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A new prize recognises the power of storytelling to address the biggest issue of our timeNo novelist should ignore the climate emergency, Paul Murray, author of the bestselling novel The Bee Sting, told the Observer last year: “It is the unavoidable background for being alive in the 21st century.” In recognition of the vital role of literature in responding to the Anthropocene moment, this week the inaugural shortlist was announced for the Climate Fiction prize.The five novels include Orbital by Samantha Harvey, set during one day on the International Space Station and the winner of last year’s Booker prize; time-travelling romcom The Ministry of Time from debut novelist Kaliane Bradley; eco-thriller Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen; And So I Roar, about a young girl in Nigeria, by Abi Daré; and a story of migrants in an abandoned city in Téa Obreht’s The Morningside. All the shortlisted authors are women. Continue reading...

This Earth Day, settle into "A Fire So Wild," Sarah Ruiz-Grossman's debut novel about the societal impacts of climate change.

Past Presentation | This fictionalized historical thriller interwoven with Hindi cultural meaning is a tribute to the approximately 250,000 people who lost their lives in the world’s worst, man-made dam disaster in 1975 in China. The story of the collapse of the Banqiao dam was not revealed to the world for over 15 years. With a toll worse than that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this film tells that story with The message: The same thing could happen elsewhere in the near future. Dam999, a fact worth waiting for.

Researchers have discovered seven new species of tree frogs in Madagascar, named after Star Trek captains due to their unique, sci-fi-like whistling calls. Their unique calls help them communicate over the noise of their natural habitats, emphasizing the need for conservation efforts due to their sensitivity to environmental changes. If you believe all frogs croak, [...]

Now Playing | The experimental short film ANSAGE ENDE is an artistic reflection on being engaged with the world. Combining fiction and documentary, music and text, this hybrid film calls for a collective and activist approach to the climate crisis. The visually stunning ANSAGE ENDE opens with an imaginative journey through an empty landscape where water meets land. Two characters walk through the mud, away from the viewer, into an open yet unknown future. They fantasize about what our rapidly developing world might bring and question their personal participation in this possible future. Slowly the film moves away from the imaginary into the real. Climate destruction becomes ghastly visible: huge machines in a brown coal mine eat up the soil, searching for energy and profit. Policemen and women enable sawers to cut down the neighboring forest for the expansion of the mine. Young activists occupy the trees, trying to stop the destruction of this primeval forest.

Past Presentation | The film follows an old Cod stuck in a drying pool in the Darling River outback Australia.

Now Playing | Some teenagers kidnap a kid in the forest and take him to their boss in a cottage.

Past Presentation | A supposedly eco-friendly tour company is guiding tourists through a wooded area with the hopes of glimpsing an elusive, critically endangered animal.

Past Presentation | In the aftermath of climate catastrophe, a lonely former environmental activist invites three strange guests over for dinner.

Past Presentation | GSLV Mark3 is a two point of view narration told from a girl and also the ISRO team who wants to launch their GSLV mark 3 satellite into space. There is a beautiful connection between the girl and the rocket which is about to launch.

Past Presentation | On a windswept cliff Birgit (54) fights a battle against wind turbines and for her marriage against the policeman Trond who has come to remove her. With knitting, chocolate cake and a will of steel, she challenges her husband to an unexpected duel.

The vast majority of Academy Award-nominated movies do not acknowledge climate change or environmental issues, despite those issues being increasingly present in mainstream blockbusters, according to a new report from the consultancy Good Energy. The group on Thursday released its second annual Climate Reality Check, a two-pronged test that assesses whether climate change exists within...

Past Presentation | The Age of Stupid is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

Now Playing | When a corporate mining giant moves into a small coastal town looking for gold and talking about trickle down wealth some folks just aren't convinced.

Past Presentation | A sister fights all odds to take care of her younger brother, until things fall apart and she is left with no option but to sell her dignity to save him.

Now Playing | In the near future, the climate crisis reaches an irreversible point. A nun and a priest meet to talk about the disappearance of insects.

Past Presentation | A dramatic thriller set in the complex world of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The story is anchored by a working ­class single Mother who goes on a journey to uncover the cause of her son's mysterious illness. Interwoven are the stories of an Organic farmer in danger of losing his farm, the CEO of a biotechnology corporation trying to save the world, two Scientists on the verge of a major discovery, and an ex­Cop caught in the middle of it all.

Past Presentation | Set over one summer in the shadows of Disney World. Precocious 6-year-old Moonee courts mischief and adventure with her ragtag playmates and bonds with her rebellious but caring mother. A striking picture of modern American poverty, but Mary Kaye Schilling (Newsweek) notes it pulses with “joy, life, and natural beauty.”

Now Playing | An old couple are living in an apartment, the man is sleeping and the woman is doing housework. The lady wants to change the fishbowl’s water but it slips out of her hand and falls on the ground. They've ran out of water and there’s no water for the fish. But with the help of the man they find water.

Now Playing | Jeanne's last cutting tree site has been destroyed by environmental activists. While she tries to save some equipment, she ends up stuck on the first branch of a 30 meters high, centuries-old tree. Her only hope: to climb higher to find some network and call for help.‍

Now Playing | After his father's death, Yusuf goes back to his village, which he has not been to for years, and learns that a geothermal company wants to buy his father's agricultural lands and drill a well. He wants to solve problems without disrespecting his father's memory, but things don't go as he hoped.

Through a blend of science and storytelling, new research delves into the future of water management amidst changing environmental dynamics. Human activity is changing the...

Now Playing | Water is a precious resource which humanity should use responsibly. Our relationship with Nature should always be guided by reciprocity. Nature protects us all and we in turn should protect natural resources and be sympathetic to the needs of fellow human beings.

Past Presentation | Kalpataru: (A wish-fulfilling, divine tree in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.) The story highlights the importance of environment conservation. An ordinary laborer loses his young adult son. Doctors attribute his son's untimely death to medical conditions exacerbated by pollution. The man connects the importance of good health to clean, pure air and takes it upon himself to plant trees in hopes of saving others from the same fate his son suffered. Witness a determined man's decades-long journey, fraught with obstacles, drama, and hope for a better future.

Now Playing | Alfred is the imaginary friend of 9-year-old Daniel. They have come to Iran from England to visit. Daniel’s Iranian grandparents. Dani forgets his imaginary friend. Alfred suddenly finds himself visible to everyone. He accidentally sees a fat girl who is an imaginary friend too. Since she also has this problem. They decide to go to an office where they have seen an advertisement. The Office helps imaginary friends who have lost their abilities and are now visible to everyone.

Past Presentation | Zack is more interested in the small world of his smart phone than the larger world around him. His online request for a roommate is answered by Molly, a tech-savvy dumbo octopus on a mission to tell the world about the importance of the deep ocean. Molly wants to use Zack’s apartment for her global communications headquarters, but Zack is skeptical. To win Zack over, Molly takes him to her deep ocean home in the Gulf of Mexico to see its unique features and diverse marine life, and to help him understand how human activities threaten its health.

