If you’re in any way involved in environmental protection efforts, then you’ve already seen the news that 2023 was the hottest year on record in 150 years, or rather, the hottest year on record since we started keeping records of temperature. Those who haven’t seen this news already can find a plethora of articles from just about every major news publication, but we’ll just link the article from Reuters here. I doubt anyone reading this needs any convincing as to the severity of the climate crisis, so I won’t bother going over the broader aspects of it. What I think will be useful though, is just how this is currently affecting, and will continue to affect Long Island in the coming months and years, so that you can be informed, and so that you can inform others.
Not Retreading Old Ground
The LIPBS has already published an article on how climate change affects the Island, and if you want to do so you can read it here. The points covered can, now, seem almost simple in how normalized they’ve become. Even if it’s not a hurricane we’re dealing with some manner of destructive storm almost every month now, even just this month! The problems listed here are all still happening, but most have already accelerated, or been worsened.
Photo Credit: DEC Helicopter Survey
We’re not here to discuss what we’ve already gone over, and we’re certainly not here to reiterate points all of us already know, so we’ll be leaving this article alone for the time being.
Droughts and the Aquifer
While we were able to avoid a severe drought last year, most of us I think were somewhat caught off guard by the 2022 drought, which came with a while host of recommendations from the water authority to reduce our usage. Of course, 2022 was just the culmination of a series of droughts stretching back to summer 2020, with 2023 being the exception to this. Droughts have, of course, been ongoing on the Island since 2016, with subsequent years only intensifying an issue that was once far from our minds.
Photo Credit: Anton Ivanchenko via Unsplash
When our life here on Long Island is already so dependent on what little water resources we have, droughts occurring so frequently are an issue we cannot afford to ignore in any capacity. This is, of course, not even considering the already occurring contamination of the aquifers, making this at-risk resource so much more delicate. Seawater contamination is at the forefront of this, where rising sea levels and constant droughts only serve to further intensify the problem. Then there is the issue of pollutants entering the ground, which is an entire can of worms itself that could take up an entire blog all on its own. The danger of a drought is very real and is contributing to an issue that only our grandchildren will live to see. Long Island losing its clean source of water is now a very real threat that many of us may very well live to see.
What have we been doing about it?
Issues like this are quickly reaching a point of being too much to handle, but what can be done at this point? For decades, every environmental group has called for these issues to be addressed at a legislative level, yet for every victory, it comes with a plethora of losses. Even the Pine Barrens Protection Act, which marked such a massive victory in 1993, today is sometimes little more than a suggestion to big developers like Discovery. So then what course of action remains, if even our greatest victories are sometimes compromised?
Consider the decades of nonviolent action that have failed to produce results the next time you hear about an activist acting out in front of a government building, or about the interruption of some awards you looked forward to by people screaming in the planet’s name. Consider the fact that the very first widely reported eco protest happened 54 years ago, and how we’re on an even faster course to environmental destruction now than we were then. That for all our peaceful efforts, the forces that are polluting our water and planet have more power today than they ever have before. It’s easy to distance yourself from the most extreme protestors and advocates, who are willing to put their livelihoods on the line so easily for their causes. Even easier than to condemn their actions as too extreme, or the wrong way to do things. But when the right way of doing things has gone so long not only without results, but with a constant downward trend, then what reason is there to continue doing things the right way?
The environmental movement has a long history of victories, but very few of them directly affect the quality of life for the people around it. Despite the researched and confirmed health benefits of living in or around green areas, a lovely trail does little to help those living in poverty. It’s only in recent years that the topic of Environmental Justice has come closer and closer to being a core part of the movement. Environmentalism as a cause cannot survive so long as it tries to push itself above more ground level social causes. As long as housing inequality exists, as long as income inequality exists, as long as race inequality exists, and as long as our economic system rewards the rampant destruction of the planet, no lasting change will be made. As social justice movements expand and move towards the future, the environmental movement needs to move with them, lest we be left behind in the dust.
By Andrew Wong, Long Island Pine Barrens Society
