Perspectives on Extreme Weather Events

On 21 November 2022 I asked Adrienne, a close personal friend, about her impressions of recent extreme climate variations. Adrienne has lived and taught in the United Kingdom, North America, the Middle East, and Asia, and is currently based in British Columbia, Canada.

My reflections are in italics below her answers.

Q: What do you remember about past extreme weather events or changing weather patterns that have affected our community?

A: I don't know what you mean by "our community" here... but I will speak about communities I know. Here in BC, extreme weather events have affected the entire population. A huge atmospheric river of unprecedented impact last year (November 2021) flooded farms, homes, entire cities. It caused mudslides that wiped out highways and entire villages. This winter, the extreme snowstorm in Buffalo, NY this week killed 2 people and many others had damage to their homes due to the amounts of snow caving in their roofs. Hurricane Ian (last month) destroyed several towns and cities in Florida.

Q: Which societal groups are most affected by changing weather and why?

A: Those who do not own property, and those who do but whose property isn't insured (often because it can't be), and those whose property is something they rely on for their livelihood (eg.farmers). I think the unhoused are also very affected here in Canada because extreme cold temps literally means death.

Q: What social protections are available (or not) for these groups?

A: I honestly do not know. In the USA, FEMA steps in in some cases. In Canada, the federal government earmarks emergency funds. But these are rarely enough. I think social protections for these groups are mostly by charity or chance.

Q: Which local places, buildings or infrastructure are most at risk?

A: I think farms and agriculture are most at risk. Buildings are as well, people's homes and their shelter are at risk.

Q: What other challenges may we face from climate change?

A: Climate change forces many to migrate. This is an area that is not yet recognized by international bodies. The term "climate refugee" is contested even though we have evidence that it is real. The effects of climate change on migration patterns needs to be more fully documented and communicated more broadly. The average person does not think they are connected.

Q: Who can help us get better prepared?

A: Good question. I think people like Greta Thunberg if we would only listen to her. Politicians and legislators are woefully ignorant, sometimes willfully so and other times honestly so. I also think if we listened more to indigenous wisdom from elders globally we could make headway.

Phrasing matters. The assigned question (“our community”) assumes that the interviewer and interviewee live in, or identify as members of, the same community.

As for the meaning of community – is community a state of mind based on emotional attachment, or is it the place where one performs daily activities and where our actions have the most direct immediate impact?

In her 1988 essay ‘Can The Subaltern Speak?’, Gayatri Spivak argues that the subaltern is by nature unclassifiable and voiceless; “for the 'true' subaltern group, whose identity is in its difference, there is no unrepresentable subaltern subject that can know and speak itself”.

I am thinking about the voices that we are amplifying in this activity and about the echo chamber effect, i.e. the types of interviewees whose voices will be heard by students such as ourselves who have the means and privilege to pursue postgraduate education.

I agree with Adrienne that the unhoused or those facing housing instability are most exposed in a physical, physiological, and financial sense to risks.

The geographic and geological aspects of vulnerability (coastal, high mountains, delta) intersect with other elements of identity and experience, such as class, race, financial standing, and gender. My struggle with thinking about societal groups as monoliths or internally homogenous is that it may detract from the diversity of identity and experience within each such group, or, that more ‘othering’ may be taking place.

The ones that are most affected are those whose voices “we”, the academic community, will not hear. Spivak quotes Marx's statement that, as regard the subaltern, “in so far as… the identity of their interests fails to produce a feeling of community... they do not form a class.” Without the ability to unify interests and join voices, there is no class and no representation. Forced migration, dispersal, and dislocation contribute to invisibility.

(Reflection wordcount (italicised): 305 words)