Past Presentation | A charismatic radio DJ in Hiroshima, is so disillusioned he wants to quit his job. The years have drained all the passion he had for speaking into a microphone and it's all he can do to turn up for work every day without being drunk. One day, the radio DJ saves a young girl who is about to fall off a bridge. This girl pleads with him not to leave radio because the radio helps connect people. But he doesn't believe her. But then a series of strange events that revolve around even stranger characters occur, and he is forced to a realization. The radio DJ start opening to the invisible connection between the radio and the people of Hiroshima in a magical way.

Now Playing | The main character, Young-eun, lives with her mother, a haenyo diver, in a fishing village on Jeju Island. She learns eco-friendly photography from her friend Seung-hwan, who is a beachcomber. One day, her mother gets caught in a discarded net submerged in the sea and drowns. Young-eun moves away from Jeju and returns two years later for her mother’s death anniversary. She decides to begin taking pictures of sea debris on beaches, and Seung-hwan leaves the island to find a giant floating trash island in the Pacific Ocean on a boat made of recycled materials.

Now Playing | Two friends live in the Qubaibah village Northwest of Al-Quds (Jerusalem).Those young men are forced to leave their daily life concerns after the water was cut off from their area two weeks ago by the Israeli occupation closing the feeding line.Those two characters go on a dangerous journey to an area close to their village to try to reach the water spring captured by the Israeli military occupation as they took over the land, sky, and air in Palestine. On their journey, some things happen that change the course of events with an unexpected end.

Three decades of tornado science research is now at play in the new summer flick Twisters

In her newest book, activist and scholar adrienne maree brown offers a practical guide to empathy.

Green Acre Park is an important stop along the creek’s journey and another example of how a community exists side by side with the natural resources that sustain it. For the residents that live near the park, and for the city of Gainesville as a whole, the protection and preservation of Hogtown Creek is vital to ensuring that future generations will have clean drinking water for years to come.

The streams near the trail pass through wetlands, which play a vital role in filtering out pollution from the water. Despite the sanitary start, the creek collects pollutants as it leaves the wetlands and flows further into the city. Runoff carrying chemicals, animal waste, and even trash seep into the creek as it travels, and these pollutants eventually end up in the aquifer, which Gainesville relies on for its drinking water.

High-stakes geoengineering science requires transparency and accountability to the public.

...more pollutants seep into the water as it travels further into the city, and Loblolly Park is a perfect example. Oil from cars, discarded trash, and animal waste from the roads, businesses, and apartments surrounding the park are swept up in the surface runoff. The runoff flows into the creek and contaminates the water.

These aren’t books that will get filed under “climate change” or “wildlife,” but they all offer a glimpse into our changing world. The post Revelator Reads: 15 Random Books That Every Environmentalist Should Read appeared first on The Revelator.

Many offbeat research efforts were doomed to fail, from atomic subways to a city under the ice.

Steve Reed’s letter to campaign groups ahead of demonstration met with anger from those who say he has ignored the key issue of privatisation The environment secretary has caused a backlash among groups demanding an end to the pollution of rivers by water companies, after a direct appeal ahead of a demonstration backfired. The intervention by Steve Reed, who wrote to activists saying they could trust him with forging change within the water industry, was met with anger by campaigners who said he was avoiding the key issue – that water privatisation has failed.In his letter to members from the 130 groups taking part in the March for Clean Water on Sunday, who include Surfers Against Sewage, the GMB union, the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB, Reed said he shared their anger about record levels of sewage pollution. He wished them a well-attended march and said he looked forward to working with them towards a shared ambition of cleaning up rivers, lakes and seas for good. Continue reading...

Chicken takeovers, the missing histories of silk, a dazzling memoir of gravity, and more books out now

All of the wild Brazilian sharpnose sharks tested in a new study had the drug in their bodies, but many questions remain about cocaine's effects on aquatic creatures—and the humans who eat them

The John D

Monitoring methods based on environmental DNA are faster, more comprehensive and cheaper than traditional ecological surveys. They help fill gaps in New Zealand’s data on river health.

A calving iceberg exposed a region that never before had been seen by human eyes, revealing a vibrant, thriving ecosystem

To raise awareness for a charity event, aspiring engineers planted six UFOs across southern England on a single day in 1967

At MIT and internationally, senior Cindy Xie works to bring people together for the health of humanity and the planet.

Overall, coastal habitat restoration greatly increases animal numbers and diversity. But not all projects deliver the goods and we need to find out why.

The blazes burning across the Los Angeles region are not only devastating property and lives, but also fueling political argument over how to fight the fires, with President-elect Trump blaming state officials for a dearth of available water supplies. A social media brawl began on Wednesday after Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADPW)...

Faculty members granted tenure in anthropology; comparative media studies/writing; philosophy; political science; and science, technology, and society.

Remember the climate protesters who threw soup at a Van Gogh? When activists use art as a canvas, does everyone understand the message they hope to send?

Now Playing | The spirit of a movement that sometimes reminds us of our young revolutionary self, who still believed that he:she could change the world. This green filmed documentary mirrors the global situation and the diversity of climate change related activism.6 continents, 3 dozen filmmakers, countless activists and seasoned scientists. It is not about just one person but about many who stand up. TripleF*** is a documentary on the global climate movement, containing material from six continents (North - and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Antarctica), filmed green by cooperating film teams on site. The topic of climate activism itself as a protagonist takes us on a global journey to activists' lives and forms a dialogue within. Why did so many young people became activists? What is life as an activist like, how do they deal with political stagnation, harsh criticism and even threats and why do they still continue? Very personal but not private - to protect the activists' privacy, sensitive topics are woven in as a fictional part. This is the first of 5 Episodes. In this episode, which also stands for itself as a midlength film, the history of climate change related activism is highlighted. In its core spirit of a holistic approach, the project is been realized similarly to its topic of the climate activists' movement: independent, global, green.

These new comics collections use satire, poetry, and science to shine a light on human failures — and who and what we need to save. The post Comics for Earth: Eight New Graphic Novels About Saving the Planet and Celebrating Wildlife appeared first on The Revelator.

She and her narrators have always relied on swagger—but not this time.

Neel Mukherjee’s new novel explores the reality that no decision—particularly as a parent—is perfect.

If TV can change Americans’ views on gay marriage, why not the environment?

Animal-welfare science tries to get inside the minds of a huge range of species — in order to help improve their lives.

