Jeff VanderMeer insists that he does not predict the future. Yet mere weeks before his new novel, Absolution, hit shelves, Hurricane Helene tore through the part of Florida where he lives, sharing an uncanny likeness to the fictional hurricane in his book. Of course, there’s a difference between art and reality. The through line between the storms is the climate crisis that inspired VanderMeer to write the trilogy of books that made him a household name a decade ago. 

Absolution is the latest and last installment in the lush, eerie series covering an unknown biological phenomenon known as Area X, located in VanderMeer’s home state of Florida in the real place known as the Forgotten Coast. The original trio of books covers the area and its tendency to affect living creatures and create bizarre refractions of life within its confines. The series, called the Southern Reach trilogy, garnered enormous praise, a legion of fans, and a movie adaptation. For the record, VanderMeer told me he found Hollywood “frustrating” because “they stripped out all the environmental stuff.” But he did enjoy the movie’s surreal ending. 

“We get displaced. We have to be resilient. We have to form a new narrative.”

A decade later, Absolution marks the conclusion of a weird and wonderful journey involving an assortment of biological abnormalities and government secrets. In the meantime, it seems as if the unusual world that VanderMeer wrote about and the one that we live in today are growing closer and closer. Our warmer world is not just more volatile in terms of natural disasters, like Helene and Milton, but it is also becoming a large-scale petri-dish for new diseases, the type of biological mixing and matching that VanderMeer’s books are known for—albeit on a much smaller scale. 

In VanderMeer’s fiction, the mirror world of Area X produced strange, haunting results like a character’s transformation into a whale-like creature covered in eyes, or a murderous bear with a human voice. But for VanderMeer, climate change is the scariest thing of all. 

I spoke with him just as he was returning to his home in Tallahassee after evacuating from Hurricane Helene. This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

What is it like being a climate and science fiction writer right now? 

I guess it feels like kind of a privilege to be able to talk about this stuff, that the novels have reached enough readers and had enough of an impact that anyone cares what I have to say.

It’s also true that I’m right now in Florida, at the epicenter of a lot of extreme weather events. And so that creates a weird echoing effect. For example, I was fleeing Hurricane Helene up to Greenville, South Carolina, unsure if that was even the right thing to do. And then also asked by the New York Times to write a piece about fleeing the hurricane. So there’s all this real-world consequence. 

You’re getting me at the end of fleeing a hurricane, writing about it, coming back to Tallahassee, seeing the consequences of extreme weather because of warming waters because of climate crisis, and feeling both thankful that I can kind of capture a feeling people have here about these events and write about it, but also kind of caught up in it as well.

That sounds pretty jarring.

You can get in loops too, where you don’t really adapt to the situation and you’re just doing the same talking points which, relevant to your question, is something I worry about. You know, where [people on the internet] were saying, “Well, why did people even build in Asheville?” it was this weird disconnect. And it’s like, “Well, because they didn’t expect there’d be these mega-storms that would still have a huge effect, hundreds of miles inland.”

People in the aftermath of destruction seem to want to try to form their own narratives about what’s happening, and I’m sure you are someone who see this clearly, being in the epicenter, but also being someone who works in fiction.

It’s definitely something that I write about in my fiction: the idea of character agency in the face of systemic or system-wide events, whether they’re human systems or systems in the natural world. Especially in Western fiction, we have this idea of rugged individualism, right? And by the end of the narrative, things will have gone back to normal, because something’s been solved.

That’s not really what happens in the real world. We get displaced. We have to be resilient. We have to form a new narrative. We’re not always the same person we were before, you know, especially with regard to the climate crisis. And so I try to capture that. There’s a hurricane in Absolution that comes up suddenly in the middle of all these other events. And I really wanted to capture how a hurricane these days can seem like an uncanny event, even to those of us who are familiar with them. 

“People think the climate crisis is on the horizon…But more and more, we’re all being affected by it.”

Helene, to be candid, scared the crap out of me when I saw it coming to Tallahassee with 150 mile per hour winds. A lot of people decamped from Tallahassee up into North Carolina, and then were completely trapped. People think the climate crisis is on the horizon, and if they think that it’s because they haven’t been affected by it yet. But more and more, we’re all being affected by it.

In this book, Absolution, and in all the books, there are these in-group, out-group dynamics, and I’m just wondering, why is that something that you’re really interested in exploring narratively?

I’m trying to explore the psychological reality of being in these situations. I’m not trying to extrapolate, I’m not trying to predict. I’m simply trying to show what people are like facing these kinds of choices. Because, you know, people talk a lot about the landscapes and uncanny events, but they’re all filtered through a particular character point of view. And I often ask myself, is this person open to what’s happening or are they closed? Are they in denial? Are they understanding to some degree? Are they trying to form connections or are they disconnected and alienated? These are some of the issues that we find in modern times.

How do you talk to scientists? Because this series is very science-based, but the emotional resonance of why people are drawn to science is something that comes through a lot. 

My dad is a research chemist and entomologist who’s always headed up or been part of some lab, usually like fire ants and other invasive species. And so I grew up around these kinds of places. My mom was a biological illustrator for many years, and so that also brought a kind of a scientific element to her art. And between those two kinds of locations, I got to see the real human side of science. 

I think that actually really helps, along with going on actual scientific expeditions with my dad to Fiji as a kid, it’s just kind of intrinsically in you at that point that you have an understanding of science. I was really quite lucky in that regard.

What was helpful to you to get this book across the finish line?

One thing that was helpful is that there’s actually a lot of humor in it. I don’t like to write books that are monotone. Even in Annihilation, in the earlier books, there’s some sly humor going on. Here, I think it’s a little more overt in some of the relationships and some of what the secret agency is doing that’s so absurd. And then in the last section, especially with this very dysfunctional, almost tech bro-esque personality that’s in this expedition. It’s kind of unintentionally funny. That’s something that anchors me, because it gives me pleasure to write, along with the uncanny stuff.

What’s the role of fiction at this point in the climate crisis? 

I think one thing I don’t want the books to do when they skirt the edge of “prediction” is to be unrealistic. I get asked a question a lot, “Where’s the hope in your books?” or things like that. And it’s like, I don’t want the hope, I want the analysis. And I don’t want the faux analysis where we’re doing like carbon offsets that are meaningless. I don’t want to put that in my book as something that’s viable. 

I think that what fiction adds is—it’s kind of like: What do you get from religion versus science, or what do you get from philosophy rather than science? Fiction is not science, but it can give you this immersive three-dimensional reality of what it’s like to be in a situation, and it can bring your imagination to it in such a way that it really lives in your body to some degree. 

And so I think that’s why the thing that makes me most happy is having people come up to me and say that Annihilation was one reason they became a marine biologist or went into environmental science, that there was something about the character of the biologists in that book that was compelling to them. That to me, is what fiction can provide.

When Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified last week, exploding into a Category 5 storm, large parts of Florida were bracing for disaster. For Cruz Salucio, Milton wouldn’t be the first, or the worst, hurricane he’d endured. But it sparked anxiety all the same.

Salucio works for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ local radio station, Radio Conciencia. The organization primarily serves farmworkers in Southern Florida, but its various programs have a presence in 15 states around the country. 

When hurricanes like Milton, Idalia, and Ian have approached, Salucio and other radio DJs were often the most direct source of reliable, fact-checked information for the region’s Spanish- and Mayan-speaking migrant workers. Climate change is intensifying these types of storms and in the process straining resources, endangering millions of people. For workers with few resources, hurricanes can be isolating and devastating events. But Radio Conciencia tries to fill the gaps as much as possible.

People at the station often answer questions about shelters and evacuation routes. Amid the deluge of information and misinformation, Radio Conciencia has become a trusted resource for many. It helps that, when there’s not a crisis, the station plays traditional genres of music like Banda, a regional Mexican style originally influenced by polka, or marimba-centric music popular in Guatemala. It also supplements the music with messages about workers’ rights and safety, filling a vital knowledge gap. 

Salucio spoke with me, via translation, about what it feels like to provide a lifesaving resource in trying times. His story has been edited and condensed for clarity:

I remember when I first came to Immokalee trying to find a radio station to listen to. Scrolling through the dial, I came across the music that was playing on Radio Conciencia. It was a Sunday, and I remember hearing marimba, which is a traditional Guatemalan instrument, and also hearing the radio host speaking in Q’anjob’al, an Indigenous language from Guatemala. It was so striking to me at that moment to hear not only the music, but also my first language, and to have that direct connection to where I had just come from.

From there, I got really involved. I came to Radio Conciencia because it’s a community radio station. You yourself can get involved and learn how to speak on radio and manage it technologically.

When I was working in the fields back in the 2000s, you’ll often have this experience where the bosses on a particular farm want to get as much harvested as possible, quickly, before the hurricane arrives. They’ll wait till the very last minute to let people leave. Having that experience myself—that’s really what drives me.

When I’m sitting and broadcasting from the radio during these moments of crisis, where I know that members of the community, their lives and their wellbeing are in danger, it feels incredibly important to make sure they know that. I feel a profound commitment to the radio and its purpose, especially in those moments, to the point that, especially now that I have a family, there’s that kind of balancing act of being home with family and sometimes needing to get back to the office to record some last-minute audio tracks or be live on the radio.

Our goal is always to ensure that people have the information they need when they need it, that they know how to prepare for these types of crises, and, especially during a hurricane, to know where they can go to shelter.

Days ahead of a hurricane’s arrival, we will work on original announcements that we can program with important information about what to do, how to prepare, how to stay safe during and after. We’ll record and program those announcements to play to everyone periodically, so even if there’s not someone live in the station, those messages are still getting out there. And of course the other limitation is if power goes out. That does affect the radio but we try to be as prepared as possible for those eventualities.

The good news is that our radio station and community center are in quite a safe building. Even during this most recent hurricane [Milton], some of our staff and radio DJs actually sheltered and stayed here, so they were able to continue broadcasting. We’re safer here than they might have been in their homes. 

The main thing we hear from listeners during these times is just deep gratitude. A lot of people in the community, by phone and on social media, reach out to say thank you for having a place they can go to in their language that has good and reliable information, that isn’t creating panic. They will call us and say, “I live in a really crappy trailer and I don’t feel safe—where can I go? Where are the shelters?” 

These storms not only impact the community but will wipe out entire agricultural fields. So they’ll call and say, “Have you heard anything? Do you know what’s happened in the tomato fields?” 

“I’ve gone to the public shelters as well…It’s actually kind of a beautiful scene sometimes, and a good place to connect with the community and chat with people and see how everyone’s doing.”

Sometimes we’ll give them the terrible news that the entire fields got wiped out, which means no work. It always depends on the nature of the storm. For this particular storm, we could tell, basically in the final hours before the storm, that it wasn’t going to hit as hard here. So I sheltered at home with my family. The worst of it did not come inland to Immokalee. 

During other hurricanes, when I’ve lived in trailers and other insecure housing, I’ve gone to the public shelters not only to be safe myself, but it’s actually kind of a beautiful scene sometimes, and a good place to connect with the community and chat with people and see how everyone’s doing.

The reality for so many farmworkers is, especially when you’re living in trailers and really poor housing, you have so little and you are afraid of losing the little you do have of your belongings. Some people try to ride it out in their housing. Or they’re afraid that if they leave and then come back, what are they going to come back to? It might be nothing. Ideally, people will go when they need to, find a shelter to be safe if it’s going to be an extreme storm—even with that fear of losing everything they have.

Correction, Oct. 18, 2024: This story was corrected to accurately reflect the number of states where the Coalition of Immokalee workers has programs.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has a tenuous relationship with the word “hope.” The marine biologist, policy expert, teacher, and author is too much of a pragmatist to rely on something so passive. Hope as a noun is defined as having an expectation of a positive outcome. To Johnson, that’s not in line with reality. In a chapter near the end of her new book, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures, she writes, “Fuck hope. Where’s the strategy? What are we going to do so that we don’t need hope?”

“Fuck hope. Where’s the strategy? What are we going to do so that we don’t need hope?”

