In Georgia, the heart of the U.S. green manufacturing boom, a new electric vehicle gigafactory is nearing completion. Spanning 3,000 acres, the plant is expected to create 8,500 new jobs. Hyundai Motor Co. has tapped incentives from President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which together with the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helped unleash a wave of investment in clean energy technologies.

Those investments and jobs may hang in the balance if Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November. Trump has vowed to dismantle Biden’s climate policy. A frequent critic of electric cars, he’s taken aim at pollution rules that incentive automakers to sell more EVs and could curtail the IRA’s EV tax credits.

Representative Buddy Carter, a Republican whose district is home to the gigafactory, didn’t vote for the IRA — no Republicans in Congress did. But he said he doesn’t want to see projects like the plant jeopardized.

“I’m going to discourage [the new administration] from making a sudden change,” Carter said.

The lion’s share of IRA investment has gone to red and swing states — especially in the South and Midwest — where land, labor and energy are cheaper. Some GOP leaders and lawmakers in these states say they’ll work to defend projects enabled by the law if the political winds shift.

Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia said he’ll advocate for companies that have brought jobs to the state regardless of who is sitting in the White House next year.

Tennessee Representative Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican whose district has a battery facility that employs 300, said he would be happy to explain the benefits of battery technologies to officials in a second Trump administration.

“I can lay out a very good, positive message,” he said. Fleischmann, Kemp and Carter have all endorsed Trump.

Since the IRA passed in August 2022, 325 new clean energy projects have been announced across 41 states and Puerto Rico, according to nonpartisan environmental research group E2, which tracks them. Michigan has the most projects in the country — 30 — which are expected to create a total of more than 12,000 jobs. In Georgia, 28 projects and $15 billion of investments will create almost 16,000 jobs. And North Carolina has seen a staggering $19 billion flowing into 22 projects.

“I believe we’re at the advent of the biggest economic revolution we’ve seen in generations in this country,” said Bob Keefe, the executive director of E2.

GOP politicians in these states welcome the economic boost and attribute it to their states’ own fostering of business, low taxes and light regulation more than anything Biden did.

Kemp said Georgia’s green energy boom has been decades in the making, based on relationships fostered by him and two prior governors.

“Those job creators could go anywhere and still be impacted by the IRA, but again and again, they’re choosing Georgia,” Kemp said. “That hasn’t happened by accident.”

Similarly, a spokesperson for South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, said EV makers and other car companies “have been flocking to South Carolina for years and they will continue to long after President Biden leaves office.”

But IRA incentives were critical to many of these projects going ahead, and Democrats have been broadcasting that message.

Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, a Democrat whose district includes the Our Next Energy EV battery manufacturing factory, authored an IRA program that funds the conversion of shuttered or at-risk auto plants in eight states for EV manufacturing. She said the IRA has had a big impact on people in her state, but more needs to be done so voters understand that.

“I think we have to do a better job of talking about what we’ve done,” Dingell said. “Many of the things in this bill are making a difference, and part of our job is to talk about why they’re making a difference.”

Polling shows that many voters have heard little or nothing about the IRA. The full economic impact of the law is yet to be felt because many factories are still under construction.

For one nonpartisan mayor of a small town in southwest Tennessee where Ford Motor Co. is building a giant EV facility that’s expected to hire about 6,000 workers, credit is due to “a whole range of people, from Biden and the Inflation Reduction Act all the way down the line to the state level, to the county level, to the municipality level,” said Allan Sterbinsky, mayor of Stanton.

Sterbinsky sees the new factory as transformative. “Suddenly at our back door is something that we used to have to go to Detroit and Chicago for,” he said. “For people who have been in multiple generations of poverty, now they will have multiple generations of prosperity.”

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©2024 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The annual 10-day hunt, which started more than a decade ago, promotes public awareness of issues with invasive species in Florida while engaging the public in Everglades conversation, said Sarah Funck, the wildlife impact management section leader with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“They are a well-established invasive species across much of South Florida, unfortunately, in our natural areas,” Funck said of Burmese pythons. “A huge part of this challenge is to make sure that people understand about this issue and understand that in general, when you have a non-native species present in the state for whatever purpose, don’t let it loose, that can be really detrimental to our environment.”

Over the past decade, the python challenge has grabbed headlines for its incentive-based, only-in-Florida style of hunting as well as celebrity participation. This year, more than 600 people registered for the event, with two coming from Canada and 108 from other states.

During the challenge, hunters will linger around designated areas spanning through western Broward County to the Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area, including other management areas like Southern Glades, Holey Land and Rotenberger.

The goal is to humanely kill as many pythons as possible, and prizes divide between three groups: professional hunters who work for the state, hunters who are active in the military or are veterans and novice hunters, which includes anyone who is not working as a state contracted python hunter.

Each category has its own prizes, with $2,500 going to the person or team that kills the most pythons, $1,500 going to the runner-up for most kills and $1,000 going to whoever kills the longest python. The grand prize for the most kills in all categories gets a $10,000 prize.

Each person can only win one prize, so if someone is tops in two categories, they will end up with the highest-valued prize and the next qualifying hunter gets the remaining prize.

In 2017, the South Florida Water Management District and the state began hiring contractors to handle its invasive python problem year round. According to the wildlife agency’s website, through 2023, more than 11,000 pythons have been removed by these contractors.

Last year’s challenge brought in 209 pythons and the grand prize winner was Paul Hobbs, who bagged 20 pythons. Also during 2023, Florida wildlife agency and district contractors removed about 2,200 pythons.

Amy Siewe, the self-named Python Huntress, won a prize last year for catching a Burmese python measuring 10 feet and 9 inches (327 centimeters). This year, she won’t be participating in the challenge due to a knee surgery but said she’s not a fan of the annual challenge.

Siewe, who used to work as a state contractor catching invasive pythons, said she believed the initial intent of the challenge was to bring awareness to the issue. Now, it’s drawing large crowds of hunters, potentially scaring off pythons and potentially killing native snakes they mistake as pythons, like corn snakes, brown water snakes or cottonmouths.

“Pythons don’t take on their normal behavioral pattern because there’s so much traffic and they’ll come up and then they’ll go back into the swamp,” Siewe said. “I feel for myself, it’s counterproductive.”

Participants are required to undergo an online training, including information on how to identify Burmese pythons versus other snakes, Funck said. She said there’s also an additional optional in-person training participants can attend to properly identify Burmese pythons.

“That’s a huge part of what we do, is try to get the word out on how to identify these pythons, how to safely and humanely capture it,” Funck said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Perseids are back to dazzle the sky with bursts of light and color.

The annual meteor shower, active since July, peaks before dawn Monday. It’s one of the brightest and most easily viewed showers of the year, producing “bright blue meteors — and lots of them,” said University of Warwick astronomer Don Pollacco.

More than 50 meteors per hour are expected, according to the American Meteor Society. The shower lasts through Sept. 1.

Here’s what to know about the Perseids and other meteor showers.

What is a meteor shower?

Multiple meteor showers occur annually and you don’t need special equipment to see them.

Most meteor showers originate from the debris of comets. The source of the Perseids is the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.

When rocks from space enter Earth’s atmosphere, the resistance from the air makes them very hot. This causes the air to glow around them and briefly leaves a fiery tail behind them — the end of a “shooting star.”

The glowing pockets of air around fast-moving space rocks, ranging from the size of a dust particle to a boulder, may be visible in the night sky.

The Perseids result from “bigger particles than a lot of other showers,” said NASA’s Bill Cooke, giving them the appearance of “bright fireballs” — easier to spot than many others.

How to view a meteor shower

Meteor showers are usually most visible between midnight and predawn hours.

It’s easier to see shooting stars under dark skies, away from city lights. Meteor showers also appear brightest on cloudless nights when the moon wanes smallest.

The Northern Hemisphere will have the best view of the Perseids. This year’s peak coincides with a moon around 44% full.

When is the next meteor shower?

The meteor society keeps a list of upcoming large meteor showers, including the peak viewing days and moonlight conditions.

The next major meteor shower will be the Orionids, peaking in mid-October.

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ST. LOUIS (AP) — For the first time in roughly 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency used its emergency authority to halt the sale of a weed-killing pesticide that harms the development of unborn babies.

Officials took the rare step because the pesticide DCPA, or Dacthal, could cause irreversible damage to fetuses, including impaired brain development and low birthweight. The agency struggled to obtain vital health data from the pesticide’s manufacturer on time and decided it was not safe to allow continued sale, EPA said in an announcement Tuesday.

“In this case, pregnant women who may never know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems,” said Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.

DCPA is mostly used on broccoli, cabbage and certain other crops.

In 2023, the EPA assessed the pesticide’s risks and found it was dangerous even if a worker wore personal protective equipment. The manufacturer had instructed people to stay off fields where the pesticide had been applied for 12 hours, but agency officials said it could linger at dangerous levels for more than 25 days.

The pesticide is made by AMVAC Chemical Corp. The company did not immediately return a request for comment late Wednesday. In comments to the EPA earlier this year, the company said new protocols could help keep people safe. It proposed longer waiting periods before workers enter fields where the pesticide was applied and limits on how much of the chemical could be handled.

Federal officials said the company’s proposed changes weren’t enough. The emergency order was necessary because the normal review process would take too long and leave people at risk, according to the agency’s statement.

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WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris picked a running mate for her presidential campaign who has one of the most aggressive records enacting climate policy at the state level.

Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor tapped on Tuesday to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has accelerated his state’s embrace of clean energy and electric vehicles in ways that could become templates for federal action in the next White House. He used a razor-thin majority in the Minnesota legislature to enact a law requiring the state to produce all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2040. It was one of dozens of climate initiatives Walz helped steer through the statehouse, including a $2 billion initiative to expand clean energy investment in the state.

“He has done this by pitching climate action as a way to make people’s everyday lives better, create good-paying green jobs and invest in making communities stronger,” said Stevie O’Hanlon with the Sunrise Movement, a climate group run by youth activists.

Walz’s approach — casting the fight against climate change as a potential economic win for residents in his state — is the same model President Joe Biden used to drive enactment of the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act and attract support for other clean energy initiatives. Getting political buy-in to support policy goals will be critical for the next phase of U.S. clean energy development. And that’s where the approach taken by Walz in Minnesota could become an indicator of how he might lead from Washington.

In June, Walz signed legislation meant to streamline permitting reviews for energy projects, reducing scrutiny for smaller wind, solar and transmission projects. At the time he said the initiative was “cutting red tape” to get clean energy projects “in motion.” Those same bottlenecks to the energy transition are holding back deployment of renewable power across the U.S. Lengthy permitting procedures and slow upgrades to the nation’s electricity-transmission system can mean years-long waits for new projects to get on the grid.

In Congress, meanwhile, Minnesota-style permitting reform efforts have struggled to advance. There’s been pushback from both Republicans on electricity transmission measures and from progressives who predict that reforms would end up benefiting the oil industry. Just last week a new measure to streamline permitting won approval in the Senate energy committee, although it still faces an uphill climb for passage this year.

The contrast to Minnesota could not be more pronounced. The state’s new permitting law is seen “enabling a lot more clean energy deployment,” said John Hensley, vice president of markets and policy analysis with the American Clean Power Association, an industry group. “Hopefully it can provide a template for other states and even the nation as a whole to find a pathway forward on permitting reform.”

If Harris’ choice of running mate came down in the end to two governors, Walz and his Pennsylvania counterpart Josh Shapiro, then her decision ended up elevating the figure with the clearer track record on climate and the energy transition. In part, this reflects Shapiro’s more moderate approach to conventional energy development in his natural gas-rich state.

Walz, on the other hand, has championed a pivot away from fossil fuels and made a promise to prioritize work on climate change after he was sworn in as Minnesota’s governor in January 2019. He created a sub-cabinet role focused on the issue, then doubled-down on climate initiatives at the start of his second term in the statehouse. He has dedicated consistent funding to public transit and incorporated climate into the state’s transportation investment decisions, said Lena Moffitt, executive director of the advocacy group Evergreen Action.

Mike McKenna, a former White House energy adviser and longtime GOP energy strategist, argued that Walz’s track record of favoring renewables would put him out of step with voters who prefer an an all-of-the-above strategy on energy, particularly in swing states. Walz “is selling product that nobody in Pennsylvania is going to want to buy.”

Environmentalists credit Walz with making Minnesota a leader on the climate front in the Midwest, where nearby states such as Wisconsin and Michigan have emerged as crucial battlegrounds in the upcoming contest with former Republican President Donald Trump. It’s a quieter model of climate leadership compared to California, where Democratic politicians have for decades used the state’s outsize power — and special Clean Air Act authority — to shape pollution standards that frequently end up determining the federal approach. But Minnesota under Walz has helped chart a viable political path in the middle of the country.

“We are kind of quiet up here. We don’t get the coverage that California and New York get. But I think Tim Walz is leading on climate for the non-coastal states,” said Michael Noble, an informal adviser to Walz and former executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota-based energy policy nonprofit.

As an indicator of the emphasis Walz puts on climate policy, Noble pointed to the speed with which the governor pushed through his signature legislation, the state’s 100% clean energy requirement, within just a month of the legislative session opening in 2023. To augment the narrow Democratic majority in the legislature, the governor built a base of support from the business community, environmentalists and social justice groups.

“Walz was able to bring them together on a transformative piece of legislation,” Noble said. “I expect that his ability to span diverse constituencies is the reason he is going to be the nominee for vice president.”

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©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — When a deadly wildfire tore through Lahaina on Maui last August, the wall of flames scorched the 151-year-old banyan tree along the historic town’s Front Street. But the sprawling tree survived the blaze, and thanks to the efforts of arborists and dedicated volunteers, parts of it are growing back — and even thriving.

One year after the fire, here’s what to know about the banyan tree and the efforts to restore it.

Why is Lahaina’s banyan tree significant?

The banyan tree is the oldest living one on Maui but is not a species indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands. India shipped the tree as a gift to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries to live in Lahaina. It was planted in 1873, a quarter century before the Hawaiian Islands became a U.S. territory and seven decades after King Kamehameha declared Lahaina the capital of his kingdom.

The tree is widely beloved and fondly remembered by millions of tourists who have visited Maui over the years. But for many others it is a symbol of colonial rule that has dispossessed Native Hawaiians of their land and suppressed their language and culture.

For generations, the banyan tree served as a gathering place along Lahaina’s waterfront. By many accounts, it was the heart of the oceanside community — towering more than 60 feet (18 meters) high and anchored by multiple trunks that span nearly an acre.