Sanora Babb spent her life dealing with all the multifarious daily perils that prevent writers from writing. She was raised in poverty by a mother who was only 16 when she gave birth to her and an abusive father who spent his days playing semi-pro baseball and gambling. From the age she could walk, she was running errands for her parents’ bakery and, later, helping them raise crops until drought put their mortgaged farm out of business. She rarely had time for school (or even enjoyed easy access to one) and learned to read from pages of The Denver Post that were pasted to the crude walls of their dugout home in East Colorado. (Her father described the place as looking “like a grave.”)Babb’s observations of rural poverty, particularly during the Depression and the Dust Bowl, would filter through the imaginations of millions of Americans in years to come—though indirectly and often without credit. Babb knew intimately of what she wrote. Even when her parents started making better money, and she worked hard enough to earn a rare scholarship to the University of Kansas, her first teaching job depressed her so deeply that she couldn’t keep it for long. She was often required to do janitorial work as well as run classes, and couldn’t bear to see children come to school as poorly clothed and fed as she had been at their age. By the time she moved to Los Angeles and found work as a radio and print journalist and screenwriter in the late 1920s, the Depression hit and she spent several months sleeping rough in Lafayette Park with other out-of-work writers.The first few decades of her life were an endless round of desperate exigencies. When she finally started making a decent living, her passion for political causes took up even more of her time. She joined the John Reed Club, traveled throughout Europe and postrevolutionary Russia, and attended one of the first League of American Writers Congresses in New York City in the mid-1930s, driving there cross-country with Tillie Olsen and driving back again with Nelson Algren. In her twenties, she became the primary carer for her younger sister, who suffered from mental illness; and in later years, from 1971 to ’76, she cared for her husband, the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, after he suffered a major stroke. Whatever the decade, and whatever the year, it was rare for Babb to scrape up more than a few hours here and there to focus on the great stories, novels, and poems she had in her.And yet she managed to wrestle several hard-won achievements into the world: She wrote probably the greatest novel ever written about the Dust Bowl, Whose Names Are Unknown, only published many decades after she sold the first chapters and outline in 1938; she excelled in several different literary forms—from journalism (she co-edited a radical newspaper with Claud Cockburn in London in the 1930s) and field notes from California migrant camps to memoir, lyric poetry, short stories, and even screenwriting; and despite her tendency to be more openly supportive of other writers than they ever seemed to be of her, her life was so rich with good work that almost all of it eventually achieved publication. The most profound obstacle Babb faced in her strenuous life was a case of bad writerly luck of now-legendary proportions. Although she took the cautious upward route of many self-taught young writers, she never caught the decisive break she needed.The most profound obstacle Babb faced in her strenuous life was a case of bad writerly luck of now-legendary proportions.Just when her carefully composed early short stories and essays began attracting the attention of New York editors, she signed a contract for a novel about the Dust Bowl, based on her youthful experience in Red Rock, Oklahoma; and in order to further research the westward migration of her fellow Oklahomans, she took a volunteer job with the Farm Security Administration in Southern California, helping to move refugees into state-funded, self-governing resettlement camps. Initially, Babb only intended to gather information; but as in everything she did, she soon developed a passionate concern for the people she met and the stories she heard, hurling herself into the project with the fierce intensity of a woman who always seemed to be working twice as hard as everyone around her.Her supervisor, Tom Collins, summed up her achievement in a letter he wrote to Babb at the conclusion of her work:1. You visited tents, shacks, cabins and hovels. 472 families or 2175 men, women, and children.2. You interviewed and signed up 309 families or 1465 men, women and children.3. Total families you met and know 781.4. Total individuals you met and know 3640.5. You, therefore, spread happiness and hope to all these—and we thank you with all our hearts.Her work for the FSA yielded hundreds of pages of notes and photographs, many of which were posthumously gathered in On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps (2007). These laboriously accumulated pages would testify to two overriding aspects of Babb’s character: that she wasn’t afraid of work and that she possessed an almost bottomless compassion for everybody she met who led a tougher life than she had.           When a friend of her supervisor arrived at the camps to research his own novel, Collins convinced Babb to turn over a copy of her extensive field notes. The writer’s name was John Steinbeck; he had plenty of talent and compassion of his own; and he knew how to make quick use of good material when he saw it. Much of Babb’s work went straight into Steinbeck’s next draft—especially the portions set in a California refugee camp. And after The Grapes of Wrath became a bestseller, Babb turned in the final draft of her own Dust Bowl novel to Bennet Cerf, only to be told that the bookstores weren’t big enough for two novels on the subject. And so Babb’s novel, titled Whose Names Are Unknown, lay unpublished—despite continuous revisions and submissions to alternate publishers—for nearly half a century.Which is not to say that Steinbeck didn’t acknowledge how much he was aided by Babb’s field notes. In fact, he dedicated Grapes to the individual who he felt had most helped him secure those valuable pages: Sanora Babb’s supervisor, Tom Collins.Even if Names had been allowed to compete with Grapes of Wrath in the literary marketplace, it would almost certainly have failed to outsell or outshine it. Babb’s work was largely antithetical to that of Steinbeck, and its “message” was a lot more complicated. While Steinbeck focused on the road trip carrying the Joads away from their already collapsed farmland, the entire first half of Babb’s novel describes several years of the travails of the Dunne family, who struggle to grow broomcorn and wheat while their land grows increasingly parched, dust-storm-ridden and uninhabitable. In the second half of Babb’s novel, the Dunnes don’t simply submit to the California farm growers, or lose their temper, like Tom Joad, and flee, but bear down and become increasingly involved with labor organizers and strike actions.Steinbeck dedicated The Grapes of Wrath to the individual who he felt had most helped him: Sanora Babb’s supervisor.Steinbeck’s prose infused the landscape with almost heavenly ambience, seeming to argue that the world was bountiful enough for everybody, if wealthy landowners could be forced to stop hoarding its riches. Babb’s prose, however, doesn’t exude the same effulgence; and while Steinbeck’s characters never really surpass their essential nature (whether they’re the drunken, well-meaning paisanos of Tortilla Flat or the always-striving Joad family who can never outstrive an exhausting world), Babb expects more from her principal characters than to die, lose hope, relapse into natural weaknesses, or wither away. Her characters are never beaten down so hard they don’t find a way to climb up out of their failures and give life another chance.The conclusions of Grapes of Wrath and Names couldn’t make this distinction more clear. Steinbeck’s Joads are ultimately beaten down to little more than their barely pulsing biologies—huddling together for warmth while the bereaved mother, Rose of Sharon, breastfeeds a starving man. Babb’s characters struggle to their last narrative breath to envision a future that will have them. In the concluding paragraph of Names, confronted by corporate forces that own “guns and clubs and tear gas and vomit gas and them vigilantes paid to fire the guns,” Babb’s Julia Dunne sees one thing “as clear and perfect as a drop of rain. They would rise and fall and, in their falling, rise again.”It’s hard to recall