Thread by @leahstokes

This month, #climatebookclub read @ElizabethaRush Pulitzer prize finalist book, “Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore.”

The book tackles the changes that are already happening all along our coasts due to climate change. I’ll kick off the discussion in this THREAD!

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats Question 1: How did the book make you feel about climate change impacts? So often, we treat this crisis as something unfolding in the future, yet Rush captures that climate change is happening now. Were there some impacts that surprised you?

CC: @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA Question 2: The book looks squarely at how race and class interact with climate vulnerability. What did you learn from the book about the unequal burden that some communities are already facing?

CC: @estee_nj, @ErinNMayfield

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA @estee_nj @ErinNMayfield Question 3: Managed retreat has become more prominent in the media with Yang’s campaign for the Democratic nomination. Rush covers the managed retreat that is already happening, for example in Staten Island. How did the book change your thinking on this topic?

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA @estee_nj @ErinNMayfield Question 4: Rush does a superb job blending her own personal story with the other peoples' stories in the book. It reminded me of Rebecca Skloot’s book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." Were there personal passages that particularly resonated with you?

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA @estee_nj @ErinNMayfield Have another topic you’d like to discuss? Reply here!

Meanwhile, I'll reply with some of my favorite short passages from the book...

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA @estee_nj @ErinNMayfield "I think about how the disappearance of whole neighborhoods is already disarranging our mental maps of who we are and where we come from—and it makes me wonder whether you can unsettle something when the bottom has already dropped out entirely."

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA @estee_nj @ErinNMayfield "He and the spotted owls have formed a bond, a kind of kinship founded on the reciprocity that comes with paying attention, forged in the fire of mutual exchange. ... The loss of its wildness was a price the owl was forced to pay in order to save so much else."

@ElizabethaRush @Pr0jectClimate @Alicia_Harley @J_Lovering @karenstreet @jen_skene @rschauland @LisaMEarthMama @shairsmom @terrainvague @TutusNTinyHats @silkeswings @DGA12 @charleyinMA @estee_nj @ErinNMayfield "I look at [the owls] looking at me from their perch and I sense that their fate and ours—and the hummingbird's and the osprey's and the columbine's and the cordgrass's and the scarlet gilia's—are all tied up in one another in ways that I can't quite explain."