The Eye of the Storm

Emergency Alert. Some post-Hurricane Milton reflections on power, strength, politics, and the importance of acting now.

Power

The winds screamed like fighting cats. The electricity was out. The hurricane glass on the windows felt reassuring, but it was the pond behind the house I was worried about. The amount of rain that was anticipated could send it over its banks, cascading into my mother’s living room in Sarasota, Florida.  

Hurricane Milton had arrived.

Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, we ‘hunkered down.’ Winds of 120 miles an hour (193 km/h) are powerful, intimidating, and humbling. They cause devastating damage. It was a long night, but by early morning the winds of the Category 3 hurricane had died down and my mother’s place was fine. We were fine.

Yet Hurricane Milton was, in fact, devastating for many families, communities, and businesses in Sarasota and across Florida. Fortunately, a large number of people and their pets had evacuated from the high risk zones, which probably saved many lives. Disaster preparedness was impressive, including regular cell phone emergency alerts from the National Weather Service.

Strength

While the winds of Hurricane Milton were raging, I was ready to raise my hands and surrender, conceding that we cannot transform ourselves and our societies at the rate and scale needed. Nature is too powerful, and we are too small, in every sense of the word. There is no hope for humanity.

Then I remembered the first principle of radical relationality. Nature isn’t “out there” — we are nature. We are entangled and have a responsibility, both for nature and as nature. My perspective shifted.

I also recalled a talk by Chief Oren Lyons Jr. from the Onondaga Nation and the Seneca Nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River. Almost 10 years ago, he issued his own emergency alert, warning us that we should be watching the winds. When the winds accelerate, it is a bad sign for humanity. We are in a downgrade. Yet still he concluded that this is a good time to be alive, and to be clear on what we value: “let’s see how strong you are, let’s see what you are made of.”

Watching the winds

Category 4 or 5 hurricanes are worrisome. According to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a Category 4 hurricane with windspeeds of 130-156 mph (209-251 km/h) can have the following impacts:

Catastrophic damage will occur: Well-built framed homes can sustain severe damage with loss of most of the roof structure and/or some exterior walls. Most trees will be snapped or uprooted and power poles downed. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.

Worrisome is an understatement, because we know that it is not just the strength of the hurricane that matters. It is also the social and biophysical context of where the hurricane lands. For example, it was the terrain, topography, and saturated soils of western North Carolina that contributed to the catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Helene, as much as the winds.

Yet we still have to watch the winds. The Hurricane Intensity Scale animation below from NOAA conveys the formidable power and strength of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes. This makes it clear what is at stake. Over the past week, I’ve been reflecting on what is at stake regarding both climate change and the the current political climate in the United States. A couple thoughts keep popping up.

This is climate change

First, this is not a warning of what climate change might look like, or “a forecast of things to come.” No, this is climate change.

This is what a hurricane looks with an atmosphere that is composed of 422 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide, compared to 387 ppm ten years ago. This is what a hurricane feels like when water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico have warmed by about 1.0°C (1.8°̊F) between 1970 and 2020 — almost twice the rate that global ocean temperatures have warmed during the same period.

How do these changes influence hurricanes? World Weather Attribution did a preliminary analysis of Hurricane Milton’s strong winds based on observed data and the use of a statistical model. The statistical model compared Milton to storms in a 1.3°C cooler climate:

[T}his model showed that climate change was responsible for an increase of about 40% in the number of storms of this intensity, and equivalently that the maximum wind speeds of similar storms are now about 5 m/s (around 10%) stronger than in a world without climate change. In other words, without climate change Milton would have made landfall as a Category 2 instead of a Category 3 storm. 

The analysis will be refined in coming weeks, but the point is that human actions are contributing to these powerful storms. We influence the composition of the atmosphere, the temperatures of the water, the speed of the winds, and the state of the marshes and wetlands that buffer storms. We are influenced by them as well, which is why we need to connect the dots and address both climate change and the degradation of nature. If not, it will get worse.

The eye of a political storm

A second thought running through my head is that we can be both literally and figuratively in the eye of the storm. Literally, to be in the eye of the storm is to be in the center, where it is calm. The calm center gives the misleading impression that all is well. This often leads to complacency and inaction. Yet hurricanes with clear and well-defined eyes are considered stronger, and they pose a greater threat. What’s coming often takes us by surprise, as the danger lies not in the center but in the front and back sides of the storm.

Figuratively, to be in the eye of the storm refers to being deeply involved in a difficult or controversial situation that affects or is of interest to many people. Climate change, which most American’s recognize as real, remains a highly politicized issue. A recent survey showed that 90% of Floridians believe that the climate is changing, though only 58% believe human activity is the cause of climate change. The number of Republicans who acknowledge this dropped to 40% this year, from 45% last year.

The economic and social costs of climate-related disasters are skyrocketing in the United States. At the same time, disinformation and conspiracies are claiming that the government strategically manipulates weather systems to target some populations over others. Really?! What is consistently overlooked are the many communities, groups, and countries around the world who feel targeted by national and global inaction on climate change and manipulated by perpetual greenwashing by corporations. It is a fact that they experience climate injustices every day.

The U.S. election outcome in November will have profound consequences for climate and environmental policies, with implications not just for the United States, but for the rest of world as well. To me, this is as unsettling as an emergency alert for a Category 5 hurricane. In this case, the emergency alert is not telling us to take cover. It is saying “do something NOW.”

Our actions matter

Our power and strength lie in collective action, which cannot be separated from individual action. This brings me back to my ongoing inquiry into what quantum social change means in theory and practice. A recent article in Quanta Magazine about physicist John Wheeler, the father of participatory realism, inspires me: “We weave the fabric of the universe, he said, out of ‘billions upon billions of acts of observer-participancy.’”

Imagine billions upon billions of equitable and sustainable acts of observer-participancy — that is a lot of energy and momentum! Imagine if/when we align our diverse and context-specific actions in the same direction, towards a world where all life thrives.

Our actions matter. We each have the potential to add energy and momentum to a larger and larger movement, contributing to a surge that is not always visible in the eye of the storm. Both the smallest and largest actions we take can add up, and they often inspire further change.

What’s my smallest action for today? I just deactivated my Twitter/“X” account because the company is not aligned with my values. Research has raised ethical questions about its negative impacts on democracies, not the least by disproportionately amplifying the messages of the political right — including messages that perpetuate climate denial. So what’s my largest action? That’s for another newsletter post…

The political significance of this moment cannot be understated. The alternative to urgently addressing climate change, as Oren Lyons Jr. puts it, is that “we’re not going to be here. It’s as simple as that.” Now is the time to show him — and ourselves — what we value and what we are made of.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays
I want to love you but I'm getting blown away

Neil Young — Like a Hurricane

Image: NOAA