The Driftless — an unglaciated area that runs through Wisconsin and a few other states — lured Tamara Dean and her partner, David, to escape their life indoors two decades ago.
“We had spent our days in offices, staring at screens most of the time. And we thought, we just want to try something that is healthier for us. And that included cleaner air and cleaner water,” Dean said.
They uprooted their lives, purchased a plot of land, and moved to the Driftless, known for its unique topography that resulted from avoiding the passage of glaciers and their attendant stones and debris. The region is known for its carved valleys and spring-fed streams.
Dean’s new book Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless is a series of essays that recounts this time. The book is not just a memoir of many of the challenges that these new homesteaders faced, but also a love letter to rediscovering the marvels of nature. Dean writes about re-seeding a prairie, dealing with bouts of Lyme disease, the local plant life, and tornadoes and floods. Throughout the book, Dean relies on histories, other nature writing, and even Woody Guthrie’s posthumous novel House of Earth to complement her narratives.
Despite its rugged and natural beauty, the Driftless is still under threat from climate change. “It’s a combination of more frequent rain events and more significant rain events,” Dean said. On top of this, the EPA has modeled more severe future droughts and higher temperatures for this area.
Dean and her partner started from scratch in Wisconsin. They built their home out of almost wholly sustainable materials harvested from their plot of land, a project covered in the title chapter of the memoir.
Tamara Dean
“Our aim with the house, with not having any plastic, was to imagine that long after we’re gone, it could just dissolve into dust, go back into the earth. So, it would be entirely compostable. We landed on compressed earth blocks, which are basically mud bricks. They’re made of the clay that was dug from our subsoil.” But due to building codes, they did have to use PVC piping for the plumbing.
Dean also wished to cultivate a small farm with organic produce, but because of a lack of safety net in the region for small farmers, the risk inherent in losing all the crops to flooding wasn’t worth it. She pivoted to another environmental need.
“When the Obama administration recognized that pollinators were in trouble and that planting habitat for pollinators would help all growers because they’re necessary for all crops and offered that grant program, I thought, okay, that’s what I’ll do with my acreage,” she said.
“I never figured out how people make a living with a small farm of the type I wanted. I just couldn’t get the numbers to add up. I thought, even if I don’t hire people to help, you can’t get the bottom line to be positive unless you’re growing those commodity crops, corn and soy, with subsidies.” Dean did end up growing a large garden each year, though.
Tamara Dean
Another part of the memoir, “Floodways,” focuses on a major flood that happened in and around their land. Dean writes:
In the fifteen years I lived beside a river in the heart of the Driftless area, I watched seven record-breaking floods bury the low-lying fields.
“One of the reasons we were attracted to the property was this beautiful stream,” Dean said. “Soon after we purchased the property, we were camping in the field, and a flash flood came up. It really was dramatic. We got a taste for the contrasts or contradictions in living next to water.”
After dealing with the flood, Tamara and her husband became citizen water monitors.
“The idea is you can measure things like pH and dissolved oxygen and flow and upload that data monthly to a statewide database,” she said. “The theory is that the state Department of Natural Resources could draw on that data to learn about trends or even threats to the environment. And that really appealed to me.
“Our drinking water was rainwater. We thought that that would be cleaner and healthier than well water. We were lucky that we made that choice because we didn’t know when we purchased the property that so many wells in the Wisconsin area are contaminated with E. coli and other bacteria because of spreading manure on farm fields.”
Tamara Dean
But much of what made their move memorable was the community of which they grew to be a part of. “We learned a lot about community,” she said. “We became rooted in that rural Wisconsin community.”
At times of calamity, for example, politics took a back seat to community.
“When all our water disappeared from our cistern while we were gone, these people who hardly knew us just stepped right up and said, of course, we’ll fill our tank, our milk truck or the sap truck, fill it up at the fire station and take it to your place,” she said. “And when they’re helping you out, nobody’s asking who you voted for, or how you feel about a certain legislation or issue. It was so heartwarming. It really shows that humans are more apt to help each other out.”
One of Dean’s projects while living in the Driftless involved collecting narratives about the catastrophic 2018 flood.
“Some of the people we talked with were farmers in their mid-80s,” she said. “Those older farmers would acknowledge that the weather has become more extreme. There was not a blanket denial among the people who worked the land for 50 or 60 years. They know that things are drastically different than they used to be. And some of them indeed would say it’s because of climate change. That surprised me a little bit.”
After 15 years and having contracted Lyme disease multiple times, Tamara and David moved back to Madison. She writes:
We foraged and grew fruits and vegetables, heated our home with wood we cut from our forest, and experimented with prairie restoration. This life we’d crafted and loved required energy. Now I was walled off from our dream. I gazed out the window as seasons came and went.
