12/19/2023 0 Comments Tidal wave 2009![]() ![]() Miller points to natural solutions as better options than man-made fixes. Plus, there’s money to be made in building huge embankments or desalination plants or large-scale dams. “But my whole point is that it’s our tendency to fall for simple solutions that keeps putting us in these predicaments,” he says. ![]() Miller acknowledges that a book like this can be pretty heavy on the doom and gloom, especially when he points out the solutions that people have engineered aren’t actually going to save us. “It’s a … tragic example of our tendency as people to just build a tall wall to solve the same problem without thinking about the deeper implications of what’s causing the problem and why we’re vulnerable to it in the first place.” “The Japanese reaction to the tsunami is to build even bigger walls that wouldn’t have even stopped the wave that came,” Miller says. Nearly 20,000 people died in that disaster. “They felt the walls would protect them,” he says. The sea walls the Japanese built before the tsunami in 2011 were maladaptive, according to Miller, because they created a false sense of security that led people to stay behind after the earthquake. “ made it even more imperative to me that we don’t fall into these traps of making short-sighted decisions, only thinking about our immediate interests,” Miller says.Īdapting our environment to handle problems like tidal waves in the present moment is much different than adapting for future generations. ![]() Over the Seawall is Miller’s way to get people to care about the long-term impacts of their decisions, whether that’s trying to build monstrous walls along the coast of Japan in a futile effort to stop ocean rise and tidal waves, or the unsustainable agricultural practice of pumping water into the Arizona desert to grow alfalfa for horses overseas. “The last thing I wanted to do is leave my kid with fewer options to deal with this crisis when the crisis is only going to get worse.” ‘Indigenous knowledge’ “They don’t only cause other environmental problems … they also limit the amount of options people in the future have to address those problems. We make decisions now that have these ramifications that go on down the line,” he says. What choices we leave for the generations to come after us is one of his biggest concerns with maladaptation. “I can’t bring a kid into the world with the mindset that he’s screwed.” I was still angry, but I found myself feeling like I have to find some shred of hope in all of this,” he says. “When I found out that he was coming, I found it difficult to be so negative and cynical. He became a father to a son about six months ago, just as he was working through the copy edits on the book. Then Miller’s life changed in a major way. I was just pissed off at so many people in positions of power,” he says. He was mad at policymakers and government officials, “everybody who’s not doing anything to stop this crisis from happening now. Credit: Andrew Cullen A shred of hopeĪfter the reporting was done, Miller says he started writing the book from a place of anger. Longmont author Stephen Robert Miller wants to re-evaluate how we think about potential solutions to the climate crisis. And he reported most of it during the COVID-19 pandemic. ![]() That part, along with the opening Japan section, meant Miller had to report and write two-thirds of the book about countries where he didn’t speak the language. In the Bangladesh section, Miller describes how humans have arrogantly tried to control sea tides and the Ganges River Delta through huge engineering projects that have had disastrous results for the local population. “That was the first time I really saw maladaptation happening on a large scale on the ground outside of the U.S.,” he said. Miller asked to tag along on her next research trip to Dhaka. He was also auditing an environmental course taught by Amanda Carrico, who has done extensive research in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. While he was at CU, Miller spent much of his time researching water law in the American West, which became the Arizona section of the book. This book is a direct result of what Miller pitched to land the fellowship. Miller, who lives in Longmont, came to Colorado about five years ago as a Ted Scripps Fellow in CU Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism program. The book looks at three parts of the world: tsunami seawalls in Japan, reengineered waters in Bangladesh and artificial waterways supporting farms and cities in Arizona. The new nonfiction book Over the Seawall is about what writer Stephen Robert Miller terms “disastrous adaptation.” In a nutshell, that means the delusional actions humans take to try to control nature as they adapt to changes in climate and environment. Stephen Robert Miller reporting in southwest Bangladesh Rampal Coal Plant. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |