I used to think I was working to “stop climate change”. I can’t tell you how many times I used those words while working as a volunteer and student activist back in my home state of Mississippi. The renewable energy campaigns, organizing skills workshops, and multitudes of events that we hosted all focused on building people power to stop the climate crisis. It was good work, it was fun work, it was difficult work, and in retrospect it was a bit naïve. That last statement needs to qualified; the concept of “stopping climate change” was naïve in the sense that it portrays the issue as one with a simple solution. It probably also contributed to the difficulty of the work because it didn’t convey the true urgency of climate change.  

Fast forward five years and a lot has changed. We are no longer talking about climate change as just something we will experience in the future. A myriad of reports, studies, and articles have been written and released over the past several years that discuss the impacts of climate change that we are seeing now. Hampton Roads has consistently been getting national media attention because we’re one of the places that climate change impacts (specifically sea level rise) are most visible.

This brings me to the title of the article, Adaptation and Mitigation Goes Hand In Hand. First it is helpful to define these two terms. Adaptation is to “become adjusted to new conditions” and in terms of climate change and sea level rise in Hampton Roads includes things like raising roads and houses and changing building standards to account for rising seas and resulting flooding.  Mitigation is “the action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something” and in terms of climate change basically boils down to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions which includes things like transitioning from fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas to clean, renewable energy like wind, solar, geothermal, reducing wasted energy through energy efficiency, as well as addressing emissions generated by our system of food production.

As I mentioned earlier, portraying an issue as something far off in the future downplays the urgency and doesn’t help when trying to get people involved in a social movement. But on the other end of the spectrum, specifically with regards to climate change, the urgency of the issue can also push the conversation to focus more heavily on the adaptation side of the solutions, things that people will see and feel in the immediate future (for example someone’s house being elevated to adapt to flooding). It is critical for the future of Hampton Roads for us to keep the focus on both mitigation and adaptation. No matter how much we adapt to climate change if we ignore the need to drastically reduce our carbon emissions the problem will only persist and get worse, and all the effort and money put towards adaptation efforts will eventually be all for nothing.

The need for this focus on both “types” of climate action is evidenced by several initiatives and collaborations already happening in Hampton Roads. One of the most obvious examples of this is the aptly named MARI program at Old Dominion University. MARI stands for, wait for it….Mitigation and Adaptation Research Institute and their mission is to “Support the transition to a prepared, resilient, and adaptive society coping with changing climates and rising sea levels”.  In addition to their important research, they host events related to adaptation and mitigation issues and you should definitely check out their calendar and their website here for more information.  Another example of mitigation and adaptation going together was the Virginia Coastal Protection Act (VACPA), an initiative that did not pass the General Assembly this year but definitely should have. The VACPA would have required Virginia to join RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative), a program that puts a limit on emissions in a state and then generates revenue by selling emission permits. The VACPA proposed using about $100 million each year, money that is generated by selling the emission permits, which remember also reduces our emission of climate change fueling pollutants, for sea level rise adaptation in Hampton Roads. The VACPA also would have automatically put Virginia in compliance with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the first ever federal plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. Chesapeake Climate Action Network(CCAN) spearheaded this initiative and you can check out their website for more information and how you can get involved in their work.

The final example of this is a collaboration that has recently developed between the Chesapeake Bay Group of the Virginia Sierra Club, Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), and Virginia Organizing (VO).  While these organizations do not focus specifically on the same issues there are connections between our work. CCAN and Sierra Club work more on the broad federal and state policy and political advocacy that is needed to help mitigate climate change through reduction of carbon emissions while VO works on multiple social justice issues and focuses more on state and local policy and advocacy that has a direct and often immediate impact on the lives of the people they work with. The VO Environmental Justice Issue Team and organizers for the Sierra Club and CCAN have been working together to see how we can collaborate and use our different networks and niches to address both sides of this issue and we’re beginning to see some success. 