Later in the chapter she concedes that active hope—“catalytic hope” as she calls it—is the type of thing she could get down with. A hope that allows people to exist on auto-pilot could be disastrous. But a hope that inspires people to act could be revolutionary.

What If We Get It Right?, which hit shelves Tuesday, offers some of this inspiration. The book features Johnson’s interviews with a wide swath of people about how we as a society are going to get ourselves out of the climate mess. She talked to the likes of Indigenous rights activist Jade Begay, screenwriter Adam McKay, film executive Franklin Leonard, climate justice advocate Ayisha Siddiqa, and writer and activist Bill McKibben, among others, on topics ranging from how to facilitate a truly just transition to how to design neighborhoods for a warmer, more dangerous world. 

Standing apart from the technocratic and economic-oriented solutions literature, What If We Get It Right? focuses on nature-based and justice-oriented strategies. For instance, Johnson interviewed farmer and author Leah Penniman about the role of reparations in regenerative agriculture. While regenerative agriculture has become increasingly buzzy—the USDA is even making massive investments to support it—Penniman highlights that giving farmland back to its rightful owners, including dispossessed Indigenous and Black communities, is just as important as eliminating industrial methods of farming because regenerative practices are derived from those communities.

In fact, the book seems to say, much of the wisdom about how to conquer climate change is already at our fingertips—we just need to do a better job of actually putting those solutions into practice, whether by strengthening our disaster recovery systems, finding new ways of building cities, or covering climate change better in the news. Everyone has gifts to help in the fight. A mass movement to tackle climate change through art, design, science, policy, and justice is our best bet.

Ahead of the book’s release, I spoke with Johnson about her writing process, the plethora of climate solutions out there, and what to do to avoid spiraling about climate change. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.

Why did you want to write this book?

I actually don’t know that I wanted to write this book, but it was like the book that I wanted to read and I couldn’t find it. I was feeling like there was a gap in the literature of books helping us see the way forward, or more broadly than books, I guess just culture. 

“We have so much media about climate apocalypse—but not a lot about how we have the climate solutions we need, and what would happen if we just did them?”

We have so much media about climate apocalypse, so many films, so much news about disasters—but not a lot about how we have the climate solutions we need, and what would happen if we just did them? I was wishing for that to be the climate conversation, to shift more to a solutions focus, and not in a techno-utopian kind of way, but in a grounded in nature and justice sort of way.

How do you want a reader to approach this book? Do you want it to be a Project Drawdown thing, where they’re like, “Oh, let me just read one of these chapters, and then, like, go live my life and come back.” Or do you want people to read it completely from start to finish?

I don’t want it to feel like a textbook. I mean, that’s why it took me so long to write the book, because I couldn’t crack the code of how to structure this so that it would feel readable. And my editor had been coming to this event series that I curate and host at Pioneer Works, an arts institution in Brooklyn, and he was like, “This is the book. It’s you telling us who we should be listening to and helping us understand what they’re saying.”

Writing the book, did it make you feel better?

I don’t know that I felt bad when I started. I think the broad strokes of climate science and where we’re heading—unless we rapidly, dramatically change our ways—have been known for decades. That’s still the case. 

Everyone has some way they can contribute to climate solutions. I feel better now that this book exists, because it’s like the best I could do.

I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about the writing process. Where did you write this book and what was helpful for you to get it across the finish line?

I started writing this book at my family farm, my mom’s, in my bedroom there and at the kitchen table that’s described in the introduction of the book. And I moved to Maine almost two years ago now, and the book was written almost entirely here. I moved here because I needed more green in my life, right? And the opening line of the last chapter is: If we get it right, the world is a lot more green. I just wanted to skip ahead to living in that world.

After the last debate, are you feeling hopeful about the future of climate action?

Hope is not really my jam. I’m not an optimist. As a scientist, I find that to be a sort of unscientific position, but I also, you know, just the assumption it’ll be okay in the end—I don’t harbor that, but I do know that there’s also a scientific fact that there are many different possible futures. And my job, as I’ve embraced it, is to help make sure we have the best possible one. 

“There are many different possible futures. And my job, as I’ve embraced it, is to help make sure we have the best possible one.” 

And that didn’t change after the debate. I mean, I’m still like, “Wow, we have a lot of work to do.” We clearly need a much stronger climate electorate so that politicians feel like they have to talk about their climate plan, so that the debate organizers and moderators feel like they need to ask those questions, not just one at the end, but acknowledge that climate is the context within which all of our other policies and challenges as a country are unfolding.

What’s a good first step for someone who wants to work toward climate solutions but doesn’t even know where to start because they’re so overwhelmed? 

I would just say, I get it: It’s the biggest thing humanity has ever faced. Feeling anxious, overwhelmed, depressed about it is a reasonable and very human response. So there’s nothing wrong with that, per se. 

But of course, I do hope that people will find a way to leverage that energy into finding a way to contribute to solutions, because we really do have the solutions we need. I think that’s sort of the open secret: We know what to do. We know how to shift to renewables. We know how to green buildings. We know how to improve public transit. We know how to improve agriculture. We know how to protect and restore ecosystems. None of this is a secret. You don’t need to wait for a magical new technology. It’s just a matter of building the cultural momentum, unlocking the political will, pressuring a shift in financing. 

Obviously, I know it’s not simple, but I do think it’s important for people to understand that we’re not lacking for solutions. We’re lacking for people working on them.

Before Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage to accept her party’s nomination for president tonight, another topic is expected to enter the spotlight: climate change. While Democrats haven’t made it a huge focus of the convention so far, they plan to center it more tonight (according to NPR) in speeches by the likes of Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in an effort to highlight the Biden administration’s wins on the issue. 

Though it remains unclear how exactly climate will figure into Harris’ agenda, many environmental groups are still lining up to endorse her. Others appear more hesitant.

One of the groups that has yet to endorse her is the youth-led Sunrise Movement. Sunrise’s early campaigns targeted newly-elected Democrats like Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who participated in one of its earliest and most notable protests to push for climate action, a sit-in at Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s office in 2018. Then the group helped push Harris on climate during her last presidential campaign, commending her support for the Green New Deal and her commitment to banning fracking. But these were promises Harris has since walked back.

Recently, Sunrise has been vocal about its support for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza, holding a protest at President Biden’s campaign office in February and supporting the Uncommitted movement, which has been fighting to speak at the DNC. (Earlier today, my colleague Noah Lanard published a copy of the speech they would have given.)

Hours before climate night and the last night of the DNC, I talked to Sunrise Movement co-founder and communications director Stevie O’Hanlon about how the organization views Harris at this crucial moment. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m wondering if you can talk about the evolution of Harris as someone who said, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” and that she was supportive of the Green New Deal, to the person who’s about to take the stage tonight at the DNC.

I think the big takeaway I have about Harris from the last six years is that she’s someone who is really responsive to pressure and the political conditions. And in 2018, young people around the country generated an immense amount of pressure on politicians to put forward a bold plan on climate change, to talk about it like the crisis it is, and to support the Green New Deal. 

And that was with Sunrise, with the decision to sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office with AOC, to the climate strikes, in which hundreds of thousands of young people participated. And Harris responded to that pressure, and that gives me hope that if she is elected, then she can be moved by pressure from young people.

In the short time Harris has been campaigning for president, climate hasn’t been a main focus. What do you at Sunrise think about Harris being kind of silent on this issue so far?

I think there are two sides of this: One is that even in 2019 and 2020 when she was running for president, climate was never the thing that she talked about the most, even though she did have some really strong positions on climate. 

It makes a lot of sense right now that she is emphasizing abortion, that she’s emphasizing taking on corporations and addressing the cost of living, and talking about her plan to make prescription medication and everyday essentials more affordable. 

“If we don’t see bold action in this next presidential administration, the world that our generation and future generations is going to live in is going to be a scary one.”

I think the other side of that is that she’s missing an opportunity to talk about one of the issues where voters trust her the most over Trump. There was a poll just the other day [from Hart Research on behalf of Climate Power] that showed that climate is the area where Harris has the biggest trust advantage over Trump, even bigger than abortion. And if she wants to capitalize on that advantage and build on it, she needs to talk about it. 

There are a lot of ways for her to talk about climate change in the frame of freedom, in the frame of taking on the cost of living crisis and making life more affordable. And lastly, I think, frankly, we have [five] years left to stop the climate crisis and if we don’t see bold action in the coming years, in this next presidential administration, the world that our generation and future generations is going to live in is going to be a scary one, and anyone running for president right now has a responsibility to talk about that.

Sunrise has been pretty vocal about the need for a ceasefire and very aligned with the Uncommitted delegates. But Sunrise didn’t really have a huge presence at the DNC. Why was that?

The Chicago chapter was [protesting the DNC] and had a big banner saying, “Fund Communities not Genocide” 

I think at the end of the day, we’re standing behind the Uncommitted movement and their calls right now for a Palestinian to be able to speak at the Democratic National Convention. That is the bare minimum that the Democratic Party needs to do to show the millions of voters who are horrified by the genocide happening in Palestine that they are the party that that should get their votes. 

A lot of people in Sunrise have gone to Chicago, but we didn’t make it a big focus of our year, because we’re focused on doing a lot of local organizing, responding to climate disasters over the summer, and heading into the general election. And in organizing to talk to millions of young people about the face of this election.

It’s logistically challenging to get a ton of people to Chicago, and so I think we were focused on supporting people who are in the region already to participate.

How are you all positioning yourselves in response to Harris? Obviously, you have a Get Out the Vote movement supporting her, but also you have been vocal about wanting to see more climate mentions from her.

If we are to make an endorsement in this election, it’ll be through member vote. And I think right now, most of our members are looking for specifics for Harris on what she will do to tackle the climate crisis. And I think many also also want to see her more strongly push for a ceasefire and back the calls for an arms embargo to Israel.

I think we are really clear that Donald Trump would be an existential threat to our climate, to our democracy. He has promised oil and gas executives that he, in exchange for a billion dollars to his campaign, would “drill baby drill,” would roll back decades old environmental regulations protecting air and water so that these companies can make more money and not have to worry about rules. And he implied that there might not be an election in 2028 if he’s president. 

So we absolutely need to defeat Donald Trump, and we’re going to have conversations with hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of young people leading up to November about the stakes of this election and encouraging people to vote for Harris. Not because we agree with everything that she says, but that we think that she is the best choice for our movement. 

Anything else you want to discuss about presidential electoral politics and climate change? 

One thing that we didn’t talk as much about is the DNC platform, which I think is interesting. The DNC platform in 2024 is quite strong on climate change. The 2024 platform calls out Big Oil, pledges to make polluters pay, and targets oil and gas company subsidies, which is really substantial. 

Harris has been on the campaign trail talking about her record as attorney general, of taking on polluters, of creating the first environmental justice unit in the country. And I think that is a really strong message, and something that really contrasts with Trump, especially because of how blatant he has been about courting oil and gas executives’ money to fund his campaign. I think there is a real opportunity for Democrats to continue to emphasize that message.

As the 2024 Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday in Chicago, thousands of protestors took to the city’s streets to demand an end to Democratic politicians’ support for Israel’s war in Gaza, where the death toll reached 40,000 late last week, and where United Nations experts have announced widespread starvation.

Two separate protests were planned and organized months in advance, one by the Coalition to March on the DNC, composed of hundreds of local and national organizations including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Lives Matter Chicago, and Jewish Voice for Peace.

A concurrent march organized by the Poor People’s Army, a Philadelphia-based anti-poverty organization, was not allowed to complete its permitted route, which ended in front of the United Center, where the convention is being held. Co-founder Cheri Honkala was arrested as she tried to pass a police line to serve the convention a “citizens’ arrest warrant,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Honkala was arrested in July for a similar attempt at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Though largely peaceful, protests did become contentious when smaller groups of activists, separated from the larger rally by informal “peace officers” working with the main protest organizers, broke off from the planned route. Dozens of people breached the security perimeter surrounding the United Center at a nearby park on the route, after which the Chicago Police Department deployed at least a hundred armed officers in riot gear to block gaps in the fencing. 

