The Cold Margins 

Two weeks ago, a commissioner for Portland, Oregon, ordered one of the city’s first response teams to cease the distribution of tarps and tents to people sleeping outdoors. The commissioner, Rene Gonzalez, oversees the Portland Street Response team, first responders who focus on those experiencing mental illness or homelessness. He said he had made the order in response to a number of recent tent and tarp-related fires, which put neighborhoods at risk.
 
A week later came the cold. Like much of the Western US, Portland experienced heavy winter weather. The city was buried in snow. People abandoned their vehicles, and buses abandoned their routes. Portland’s unhoused were encouraged to seek the shelter of warming centers set up by the city. So far, two deaths have been reported and linked to the storm in the city.
 
Still, that statistic does little to measure the amount of suffering that thousands of people just endured. Throughout the region, unhoused people were cold, shivering, and near hypothermia — a painful, miserable experience. And while it is not possible to link every weather event to climate change, this latest winter storm was a sharp reminder that our civic systems need to be enhanced and made more flexible as we move toward an uncertain future.
 
A longer view confirms a pattern of unraveling. Hurricanes, heat waves, snow storms, coastal flooding — we will experience these over and over again, with increasing frequency and intensity. A pandemic creates an economic slump; people lose homes. Cold hits, and suffering ensues. I think about these things, watching the news, wondering whether the city planners of the world are thinking the same. These events demand big-picture, long-view thinking — the kind of thinking that considers providing shelter and giving aid, rather than taking it away. Let this whacky weather be a reminder of that.
 
As the cold continues, consider your neighbors. Stay warm, stay safe, and, above all, stay empathetic.
 

Frost detail photo by chris riebschlager

De-Jungled Jaguars

The world’s best jaguar habitat is already receding. Scientists fear a slew of new development projects might cause the Pantanal to disappear altogether. 
 

Bootstrap Sustainability

Tired of waiting for essential services to come to them, residents of this favela in Rio de Janeiro built their own sewage treatment and solar power systems.

Good Migrations

New in coral conservation: Researchers are finding that coral planted in deeper water can have higher survival rates than those planted in shallower water.
 

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