A couple of weeks ago, the 3 organizations hosted an event called A Flood of Voices at the Union United Church of Christ.  This was a story telling event held at the Union United Church of Christ in Norfolk, a church located in an area that often floods. Over 70 people showed up to learn about the power of storytelling as a way to influence decision makers and build power for the climate movement. Steve Nash, author of Virginia Climate Fever, spoke about his book and climate impacts, specifically sea level rise (and related flooding) and CNU student Colleen Garrison along with local impacted resident Dorothy Rawls spoke about their personal stories related to flooding and gave helpful tips for attendees on how, when, and why they should share their stories. At the end of the night attendees took action by signing petitions, taking photo petitions, and sharing their impact stories on video. This event walked the line, very gracefully I might add, of focusing on climate impacts but both on solutions directly affecting residents (adaptation measures like larger drain pipes) as well as longer term solutions that are policy based like the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the VA Coastal Protection Act (both mitigation measures that will reduce emissions that cause climate change).

These collaborations and initiatives that focus on both sides of the climate action coin are critical to the future of Hampton Roads. However, possibly the most critical part of the puzzle is citizen involvement. Most of the problems that we’re dealing with related to climate change are solvable, though that doesn’t mean it will be easy. On both the mitigation and adaption sides we have the technology we need and the problem is more one of a lack of political will by our leaders and decision makers to move forward. Many of those in power have vested interests in keeping the status quo and we’re living in a time when corporate influence on our democracy is startling.

All Is Not Lost! There are grassroots movements across the country (and here in Virginia) that challenge this status quo attitude and this acceptance of corporate influence. Follow some of the links in this article, check out the CCAN, Sierra Club, and Virginia Organizing websites and Facebook pages and get involved locally. Remember, to change everything we need everyone. 

Statement from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network on Dominion’s latest bull****:

RICHMOND-Dominion Resources, already the top emitter of planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution in Virginia, announced a proposal this morning to build a new 1,600-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Southside Virginia. If approved, the plant would be the largest gas-fired power plant in the state.

Kirsten Collings, deputy director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, had the following statement in response:

“You can’t solve the climate crisis by investing in more fossil fuels. A growing body of evidence shows that fracked gas could be worse for the climate than coal over the next 20 years because of leaks of heat-trapping methane. Governor McAuliffe has his facts wrong in endorsing this project as ‘clean,’ just as he did when endorsing Dominion’s massive Atlantic Coast pipeline for fracked gas.

“The reality is that Virginia simply doesn’t need and can’t afford new investments in fossil fuels. Dominion could more than offset the need to build a new gas-burning power plant by investing in modest energy-saving technologies that would reduce demand along with Virginians’ utility bills. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Virginians pay the 7th highest average electric bills in the nation, and our state ranks near the bottom on energy efficiency. Dominion should invest in the commonwealth’s vast clean energy resources, which would create jobs, lower bills and reduce emissions of climate-disrupting pollution.”

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, March 26. Also, courtesy of Stafford Dem Marc Broklawski, check out the “‘greatest hits’ compilation of extreme Tea Party testimony bullying the Stafford School Board into abandoning Title IX.” It’s kinda like watching Faux “News” or Glenn Beck or something. And no, that is NOT a good thing! Ugh.

*Slandering solar is not about protecting taxpayers, but utility’s monopoly status (By former Rep. Barry Goldwater, Jr.)

*Saudi Arabia launches heavy strikes in Yemen

*Pilot reportedly locked out of cockpit as plane crashed

*Bowe Bergdahl, once-missing U.S. soldier, charged with desertion

*Opinion analysis: A small victory for minority voters, or a case with “profound” constitutional implications?

*Should Your State Be Able to Ignore the Nation’s Most Important Pollution Law? (“Republicans think so.” And of course, yet again, they are wildly wrong.)

*Obama’s Very Smart Reason for Being So Tough on Netanyahu (Agreed, stay the course.)

*McAuliffe to sign state budget with no amendments or vetoes (“A year after Gov. Terry McAuliffe and the General Assembly engaged in a bitter, three-month standoff over adopting a budget, the governor on Thursday is expected to sign a revised budget without any amendments or line-item vetoes.”)

*Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is expected to veto about 20 bills (He should have vetoed or heavily amended the Dominion bill too.)

*Rep. Beyer set to replace Rep. Van Hollen as DCCC finance chair

*Dominion plans to build natural gas power plant in Southside (Again, they should first and foremost be maxing out energy efficiency, which they most certainly are not, and also renewable energy, before building any new fossil-fuel power plants.)

*Morrissey announces Senate bid, vacates House seat (“Del. Joe Morrissey, I-Henrico County, on Wednesday formally announced his bid for state Sen. Rosalyn Dance’s seat in the 16th Senate district. As required by state law, Morrissey vacated his seat in the 74th House of Delegates district.”)