a writer who writes more vividly and affectionately about American landscape than Babb; her characters journey across its vastness with an almost invulnerable affection for what surrounds them, whatever cataclysms erupt. Early in the novel, when Julia and her daughters are pushed out of a neighbor’s home into an oncoming dust storm, the true violence isn’t that of nature but of the neighbors, who have ejected them from their home so they can take care of themselves. And nature is always beautiful, even when it’s at its most threatening:They were almost a mile way, walking in the hollow, when the rain began in large slow drops, and the far horizon quivered with sheet lightning. Fork lightning snapped suddenly, splitting the moving clouds, flashing close to the wires. The whole flat world under an angry churning sky was miraculously lighted for a moment. A strange liquid clarity extended to the ends of the earth. Julia saw the trees along the creek and animals grazing far away. The bleak farmyards with their stern buildings, scattered sparsely on the plains, stood out in naked lonely desolation. A sly delicate wind was rising. Their dresses moved ever so little. Thunder clapped and boomed. They were afraid of the electricity that speared into the ground with a terrifying crash after. Julia stopped for a moment to get her breath and look at the approaching storm. Then she took Lonnie from the bumping cart and pulled her along by the hand, while Myra pulled the cart and clung to the pail of milk. They moved off the road away from the wires, going through the open hollow.There is no Steinbeckian pantheistic force in Babb’s landscapes that joins human beings into a continuous environmental oneness; there is only nature’s vast beautiful indifference across which people live, love, struggle, and yearn. When her daughter asks if a cyclone might be forming, Julia consoles her: “It’s only an electric storm.… Rain won’t hurt us. It’s just scary.” Nature is neither malign nor consolatory; it’s implicitly nothing more or less than itself. And fear doesn’t arise from the world; it arises from individuals when they are bereft of one another.The failure of Names wasn’t the only event in Babb’s long event-filled life that was difficult to distinguish from legend. Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s compassionate and respectful biography, Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (largely based on stories recounted by Babb and her family, as well as passages from Babb’s work), is filled with tales of a life that was lived to almost tall-tale proportions. At the age of 5, Babb earned the nickname “Cheyenne—Riding like the Wind” from an Otoe chief after the pony he gave her went galloping wildly out of town while unyielding young Babb held on tightly, bareback. And though she was unable to start school full time until age 10, she worked hard enough to be named class valedictorian—only to have her graduation speech cut at the last minute when the school authorities decided not to honor the daughter of a notorious local gambler.As a young woman in Los Angeles, she went out to MGM looking for screenwriting work, where she caught the always-roving eye of Irving Thalberg, who invited her back to his office to sign up for a different career entirely—one that probably required spending at least some time on the casting couch. She turned down both offers and, when later asked if she was an actress, replied, “No. I’ve just had a narrow escape.” At one point, when she was out on a date with her eventual husband, James Wong Howe, a “finely dressed” woman drove up behind them in her car and, angered by the sight of a white woman with an Asian man, shouted abuse. In reply, Babb engaged in a street altercation that, by the end, left the woman shouting “My hat! My $100 hat!” This absorbing biography, written with both affection and admiration, shows Babb as one of the most indefatigable characters in American literary history. Like Edna St. Vincent Millay, the poet who most inspired her, Babb “wasn’t someone who believed in monogamy,” and she happily shared her passions with many notable men—such as William Saroyan and Ralph Ellison. (In fact, her second novel, The Lost Traveler, is one of the few naturalistic novels in which the sexually adventurous young woman isn’t punished for moral failure, as Theodore Dreiser’s antiheroine is in Sister Carrie or Kate Chopin’s Edna Pontellier is in The Awakening.) She traveled extensively, often hitchhiking alone across country and through Mexico; she wrote the lyrics for a popular song, which were then “swiped” by someone who published them under their own name; and she organized a walnut growers’ strike in Modesto, California, which caused her to spend at least one night in jail.  It was only when Babb began suffering bouts of ill health—partly the result of an impoverished childhood diet and partly from a nervous breakdown set off by learning that her former lover Ralph Ellison had remarried—that she finally settled down exclusively with Howe. But even then, she always seemed to be doing the work of three or four women. She helped him buy and manage a Chinatown restaurant and took charge of long visits from his family while he was working on movie sets. They surreptitiously bought a house together in the Hollywood Hills, and after California’s ban on interracial marriage was found unconstitutional, they married in 1949. But even then, it wasn’t easy to find a judge who would perform the service. She was clearly as passionate in her political activism as she was in her personal relationships. After many challenging years of marriage, when her relationship with Howe had not been entirely monogamous, she eventually settled down, and the two would often write “small sweet love notes” and leave them around the house for each other to find. One of her best short stories, “Reconciliation”—about a married couple coming together again after a separation to tend their neglected garden—reads like an homage to their long, often difficult, and just as often devoted, relationship. While Babb endured more than her share of bad luck in publishing, she developed many devoted friends and fans who saw her through decades of darkness into a late middle-aged period that approached modest fame. Her short stories were regularly published in various significant journals and reprinted in “best of the year” volumes; she found an agent, and eventually sold and published her second novel, The Lost Traveler, based on childhood memories of growing up with a sometimes brutal, errant father. Her 1970 memoir, An Owl on Every Post, earned a brief time on bestseller lists, adorned with quotes from her longtime friends and admirers Ralph Ellison and Ray Bradbury.Dunkle’s biography likewise relies on the work of Babb’s friends, scholars, and especially her late-life agent, Joanna Dearcrop, who helped Babb finally get Whose Names Are Unknown published after a half-century delay in 2004, while Babb was lying in bed with an exhausted body that couldn’t carry her much further. And eventually, her remarkable field notes, cited by Ken Burns in his Dust Bowl documentary on PBS, led to new editions of her poetry and prose.The major question about Babb’s remarkable work is not “Why did she write so little?” but rather: “How did she find the time to write anything at all?”While she is best known for a novel that wasn’t published until she was almost dead, her gifts are beautifully displayed in numerous short stories and poems that carry readers through regions of memory, landscape, and experience. On one journey through Mexico and South America, Babb gathered material for “The Larger Cage,” about an orphan who finds a home (of sorts) with a family that sells wild local birds to tourists; they teach him to “train” the birds by filling their bellies with buckshot, which inevitably kills them. But human cruelty is never the subject of Babb’s fiction—rather it’s the human ability to bring kindness into the world, and the protagonist of “The Larger Cage” learns that there are better ways to train beautiful birds than by tormenting them. It is perhaps the most remarkable (and unsatisfactory) fact of Babb’s life that while she failed to produce big novels at times that were acceptable to the publishing industry, she spent her life succeeding in far less commercial forms—such as the short story, the lyric, and the memoir. Many writers are recalled for the great things they achieved in life apart from their living of it; but Babb’s greatest genius may have been her ability to produce lasting work without leaving anyone in her life behind.

