “coincidence doesn’t indicate causality” might apply here, but it is worth contemplating that gun ownership in the US increased by 28% from 1994 to 2023. It is estimated that there are now over 393 million civilian-owned firearms in America. That said, most gun deaths occur by people who know their victims. (Hopefully that fact will mollify some our more fearful liberal friends who worry that Jenny or I will be shot on our bikes if we cycle in states with “conceal and carry” laws.)
We were eating lunch near a boat launch in Walton County, Florida, when Chris pulled up in his truck, and stepped out. Jenny immediately said, “Hi, how are you doing today?” “Chris responded “I’m doing really well, thank you, Ma’am.” Jenny replied, “Where are you from? That’s an unusual accent you have.” Chris responded: “It’s not an accent. It’s a speech impediment”. And a long conversation followed. Chris is a 49 year-old sanitation employee for the county. He was 23 years old when he suffered a brain stem injury in an automobile accident. The accident put him in a coma for a week, and left him unable to walk and speak for three months. He told us,“Every night I’d cry myself to sleep, feeling sorry for myself. Finally I started praying for the Lord to save me.” Then he had a vision in which the Lord came to him, and lifted him up. And he started to heal, and Chris realized he had survived that accident for a reason, and it was to live a life in service to the Lord. Chris used to be embarrassed about his speech difficulties, but now proudly shares his miraculous story with others, “Praise the Lord!” As we were packing up, Chris asked Jenny, “Do you go to church?” Jenny replied, “I’m Jewish, and I sometimes go to temple. Hope that doesn’t bother you.” Chris kindly responded, “Doesn’t matter. God loves all people.” In closing, Chris told us he’s praying that, “DeSantis will become Trump’s VP so there can be 12 years of solid, God-loving leadership of our country.”
If you have read our last two blog posts, you know about our previous random encounters with conspiracy theorists. I was intrigued to learn from Bader that there is a direct correlation between the number of fears reported by Americans and the number of conspiracy theories they believe. In spite of climate activists being called “alarmists” by some, there aren’t conspiracies created by individuals who understand and accept climate science. However, there are nonsensical and exaggerated claims made by environmentalists from time to time. In contrast, there are numerous conspiracy theories about fake or distorted climate science, as well as researchers so corrupted they actively perpetuate the climate myth to access massive amounts of grant money (the latter conspiracy was shared by a family friend who voted for Trump). Of course, these conspiracies theories do what all conspiracy theories do; undermine public trust.
According to the Chapman survey, the “fear of corrupt government officials” has been the top concern for Americans for six consecutive years, from 2018 to 2023. This tells us much about the erosion of public trust. If we cannot trust our government, our scientists, our finest universities, or our most successful corporations (all participants of the public trust), how will we successfully tackle large and complex problems as a nation, much less as a world?
Fear itself is our greatest adversary. It keeps us from figuring out what’s real. And if we don't know what's real, we can’t know the world and we don’t have the power to truly change it. So, to return to Hannah Ritchie’s point, how do we really understand what is happening in the world? Are our worst fears based in real things, or are they out of proportion with reality? And is the news media we consume distorting our real knowledge of the world, or increasing it? Are we feeling apocalyptic because that’s always been part of the human experience, or because our news media and social media offers fear up to us as an endless banquet?
Stay vigilant! Thanks for reading. If you haven’t done so, please subscribe to this blog to follow our next biking trip.
Blog writing by Michael Chase. Drawings by Jenny Hershey. Unless credited or otherwise noted, all material is the copyrighted property of the blog post authors.
Temple Bethel was the only synagogue Jenny found on this tour until we got to Savannah. It was in Bainbridge, GA, and after an exodus of Jews, it was converted to an Airbnb. Photo by Jenny Hershey. Follow her on Instagram @deeofo.