*McAuliffe orders Va. ABC officers to be retrained in use of force, diversity

*Budget to take Beach forward (“The knee-jerk response to a proposal – by anyone, anywhere – to increase taxes by 6.4 percent is NO. It’s particularly true in Virginia Beach, where the city manager has recommended increasing the real estate tax rate to 99 cents per $100 worth of property. Residents are unconvinced of the need.”)

*SCOTUS Alabama decision may affect Virginia election maps

*Mother, daughter from Virginia on flight that crashed in French Alps

*Editorial: Morrissey isn’t getting state political leaders’ hints

*Temperatures in 70s Thursday, showers likely; snow possible Friday night

Last night, the Stafford County School Board, prior to voting, took public feedback on a debate over transgender students’ bathroom access. For some background,  see Think Progress, which explains:

Hartwood Elementary School, part of the Stafford County school system, started by accommodating the student’s identity. She was allowed to use the girls’ room per her gender identity and in consultation with her parents. When another parent complained, the district’s Executive Director of Human Resources, Rick L. Fitzgerald, released a message on behalf of the district referring to recent guidance from the Department of Justice that indicates that the “sex” protections under Title IX protect transgender students’ use of facilities that match the gender with which they identify. Allowing the fourth-grader to use the girls’ room was simply the district complying with the law.

…The transgender student’s father, Jonathan Adams, also testified. He admitted to having some of the same misconceptions when the child he thought was his son insisted she was a girl. “And then I watched my little girl grow up,” he said. Adams proclaimed that he was “very proud to have a special little girl,” and implored others “not to trade understanding for fear or trade misconceptions for hate.”

Later in the evening, however, the school board voted 6-0 to direct the superintendent to restrict the girl’s bathroom use.

Also interesting were the comments by the public. For the entire debate, most of which involved parents opposed to allowing the transgender student (who identifies as female) to use the girls’ bathroom, see here. The video I’ve included is of a courageous parent (of two students in the Stafford County school system) delivering an impassioned plea for respect and tolerance for the transgender student. Sadly, her pleas feel on deaf ears…

Today’s Supreme Court decision on racial gerrymandering invalidates an Alabama redistricting plan that packed minority voters into  majority-minority districts. What “packing” African Americans does is to basically guarantee an African-American will be elected in the “packed” district(s), but that African Americans’ voting power will be diluted everywhere else.

Here in Virginia, this issue came to a head last fall, when three federal judges ruled “that the lines of the state’s 3rd Congressional District were drawn in violation of the U.S. Constitution” and “ordered the General Assembly to redraw them by April 1, in time for the next congressional election in 2016.”

The 3rd District is the only one of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts with an African American majority. It has been represented since 1992 by Rep. Bobby Scott, a Newport News Democrat who is unopposed in the Nov. 4 election.

In a 2-1 decision, the judges agreed with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed a year ago that the congressional redistricting plan adopted by the Republican-controlled Assembly in 2012 amounted to racial gerrymandering, packing African American voters into Scott’s district and leaving adjoining districts safer for their Republican incumbents.

In order to comply with the panel’s ruling, the legislature might have to pull some Democratic-leaning voters out of Scott’s district and redistribute them to surrounding districts, possibly creating less-hospitable electoral terrain for Republican Reps. Randy Forbes of Chesapeake and Scott Rigell of Virginia Beach.

Note that in 2012, Barack Obama lost the 4th CD (Forbes’ district) by just 1 point, while Tim Kaine narrowly won it. Thus, a shift of even a few points could make Randy Forbes’ political life a lot less cozy. Same thing with Scott Rigell, whose second district Barack Obama narrowly won in 2012.

Meanwhile, yet another Virginia lawsuit accuses “the General Assembly of ‘racial gerrymandering’ by packing black voters into 12 of the state’s House of Delegates districts.” For that reason, “[t]he plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the challenged districts invalid and to block the state from holding elections because of the disputed districts.” If plaintiffs win this case, it could lead to the redrawing not just of the affected districts, but also potentially surrounding ones as well. And that, in turn, could have significant consequences for the balance of power in the Virginia House of Delegates. Not surprisingly, House of Delegates Republicans are in no hurry to deal with this situation, and would clearly prefer that it just go away. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for those who dislike racial gerrymandering and “packing,” that’s not likely.

