IT'S A FEMININOMENON

LISTENING: sorry, but I can't stop listening to Chappell!!!
FEELING: hopeful for the first time in a long time
SEEING: an endless stream of coconut tree memes 🌴

I haven't felt this excited about our political sphere in a very, very long time. I am actually surprised by this feeling bubbling inside me.

Hope, is that you? It's been a while, boo.

What's especially surprising is the source of my hope and optimism: the potential for a President Kamala Harris. I must admit that when Harris announced her bid for president back in 2019, I was not inspired. If you've followed my work over the 10 years I've covered climate and environmental justice, you'll know that a chunk of my reporting has focused on California. Harris's legacy in the state is fraught with controversy, especially when it comes to incarceration.

I've reported on the state's incarcerated wildland firefighter program, in particular, so I was concerned when President Joe Biden announced Harris as his vice president choice. I wrote about those concerns four years ago. The Biden-Harris White House has invested hundreds of millions to expand the U.S. prison-industrial complex and doubled down on restricting the border, so my concerns weren't entirely far-fetched.

However, I'm past all that. I'm looking to a future where my nieces can be proud to have their first woman president — a future where they can see that a woman doesn't have to be white to do the job, either. Yes, Kamala is a cop! Yes, she, too, is complicit in the Israeli military's assault on Palestine. She is by no means the ideal candidate for a climate-just world (though does such a candidate exist?). You know what she is? She's better than Donald Trump!!! And I believe she is willing to listen to the American people who want more than prisons and jails and climate-fueled wildfires being fought by people who don't even have their basic freedoms.

Welcome to Possibilities, a creative climate newsletter on the possibilities that lie where crisis meets community. I’m Yessenia Funes, and baby, "kamala IS brat!"

Criminal justice activists are wishful that Harris will embrace more progressive policies when it comes to incarceration and prisons.

“I hope she’ll say, ‘I learned that people who are the least aggressively prosecuted in this country historically are those with the most power," said James Forman Jr., a Yale law professor, to the Guardian. "So I’m going to go after people, institutions, banks, corporations, polluters, those with the most influence – who have always gotten a pass.’”

Man, I hope so, too! When it comes down to climate, CNN has a great story about what Harris would mean. She prosecuted the fossil fuel industry when she was attorney general of California. As district attorney of San Francisco, as Zoya Teirstein at Grist reported, she established an environmental justice unit to protect the health of vulnerable communities affected by pollution. This was in 2005, when seemingly no one gave a damn about environmental justice. Harris been a staunch and vocal supporter of the Green New Deal, a dream set of laws that couple the transition off fossil fuels with progressive targets like affordable housing and universal healthcare. The Green New Deal is the perfect example of what climate justice can look like in policy.

Ultimately, though — and I will keep saying this over and over — she is not Trump, nor is she Biden. We need someone who is going to win against Trump. Biden knew he couldn't. That's how we got here. As for the rest of us, the U.S. doesn't need another old white man in the White House.

It's about damn time we switch it up. 🌀

Rest in Power

While we can't say for certain that climate change led to these specific weather events (we need attribution studies for that), we do know that the Earth's rising temperatures are already creating more disasters like these.

Typhoon Gaemi (or Carina in the Phillippines) has already killed at least 16 people and is barreling toward Taiwan.

In Arizona's Maricopa County, extreme heat has potentially killed an estimated 396 people so far this year. Twenty-seven deaths have been confirmed due to heat, but the rest are still under investigation.

In Ethiopia, heavy rain induced mudslides this week that have killed at least 229 people.

Currently Reading

This interview with Daisy Edgar-Jones in Atmos is a reminder of how gorgeous it can be when climate publications cover pop culture moments and stars.

I loved reading Paige Curtis's "water bottle freaks" edition of her newsletter Bad Environmentalist.

Collage

Let's keep the vibes highhh and make history, baby. Until next week!

- Yessenia xx