Protestors chanted slogans including “No justice, no peace” and “the whole world is watching.”

At tense moments, some protestors who broke off from the main march taunted police by throwing signs: a few helmeted officers climbed an exterior fence, appearing to yell at protestors on the other side and eventually arresting at least twelve.

The National Lawyers Guild’s Chicago chapter condemned police handling of the arrests, which hospitalized one protester, it alleged. 

“The response by Chicago police to First Amendment–protected activity we’ve seen so far is extremely intimidating for people wanting to speak out at this crucial time,” NLG member Amanda Yarusso said in a press release. 

Videos posted to social media by local journalists showed protestors surrounded and manhandled by police. When a police line formed, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling was spotted by a Sun-Times reporter. 

There were some small skirmishes that lasted about 30 minutes in all. Around 100-150 people broke through the first security perimeter then were forced back out by Chicago police.

Supt. Larry Snelling was at the front of the police line the entire time. pic.twitter.com/zevbNYukjw

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) August 19, 2024

riot cops kettled protesters from both sides of washington street, mostly forcing people back through the fence. i saw at least three arrests and a camera man got knocked off the wall. pic.twitter.com/AOWjOFVTzn

— shawn (@shawndmulcahy) August 19, 2024

Around 7 p.m. local time, an eight-tent, unannounced encampment was set up in Union Park, about half a mile from the United Center. The park hosted a rally earlier in the day in which thousands of protestors gathered for the March on the DNC, though the small group setting up the encampment was not affiliated with that event. 

Hello! I’m covering the DNC protests for @MotherJones, I’m currently in union park where a small encampment has popped up after the March on the DNC protest today. Cops walked straight for tents but now are stopped as protestors surround them. pic.twitter.com/mw0lWkGWBr

— Siri (@schilukuri1) August 19, 2024

But an initial grouping of several dozen police officers soon arrived and headed directly for the tents, entering one—only to retreat soon after protestors surrounded them, chanting, and erected a ninth tent.

Once hundreds of officers had streamed into the park, the modest encampment was ordered to disperse, and protesters dismantled and removed their tents. As the sun set, the few remaining protestors packed up and left.

A second day of action is set for Thursday, the convention’s final day.

As the 2024 Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday in Chicago, thousands of protestors took to the city’s streets to demand an end to Democratic politicians’ support for Israel’s war in Gaza, where the death toll reached 40,000 late last week, and where United Nations experts have announced widespread starvation.

Two separate protests were planned and organized months in advance, one by the Coalition to March on the DNC, composed of hundreds of local and national organizations including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Lives Matter Chicago, and Jewish Voice for Peace.

A concurrent march organized by the Poor People’s Army, a Philadelphia-based anti-poverty organization, was not allowed to complete its permitted route, which ended in front of the United Center, where the convention is being held. Co-founder Cheri Honkala was arrested as she tried to pass a police line to serve the convention a “citizens’ arrest warrant,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Honkala was arrested in July for a similar attempt at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Though largely peaceful, protests did become contentious when smaller groups of activists, separated from the larger rally by informal “peace officers” working with the main protest organizers, broke off from the planned route. Dozens of people breached the security perimeter surrounding the United Center at a nearby park on the route, after which the Chicago Police Department deployed at least a hundred armed officers in riot gear to block gaps in the fencing. 

Protestors chanted slogans including “No justice, no peace” and “the whole world is watching.”

At tense moments, some protestors who broke off from the main march taunted police by throwing signs: a few helmeted officers climbed an exterior fence, appearing to yell at protestors on the other side and eventually arresting at least twelve.

The National Lawyers Guild’s Chicago chapter condemned police handling of the arrests, which hospitalized one protester, it alleged. 

“The response by Chicago police to First Amendment–protected activity we’ve seen so far is extremely intimidating for people wanting to speak out at this crucial time,” NLG member Amanda Yarusso said in a press release. 

Videos posted to social media by local journalists showed protestors surrounded and manhandled by police. When a police line formed, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling was spotted by a Sun-Times reporter. 

There were some small skirmishes that lasted about 30 minutes in all. Around 100-150 people broke through the first security perimeter then were forced back out by Chicago police.

Supt. Larry Snelling was at the front of the police line the entire time. pic.twitter.com/zevbNYukjw

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) August 19, 2024

riot cops kettled protesters from both sides of washington street, mostly forcing people back through the fence. i saw at least three arrests and a camera man got knocked off the wall. pic.twitter.com/AOWjOFVTzn

— shawn (@shawndmulcahy) August 19, 2024

Around 7 p.m. local time, an eight-tent, unannounced encampment was set up in Union Park, about half a mile from the United Center. The park hosted a rally earlier in the day in which thousands of protestors gathered for the March on the DNC, though the small group setting up the encampment was not affiliated with that event. 

Hello! I’m covering the DNC protests for @MotherJones, I’m currently in union park where a small encampment has popped up after the March on the DNC protest today. Cops walked straight for tents but now are stopped as protestors surround them. pic.twitter.com/mw0lWkGWBr

— Siri (@schilukuri1) August 19, 2024

But an initial grouping of several dozen police officers soon arrived and headed directly for the tents, entering one—only to retreat soon after protestors surrounded them, chanting, and erected a ninth tent.

Once hundreds of officers had streamed into the park, the modest encampment was ordered to disperse, and protesters dismantled and removed their tents. As the sun set, the few remaining protestors packed up and left.

A second day of action is set for Thursday, the convention’s final day.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was permanently suspending its approval of the widely used pesticide, Dacthal, amid a barrage of evidence of damaging, lasting effects on reproductive and fetal health—most notably among pregnant farmworkers. It is the most significant action the agency has taken on a pesticide in decades. 

Dacthal, the trade name of dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate (DCPA), is used to prevent weeds from growing and has been used on a variety of crops like strawberries, spinach, celery, and garlic since the late 1950s. 