Bottom line: Today’s SCOTUS ruling has potentially big implications for Virginia, because Rep. Bobby Scott’s case is factually similar, as is the House of Delegates case.  

Here are a few Virginia and national news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, March 25.

*How American journalists deal with climate deniers (“The basic mental model that has governed U.S. journalism for decades – two mirror-image sides, each with their moderates and extremists, engaging in normal politics – is crumbling and it’s not clear what journalism will look like when the dust clears.”)

*Oil And Gas Giant BP Cuts Ties With Conservative Group ALEC

*Obama: Remarks dim prospects for Palestinian state (Thanks in large part to the right wing, both in Israel and their misguided supporters here.)

*Black box damaged in German jetliner crash

*Satellite scientist cited by Ted Cruz disagrees with him on climate change (Cruz just lies and lies and lies and lies and…)

*Ted Cruz going on Obamacare (Almost seems like an “Onion” headline for this lying hypocrite and Joe McCarthy-style demagogue.)

*Liberals, Conservatives, and Jobs (“Republicans…are desperately trying to claim that the economic recovery now underway is an illusion. They can’t handle the truth.”)

*Editorial: Gov. McAuliffe should impose a moratorium on the death penalty

*Ruling could mean delays for Atlantic Coast Pipeline (How about delaying it forever? Stupid idea by a bunch of greedy people.)

*Vetos likely for bills on home-schooled athletes, absentee ballots (Good on both!)

*Navy response to Islamic State “hit list” frustrates families

*U-Va. board approves 11% increase in tuition, fees for in-state freshmen (“The plan will also lower borrowing caps for those in need by $10,000.”)

*Jeb Bush donates $10,000 to state GOP (Guess who wants to win the Virginia Republicans primary? LOL)

*Report: Va. governor received special treatment from Homeland Security (“DHS’s now-No. 2 official intervened for Terry McAuliffe, who sought visas for investors in his company.”)

*Our view: What police didn’t say in the UVa rape report

*A better way to pick judges in Virginia (“Judgeships shouldn’t be patronage positions, yet that’s what they’ve routinely become; after leaving elected office, state lawmakers themselves frequently end up years – or, in some cases, months – later working full time in the judiciary.”)

*Martese Johnson’s education happened on that sidewalk (“He asked ‘How could this happen?’ as he was violently arrested. But he needed to have known before then.”)

*Fairfax county attorney lays out plans for change after Geer controversy

*Schapiro: ABC bust of Martese Johnson spotlights alphabet soup of cop shops

*U-Va. sought inquiry into gang-rape claim 6 months before magazine story

*Editorial Charlottesville police, justice department reports are cautionary tales

*Morrissey claims unfair treatment as he bids for Senate seat

*Virginia Beach’s arena development is moving at a slow crawl

*David Lambert announces run for Morrissey’s seat

*A chance of passing showers today ahead of Thursday’s burst of spring

So true!

Mr. Chairman, this year’s Republican Budget Resolution is incredulously titled “A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America.” But by every measure, the draconian cuts proposed in this budget would severely WEAKEN America’s innovative advantage and competitiveness. It might as well be called “Let’s Disinvest in America”.

Consider the cuts to basic research, once a bedrock federal priority that has spurred new discoveries that are now vital in our daily lives and the economy. R&D is critical for my Northern Virginian district, where the technology community is driving innovation. But this Republican budget would slash R&D funding by 15% to its lowest levels since 2002. That is a retreat from America’s role as the global innovation leader, and essentially cedes the playing field to our international competition.

Similarly, the Republican budget would disinvest in our classrooms. To achieve their ruse of balancing the budget over 10 years, Republicans would cut non-defense spending 24% below the already-reduced sequester levels. For K-12 education, that translates into an $89 billion cut over the next decade and would surely leave every child behind their international peers. It also would put higher education further out of reach for low- and middle-class families.

America did not ascend to its role as the world’s leading economy by quashing the potential of future innovators and leaders.

Mr. Speaker, our Republican colleagues are once again showing they know the cost of everything and  the value of very little. I often hear my colleagues lament that we should run government more like a business. Well, if that’s the case, perhaps we should start by listening to the business community, which is advocating for us to invest more, not less, in R&D, in education, and in infrastructure for the future workforce and the building blocks of a competitive economy.

These are investments that yield tremendous returns for our families, for our children, for our future, and the Republican budget would eviscerate these pillars of America’s exceptionalism.

I yield back