Refugia Newsletter #25 by Debra Rienstra: solar community resilience, clean energy acceleration, good news climate stories, and chestnut trees

Refugia News

Special welcome to a number of new subscribers this week. Glad to have you with us!

Honestly, it was a bit of a tough week for me, as I'm still recovering from a badly sprained ankle (from about seven weeks ago), and last Sunday I cut my left index finger while trying to slice a sweet potato, so my finger is all bandaged up and I struggle to type. If I didn't go back and correct everything, my typeipocoines; woudl look like this. I have now sworn off sweet potatoes--unless someone else chops them, thank you.

Nevertheless, the work continues! The Refugia Podcast releases another episode tomorrow, this one with Ruth Padilla DeBorst, a theologian with ties all over Latin America, but especially Costa Rica. We'll be talking about intentional Christian community, church of empire vs. church of refugia, and other good stuff.

A recording of a little author event I did on September 23 at Baker Book House is now available on YouTube. If you want to know all the secrets behind the book Refugia Faith, this is where I spill the tea. I also had a great conversation this week with Pastor Cliff Sekowe of Pholoso Ministries in Capetown, South Africa. Pholoso is an online endeavor aiming to help deepen theological education for church leaders and laypeople in South Africa and beyond. Our conversation should appear next week on Pholoso's YouTube channel.

Meanwhile, midterm grading is starting to roll in. Help!

This Week in Climate News

Last time I promised good news stories. And then, of course, Hurricane Ian hit Florida. Not good news at all, but we can pull one good story out of the sodden rubble: a community running on 100% solar energy did NOT lose power. The town of Babcock Ranch, founded in 2018 only 12 miles inland from Fort Myers, was built specifically to survive flooding and heavy storms. And they survived very well, with relatively minimal damage and power, water, and internet still running.

This article by Rachel Ramirez of CNN remarks, "Its residents say Babcock Ranch is proof that an eco-conscious and solar-powered town can withstand the wrath of a near-Category 5 storm." Looks like a hurricane refugium--a place where less fortunate Florida residents have fled in the aftermath of the storm.

Climate resiliency was built into the fabric of Babcock Ranch with stronger storms in mind, and Hurricane Ian was a major test.

Interestingly, Puerto Rico residents who had equipped their homes and businesses with solar power and battery storage also managed relatively well during and after Fiona.

By the way, if you've encountered skeptics parroting the idea that Hurricane Ian is nothing new and can't be blamed on climate change, well, it's true that Florida has suffered Category 5 hurricanes before. But the developing field of attribution science continues to affirm what climatologists have been predicting: overall, hurricanes are stronger, wetter, slower, and larger. All of those factors make a difference.

Here's an article in a recent Scientific American about attribution science. Here's another in the New York Times. Attribution estimates in the immediate aftermath of a storm are of course only rough, but Lawrence Berkeley National Lab climate scientist Michael Wehner performed a rapid analysis and estimated that climate change made Ian 10% wetter.

Meanwhile, Russia's pummeling of Ukraine continues, and the horrible news about the Nord Stream pipeline explosion and resulting methane spewing was a grievous blow. Sabotage? We don't yet know.

In any case, Bloomberg ENF writer Michael Liebreich proposes that Russia's desperate efforts (see OPEC+ deal designed to raise prices) are actually managing to accelerate a transition to clean energy. Liebreich writes:

"From now on all three elements of the energy trilemma – security, affordability and sustainability – are pushing in the same direction. We face some very difficult years, there is no question. But as we get through them, things are going to start moving extremely fast. The Great Energy Price Spike is going to give way to the Great Clean Energy Acceleration." [emphasis added]

We have known for centuries that coal, oil and gas have driven improvements in standards of living, but have also caused crisis after crisis.

On a similar note, Atlantic writer Robinson Meyer wrote this week about a Credit Suisse analysis that predicts the Inflation Reduction Act is going to shift the US economy even more powerfully than first imagined. This means loads of opportunity in the clean energy sector, so that, as Meyer writes, "companies should no longer worry that they might be unprepared for future climate regulation, such as a carbon tax. They should be scared of missing out on the economic growth that the energy transition (and the IRA) will bring about."