The enormous tree has leafy branches that unfurl majestically and offer shade from the sun. Aerial roots dangle from its boughs and eventually latch onto the soil to become new trunks. Branches splay out widely, and have become roosting places for choirs of birds.

What happened to it during the fire?

The 2023 fire charred the tree and blackened many of its leaves. But it wasn’t the flames so much as the intense heat that was generated that dried out much of the tree, according to Duane Sparkman, chair of the Maui County Arborist Committee. As a result of this loss of moisture, about half of the tree’s branches died, he said.

“Once that section of the tree desiccated, there was no coming back,” he said.

But other parts of the tree are now growing back healthy.

How was it saved?

Those working to restore the tree removed the dead branches so that the tree’s energy would go toward the branches that were alive, Sparkman said.

To monitor that energy, 14 sensors were screwed into the tree to track the flows of cambium, or sap, through its branches.

“It’s basically a heart monitor,” Sparkman said. “As we’ve been treating the tree, the heart beat’s getting stronger and stronger and stronger.”

Sparkman said there are also plans to install vertical tubes to help the tree’s aerial roots, which appear to be vertical branches that grow down toward the ground. The tubes will contain compost so as to provide the branches with key nutrients when they take root in the soil.

A planned irrigation system will also feed small drops of water into the tubes. The goal, Sparkman said, is to help those aerial roots “bulk up and become the next stabilizer root.” The system will also irrigate the surrounding land and the tree’s canopy.

“You see a lot of long, long branches with hundreds of leaves back on the tree,” Sparkman said, adding that some branches are even producing fruit. “It’s pretty amazing to see that much of the tree come back.”

What other trees were destroyed in the fire?

Sparkman estimates that Lahaina lost some 25,000 trees in the fire.

These included the fruit trees that people grew in their yards as well as trees that are significant in Hawaiian culture, such as the ulu or breadfruit tree; the fire charred all but two of the dozen or so that remained.

Since the blaze, a band of arborists, farmers and landscapers — including Sparkman — has set about trying to save the ulu and other culturally important trees. Before colonialism, commercial agriculture and tourism, thousands of breadfruit trees dotted Lahaina.

To help restore Lahaina’s trees, Sparkman founded a nonprofit called Treecovery. The group has potted some 3,500 trees, he said, growing them in “micro-nurseries” across the island, including at some hotels, until people can move back into their homes.

“We have grow hubs all over the island of Maui to grow these trees out for as long as they need. So when the people are ready, we can have them come pick these trees up and they can plant them in their yards,” he said. “It’s important that we do this for the families.”

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AP writer Audrey McAvoy contributed from Honolulu.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ocean temperatures in the Great Barrier Reef hit their highest level in 400 years over the past decade, according to researchers who warned that the reef likely won’t survive if planetary warming isn’t stopped.

During that time, between 2016 and 2024, the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem and one of the most biodiverse, suffered mass coral bleaching events. That’s when water temperatures get too hot and coral expel the algae that provide them with color and food, and sometimes die. Earlier this year, aerial surveys of over 300 reefs in the system off Australia’s northeast coast found bleaching in shallow water areas spanning two-thirds of the reef, according to Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

Researchers from Melbourne University and other universities in Australia, in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, were able to compare recent ocean temperatures to historical ones by using coral skeleton samples from the Coral Sea to reconstruct sea surface temperature data from 1618 to 1995. They coupled that with sea surface temperature data from 1900 to 2024.

They observed largely stable temperatures before 1900, and steady warming from January to March from 1960 to 2024. And during five years of coral bleaching in the past decade — during 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024 — temperatures in January and March were significantly higher than anything dating back to 1618, researchers found. They used climate models to attribute the warming rate after 1900 to human-caused climate change. The only other year nearly as warm as the mass bleaching years of the past decade was 2004.

“The reef is in danger and if we don’t divert from our current course, our generation will likely witness the demise of one of those great natural wonders,” said Benjamin Henley, the study’s lead author and a lecturer of sustainable urban management at the University of Melbourne. “If you put all of the evidence together … heat extremes are occurring too often for those corals to effectively adapt and evolve.”

Across the world, reefs are key to seafood production and tourism. Scientists have long said additional loss of coral is likely to be a casualty of future warming as the world approaches the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold that countries agreed to try and keep warming under in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Even if global warming is kept under the Paris Agreement’s goal, which scientists say Earth is almost guaranteed to cross, 70% to 90% of corals across the globe could be threatened, the study’s authors said. As a result, future coral reefs would likely have less diversity in coral species — which has already been happening as the oceans have grown hotter.

Coral reefs have been evolving over the past quarter century in response to bleaching events like the ones the study’s authors highlighted, said Michael McPhaden, a senior climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was not involved with the study. But even the most robust coral may soon not be able to withstand the elevated temperatures expected under a warming climate with “the relentless rise in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere,” he said.