The historic action comes after years of delays, mostly on the part of its manufacturer, the agricultural conglomerate AMVAC, which took 11 years to submit full data on its product—forcing the EPA to delay its decision on the chemical. The agency classified the chemical as a potential carcinogen in 1995; it has been banned in the European Union since 2009. 

“We’ve known for quite a long time that [Dachtal] is really precarious in terms of exposure to mothers during pregnancy or in the preconception period,” said Carmen Messerlian, a reproductive health scientist at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The data is pretty conclusive, showing significant risk to unborn fetuses, specific outcomes related to neurodevelopmental problems, as well as low birth weight and IQ.” 

“We’re happy that they’re going to suspend it. That’s a really big step, because I think it’s been 40 years since EPA has taken a step like that to suspend a pesticide,” said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Program of the Farmworker Association of Florida. 

“We know that the bureaucratic process is long, we know that EPA does have to negotiate with [AMVAC], so we take that all into consideration, and we’re grateful for all the work that went into it,” said Economos. “But at the same time, it is terrifying that these pesticides are allowed in the market in the first place.”

Another harmful aspect of DCPA is how long it lingers on and around crops and fields treated with the pesticide. Its manufacturer claims that fields treated with Dachtal are safe to enter after 12 hours—but the EPA said it had evidence that fields retained unsafe levels of the pesticide for up to 25 days. 

It also tends to travel beyond the crops it’s intended to work on. This concept, called pesticide drift, also means that workers and adjacent communities are at risk because of the toxicity of DCPA—especially given that its labeling downplays that risk.

Pesticides like DCPA remain on the market even as scientific evidence increasingly confirmed carcinogenic and other detrimental health impacts in part because such products, by default, are treated as safe unless shown otherwise. The onus is on agencies like the EPA and FDA to gather direct scientific evidence that products do harm, not on the manufacturers to prove they don’t. 

That dynamic doesn’t exist in much of Europe, or in Canada; under those systems, any evidence-based concerns about the safety of industrial products, like pesticides, necessitate that manufacturers prove the product is safe before exposing the public to it. 

“I think DCPA is a really good case study about how the pesticide regulatory system is really broken,” said Alexis Temkin, a senior toxicologist at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that works to protect human and environmental health from toxic chemicals.”It’s supposed to be that the most vulnerable are protected—that’s the most highly exposed, like farmworkers and the most sensitive, like pregnant people and children time and time again, we’ve seen it play out that that’s not necessarily the case.” 

Temkin has been studying DCPA since 2018, when she analyzed USDA data which eventually showed how prevalent it was in kale. She was concerned that people attempting to eat healthier might be exposed to more of a toxic chemical than they realized. 

“About 60 percent of those kale samples” contained DCPA, Temkin said. “As soon as I started investigating what the health effects were, we started to see: it had impacts on the thyroid, as well as the liver and lungs.” 

Messerlian points out that despite regulatory inaction, responsibility for DCPA’s continued harm to the public lies with its manufacturer. AMVAC “failed to do due diligence to protect the public,” she said. “Thousands of babies have been exposed. Mothers have been exposed, fetuses have been exposed, and the cost of that is human life, human suffering, at the benefit of companies that continue to profit off agricultural workers.”

As this year’s temperatures continue to break records, farmworkers who toil in the heat remain one of the groups most vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. But another element of their jobs is making extreme heat even more dangerous: pesticide drift.

When it is hotter outside, pesticides tend to evaporate faster, explains Nicole Deziel, an environmental health scientist at the Yale School of Public Health. This, in turn, impacts how much of the pesticide actually reaches the crop. Any that doesn’t usually sticks around in the air—and can travel miles offsite. Pesticide drift means that the toxic chemicals spread further than ever intended, affecting farmworkers and adjacent communities.

Once airborne, those pesticides can linger in surrounding air for as long as five days, according to reports authored by the Pesticide Action Network, an advocacy coalition that opposes their pervasive use in industrial agriculture. Pesticide drift is a common problem that affects nearly every farming community in the US—whether crops are sprayed by hand, through fumigation, or via planes.

Now, the federal government is finally trying to tackle the issue. In mid-July, the Environmental Protection Agency announced rules that would incorporate pesticide drift into its guidelines for approving new products and active ingredients: it plans to assess drift-related health risks “earlier in the agency’s review process,” the EPA said in a press release. While the release didn’t directly mention climate change or extreme heat, the agency did tell Mother Jones that environmental justice was a key factor in the guideline change.

“With this change, the agency is furthering protections to bystanders wherever pesticide spray drift may occur, and thereby strengthening protections associated with the use of pesticide products,” said EPA spokesperson Tim Carroll.

The EPA’s new rules are intended to protect people from the effects of drift. But Jeannie Economos, a pesticide health and safety officer for the Farmworker Association of Florida, is skeptical that they will be effective, particularly because the guidelines only outline drift as a concern for mostly new products. The only existing products to get reviewed will be pesticides that manufacturers are trying to apply for a purpose not previously approved. (The EPA does periodically review pesticides that it has already approved, and on Tuesday banned one, Dacthal, because of the reproductive health risks it posed to pregnant people.)

The tendency of pesticides to evaporate under heat is so well documented that multiple agricultural agencies and university departments have put out specific guidelines asking farmers and growers to be mindful of the temperature in order to reduce potential drift. A study published last year in the journal Nature found that hotter and more humid conditions brought about specifically by climate change made pesticides evaporate more quickly.

But one important part of understanding pesticide drift on a hotter planet is that we don’t know exactly how every pesticide will react to extreme heat—information that could be vital to understanding how long they’ll stick around post-application, and how far they’ll travel, according to Emily Marquez, senior scientist at the Pesticide Action Network. “Now that it’s getting hotter, there’s maybe more potential for things to change, or be less predictable,” says Marquez.

That makes farm work more dangerous in a number of ways, says Yale’s Deziel. “If it is hot, workers may be less likely to wear full, personal protective equipment—they may have more skin exposed,” she says.  

Even if workers do wear personal protective equipment, like gloves, heat can actually increase the amount of pesticides that penetrate safety gear, according to research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2019.