A new study says human-caused climate change made Atlantic hurricanes about 18 mph stronger in the last six years

Archaeoastronomers piece together how people understood the heavens thousands of years ago.

For three storms, including this month's Rafael, the climate change factor goosed wind speed so much that the winds increased by two storm categories.

Brandon Rothrock joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss the intersection of the environment and LGBTQ+ identities, and emerging climate and health issues in Appalachia.Rothrock, a current fellow and a first-year geography Ph.D. student and EmPOWERment NSF Research Trainee at The Ohio State University, also talks about how geography informs who we are.The Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast is a biweekly podcast featuring the stories and big ideas from past and present fellows, as well as others in the field. You can see all of the past episodes here.Listen below to our discussion with Rothrock and subscribe to the podcast at iTunes or Spotify. Agents of Change in Environmental Justice · Brandon Rothrock on the environment and queer identitiesTranscript Brian BienkowskiHow are you doing?Brandon Rothrock Good. How are you?Brian Bienkowski I'm doing wonderful. And where are you today?Brandon Rothrock I am in Columbus, Ohio. It is very, very warm here today. I'm sure the same in Michigan.Brian Bienkowski Yes, we are. We are talking during a heatwave. I think the next two days are supposed to be so hot. I don't have air conditioning either. We live in the Upper Peninsula. So it's usually cold enough to not need it. But I'm already a little concerned about it.Brandon Rothrock Yeah. I am fortunate, I was talking to my... I live in sort of a half a house and my neighbor. A few months ago, our landlord wanted to cut down this really big tree in our front yard. And luckily they didn't because for some reason, some of the companies didn't want to come out because of the power lines being too close and things like that. So they didn't cut it down. So I'm so thankful that it's still up today, because it's keeping my house so cold compared to all of my other neighbors who don't have trees in their yard.Brian Bienkowski It's amazing how much of a difference it makes we have a massive birch tree. I'm looking at it right now in the front yard. And I can totally relate, it makes such a huge difference to have to have a canopy over your house like that. So I'm glad that utilities or whomever was was againstBrandon Rothrock Super fortunate.Brian Bienkowski So you are not originally from there, although that's where you're doing your work now. But I'd like to start at the beginning. So tell me about growing up in Northwest New Jersey and from what I understand, I think of New Jersey as very Hoboken and very city. But it sounds like you were in a more rural area. So tell me about growing up there.Brandon Rothrock Yeah, for sure. So I think you hit the nail on the head that most people assume New Jersey is sort of a concrete jungle, an extension of New York City, which is true in many areas of New Jersey, but not particularly where I grew up. I grew up in a really small community about two miles from the Delaware River and the Pennsylvania border. And my town is very sort of suburban, surrounded by tons of cornfields My house is just surrounded by fields on all sides, you know, used to have farm equipment clogging up some of the roads going to and from school some days. Yeah, things like that. And I would say my neighborhood was quite tight knit, it was sort of a everyone knows everyone type of atmosphere. And there was a lot of things to do outdoor wise. So we had a reservoir near my house. So we would go walking around pretty often. And I would say over time, especially during the pandemic, a lot of people have moved sort of further west from the city into my area. So the population has increased like pretty significantly. And with that, you know comes with feelings of sort of outsiders are moving in, growing pains with new housing going up and things like that. So I feel like it's an interesting time now looking back at where I grew up and how it's sort of transforming as well.Brian Bienkowski Most people you talk to have this similar experience of thinking of a place where they're there from there, they live there now that it's changing and people are moving in and I'm just wondering, where are the places where no one lives anymore? because it seems like everywhere is having this influx influx of people or were you fascinated by? Did you want to move to like a big city when you were there? Or were you pretty comfortable in that kind of environment? Um,Brandon Rothrock I would say I felt pretty comfortable. I would say we live about an hour and 15 minutes to the north of Philadelphia, and then like an hour and 15 minutes to the east, or to the west of New York. So I felt like it was a really good sweet spot, sort of like still out in the open, not too congested, but also still able to get to like Newark Airport in 40 minutes or something. I thought it was a good a good ways away.Brian Bienkowski Yeah, the East Coast is so so interconnected. And everything's so close that you're never really that far from for anywhere.Brandon Rothrock sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm still not used to sort of driving all the way through Pennsylvania to Ohio, because you, I guess you don't think about Pennsylvania being so long, but it really is. And the distance between some of the cities and Pennsylvania, it's just very interesting to me.Brian Bienkowski So I won't tell you what people from Michigan say about your state of Ohio, because we say the same. It's very similar that oh, gosh, we have to drive through Ohio now. And it feels so long to get to here. But so you've said a couple of things shaped you in, you know, in your environmental connection and pursuit of justice that kind of came about later in your career. One was a hearing disability that that you have, and then another one was coming out as a gay man, and what was a pretty conservative community. So I was wonder if you could talk about these experiences, how they are connected to your work and activism on the Health and Environment front?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, definitely. So I would say on the hearing front, so at age two, I found that I had single sided deafness, or that I cannot hear at all out of my right ear. And I sort of still struggle with speaking about it at times, because I feel like for me, I'm in a sort of in-between space. You know, at times feeling sort of like the weight of my disability, particularly in like social settings, having sensory overload, sometimes, also, just not being able to hear I know, I remember growing up, you know, the game telephone where you whispering each other's ears, that was always sort of like a sore spot for me, because I was like, oh, people are gonna realize that I can't actually hear what they're saying on my right side. And so yeah, just like kind of weird or like going around social situations like that. But on the other hand, I feel fortunate that I have full hearing in my left ear, and that I haven't had to have cochlear implants or implants or other surgeries like other people who might have hearing disabilities have or struggle with. But again, it sort of goes back to a feeling of sometimes not feeling disabled enough. And I think that sort of drives how I think about the complexities of how people interact with the environment. But as time has gone on, I feel like my hearing disability has made me sort of more aware of my surroundings, and whether it be you know, a restaurant or out in nature, just thinking about how different people engage with their surroundings. And also thinking about accessibility to nature as well off of that. So thinking about how certain people might not be able to go in specific nature-related spaces, like hiking spaces and things like that. And I would say, then, simultaneously, going back to feeling sort of in-between growing up, was slowly realizing that I wasn't straight as well. And I feel like as you're, you know, growing up in a small, sort of conservative community, there's sort of this one path or a specific path that you're supposed to be on and sort of, you know, you're not supposed to stray from that path. And I think that also had like a particular weight to it growing up as well, just, I feel like I hadn't fully recognized my sexuality fully until I went to college where I felt like I was more able to experience you know, different people, different surroundings outside of where I grew up. And this isn't to say that there weren't other people who were out in high school at my high school specifically. But I felt like at the time, I was still trying to figure out what how I was or who I was, and sort of navigating that more conservative environment. And I would say specifically, as well, my sexuality is definitely a big driver of the work that I do, mostly because queer people are socially marginalized in everyday spaces. And this carries over to environmental spaces, or just spaces where queer people are sort of not allowed to be themselves. And I think on the health front, as well, particularly in the context of climate change. I think there really needs to be more work at the intersection of sexuality and disability and climate change.Brian Bienkowski Thanks so much for both speaking about that and bringing up that last point, because I think that's, you know, we're gonna get into some of that today, because that's what a lot of your work has been focused on. But before we, before we do that, I did want to say whenever I think of kids, you mentioned being a kid and feeling less than and I just think, don't you wish you could just reach kids and be like, it's not always you're not always gonna feel like this, Oh, my God, my heart, just thinking about people who feel different, or that they're always going to struggle, you know, it's just like, oh, gosh, you're gonna be okay. It's gonna be so much better when you get olderBrandon Rothrock For sure. Yeah, I would say it was definitely kind of odd, you know, telling my friends or something when I would have to leave school early to get an audiologist appointment or something, you know, so I guess not a lot of people go and get audiology appointments, unless there's something you know that you're monitoring with your hearing. And so yeah, it was just very interesting. So a lot of time at the ear, nose and throat doctor growing