The Great Barrier Reef serves as an economic resource for the region and protects against severe tropical storms.

As more heat-tolerant coral replaces the less heat-tolerant species in the colorful underwater rainbow jungle, McPhaden said there’s “real concern” about the expected extreme loss in the number of species and reduction in area that the world’s largest reef covers.

“It’s the canary in the coal mine in terms of climate change,” McPhaden said.

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This story has corrected attribution for the aerial surveys in the 2nd paragraph to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, rather than NASA.

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MIAMI — Flooding tides. Soaring temperatures. Even species disappearing, like a rare cactus declared in July forever “extirpated” from the Florida Keys. Many troubling signs of climate change in South Florida are visible — but one that affects a growing number of people is not.

It’s called climate anxiety, a fear of what the future may hold in a warming world.

It hit Olivia Collins not long ago, The wave of worry surprised her since she’s immersed in the subject from working at Miami’s CLEO institute, which is dedicated to climate education and advocacy. The unsettling feeling suddenly washed over her after she read “The Light Pirate,” a novel set in near-future Florida about a child born out of a devastating hurricane who has to navigate a world undergoing frightening change.

“I’ve been with CLEO for seven years and never felt climate anxiety, but it hit me like a ton of bricks back in the spring,’’ Collins said. “After I read that book, I was seeking my own personal climate therapist through the climate psychology network. It felt too real. It hit this nerve so deep down, and I can’t undo it.”

Some may scoff, perhaps the same skeptics of science showing the environmental already changing, but academic researchers and practicing psychologists have identified climate anxiety as an increasingly common stressor.

Experts at Yale University define it this way: distress about climate change and its impacts on the landscape and human existence. It can manifest as intrusive thoughts or troubled feelings about the future of the world. Also called “eco-anxiety,” it can take the form of “eco-guilt,” a feeling of not doing enough personally, or even “eco-rage,” an elevated anger that everybody else isn’t doing enough to deal with looming threats.

Worries about what rising temperatures and seas will do to the world are increasingly common, researchers have found, particularly among younger people. In a 2021 study in The Lancet surveying 10,000 youths in several countries, including America, the majority of respondents said they were worried about climate change, while more than 50% reported feeling sad, anxious or guilty. More than 45% said their feelings about climate change were strong enough to negatively affected their daily lives.

Other measures suggest a rise in people struggling to cope with climate concerns. In South Florida — ground zero for the threat of sea rise and smack in the middle of hurricane alley — the website Zencare shows 11 therapists now listing “climate anxiety” treatment as part of their practices. On a global scale, worldwide Google searches for “climate anxiety” or “eco-anxiety” increased by 4,590% from 2018 to 2023, according to a report by Time.

Putting a number to clinically serious anxiety cases is difficult. But in a study published in the Yale Climate Change Communication program In 2022, researchers asked a group of Americans aged 18 and older how often they feel nervous, depressed or bothered by global warming over a period of two weeks. Using a widely accepted psychological measure, their findings suggested that 3% of the adult population could be experiencing potentially serious levels of anxiety due to climate change.

The researchers also found out that Hispanic/Latino adults are more likely to experience high levels of climate anxiety, while younger members of Gen Z, Millennial and Gen X generations are experiencing higher rates compared to Baby Boomers and older people. That hardly seems surprising since scientists predict younger generations will likely see more profound changes if current trends continue.

‘An emerging field’

The issue isn’t new but has only recently began entering mainstream conversation. More than a decade ago, a community of mental health practitioners first formed what it called the Climate Psychology Alliance focused on the complicated emotions surrounding the climate crisis. They also built a directory of therapists prepared to work with clients on the issue.

Brittany Rivers, one of two climate-aware therapists in the state listed on the alliance directory, now offers services like mental health therapy, nature based therapy and hosts Climate Cafes online, which are support groups for those struggling with climate distress.

Rivers, who is based in Gainesville, said they haven’t had a lot of people reach out specifically just for climate anxiety but it’s usually mixed in with other concerns — perhaps because it remains what Rivers called “an emerging field.” Clients, who Rivers said tend to be more “politically informed,” are sometimes surprised to know, “‘Oh, I can ask for help for that.’ Like I can actually go to therapy and get support.”

A lot of Rivers’ motivation to work with the climate-anxious comes from the therapist’s own struggles with the issue and grief related to environmental loss.

“I would have loved to have been able to go to a provider that knew about this and cared about it and wanted to support me, or to have a community space,” Rivers said. “I definitely had those feelings of isolation with what I was experiencing.”

A new focus for advocates

Outside of the healthcare field, climate advocacy organizations also are beginning to include mental health resources as a part of outreach efforts.

The Climate Mental Health Network, a national organization, is one of them. Elissa Teles Muñoz of Miami is one of its K-12 programming leads. She researches how teachers can acknowledge the emotions that come with discussing the implications of climate change in the classroom. She said young people in South Florida see the effects in real time, in the form of coastal flooding and hurricanes, which can provoke not only questions but an array of responses.