But Dean gleaned hopeful lessons from the time spent living in the Driftless.
“Working with our neighbors, working to improve our environment, we have some power in the face of what feels like overwhelming changes in the environment, whether that’s climate change or policy changes,” she said.
“The one measure of hope I have is that individuals can still make choices, and we can choose whether it’s planting more trees or planting pollinator habitats in our neighborhood or turning to alternative energy despite the lack of incentives or benefits that the government’s going to offer us. We can still make choices. I hope that we come together and do make choices that will benefit our own health and the health of the planet.”
The post ‘Shelter and Storm’: Tamara Dean’s Memoir of Living in the Driftless appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/tamara-dean-shelter-and-storm-ecowatch.html
In a new study, scientists have detected high levels of mercury contamination in alligators from the Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia. The contamination in the alligators could be an indicator of more widespread heavy metal contamination in the region, which could be harmful to other wildlife, and ultimately humans.
“Alligators are very ancient creatures, and we can look at them in these areas as an indicator of what else might be happening in the ecosystem,” Kristen Zemaitis, lead author of the study and a graduate of the Odum School of Ecology at University of Georgia, said in a statement. “Studying them can relate to many different things in the food web.”
Scientists analyzed blood samples and dietary habits of 133 alligators from three different sites: Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia; Jekyll Island, Georgia; and Yawkey Wildlife Center, South Carolina. While the team found mercury in alligators from all three sites, the amount of mercury in alligators from the Okefenokee Swamp was up to eight times higher compared to the alligators along the coast. They published their findings in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
Older alligators also had higher levels of mercury, which the researchers explained could be both because of the longer time the mercury could spend accumulating as well as an increase in the volume of prey — which are likely also contaminated with mercury — that the alligators eat as they grow.
But even young alligators were found to contain mercury, as “Mothers are passing toxins and heavy metals into the egg yolks during reproduction,” Zemaitis said.
A new study found that smaller alligators and hatchlings could inherit high levels of mercury from their mothers. Chamberlain Smith / University of Georgia
Because Okefenokee Swamp shares water with the Suwannee and St. Marys rivers, the researchers warned that mercury levels found in alligators, at the top of the food chain, likely means local fish also contain mercury.
“Mercury is a neurotoxin that is very lethal to organisms,” Jeb Byers, co-author of the study and a professor at the Odum School, said in a statement. “If it builds up, it moves through the food web and creates the perfect storm. That’s what we have in the Okefenokee.”
That could also pose a threat for people who hunt or fish in this area, especially if they are consuming their catches.
“Mercury contamination can be a high concern for the people who can be consuming a lot of fish or game species from the rivers, swamps or oceans that have high mercury,” Zemaitis explained. “In any given ecosystem, there are some organisms that can tolerate only very little amounts of mercury, which can result in neurological issues, reproductive issues and eventually death.”
Following this study, Zemaitis hopes to do a deeper investigation into the source of this mercury pollution, how it spreads throughout ecosystems and how it is affecting other wildlife.
“Now that we know this about one of the apex predators in these systems, we wonder what else is being affected?” she said.
The post High Levels of Mercury Found in Alligators in Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/alligators-mercury-okefenokee-swamp.html
Green Living
Trump Plans to ‘Wean off of FEMA’ After Hurricane Season, Saying States Can ‘Handle It’
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced he is planning to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “as it exists today” after the 2025 hurricane season.
Trump said he wants to make disaster response and recovery the responsibility of states rather than the federal government.
“We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said, as CNN reported. “A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”
Trump added that less federal aid would be provided for disaster recovery, with the funding to be distributed directly by the Oval Office.
“We’re going to give out less money… It’s going to be from the president’s office,” Trump said, as reported by The Hill. “As an example, I just gave out $71 million to a certain state. They were looking to do about $120 [million] — they were very happy with the $71 million.”
For months, Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have repeatedly criticized FEMA, calling the agency unnecessary and ineffective and vowing to phase it out.
WATCH: “We want to see FEMA eliminated.”
Trump & Noem say they want to end FEMA and give storm-torn states LESS money — while Trump takes personal credit for it. (Likely helping Red states more readily)
As they take credit for the job FEMA is currently doing.
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) June 10, 2025 at 1:34 PM
“You’ve been very clear that you want to see FEMA eliminated as it exists today, so I’m preparing all of these governors [so] that they will have more control over the decisions on how they respond to their communities so that it can happen faster,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday, as The Hill reported.
Noem and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are co-chairs of a newly established FEMA Review Council, which is expected to give recommendations on how to dramatically reduce the role of the agency and reform its mission and operations, reported CNN.
