Our intrepid reviewer, Mr. John Plodinec (PhD), has reviewed the new edition of this book. This ebook is available free of charge from the website of Island Press.

Once again, Claire has asked me to review the latest in the Resilience Matters series – this one subtitled Flourishing in an Era of Extremes. The ebook, again edited by Laurie Mazur, consists of 51 short essays, most of which have appeared as opinion pieces in various periodicals. The ebook is free, and can be downloaded here.

The Introductory essay by Laurie Mazur sets the tone for much of the rest of the book:

“It’s not a stretch to say that we live in an age of extremes. 2023 was—by far—the hottest year since humans have been keeping records; scientists say it was the hottest in 100,000 years. The signs are everywhere: from the Southwestern heat dome that smashed 2,300 temperature records over the summer, to the hellish wildfire in that incinerated Maui in August. We have entered what UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres calls “the era of global boiling.”

 Our politics are boiling, as well. Extremist ideologies are on the rise, and American democracy faces nearly unprecedented threats. Governing bodies are paralyzed as Americans sort themselves into not just different political parties, but separate realities.”

The other 50 essays echo this in part or whole.  They are organized into four sections:

1. Climate Adaptation, Climate Justice
2. Sustainable, Equitable Communities
3. Policy and Funding
4. Environment and Health

I found it unfortunate that many of the pieces were introduced with “climate change” verbiage. Humanity has been experiencing extreme weather events since our ancestors began walking upright. For the foreseeable future, we won’t be able to reliably attribute any significant change in these weather Wild Things to a changing climate. But we will continue to experience them, and some of the actions suggested here could mitigate some of their consequences.

In fact, the heated rhetoric sometimes hurts the author’s credibility. One of the authors states that a group called Catalyst Miami found temperatures in poorer sections of Miami 30(!) F hotter than those reported by the Weather Channel. When I went to the website to check this out, I found a difference of only 7 F. Another of the essays blamed the recent Lahaina wildfire on climate change, when, in fact, poor land management and even poorer emergency management were the dominant factors.

Similarly, one of the authors claims that “Extreme heat is the deadliest of natural disasters  – killing more Americans each year than any other extreme weather event, including floods, hurricanes and tornadoes.” In fact, according to the CDC, twice as many people die from extreme cold than extreme heat in the US every year. Globally the ratio of deaths from cold to deaths from heat is about 6 to 1.

Your perception of this book depends on how much you believe we are in an existential climate “crisis.” I don’t; I fear that the rising tide of rhetoric and the attacks on free speech are far greater existential threats than climate change. But let me add that I found this the best of this series (although that may be damning with faint praise!). Compared to other books in this series, this contains more solutions we can use now.

Among the 13 essays in Section I, I found Elizabeth Sawin’s on “multi-solving” well worth reading. She pointed out the value of looking for win-win-…wins. As an example, she used the “Irene Cottages” built in Vermont after the flooding from Hurricane Irene. Homes destroyed by flooding were rebuilt on high ground and were more energy efficient. She also taught me a new word – multi-solving.”

Also in this section were some good pieces on protecting the elderly. In particular, Danielle Arigoni provided some useful facts:

• Older adults represent a significantly disproportionate share of deaths associated with climate-fueled disasters. Consider the lives lost in the Lahaina wildfires in Maui this summer: of the 89 casualties identified by Maui officials, 73 percent were among people over 60 years of age.
• In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 70 percent of those who died were over 65.
• When Hurricane Maria swept Puerto Rico in 2017, 100 percent of the “excess deaths” caused by the storm were among older adults.
• In 2021’s Winter Storm Uri and 2022’s Hurricane Ian, two-thirds of the casualties were among people over 60.

Others in this section deal with reaching out to the community to find solutions to what people are actually experiencing rather than what people in air-conditioned offices think they’re experiencing. Kyria Stephens has a nice piece on designing for the future and using what works to reduce the damage and deaths from disaster.

Somewhat to my surprise, I found the 15 pieces in Section II the most interesting. Alison Sant followed up her piece on the use of city streets as public places from last year with an equally useful one on “shared mobility.” Her take on how this can reduce car traffic is a very good one. She also showcased Queens, NY, 34^th avenue as a worked example of a city street as a thriving public place. Travis Beck provides an excellent summary of the pros and cons of “granny flats” (Accessory Dwelling Units). These are touted as a way to address the lack of affordable housing in many cities. Beck makes a good case that they are not good design choices when considering a neighborhood’s social capital.

Other useful pieces in this section include:

• Cool your microclimate in an ever-hotter world (Robert Brown),
• We can’t build our way to net zero (Frey and Martinez),
• Sustainability can (and must) be beautiful (Sandra Lubarsky). “Both the language and the creations of Sustainability need to be life-supporting, life-affirming, in short, beautiful”),
• Conserve water, and keep building water-wise homes (Brock Smethills),
• Developers can use social infrastructure to build climate resilience (Gautami Palanki) – “The power of connection is well known. When a deadly heat wave hit Chicago in 1995, some of the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods had the lowest mortality rates—lower, even, than Chicago’s wealthiest enclaves. What those neighborhoods had in common were dense social networks—block groups, church clubs and neighbors who checked on the most vulnerable. A study in Boston last year similarly found residents who were more connected with their neighbors, religious communities and coworkers were also more likely to know about resources and services for extreme weather.”
• Social capital builds resilience – and planners can build social capital (Christopher Holtkamp) – details how planners and emergency managers can take action to encourage building social capital in neighborhoods.

Section III – traditionally the most uneven section in the series – continued to be, well, uneven. There are a few bright spots, e.g., Laurie Mazur’s piece on preparing underinvested communities to take advantage of new funding. She makes the very under-appreciated point that money is not the only capital lacking in these communities. They generally don’t have good plans for how to use more money, nor – in many cases – the human capital to most effectively utilize it. She provides three examples of communities who have overcome these challenges: economic development in Appalachia, the UPMC in Pittsburgh and its role in housing, and groups seeking to mitigate the rising costs of housing in Maryland due to Purple Line construction.

In the same vein, I liked Hearns’ take on EPA technical assistance grant program. “what was initially a helpful resource that allowed us to better serve our community has in practice become another one of the many systemic barriers that we face when working to create a safe and healthy environment for all.”

I found the rest of the pieces in this section rife with special pleading and polemics. It seemed that the themes were too often either “Give me some money,” or “You’re a racist,” or both. Very unsatisfying!

I found the eight essays in the last section, Environment and Health, full of inaccuracies and special pleadings. Sort of “the Precautionary Principle Gone Wild.” Get rid of chemicals to avoid childhood cancer. The fossil fuel industry is evil. Climate change means you won’t be able to breast feed. You can’t breathe the air. All breathlessly echoing parts of the climate cult’s catechism. I’m sorry I read them.

This is the fifth (or maybe the sixth?) of this series I’ve reviewed for Claire. As is usual for this series, these essays represent Progressive thought and, too often, Progressive polemic. However, as I’ve noted, there are more real solutions in this edition than in previous ones. While I can’t recommend this ebook, I certainly can’t condemn it, either.

____________________________________________

If you want to chat with John about this review, he can be reached at John.Plodinec@gmail.com.