“In order to have responsible climate education, you need to be addressing emotions that arise within students in an appropriate way,” Muñoz said.

Muñoz, 24, said she began having strong emotions triggered by climate change herself around 2018, when the IPCC Special Report about global warming came out. The report warned about rapidly increasing consequences of global warming and how humans are contributing to the speed of changes. She recalled feeling anxious and depressed, unsure of how to handle her emotions.

Focusing on solutions or at least ways to delay or reduce impacts can help ease the anxiety, she said.

Citizens Climate Lobby, an international environment group based in California, also offers educational materials for those wanting to start climate conversations in their community. The resources include a climate anxiety counseling booth inspired by the iconic Peanuts comic strip — specifically, a running gag involving a character named Lucy offering psychiatric counseling out of a converted lemonade stand

The group also offers step-by-step conversation guides on how to communicate and engage with anyone looking for help with their climate anxiety. The guides give examples of conversation starters and topics to avoid. It also offers support and resilience teams to help people working on climate change awareness campaigns.

“Climate change advocacy can be deeply rewarding… yet it can also be stressful and exhausting,” according to its website.

“[The resources show that] they’re not alone and not alone in their suffering and grieving,” said Solemi Hernandez, a Naples resident and CCL’s southeast regional director.

Social media an outlet

In the digital age, people dealing with the emotions surrounding climate change also have turned to a familiar outlet: social media.

On the Reddit anxiety thread, which has nearly 700,000 members, there are several discussions focused on climate change and environmental distress. Some threads talk about feeling scared or hopeless about climate change and what the future may look like.

California-based environmentalist and content creator Isaias Hernandez has been talking about this issue for years on social media. The 28-year-old is behind the @queerbrownvegan Instagram account, which touts over 100,000 followers. Hernandez has shared blog posts highlighting the emotions surrounding climate change for years.

One of his posts from 2020 explains the climate emotion scale, which covers a range of feelings that arise from the climate crisis. The emotions range from “solastalgia,” an existential environmental-induced distress, to “eco-guilt,” the feeling that you should be contributing more to help protect the Earth. Three years later during wildfire that swept Canada, he said there was a huge jump in traffic on eco-anxiety posts on his websites.

Hernandez believes climate emotions can be nuanced and that socioeconomic and political factors play a role in the way people might react. For example, he said he grew up in poverty with a father working as a landscape gardener.. With basic concerns like making a living, he said he didn’t have time to worry about helping the environment — unlike the affluent families who his father worked for.

“In my younger years in college I first learned about the term eco-anxiety and I laughed, “ he said in an interview with The Miami Herald. “I thought at the time it was a very privileged thing, and I realized it was not so much. It’s a very shared common response to people.”

Researchers have validated his take, finding climate concerns can vary widely depending on socioeconomic status. Yale research scientist Anthony Leiserowitz said in an article explaining climate anxiety that those who can afford to have things like air conditioners in their cars and homes will worry less about how something like higher temperatures might impact their daily lives.

The Environmental Protection Agency found that communities of low-income and with higher populations of people of color, have neighborhoods with higher temperatures compared to nearby neighborhoods with higher incomes and less diversity. It also found that low-income households tend to live in less energy-efficient homes that are more expensive to cool, making it harder to deal with the heat.

Hernandez said his audience online are typically high school or college students and it’s obvious to him that younger generation facing the brunt of the climate change also have heightened emotions about it.

“They have told me that they’ve grown up with climate anxiety since they were a kid,” Hernandez said.

Bigger than one person

In South Florida, younger people looking to be in a space to share their emotions might turn to the CLEO institute’s GenCLEO group, which aims to educate younger generations on the changing climate.

Luke Norris, a University of Miami ecosystem science and policy student, a 21-year-old GenCLEO member, grew up in California with a front-row seat to droughts and wildfires. In 2020, his sibling lost their home in a town called Boulder Creek to one of those fires. The experience pushed Norris towards climate advocacy.

With fellow CLEO staffers, Norris is working on the initial stages of what they hope could be a first-of-its-kind climate anxiety research center focusing on education and helping those with symptoms of climate anxiety.

One key to dealing with anxiety, he believes, is underlining that climate change is a challenge for humankind, not any one person. We’re all in it together.

“When I’ve gone to therapy and talked about climate anxiety it’s very individual-centered and doesn’t help with the root of the problem,” he said. “You don’t want to feel that you’re alone.”

©2024 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Debby drenched coastal cities in Georgia and South Carolina, stirred up tornadoes and submerged streets with waist-high floodwaters Tuesday, just the beginning of a prolonged storm that could dump staggering rain totals of up to 25 inches (64 centimeters).

Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, took the first blow, with up to a foot (30 centimeters) of rain falling along the coast between the two cities in just over 24 hours. Police blocked all roads into Charleston’s downtown peninsula to everyone but essential workers and emergency personnel. Dozens of roads were closed in the historic city because of flooding similar to what it sees several times a year because of rising sea levels.