Deziel, who has been studying pesticides for more than a decade, points out that the health risks are not negligible: everything from nausea, skin irritation, or headaches in after short-term exposure to problems to cancer, reproductive problems, and neurological effects after long-term exposure.

Economos has been working on the issue for decades, and has worked with the EPA and other agencies to try to ensure that proposed rules or guidelines put farmworkers first. Often, she says, even after rules change, there’s more work to be done.

“We fought for 20 years and we won in 2015 to get better protections for workers [from pesticides],” she said. “So it took only 20 years to do that. But then you have the problem of compliance and enforcement.”

Another complicating factor, she says, is that a huge portion of farmworkers endangered by pesticide drift are immigrants. Most US farmworkers are foreign-born, and many take part in a seasonal immigration program, the H-2A visa, which means they are authorized to come into the country to assist growers with different aspects of the growing season, particularly harvesting, and must then return to their country of origin. In 2022, over 350,000 people came into the US through the H-2A program. 

A large, temporary, nonresident workforce means that for any exposures that happen, a large portion of people won’t be in the US long enough for longer-term or chronic illnesses from pesticide exposure to appear, according to Economos. An untold number of workers cycle in and out of the program, she says—and might never return, because people with health conditions are often not accepted in following years. If a short-term illness arises, workers are disincentivized from complaining, since their employer controls access to their immigration status and housing.

The EPA did not respond in time to questions about farmworkers’ employment or immigration conditions being used to suppress reports of pesticide exposure.

A 2024 Univision investigation found that after a worker in North Carolina, José Soria, was exposed to an herbicide based on the toxic compound paraquat, in 2020, his employer discouraged him from seeking medical care for painful blisters that developed on the left side of his body. He eventually required surgery to reconstruct the skin that was exposed. 

In Economos’ eyes, simply regulating pesticides is too small a step given the scale of harm they cause—instead, she says, we should be thinking about ways of farming that reduce or eliminate pesticide use.

“If they really wanted to protect farmworkers, then they wouldn’t be approving these horrible formulations,” she says.

On July 21, soon after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, British pop icon Charli XCX broke the internet—and middle-aged political pundits’ brains—by declaring Vice President Kamala Harris “is brat.”

kamala IS brat

— Charli (@charli_xcx) July 22, 2024

It wasn’t out of the blue; for weeks, scores of chronically online posters flooded social media feeds with edits of Harris set to the songs from Charli XCX’s newest album, Brat.

Harris, who has emerged as the likely Democratic nominee for US president, capitalized on the viral firestorm. Within hours of Charli’s blessing, the new KamalaHQ account on X changed its banner image to the iconic green of Charli’s album cover and posted its own Brat edit, which has amassed over 1.5 million views. This has led many confused, exhausted people over the age of 35 (or so) to ask: What is Brat? Why is this happening? And please will someone help me I was just trying to pay attention to the election and now I feel old?

A good example would be this recent CNN panel:

If you told me 6 months ago that CNN would have a group of panelists discussing how Charli xcx’s 6th album is being a major voting influence in the 2024 US presidential election I’d laugh in your face pic.twitter.com/3elqmXCb1J

— frankie 𖤐 (@360_brat) July 22, 2024

We had a few of our staffers break down what brat is now that it is part of the 2024 campaign. And if you are still worried, don’t fret. Their main conclusion is this: brat is dead. So, you’re safe.

OK, so, I am your stand-in Old Person who just learned about Brat (brat, BRAT?) and am befuddled. I’m scared about a lot of things—but mostly about the future of democracy (which I post about in the comments to my favorite Washington Post articles). So, my first question is: Who is Charli XCX?

Siri Chilukuri: Charli XCX is a pop singer who first rose to prominence in the 2000s as a teenager—she would make great music and post it online. Her real name is Charlotte Aitchison.

Sarah Szilagy: She’s from the UK.

Sophie Hurwitz: Oh yeah. Really important that she’s British.

Siri: She’s from Essex, specifically.

Is she the brat?

Sophie: I think brat’s more an idea than a person.

Sarah: But an idea she strives to embody, especially through Brat the album.

Siri: The question of if she’s the brat, is sort of the existential backbone of the album Brat, it explores themes of who even is a brat? What kind of qualities does that person have? What does it mean to be labeled as one by someone else? Especially as a young woman.

Sarah: That’s so right, and especially reclaiming the word “brat” from the way it’s traditionally used to describe girls and women as spoiled little children.

Sophie: She described a brat as someone who “feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.” Brat is expansive.

So brat is a good thing that people want to be?

Siri: I think good or bad, those aren’t judgments that she or anyone who has embraced the title are making. It’s more like this is a type of person that exists and then the internet proceeded to say, “relatable”.

Sarah: I wouldn’t say “good”—as in you’re a “good person” if you’re brat.

Sophie: On the album she talks about ripping her tights, being awkward at parties, feeling depressed, feeling jealous—it’s not just this unequivocally good thing. Brat is about living the party girl lifestyle, but also about being honest with oneself.

Sarah: Being brat is definitely fitting for the moment that we’re in. I think a lot of Charli listeners—Gen Z generally—feel like they’re having to function day-to-day while confronting the horrors of reality (housing costs, work, climate change, global politics, etc.).

Siri: The trouble with defining Gen Z language/trends is it’s both so serious and not that serious at all.

Sophie: Right. It’s 100 percent for real but it’s also totally a shtick.

What does it mean then to have a “brat summer”? I hope it means getting engaged in politics to defeat Trump.

Siri: Brat summer really just means embracing those parts of you that are messy, overindulgent, vulnerable, and sometimes arrogant. It didn’t necessarily have any particular tie to politics except for the timing of it all.

Sophie: Yeah. It DIDN’T have a tie to politics…but then suddenly it sort of did.

Siri: It all started with a tweet:

why did I stay up till 3am making a von dutch brat coconut tree edit featuring kamala harris and why can’t I stop watching it on repeat pic.twitter.com/hqcmerD1Pb

— ryan (@ryanlong03) July 3, 2024

What is going on here? There are many symbols I do not know.

Siri: This is the coconut tree of it all.

Sarah: The song playing in the video is “Von dutch,” it’s from Brat.