In other good news, the US Senate "quietly" ratified the Kigali Amendment, an international deal to phase out HFCs. Between the infrastructure bill, the IRA, the CHIPS and Science Act, and this Kigali deal, Robinson Meyer wonders, cautiously, are we in a little climate policy Golden Age??

A new report suggests that the Inflation Reduction Act could be even bigger than Congress thinks.

Deeper Dive

As I wrote before in this newsletter, emphasizing good news is in no way meant to hide the gravity of the climate crisis. One has to steer, as always, between "doomism" and "hopeium" (or "hopium"). And a steady dose of climate news is not only a matter of realism--good things really are happening--but also a source of strength for the journey.

So here are a few sources of steady good news.

I highly recommend the podcast A Matter of Degrees, with Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson. Both are veteran policy, solutions, and strategy experts in the climate movement. They know what they're talking about and they're fun to listen to. Season 3 just dropped with two terrific episodes answering the hoary old "what can I do" question with deep dives into home electrification, personal finance transition, and workplace advocacy.

Join Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson as they tell stories about the powerful forces behind climate change and the tools we have to fix it.

I mentioned Alaina Woods' TikTok account in a previous newsletter. She is now working with Pique Action, a media enterprise emphasizing solutions and positive approaches.

Pique Action is a new media company focused on climate solutions. We’re telling the stories about how to solve the climate crisis, the innovators who are leading the charge and empowering people with the information to take action in their own lives. It’s the opposite of doomscrolling.

Some other good sources for good news:

Future Crunch newsletter--good news on climate as well as other global justice concerns

Environmental Health News has a good news only section

And Good News Network has a climate-focused section.

If you know of more sources that emphasize good climate news, let me know!

Refugia Sighting

First, a couple resources to help in the quest to make your faith community more of a "refugia sighting" in its own right.

If you are wondering how the Inflation Reduction Act can help your faith community, you might want to gather the troops and attend this webinar. (Thanks to friend and reader Dan Terpstra for sending me this link.)

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) changes the landscape of what’s possible for faith communities when it comes to solar and energy efficiency.

Another source of inspiration and challenge for faith communities: this upcoming film about Pope Francis, Laudato si', and the reality of climate impacts around the globe.

In 2015, Pope Francis wrote Laudato Si’ (The Letter); an encyclical letter about the environmental crisis to every single person in the world.

Finally: chestnut trees! Anyone who has read Richard Powers' gorgeous, Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel The Overstory can't help but feel grief over the loss of billions of American chestnut trees in the early twentieth century. Botanists have been working for generations to hybridize the American Chestnut with a Chinese version resistant to the fungus that wiped out America's trees. And now a nonprofit consortium led by Green Forests Work has discovered that abandoned coal mines--paradoxically--provide quite good conditions for growing the latest hybrids to see if they can establish and thrive. It's a story of ruined land becoming refugia for renewed forest ecosystems.

Across Appalachia, scientists and foresters are trying to reintroduce a hybrid version, helping to revive damaged land while also bringing back a beloved tree.

The Wayback Machine

Time for some ecotheology book reviews from not very way-back at all. During my conversation with Pastor Sekowe (see above), we ended up talking about panentheism and animism (as one does), and that reminded me of a book by Mark I. Wallace called When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World (Fordham, 2018). Here's my review.

Mark Wallace, Swarthmore professor of religion and environmental studies, takes this scriptural moment as much more than an exercise in symbology. Instead, in his 2019 book, When God Was a Bird, Wallace argues that the baptism narratives are quintessential manifestations of a second incarnation.

And finally, some quick book notes on several books written by great people featured on The Refugia Podcast this fall, including Leah Schade, Talitha Amadea Aho, Sharon Delgado, and Jim Antal. Plus a couple of bonus climate-related novels.

If you can make it through the serious theology, you’ll get to a couple great novels at the end.

Thank you!

Thanks for reading! I keep these newsletters quickly scannable, with opportunities for deeper reading as you are able. I also tend to emphasize the connections between faith communities and climate action.

You can send me a response to this newsletter simply by replying to the email that brought it to you. If you are so inclined, please follow me on Twitter or Facebook @debrakrienstra. You can always contact me on those platforms, too. Also check out my website at debrarienstra.com.

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