As Debby swirls just offshore, the heavy rain is expected to move north into parts of South and North Carolina that have already seen two billion-dollar floods in eight years.

In one Savannah neighborhood, firefighters used boats to evacuate some residents and waded through floodwaters to deliver bottled water and other supplies to those who refused to leave.

Michael Jones said water gushed into his home Monday evening, overturning the refrigerator and causing furniture to float. Outside, the water seemed to be everywhere and was too deep to flee safely. So Jones spent a sleepless night on his kitchen table before firefighters going door to door came in a boat Tuesday morning.

“It was hell all night,” Jones said, adding, “It was a struggle, but God is good.”

In Charleston, Mayor William Cogswell said the road closures have kept businesses and homes from unnecessary damage and avoided the need for any high-water rescues.

“We especially don’t need any yahoos driving through the water and causing damage to properties,” Cogswell said.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said Debby has not been as bad as feared so far, but he warned that the slow-moving storm was far from over.

It will be a nervous few days for northern South Carolina and southern North Carolina, where forecasters warned of up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain. Those totals are close to what the region saw in a historic flood from Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Then two years later, many of those records were broken during Hurricane Florence. Both storms killed dozens.

North Carolina and Virginia have both declared a state of emergency.

“The effects of Debby are far-reaching, and our neighboring states are facing significant challenges,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said.

Several areas along North Carolina’s coastline are prone to flooding, such as Wilmington and the Outer Banks. Virginia could see impacts including strong winds, heavy rains and flooding.

Debby’s center was about 30 miles (50 kilometers southeast of Savanah on Tuesday night, according to a bulletin from the National Hurricane Center. It had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph) and was heading east-northeast at 3 mph (6 kph).

The storm was forecast to slowly move out to sea, then creep back onshore over South Carolina on Thursday morning.

“Tropical cyclones always produce heavy rain, but normally as they’re moving, you know, it doesn’t accumulate that much in one place,” said Richard Pasch, of the hurricane center. “But when they move very slowly, that’s the worst situation.”

There will be lulls in the rain as dry spells appear between bands around the center of the poorly organized storm, forecasters said. But some bands will be heavy and keep moving over the same places.

Green Pond in rural Colleton County, South Carolina, reported the most rain so far, just over 14 inches (36 centimeters). A nearby dam had water run over its top but did not crumble, while trees and washouts blocked a number of roads, county Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief David Greene said.

Close to a foot (30 centimeters) fell down coast from Charleston to Savannah, where the National Weather Service reported 6.68 inches (17 centimeters) just on Monday. That’s already a month’s worth in a single day: In all of August 2023, the city got 5.56 inches (14.1 centimeters).

Tornadoes knocked down trees and damaged a few homes on Kiawah Island and Edisto Island. A Walmart, an Arby’s and other businesses were damaged and several vehicles flipped in Moncks Corner, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) inland from Charleston.

As the heavy rain shifted up the coast Tuesday, Crooked Hammock Brewery in North Myrtle Beach decided to close early.

“Flash flooding is super unpredictable, and we’d rather our staff and guests be home and safe,” marketing coordinator Georgena Dimitriadis said.

Far to the north in New York City, heavy storms that meteorologists said were being enhanced by Debby flooded some streets and expressways, stranding motorists. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch until noon Wednesday for the entire city.

Emergency officials warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

At least six people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, who was on his anchored sailboat and whose body was recovered after a person saw the vessel had partially sunk, WTSP-TV reported.

About 500 people were rescued Monday from flooded homes in Sarasota, Florida, police said. Just north of Sarasota, Manatee County officials said more than 200 people were rescued.

Officials said it may take two weeks to fully assess the damage in parts of north central Florida as they wait for rivers to crest.

“You’re going to see the tributaries rise. That’s just inevitable. How much? We’ll see,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday. “It may be that it’s not flooded today and it could be flooded tomorrow.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also warned of more rain and flooding to come, saying, “Do not let this storm lull you to sleep.”

More than 155,000 customers remained without power in Florida and Georgia on Tuesday morning, down from more than 350,000, according to PowerOutage.us and Georgia Electric Membership Corp. More than 20,000 others were without power in South Carolina early Tuesday.

President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations making federal disaster assistance available to Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Debby is finally forecast to pick up speed Thursday, and it could move up the middle of North Carolina, through Virginia and into the Washington area by Saturday.

___

Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Contributors include Jeff Martin and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida; and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; and freelance photographer Stephen B. Morton in Savannah, Georgia.

In the 1800s, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa joined other tribes in signing a pair of treaties with the federal government, giving up massive swaths of land in return for the creation of a reservation in eastern Minnesota. The treaties included a guarantee: Tribal members would be able to return in perpetuity to the lands they were signing away to gather wild rice, known as manoomin.

