It requires the same effort needed to preserve ourselves from deadly heat, storms, floods, desertification, and the daily soot shortening our lives. The question now is whether we assist such resilience with a resolve to cool their waters. The parent is one of the last-known puffins that was plucked off Newfoundland as a chick and hand reared by Kress’s team. In my visit to the islands, I held a symbol of resilience in my hands, a puffin chick being raised by a 33-year-old parent. In a recent conference call, researchers in the Gulf of Maine Seabird Working Group reported record numbers of tern species across many islands and a rebounding of puffin nesting. It was a reminder that there is still a chance of a forever-ever-after. Between starvation and shivering, seabird islands were a climate war zone, with bird carcasses everywhere and some of the lowest chick productivity recorded by researchers.Ĭonversely, this current summer brought calmer weather conditions and plentiful fish. Warm water drove the fish puffins and other seabirds need to feed chicks too deep or too far out to catch. Last year was a nightmare with the warmest waters on record and intense storms also associated with a warming planet. They are bonded to the speed we curb the fossil emissions that scorch the planet and sear the lungs. Today, I see that their destiny is directly bonded to dumped-on families. Like thousands of birdwatchers, my journey with puffins began with simple admiration of a beautiful bird. I say if you really care about the threats to them and whether they’ll be around for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, then you must care about those families in southeast Chicago. I show them Black and brown workers in the green economy, installing solar panels on roofs. I show them families of color from San Diego to Washington, D.C., who enjoy rooftop solar power through various programs. I show images from my coverage of offshore wind farms and facilities in Europe. I then give the audience a glimpse of the shift that should be happening. HUD said it was an example of “shifting polluting activities from white neighborhoods to Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.Īctivists march to stop an industrial metal shredder from relocating half a mile from two public schools in Southeast Chicago. Just last month, the Department of Housing and Urban Development blasted an attempt to relocate here a scrap metal recycling facility ousted from the predominately white north side. They live in what environmental justice advocates decry as “sacrifice zones.” In the last decade alone, this primarily brown and Black community has suffered choking clouds of dust from oil refining byproducts, lead in lawns, and neurotoxic manganese dust in the air. They are of mothers and children of southeast Chicago, with toxic industries at the end of their block. I always get oohs, ahhs, and a choral, “sooooo cute.”Then I show images that are not so cute. I show my photos of them either with fish in their orange, yellow, and blue-black beaks, gathered in kaleidoscopic multitude, or nuzzling in affection. When I tell bird-loving audiences what puffins mean to me, I start with the expected.
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