Noem said the administration was “building communication and mutual aid agreements among states to respond to each other so that they can stand on their own two feet with the federal government coming in in catastrophic circumstances with funding,” as The Hill reported.
Plans to shutter FEMA have confused state and federal emergency managers, who do not believe localized efforts would be able to replace the agency’s strong infrastructure. They said the budgets and personnel of most states would not be enough to tackle the most catastrophic disasters alone, even with a federal financial safety net.
“This is a complete misunderstanding of the role of the federal government in emergency management and disaster response and recovery, and it’s an abdication of that role when a state is overwhelmed,” a FEMA leader told CNN. “It is clear from the president’s remarks that their plan is to limp through hurricane season and then dismantle the agency.”
NOAA predicts this year’s hurricane season will be “above-normal” with as many as 19 named storms.
Following months of upheaval and layoffs, the 2025 hurricane started on June 1 with FEMA short-staffed and underprepared.
The agency has lost 10 percent or more of its staff since January, including much of its senior leadership. It is projected that FEMA will lose nearly 30 percent of its workforce before the end of this year, shrinking it from roughly 26,000 to about 18,000.
Noem recently reopened some FEMA training centers and continued contract extensions for employees who are deployed during disasters in a last-minute effort to shore up hurricane preparedness.
The Trump administration has discussed ending the practice of FEMA staff going door-to-door to assist people in applying for disaster aid, reported The Washington Post. It has also talked about the possibility of raising the damage threshold for communities to qualify for federal assistance.
“It has not worked out well,” Trump said on Tuesday of FEMA’s historic disaster response. “It’s extremely expensive. When you have a tornado or a hurricane or you have a problem of any kind in a state, that’s what you have governors for. They’re supposed to fix those problems.”
The post Trump Plans to ‘Wean off of FEMA’ After Hurricane Season, Saying States Can ‘Handle It’ appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-fema-2025-hurricane-season.html
According to a recent analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. produced a record amount of energy last year, totaling 103 quadrillion British thermal units (BTUs).
The amount of energy produced in 2024 surpassed the previous record set in 2023 by 1%. However, while U.S. energy production is up, including for solar and wind sources, several other types of renewable energy sources stalled or even declined in 2024.
According to the analysis, natural gas accounted for most of the energy production in the U.S. in 2024, making up 38% of the energy mix. Natural gas has been the country’s largest source of produced energy since 2011, EIA reported.
This was followed by crude oil, which made up 27% of the domestically produced energy mix in the U.S. last year.
Coal reached its lowest output for a year since 1964, totaling 512 million short tons and making up 10% of total energy production in the U.S.
On the renewables front, solar, wind and biofuel energies each separately set records in 2024. Solar capacity increased 25%, while wind capacity increased 8%. Biofuels reached 1.4 million barrels per day of production, an increase of 6% compared to the previous records set for biofuels in 2023.
Other renewable energy sources did not beat records, though. As EIA reported, “Output from other energy sources that are primarily used for electric power generation either peaked decades ago (hydropower and nuclear) or fell slightly from their 2023 values (geothermal).”
Earlier in 2025, EIA predicted that solar and wind capacity would continue to grow this year, with utility-scale solar capacity expected to add 32.5 gigawatts, utility-scale wind capacity to add 7.7 gigawatts and battery storage to add 18.2 gigawatts.
However, the U.S. could face challenges to expanding renewables and reducing reliance on fossil fuels as the current administration has planned to suspend permits and leases for wind energy projects and has proposed opening up National Petroleum Reserve lands in Alaska for fossil fuel extraction.
Meanwhile, renewable energy is in high demand globally. Earlier this year, China invested more money into renewable energy sources over coal from overseas for the first time, and the country has set a record for new solar and wind installations in 2023 and again in 2024. In the EU, electricity generation from solar power surpassed electricity from coal power in 2024 for the first time.
Experts have predicted that renewables will continue to grow in the U.S. and abroad, but poor policies could cause the U.S. to fall behind in the global clean energy transition, leading to $50 billion of lost exports.
The post U.S. Produced Record Amount of Energy in 2024, EIA Reports appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/us-energy-production-record-2024.html
DeBriefed 13 June 2025: Trump’s ‘biggest’ climate rollback; UK goes nuclear; How Carbon Brief visualises research
North Carolina needs more certainty before committing to an expensive new gas plant
A COP30 roadmap to inaction or ambition on climate finance?
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change1 year ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Carbon Footprint1 year agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Why airlines are perfect targets for anti-greenwashing legal action
-
Climate Change Videos1 year ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Some firms unaware of England’s new single-use plastic ban