up. So.Brian Bienkowski Well, if you're anything like me, I just wanted to not be noticed. I just didn't want to be cool or not cool. I just wanted to be a wallflower. So for people like that, anything that draws attention to you as as like, "ugh, I don't think I want that." So before we get into some of that work that we mentioned, what is a moment or event that has helped shape your identity up to this point?Brandon Rothrock Yeah. So I feel like, I don't think I can pinpoint a particular moment or event because I feel that my identity or sort of coming to terms of my identity has not been a linear journey. I feel like there's times you know, where I thought to myself, "Okay, maybe I, if I'm in a new setting, I won't tell people about my sexuality, I won't tell people that I have a disability." And I feel like I have sort of a privilege in that sense, where sort of my disability is not visible, or in certain spaces as well, with my sexuality, you know, you can sort of hide it in a way. You know, maybe I could just blend in in the background, like you were mentioning. But I guess, I feel like when I take a step back, particularly thinking about my junior year in college, like, I guess I really realized that I had a support system of friends and family who, you know, would love and support me as I expected them to and just sort of took a leap with telling people about my sexuality. But I think it's important to say as well that a lot of LGBTQ people in the US are not as fortunate to have the support system in the way that I have. And there's sort of a particular danger about everyday life and coming out that I don't think many straight people sort of understand the gravity of at times. Particularly for queer people, one minute, you could be, you know, living at home having a seemingly comfortable life. And the next minute, you're sort of out on the street because your friends or family have not accepted you. So definitely thinking about that as my identity as sort of moved across different spaces and time as well.Brian Bienkowski So I want to center this, the idea of looking at kind of the environmental LGBTQ+ intersection and before we get to some of the specific research that you're and the work that you're doing, can you talk broadly about environmental impacts and the state of research on the LGBTQ+ community?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, sure. So I would say a majority of work at the intersection of environmental impacts and the LGBTQIA+ community focuses sort of on understanding vulnerability as it relates to disaster preparedness and response. So Well, I'm sure we'll get into it a little later, but some of my colleagues are out for sustainability. Vanessa Raddatz and Leo Goldsmith co-wrote a paper called "Queer and present danger." And it speaks to how disasters such as flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, things like that sort of exacerbate existing LGBTQIA+ marginalization and inequalities. So just thinking about inequalities, more broadly, LGBTQ people are more likely to be living in poverty and dealing with economic hardship. LGBTQ communities experience higher rates of homelessness and housing insecurity than the general population. And LGBTQ+ people may experience a higher rate of mental health impacts during disasters and their street counterparts. And this might be due to the higher sort of fear, stress and anxiety that they may have in their everyday lives. And so thinking about sort of everyday life and also including disaster response, there's sort of a few drivers of discrimination and bias that Lael Goldsmith and Vanessa Raddatz write out. One of them being that there's inequitable federal disaster response programs. There's still sort of gender and sexual orientation-based discrimination evident in federal programs and as well, a change administrations can wipe away sort of executive orders or slim protections that are already afforded to LGBTQ+ people during disasters. There's also a lack of recognition of queer families during disasters. And this again, goes back to what I was saying a little bit about sort of, maybe not being able to come out or sort of shifting your queerness in different spaces. They've, it's been shown that queer couples may have to pose as siblings to prevent separation at shelters or to receive relief from FEMA. So again, that's just you know, another added sort of layer of discrimination that they might have to face, while they're already, you know, potentially vacating their homes due to a hurricane or another disaster. And a third one would definitely be the involvement of faith-based organizations in disaster relief in the US. The Salvation Army, for example, is heavily involved in disaster response, yet has been shown to be very discriminatory towards queer people. As an example, in 2008, Jennifer Gayle, who was a transgender woman, was denied entry to a Texas Salvation Army homeless shelter, and ended up having a heart attack and passing away in the street, which first responders attributed to near freezing temperatures in Texas, and also sort of related to the stress that might have occurred as she was denied entry to this homeless shelter. So thinking about that outside of disaster, there's still a large gap and sort of understanding specific instances of environmental injustice, such as pollution level or health concerns around the queer community.Brian Bienkowski Thank you so much for laying that out. You know, that last point about faith-based organizations was not something I would have thought of that is, and that example is just, obviously heart wrenching. So in your master's, master's thesis, –that was a tongue twister– in your master's thesis, you examine the perceptions of climate change and the environment for LGBTQ+ students at four large universities in relation to their sexual and place-based identity. So can you talk a little bit about what you found and what we can learn from it?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, definitely. So I interviewed and did focus groups with about 30 undergraduate students at different universities in Appalachia, specifically West Virginia University, where I was doing my master's, Appalachian State University in Virginia Tech. And I mostly found that students have very complicated experiences with their sexuality, the environment and also their future in the context of climate change. And a lot of students spoke about how their sexual identity sort of brought forth more progressive stances of the environment. And as they move sort of through college and became more exposed to climate change education, or just broadly education on the environment, they sort of realized how important the issue was, while also in a sort of a similar vein coming to terms with their sexuality. One of my interviewees, for example mentioned how, prior to coming to college, she considered herself super conservative, super straight, super, "I don't believe climate change is happening." And very, I guess, conservative viewpoints you could say. But as she came to college and started, you know, taking classes around the environment, also sort of being exposed to more queer people, she sort of realized, hey, actually, climate change does exist. And I actually consider myself a bisexual woman. So things like that was definitely coming up throughout a lot of the interviews sort of this movement through time and how they're sort of feelings and sexuality and different identities sort of matured over time, I guess you could say. I would say one thing that was really interesting as well was that for the students, it was quite difficult to pinpoint specific climate change issues in Appalachia. So a lot of students could point to, you know, climate related issues that they saw on the news or social media. I was doing interviews in the fall of 2020. And then the wildfires in California had been really bad that year, there were major category five hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico and Texas, flooding in New York City. I remember watching videos myself of you know, the subway system being completely flooded. But none of these issues were really regional specific to Appalachia, which I thought was quite interesting as well. And I would say too, the students also notice that climate change played somewhat of a role in where they'd like to live post college, so a lot of students mentioned, you know, queer enclaves like San Francisco, L.A, New York City is places to move. And this definitely connects to the idea of Metro normativity, or sort of the idea that rural queer people feel a pull towards urban environments and want to sort of move there. I think it's a little bit more complex. And not technically one way, in that sense, from the interviews that I did. It felt like students really still felt a pole to sort of the natural environment and where they grew up in Appalachia, but because of a result of economic, environmental and social factors, they just felt like perhaps they'd have more opportunities for jobs, more opportunities to, you know, sort of be themselves in some of these areas like New York City.Brian Bienkowski And I'm realizing in my second question, I fell into that cliche, although I was just completely curious, because we don't get many folks on here that grew up in a in somewhat rural environment. But I'm realizing I made that same assumption that you wanted to run to the city, right? So you've you've mentioned, this focus on the Appalachian region. And you've, you've maintained that focus, and I think it's a it's a place that we on this podcast, and in our program has been somewhat underrepresented. So I'm really happy to have you as part of this fellowship and your perspective on it. And I think most people know about kind of historical coal use and the recent phase outs of coal, but perhaps not some of the other issues that are starting to bubble up there in the region. So can you outline the current environmental and climate issues on the forefront in the Appalachian region?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, definitely. So I guess just a little bit of background, I did my bachelor's in Pennsylvania, my master's in West Virginia, and now my PhD in Ohio. So I feel like I've spent a long time, sort of in Appalachia, at least for the past 10 or so years. I think it might be worth speaking a little bit about the particular way in which coal was and still is a piece of people's identity in Appalachia, and in particular, thinking about West Virginia and Kentucky, with many people sort of shifting into the oil and gas industry more broadly, there's still a certain sort of expectation to defend those jobs or defend the heritage and livelihood associated with that line of work. And so thinking about sort of broader conversations around energy transition, it feels like sort of the national or maybe outside of Appalachia thoughts are, you know, "we need to move away from coal immediately, we need to phase out oil and gas," but to some of the people who live in Appalachia and even those who might not work in oil and gas themselves, which is why I found through some of my interviews, but might have family members or distant relatives that might work there, or work in the industry, I should say, it's like, you have to be definitely mindful that you might be sort of ripping away a piece of someone's identity when you're sort of saying those sort of broader narratives that we need to have a transition. And so yeah, I think it sort of has made people, I don't want to speak for everyone in Appalachia, but I feel like it might make some people quite upset and sort of think that sustainability equals, you know, my livelihood is gone, or it's an attack on my livelihood. And so I think it's really important to think about the way in which other people are also thinking about and theorizing as Appalachia more broadly, as well as sort of being you know, backwards, inbred, a sacrifice zone for natural resources for the rest of the country, when really corporations and government interests have caused a majority of those issues in Appalachia. And I feel like we see this quite evidently sort of now with fracking and also the ongoing opioid pandemic. It sort of removes the agency of Appalachians themselves and paints them as being helpless or unable to sort of fight back in these situations or some of the things that they face. And I would say there's still a lot of emerging literature coming out right now about sort of the emotional impacts of oil and gas, you know, thinking about pipelines, the destruction of people's property and livelihood. But there's also a lot of emerging issues around politics in Appalachia that I've been following quite closely, specifically in West Virginia. You sort of have this really stark conservative shifts going on, and a lot of the candidates for governor, in my opinion, look like they're intending to race West Virginia to the bottom as a state in the US. And yeah, if you ever have a chance to look at some of the political ads for the candidates for governor of West Virginia for this upcoming election, they are quite scary, I would have to say and I guess that's an example. One of the sort of front runners for Governor I'm not entirely sure if he made it past the primary or not, but sort of was standing in like the middle of the, you know, quintessential mountain-looking road, one way road. And this white van of migrants is what they noted, was sort of coming into West Virginia. And you see this sort of, you know, strong white conservative man throw his hand up, and is like, "Stop! California is back that way." And that was sort of the whole just of the ad. And I thought it was just really interesting to see sort of like the, again, like, insider -outsider dynamic, like "we don't want people coming into this area" sort of mentality. Yeah, that is just thinking about those issues and how they play into the current sort of political array in the US.Brian Bienkowski Well, I remember Joe Manchin years ago had an ad, and he's probably considered somewhat sane, compared to what you're talking about, but he was shooting, I forget what he was shooting, maybe it was a climate bill or something. But it was him at a gun range shooting. But you know, your comments on kind of people's embedded identities. And you know, I think there's also a fear of kind of economic uncertainty. So I live in Michigan, and everybody here where I grew up, it was all touched by the automotive industry. And of course, there's fear when you switch to something like EVs, you know, if you're a combustion engine maker, or you make parts for that, and if you drive around Detroit, and Flint, and Lansing, every, you know, all of those little industrial parks are full of car park manufacturers. I mean, there's, there's a real fear there for people's livelihoods. And I think that's why the idea of kind of a just transition and making sure people don't get left behind is so important. Definitely, the identity politics are so... they're not good. They're no fun. I think this is a good time to ask about kind of your geography training. So that is, you know, some of your education has been in geography and that informs your research. So I'm wonder if you could talk about how that is, and specifically, when we think about people's sense of place, and their place-based identities, which is maybe a term some folks don't fully understand.Brandon Rothrock Yeah, sure. So I definitely would call geography a sort of "everything all at once discipline" or a, I usually, when some of my friends ask, you know, what is geography? a lot of people think it's cartography or about making maps or using GIS. But I would say it's really the discipline of people, places and things. I mean, sort of everything you can think of, because I feel like geographers truly conduct research that touches everything, you know, you can have physical geographers who focus in hydrology, geology, geology, meteorology, all the way through the social sciences, say Women's and Gender Studies, economics, political science, anthropology, sort of geography touches all of those disciplines together. And I think what binds the disciplines together is definitely sort of just thinking about people, places and things through space. So how our spaces are envisioned, how they're constructed, and how they're actualized across different areas, and the meaning behind our spaces is definitely something that really interests me, you know, how does a mountain or a body of water influence someone's identity and how they see themselves in the world? And I feel like geography and the training that I've had in geography sort of gives you the tools to research each piece of those sort of broader, more complex questions. I would say too that geography has sort of allowed me to think about everything in systems. So how one change in a system that might not even, you might not even think on the surface sort of connects to another system, in fact does in various different ways. And I feel like we as geographers sort of connect issues that on the surface, you might not think have no connections at all.Brian Bienkowski I think I would like to go back and study geography, especially when you mentioned the mountain and body of water. I think those two examples are so poignant for me because I know so many people. I'm from Michigan, and a lot of people always want to go west and go to the mountains. There's something about that, that speaks to them. Whereas me if I'm not near a great lake, or a big body of water, it feels like I feel like I'm not at home, right because it's always it's always been so close. So I think I can really relate to that. And it sounds like such a fascinating field I'd like to...Brandon Rothrock Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I I actually came at to a geography from meteorology. I originally wanted to be studying weather and As I sort of went through some classes in undergrad, I was like, I" don't know if I really like the math or physics, that's involved with this" I was more so interested in, you know, like the connections to people on the ground, like what's happening with weather and things like that. And so, yeah, I took it my freshman year, I took a geography class called human use of the environment. And within about a week or two weeks of being there, I was like, "Okay, this is actually where I needed to be." And so I switched my major to geography, and the rest is history. Now in a PhD, so.Brian Bienkowski Nice. So in that PhD, and work beyond that, so you've mentioned kind of these looking at kind of, you know, place-based identities. And then we talked about Appalachian, like regional issues. So I'm wondering how and if you plan to study the intersection of LGBTQ+ individuals and these kinds of regional environmental issues in your research? And if so, what do you hope to learn?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, so my dissertation research is still sort of a work in progress, thinking about the plan. But I am really interested in designing a research project with queer people who are working in environmental and or social-based grassroots organizations, nonprofits, or other community-based organizations in Appalachia. And I'm sort of interested having worked in many nonprofits before sort of how their work, whether it's through activism, or through a regular sort of nine to five, influences their thoughts, not only about their queerness, but about environmental or social justice work. And so I'm really interested in sort of the mix between identity, Appalachia and energy extraction injustice. And I'm particularly looking at the Ohio River Valley between Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, where there's been significant oil and gas build out where there has been, we're starting to see the ramp up a petrochemical build out, we're also seeing the opioid pandemic, we're also seeing sort of environmental degradation from different industries that have sort of been in Appalachia for quite some time. And we're also seeing sort of a shift to thinking about an energy future around hydrogen. So there's an Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub that was sort of has already gotten the green light from the federal government, which will be sited mostly in Ohio, in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. So thinking about how sort of Appalachia is still this site of extraction or like continued degradation, again, not at the hands of the people who live there, but the companies and industries that have sort of taken foot there. And so really, in my dissertation, and sort of thinking about how energy extraction as it shifts across, you know, traditional spaces or sources, such as coal towards non traditional and fracking, and how there's sort of an increasingly national international push to sustainable energy systems, and how queer people are thinking about all of those issues and envisioning a better future for themselves and for the region. And so I envision this being done with interviews, focus