Coming Full Circles
Local community journalism groups and allies have been unsung heroes during times of crisis.
Dear Reader,
Excuse the slowdown in our newsletter, because our Engagement Editor Aorui Pi is out of office!
In late March, I was invited to be a part of “Mapping Your Local Environment” a GIS and journalism workshop held in Southwest Atlanta. It was important for me to show support for three reasons:
West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, which hosted the workshop, offered me my first-ever science writing internship opportunity back in the COVID Summer of 2020;
Organizer Canopy Atlanta has been a pioneer in community journalism since The Xylom’s early days (I spent Election Night at their pizza party, bad idea!); and
The training was done by Rooted Futures Lab, co-founded by The Xylom contributor (and my one-time MIT colleague) Sanjana Paul!
I haven’t returned to WAWA’s Outdoor Activity Center (OAC) in five years. Since my internship concluded, the OAC has completed a renovation. The BeltLine was expanded so that I could safely bike to and from the MARTA station with a breeze. The OAC now even has a framed jersey of the late Hank Aaron (the OAC contained the former practice grounds of the Atlanta Black Crackers of the Negro Leagues; while #44 never played for the Black Crackers himself, the Braves legend was the last former Negro Leagues player to retire from the MLB.)
That said, southwest Atlanta still faces immense environmental health disparities, and gentrification are forcing legacy residents out. What Canopy and Rooted Future Labs did was to introduce citizen journalists some basic concepts about mapping that empower them to explore issues of environmental injustices. The organizers also demoed Felt, a cloud-based GIS platform.
You’ve seen me work on many maps for The Xylom in the past, but it’s always good to keep myself refreshed on new software, and understand how my peers are interacting with spatial data in their work. Most of all, it was refreshing to reconnect with people who care (and return to WAWA a research sensor from my college days that I somehow brought to Boston and back!)
In times like these, I’m grateful for colleagues and allies who put in the consistent work, rain and shine, to build community and seek environmental justice.
Yours sincerely,
Alex Ip
Publisher and Editor
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THINGS YOU SHOULD READ
✨ NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS
🍯 Congrats to Saugat Bolakhe, who is rejoining us as one of ten national Ferriss - UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellows! He will be reporting about the mystic and cult following surrounding mad honey, an unregulated psychedelic harvested from the Himalayan cliffs of Nepal and promoted by "podcast bros" such as Joe Rogan.
🔌 Congrats to Selina Liang, who has received an Earth Journalism Network Story Grant to Support Solutions-Focused Climate and Environmental Coverage in Asia Pacific! Based in Hong Kong, she will look into why the city is lagging behind its peers when it comes to community solar adoption.
🟠 Our Editor-at-Large KC Cheng was interviewed by Locally Sourced, a Covering Climate Now newsletter, about how she has covered climate migration for us and other news outlets. Check it out!
💰 Thank you to Civic Science Media Lab, Kevin Tyle, and Ken, our new sustainers!
📱 ICYMI: We’re piloting a WhatsApp channel, which would help reach users who stay off social media, and curb misinformation at the source (share it with your immigrant parents, aunties, or uncles!)
🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR
NORTH CAROLINA — After worst season in North Carolina history, corn farmers want ‘hope’ (Jane Winik Sartwell, Carolina Public Press)
“I think a whole lot of farmers will be applying for this funding if it passes,” Zach Parker, an extension agent in Sampson County, told Carolina Public Press. “I don’t think devastation is understatement in the slightest. As for this summer, the only certainty is uncertainty. But I don’t think the corn industry is going anywhere. We have animals to feed.”
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Charleston is surrounded by poopy water. A recent Supreme Court decision could make it worse. (Jonah Chester, Post and Courier)
As the ocean around Charleston rises, it's creating more pressure on sewage lines. That increased water pressure can cause something called "inflow and infiltration," where the system becomes overburdened by excess water, causing sanitary sewage overflows. That same effect can also be generated by heavy rainfall.
🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
Trump’s ‘climate’ purge deleted a new extreme weather risk tool. We recreated it (Oliver Milman and Andrew Witherspoon, The Guardian)
“We’ve seen whole pages taken down that relate to hazard reduction for wildfires, things that shouldn’t be politicized, just because they mention climate change,” said the current Fema worker. “It’s all very intense and chaotic.”
MARSAXLOKK, Malta – Big Fish: The luxury tuna industry is killing the Mediterranean (Julia Amberger, Nanni Fontana, Marzio Mian, & Nicola Scevola, The Dial via Internazionale)
“It's like raising lions for meat,” said Emanuela Fanelli, a biologist at Marche Polytechnic University and an expert in marine ecology. “The farming of bluefin tuna is one of the most sensational examples of social and economic injustice. But it’s easy to hide injustice and play all sorts of dirty tricks under water.”
DA NANG, Vietnam – Climate change and overfishing threaten Vietnam’s ancient tradition of making fish sauce (Aniruddha Ghosal, Associated Press)
“If we continue with this trend of deoxygenation, anchovies will not be OK with that. Every species has a limit.”
[…]“Fish sauce to me is not just a condiment for cooking. But it is our craft, our culture, our tradition that need to be preserved, safeguarded and inherited,”
Reddit Is Restricting Luigi Mangione Discourse—but It’s Even Weirder Than That. (Nitish Pawar, Slate)
Users have threatened to leave the platform en masse before, but they might actually do so now that the most basic and fundamental mechanism of the website (i.e., voting) could lead to them being punished. It’s almost as if Reddit wants to drive away the very people who made it the front page of the internet in the first place..
(SOME OF) THE XYLOM’S RECENT STORIES
🧑🏽⚕️The Fifth Vital Sign: Atlanta Doctors Are Talking Climate Change With Patients
The NIH will no longer be funding work on the health effects of climate change, first reported by ProPublica.
So, where can Americans get reliable information on climate change and public health? Look no further than the doctor's office, say Atlanta primary care providers.
🧑🏽🔬 Across America, Protesters Stand Up for Science, Oppose Trump and DOGE Cuts
Thousands of Americans attended Stand Up for Science protests on March 7th, to protest against Trump and Elon Musk's budget cuts and attacks on science. Our reporters Alex Ip, Noah Daly, and Jenny Morber were on the ground in Atlanta, New York, and Seattle. (Check out more of our visual coverage on Instagram!)