“There’s a recognition that [manoomin] is a relative that figures very prominently in the Ojibwe migration story,” said Nancy Schuldt, water projects coordinator with the environmental program for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. “It is one of the hallmarks of the how and the why [that] the Ojibwe people found themselves migrating to the western Great Lakes.”

Retaining the right to harvest manoomin allowed tribal members to maintain a connection to their ancestral lands, even as they were forced to live within reservation boundaries. But wild rice is very sensitive to environmental conditions, and the tribe found that sulfate pollution from nearby mining threatened the waters on which their harvest depended.

The tribe fought for decades to get the state of Minnesota to issue water quality standards to protect wild rice and, later, to enforce those standards. But Wisconsin, where the Fond du Lac Band also retains harvesting rights in certain areas, has been much slower to enact similar protections.

Tribal leaders are hopeful that a new federal rule will change that.

This May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a revision to the Clean Water Act that requires states to consider tribal treaty rights when crafting water quality regulations. The rule could protect resources such as wild rice, sturgeon, salmon and shellfish.

While many tribes have issued pollution standards for waters within their own boundaries, the federal rule will cover off-reservation landscapes on which Native people still exercise hard-won rights to hunt, fish and gather. Such areas cover millions of acres mapped out in dozens of treaties, concentrated especially in the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest.

State regulators have long been tasked with setting water quality standards for those areas. Now, the new rule directs them to consider the treaty-protected aquatic species that depend on those waters. For instance, states may be forced to lower pollution thresholds in some waters to account for the fact that tribal members who practice subsistence lifestyles consume fish at higher rates than the general public.

Daniel Cordalis, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, a tribal advocacy group, said tribes have long been frustrated with some state regulators for setting regulations without tribal input.

“Tribes have been asking for this for a long time,” he said. “These are federally based rights that need to be incorporated into the calculus as you’re developing or revising a water quality standard.”

Washington state’s experience

In Washington state, a landmark court decision in 1974 forced the state to recognize tribal fishing rights, and entitled tribal members to half of the harvestable catch. Officials with the Washington State Department of Ecology say they have a formal process for reaching out to tribal governments whenever they propose a new rule.

In 2009, agency leaders began a dialogue with tribes over the state’s human health criteria. The agency had long relied on baseline federal figures — meaning pollution limits were set on an assumption that residents eat 6.5 grams of fish per day.

After discussions with tribal groups, however, officials determined that the baseline figure was too low to protect tribal members whose diets are heavy in salmon and other culturally important aquatic species. Higher consumption rates made tribal members vulnerable to accumulations of mercury and other contaminants that fish can pick up in polluted water.

“We knew it needed to be updated and be reflective of fish consumption that was really happening in Washington state by tribes,” said Melissa Gildersleeve, who oversees water quality standards for the agency. “We’ve gotten used to that conversation around tribal data.”

In 2016, Washington state issued new criteria based on a consumption rate of 175 grams per day, nearly 30 times the previous assumption. Because of tribes’ right to harvest fish, waters throughout the state gained extra protections in order to ensure that right could be exercised safely.

But other states have been more resistant, with a dozen joining a lawsuit seeking to get the new EPA rule thrown out. They argue that it treads on states’ delegated authority to set standards under the conditions laid out in the Clean Water Act, putting tribal interests before states’ judgment. The lawsuit also asserts that treaty rights are guarantees made by the federal government, and putting the onus on states to validate and uphold those rights gives them a near-impossible task.

“This starkly conflicts with the [Clean Water Act’s] specific recognition, preservation, and protection of the States’ primary right and responsibility to establish designated uses and consequent water quality standards,” the plaintiffs wrote.

The states challenging the rule are Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

Tribal leaders say that Idaho and other states in the case have long ignored tribes’ attempts to have their rights considered. They say the rule is necessary because states have demonstrated that they won’t listen to tribes unless they’re forced to.

“Historically, it’s taken litigation to get states to recognize tribes’ rights, and that’s really expensive,” said Gussie Lord, managing attorney of the Tribal Partnerships Program with Earthjustice, an environmental law group. “This provides a framework for a process that has been divisive and adversarial.”

Restoring flows

Some other tribal advocates believe the rule, if upheld, could represent a massive shift. They note that pollution isn’t the only factor preventing the exercise of their rights. In some areas, irrigation for agriculture or the construction of dams have reduced water flows in rivers and choked off fish populations.

“This could be one tool in restoring the flows back into these waterways,” said Ken Norton, chair of the National Tribal Water Council, a tribal advocacy group.

The states opposing the rule fear the same outcome, arguing that it would conflict with states’ authority to delegate water rights.

The rule could also require states to set higher standards even in waters where treaty rights aren’t currently being exercised. If tribes aren’t harvesting fish in a river because it’s polluted, states must consider what the harvest might look like if poor water quality didn’t prevent tribes from exercising their right.

The EPA did not grant an interview request to discuss the rule and its implications.

(Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.)

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.