groups, toying around as well with perhaps doing a Photovoice project where participants would be able to, you know, have cameras and document their day to day lives in Appalachia. And I'd really like to do this sort of, on people's properties or walking interviews out in nature with people. Because my of my master's research was done fully online to do the COVID pandemic. But I'm also, again, open to conducting research in the digital space. I think, going back to my disability, it was quite helpful when I was in sort of an enclosed room on zoom with somebody where I could also have a transcript going and I could better sort of control the conversation in a way whereas I feel like perhaps walking interviews may elicit more or different emotions from the participant or myself or might give me new ideas about things going on. But I also worry about sort of like the hearing aspect of that, like there might be, you know, a well pad that's going off in the background or a giant truck carrying fracking fluid driving down the dirt road next to us as we're trying to do an interview. So thinking about sort of my disability in sort of what I'm thinking about to do with my research.Brian Bienkowski Well, the last thing you need is advice from me on your research, however, as a, as someone who used to be out in the field reporting, I can say if you can make it work for you, when you get people out in their space and something that they're maybe they're comfortable in or a place that they work in, boy, they really open up that and seems it seems to me, they always opened up a lot more than in kind of a more digital or commercial environment. So if you can make it work, and I would try to get out there and get people to open up a little more. So I know outside the academic research, you also serve as a board member for Out for Sustainability, a organization that you mentioned earlier, and you run your own website, the Inclusive Environment. So I want to know, what have you learned from this more kind of direct activism and outreach? And why do you make time for this kind of stuff, in addition to your research?Brandon Rothrock Yeah. So I would say that my mantra in life is sort of "be the difference you want to see in the world." And I feel like I can make a difference best through activism or through the spaces that I sort of work in. And I feel like, particularly moving through college, and then graduate school, I see how it has become sort of more daunting for recent graduates or people wanting to sort of switch careers to find jobs within the environmental sector. And I feel like there's sort of a lack of accessibility or sort of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality around sort of US job culture in general. And I feel like I want to be able to change that through my work. And so I do mentoring sessions, mostly to recent grads or people looking to switch into the environmental sector free of charge, and I'm sort of open with the way I've gone about my experiences, I think it's it, people find it difficult to speak with strangers about their experiences, and how they sort of got to where they are now. But I try to be as transparent as possible, even if I'm just meeting people for the first time, you know, sharing my successes and my failures in the environmental space, and how I've been able to sort of navigate different areas, whether it's academic, whether it's nonprofit, whether it's consulting, and thinking about sort of how I might have felt particular ways in particular spaces, you know, with my disability or with my sexuality, as well as a piece. And I would say, coming to Out for Sustainability. It has taught me a lot about running a nonprofit, we are a fully volunteer board of directors and we, we have two paid contractors. But other than that we do not have a director, we do not have sort of nine to five management of anything within the organization, which I think might be a little different than how other nonprofits run. And so with that comes certain challenges, it's definitely a heavy lift at times, especially with media requests, collaborations, I won't even get into sort of the finances of it all. I'm not on that working group, I focus more on the communications part. But I think it's been a super difficult but yet rewarding experience at the same time working without out for S, because I feel like we're helping to really aid the visibility of queer people and queer issues, we're helping to aid the visibility of environmental issues. And on top of that, we're also trying to aid the visibility of queer environmental issues, which is really where we sit and do most of our work. So I feel like I learn something new every day working with Out for S, but also through doing mentoring sessions.Brian Bienkowski So through both kind of your research, academic training and this activism, you've spent some time now examining the intersection of LGBTQ+ communities and the environment. So I'm wondering if you have some ways you would like to see researchers, policymakers and others better incorporate these perspectives and experiences in both research and policymaking?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, so I think it's important to make queer and LGBTQ+ people sort of central to research and policies and not sort of add them in as an afterthought. I feel like and I would say that environmental-justice-based research, particularly over the last, you know, decade, 20 years has definitely really, there have been many researchers that are trying to include LGBTQ people into research and policies pretty well. But I'd still like to see sort of more work being done in that area. Also, more research, just assessing and perhaps quantifying and qualifying environmental justice impacts on the queer community, particularly how pollution and other health related topics or indices may impacts queer livelihoods in everyday life. I feel like there's a lot of limited work being done that shows how LGBTQ people across the US and the world are impacted by environmental injustice. And I feel like there should be way more work focus on justice and equity and how queer identity intersects other identities. So race, class, gender.Brian Bienkowski I would add on the policymaking front, just some basic anti discrimination when it comes to things like you mentioned earlier, when, when people are denied accessibility in an emergency situation, we're failing, regardless of the reasoning behind that intolerance. Well, thank you so much for those perspectives, I have to ask, what are you optimistic about?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, I think I struggle to how to answer this question. Because, you know, the more I read, the more I speak with other people, particularly in an academic space, I feel like it's, it's easy to become less optimistic about the world around us and the issues that we face. And I feel like going back to my geography training, just thinking about everything sort of systems based, like, if you do x, then y, z, A, A, B, A, C, they'll all sort of, you know, occur, as well, or like simultaneously. But I think I really am most optimistic about my colleagues that are doing environmental work that are sort of laying the foundation for progressive change in the country, particularly some of my other Agents of Change fellows working in petrochemicals, and beauty products to environmental justice, and then also, all of the other board members at Out for Sustainability, we're all sort of doing really great work day to day that sort of collectively will help make a difference. And I feel like that is what really makes me more optimistic, particularly their drive continues to make me more driven in my own work.Brian Bienkowski So working in the environmental space, what is kind of the environment or nature? What does it mean to you? Like, when and how are you most happy and at peace in the in the outdoors?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, so I think my idea of nature sort of changes day to day. I would say, it might actually moreso be based on you know, where I am in the world, I think about nature as sort of being the physical world around us, you know, plants, animals, mountains, bodies of water, things like that, but also sort of the non-physical. So the emotions that I have in particular spaces, or the connections that I feel like I have to sort of the physical space. I would say, I find myself most happy around bodies of water, or more, say, with the ocean, particularly going to the shore in New Jersey, I really feel sort of connected to the world around us, when I have my feet in the sand and can feel the sun on my skin. I feel like the ocean, and particularly being fortunate to have grown up going to the Jersey Shore every year. I'll actually be going there in like 10 days from now. I'm super excited about that. But yeah, that's where I feel like I'm most connected to the environment.Brian Bienkowski Yeah, your idea of kind of depending on where you are in the world makes me think just earlier today, I was booking some travel to New York City and I find myself so excited to run in Central Park. I just love running there. And it's, it's a little Of course, I want to go to where there's trees and stuff, because it's such a concrete jungle. But um, but around here, I don't have that. I mean, I run around here, but it's not that same draw to want to run in the city. So I can totally relate to depending on what place you're at like that. Well, thank you so much for all that Brandon, I have three rapid fire questions where you can just answer with one word, or a phrase, I cannot start my day without anBrandon Rothrock allergy pill.Brian Bienkowski I feel most creative whenBrandon Rothrock I am listening to music.Brian Bienkowski This week, I am really looking forward toBrandon Rothrock trying a new restaurant.Brian Bienkowski All right, and you do not have to confine yourself to one word or a phrase here. What is the last book you read for fun?Brandon Rothrock Yeah, this might not be the last book that I read, but one that sort of sticks with me. It's called "The Island of missing trees" by Elif Shafak. It's a historical fiction about sort of love and the environment in Cyprus. I'm really big into historical fiction as of late. I don't know why.Brian Bienkowski Well, Brandon, thank you so much for, you know, enlightening us on your research and all the good work that you're doing. I'm really happy to have you in this program and we'll have you on again soon.Brandon Rothrock Sounds great. Thanks.