The Associated Press has an incredible multimedia feature on the brown pelican, Louisiana’s state bird and a symbol of resilience that community members actually take to heart as opposed to the pithy praise from outsiders that we once again survived being on the front lines of climate change. Both the brown pelican and residents who call the Gulf South home are suffering as sea levels rise, our coastline disappears, and little gets done to protect both humans and nature. AP’s recent journey to barrier islands that fostered the great comeback of the brown pelican—which was threatened decades ago by the rampant use of damaging pesticides—finds that not many barrier islands remain at all.
It’s chilling to think that even my limited experience of those islands, spent some dozen years ago volunteering as part of a group monitoring oil sheen and tar balls in the wake of the 2010 BP oil spill, marked the last time I’d see many of these islands because they’ve completely vanished if not eroded beyond recognition. Those islands and the Louisiana coastline—where whole football fields of land disappear each day—are crucial barriers that weaken hurricanes and provide homes for a variety of birds. The region’s diversity of species is a point of pride and highlights a symbiotic relationship between the birds and the land they call home.
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By simply existing on barrier islands, birds provide a boost of fertilizer to plants whose roots further weaken storms that come through the region. A study of barrier islands by the U.S. Geological Survey finds a host of factors to blame for why they may completely vanish by the end of the century—and much of the blame rests on humans, from the ways we’ve hastened climate change with fossil fuels to how we’ve quite literally changed the flow of the mighty Mississippi River. While efforts to restore barrier islands have been ongoing, those projects are largely funded by environmental disaster. In fact, it’s the settlement BP paid in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that keeps restoration efforts going.
I’m not content to have the bad actions of Big Oil pay for restoration if it means suffering the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And it’s not good enough to have badly needed repairs finally underway in places like Grand Isle only because the $122 million allocated to the Army Corps of Engineers suddenly appeared as experts, community members, and anyone concerned with coastal communities watched Grand Isle’s berms, jetties, and levees get battered by storms but rarely brought back to being able to protect the narrow barrier island itself. If the U.S. is serious about not just reaching net-zero goals but ensuring vulnerable communities are able to thrive instead of drown by our own negligence, something must be done—and immediately.
Climate change has been a national emergency for decades. It’s time President Biden call the climate crisis what it is and use his power as president to declare a national emergency.
It’s chilling to think that even my limited experience of those islands, spent some dozen years ago volunteering as part of a group monitoring oil sheen and tar balls in the wake of the 2010 BP oil spill, marked the last time I’d see many of these islands because they’ve completely vanished if not eroded beyond recognition. Those islands and the Louisiana coastline—where whole football fields of land disappear each day—are crucial barriers that weaken hurricanes and provide homes for a variety of birds. The region’s diversity of species is a point of pride and highlights a symbiotic relationship between the birds and the land they call home.
Campaign Action
By simply existing on barrier islands, birds provide a boost of fertilizer to plants whose roots further weaken storms that come through the region. A study of barrier islands by the U.S. Geological Survey finds a host of factors to blame for why they may completely vanish by the end of the century—and much of the blame rests on humans, from the ways we’ve hastened climate change with fossil fuels to how we’ve quite literally changed the flow of the mighty Mississippi River. While efforts to restore barrier islands have been ongoing, those projects are largely funded by environmental disaster. In fact, it’s the settlement BP paid in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that keeps restoration efforts going.
I’m not content to have the bad actions of Big Oil pay for restoration if it means suffering the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And it’s not good enough to have badly needed repairs finally underway in places like Grand Isle only because the $122 million allocated to the Army Corps of Engineers suddenly appeared as experts, community members, and anyone concerned with coastal communities watched Grand Isle’s berms, jetties, and levees get battered by storms but rarely brought back to being able to protect the narrow barrier island itself. If the U.S. is serious about not just reaching net-zero goals but ensuring vulnerable communities are able to thrive instead of drown by our own negligence, something must be done—and immediately.
Climate change has been a national emergency for decades. It’s time President Biden call the climate crisis what it is and use his power as president to declare a national emergency.