Siri: The link is to a tweet featuring a clip of VP Kamala Harris quoting her mother as saying “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’ ” She then laughs her iconic laugh. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” The tweet sets that sentence to a song from the album and it went super viral.

Sarah: We’re not authoritatively saying THIS is the tweet that started it all, but it was after the presidential debate, when more politicos and pundits began publicly taking seriously the idea of a Kamala candidacy, and posters did what they always do, which is make memes.

Thank you. I found that explanation uncomfortable.

Sophie: One interesting thing: right-wingers tried to spin the coconut tree/the “you exist in the context of all in which you live” quote to make Harris look bad. But that didn’t work at all—people online want absurdity.

Siri: 100 percent, absurdity is the name of the game online. But in this case you’re right that it’s not that absurd. It makes sense that Kamala’s mother was talking about a coconut tree because she was a South Indian aunty and they just talk Like That. My mom says something similar on occasion. 

OK, so, if I am understanding properly. At the moment I was gravely concerned for our nation because President Biden appeared feeble on the debate stage, potentially allowing a Trump landslide, young people were making a video of Kamala Harris talking about her grandmother set to a song by Charli XCX (who is not American) and laughing about it?

Siri: Yes, but her mother. 

Okay. Her mother. And since then, has this kept happening? These memes?

Sophie: I’ve seen more and more Brat memes—as well as criticism of the memes, and even a couple guys claiming that the memes are a CIA psyop, which is a take, for sure. The memes might legitimately be detracting from real issues with Harris’ political history—the way she defended California’s right to seek capital punishment, or how she tried to block an incarcerated trans person from getting gender-affirming surgery—and that’s bad! But I don’t think that means the Brat memes are a literal CIA project. (Am I underestimating the CIA, though?) 

Siri: What’s important to note is that this wasn’t just from Kamala Harris fans, the KHIVE as they are known online. These were from people who during her 2020 presidential campaign criticized her heavily for her past as a prosecutor or her policies in general. There was even a KHIVE apology form meme going around.

Sarah: Yes, so the Harris campaign is capitalizing on what is essentially free digital campaigning. 

Siri: Biden’s unpopularity led to people wanting something different, maybe they something a little unhinged because people now really respond to unhinged energy. And it was funny. Especially after Biden’s campaign ran Dark Brandon into the ground.

I love Dark Brandon. He was so fun.

Siri: Dark Brandon made sense for a minute but a big part of memes is usually that the person being made fun of isn’t in on the joke, once they are it’s less funny.

Sophie: When campaigns/politicians/companies start embracing a meme they also start the process of killing that meme. It has to appear grassroots, or it’s over—people aren’t going to find it funny anymore. That’s what killed Dark Brandon.

OK so over the past few weeks, these Charli memes have kept floating around. What happened after Biden stepped down? Did people stop joking around and start talking seriously about the presidency?

Siri: Nope. They went even harder with the memes.

No…

Sarah: Yes, and the memes entered the whirlpool of cross-memeification, where to understand the joke you have to understand multiple layers. And with apps like TikTok, the process both intensifies and runs faster. Then the algorithms that feed you content based on the content you’ve already interacted with create a never-ending loop of Kamala Harris girlboss edits to various pop songs.

Has Charli XCX commented on any of this?

Sophie: Yes, she tweeted “kamala IS brat.”

That’s great. She’s a Democrat.

Sophie: No, she is British. 

And she’s never been much of a leftist savior, as much as some people might’ve liked to believe that. She had a song on the Brat album that’s at least somewhat about this edgelord podcaster who’s part of this whole “Dimes Square” scene, which is about racism and bad art, I’m pretty sure. Anyway, this podcaster’s career—as far as I can tell—mostly involves popularizing slurs (?), and Charli said yes, perfect, that’s my muse! So, anyway, Brat is not the revolution.

Anything involving downtown New York City I do not want to know about, as I believe in God. What did Kamala’s campaign do?

Sophie: Kamala’s campaign embraced brat. 

Great, and so this is helping with the youth vote.

Sophie: Not exactly. Now we’re seeing some backlash to that—some people are watching kamalaHQ turn their Twitter account Brat green, posting Brat memes, and seeing it as her trying to charm her way into people’s hearts without dealing with the actual policy problems her constituents very much want her to address.

Siri: Part of the thing with internet culture is there’s an underlying nihilism to all of this as well. There’s a strong contingent of young people who really reject the usage of memes by politicians to co-opt youth culture without materially responding to what people are demanding.

https://t.co/gKxgzqZjxz pic.twitter.com/8rjAHiinSX

— junebug (@swirlgirlxo) July 22, 2024

They don’t like that “kamala IS brat”?

Siri: ​​They don’t like that a career politician can use internetspeak to get votes while the US provides support for a regime that is killing people with little to no accountability.

Sarah: Right, a lot of Gen Z might engage with it ironically for a while, and to be sure, there’s probably a sizable base of young people who find Kamala more palatable than Biden and are willing to set aside their moral objections to her policies. But I wouldn’t mistake the memes for genuine support. The leftist faction of Gen Z—the very group Dems are hoping to make progress with, especially now that Biden’s out—is going to see the campaign’s attempts to “appeal” to them as a facade behind which there are no substantive policy changes.

Sophie: In calling Kamala brat, I think Charli put the final nail in the coffin of the brat summer meme. (Of course, discussing brat summer in Mother Jones also kills brat summer).

So I just learned about Brat and now it’s over? I can’t have a brat summer?

Sarah: By the time it makes its way here, it’s already over.

Siri: Anytime a mainstream outlet writes about something it’s over.

That’s fine. Final question. What is a favorite Charli song for people who want to get into her music now? (Mine is “Track 10”; this interview was actually conducted by a 30 year old.)

Sarah: To understand the dark side of being brat, I recommend “Sympathy is a knife.”

Siri: I love “Talk talk”, which is just about yearning to communicate better with someone. It’s pretty universal but especially for anyone who has been through a tough time with a friend.

Sophie: I like “Girl, so confusing”—it’s great for those who are confused, girl or not.