Episode 6 takes a trip to Miami's "Little Haiti" neighborhood, which is grappling with "climate gentrification" as rising sea levels and sunny day flooding make the city's high elevation districts attractive to developers. Mr. Green, our advice columnist, talks about the environmental impacts of dogs. And we hear from a cancer survivor who is battling plastic pollution in Great Britain by paddling all of England's rivers.

Transcript

Reporter Johnathan Hahn interviews residents in Miami's Little Haiti where climate change is creating a gentrification crisis. Jason Mark: In Florida, climate change has brought flooding and intensifying storms…But for the residents of Miami’s Little Haiti, climate change has brought another crisis: gentrification. Brad Van Wert shares the suprising arise of home solar panels in Montana and Sierra’s Story Editor Wendy Becktold talks with Lizzie Carr about her fight again plastic pollution. Mr. Green also addresses the impact your pet dog has on the environment.

(1:45) Climate Change Causes Gentrification in Little Haiti

Rising sea levels are usually a problem for people in low-lying areas. But in Florida, sea level rise is actually threatening residents at higher elevations… Like Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Little Haiti sits on relatively high ground, by Miami standards, and it’s become an attractive spot for developers. Reporter Jonathan Hahn went down to Miami to see how one group is stepping up to protect longtime residents from being displaced.

[Drumming]

Jonathan Hahn: On a Sunday night in Miami, the glow of streetlights falls on a weekly drum circle. About 20 people are gathered in the courtyard of a huge, open-air style Caribbean marketplace. Some people dance. Some drum.  Some stand outside the circle and chat as children play. This is the beating heart of Little Haiti.

Ricky: This is my family. I grew up in Miami.

Sherri: Cubans, Africans on our block. We always called it Sesame Street.

Jonathan Hahn: Many residents refer to the neighborhood in their native Creole language: Ti Ayiti.

Leoni: This is the legacy, the place that situates us in Miami-Dade County and even in the United States.

Jonathan Hahn: For Haitian immigrants, this neighborhood was a haven from an unstable and unsafe homeland…  

Leoni: Clearly this was the platform from which many lives were launched. For them and their children

Ralph:  We were able to survive. We beautified it. We worked with what we have. People were able to start businesses, restaurants.

Sherri: ...selling little drums and little snacks that remind you of Haiti. And now it’s more of how to keep the funds going…

Jonathan Hahn: Now they're being displaced once again.

Ralph: It’s not that people don't want to stay here. The rent was so high.

Sherri: It’s either you move or you pay $1000 more. And I’ve been living there for 25 years. They already changed the color of the buildings. They green and yellow to this gray scheme. So it doesn’t feel alive anymore.

Michael Clarkson: Can you imagine a 28 stories over on the other side going up and the impact that it's going to have on this community?

Jonathan Hahn: This community is changing, and changing rapidly.  The cause is a new scourge brought by global warming… it’s called climate gentrification.

South Florida is uniquely vulnerable to rising sea levels… high tides are already flooding low-lying communities, some as often as twice a day.

So as developers look to build, they look for higher ground… Which brings them to Little Haiti. This neighborhood stands at a whopping 10 feet above sea level. But it’s the last best option, when the rest of the city sits at an average 6 feet above sea level. Properties at higher ground are becoming more valuable… For residents, that means increased rent or pressure to sell your home.

Michael Clarkson: If you’ve lived somewhere 30, 40 years and all of a sudden you’ve got someone knocking on your door every day asking if you want to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell…I don't care how much money they get, they’re going to pay high rent wherever else they go. And that little money is going to be gone in no time anyway.

Jonathan Hahn: That’s Michael Clarkson. He’s one of the founders of Konscious Kontractors… a collectively owned company that offers for-profit construction work and free cleanup and repairs for the community.

Michael Clarkson: A lot of these people have not been able to have the proper upkeep of their houses… That’s one of the aspects of one of our programs. Beautification and revitalization of this area. To help people get their roofs fixed and put in storm windows and things like that so they can stay. So they don’t get forced out of the community.

Jonathan Hahn: Their work started in September 2017. As Hurricane Irma approached Miami, a handful of neighbors went door-to-door to board up windows and deliver supplies. The hurricane plowed a path of destruction through the neighborhoods, ripping up trees, flooding streets, and leaving millions without power. It was the strongest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic.

In the days that followed, the same neighbors gathered again… this time to clear debris and fallen branches off cars and rooftops.

Uhuru Konsyan Alexandre: We were just skimming the area, just driving up and down, and we saw a tree on top of this van. We went to knock on the door, and all of a sudden we realized this lady had survived the hurricane in a house by herself. And she's a double amputee. So we just asked her if we can cut the tree down her house.

Jonathan Hahn: Uhuru Konsyan Alexandre was one of the volunteers who helped neighbors during Hurricane Irma. He now works for Konscious Kontractors…. And he’s seen the company grow to provide essential services the community depends on.

Uhuru Konsyan Alexandre: We just started asking folks, "Yo, how can we help you?” Konscious Kontractors is a company that came out of a necessity, and which is now a year and a half going on two years, understanding what is the need for our people around renovation of houses, maintaining people in their houses, and also in regards to health in regards to climate change.

Jonathan Hahn:  But even with the work of Konscious Kontractors, new development is putting pressure on a housing crisis that is already feeling the heat. Zelalem Adefris is the resilience director at Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit antipoverty organization. She leads workshops to educate and train community members to stand up against things like climate gentrification.

Zelalem Adefris: It doesn't take that much to be homeless at this point. I think 70 percent of the city is renters and we have a crisis…  

Jonathan Hahn: Climate Gentrification tightens the vice on social inequalities that already concern residents…  things like income disparity, lack of public transportation, and access to jobs. 

There’s a dark irony at play here too… because Little Haiti, with its proximity to the railroad tracks, historically was the LAST place people would want to live…

Zelalem Adefris: They were pushed towards that railroad and that high elevation and away from the waterfront areas. So now with climate change, we are seeing a lot of land in Miami become more and more valuable, which again is where people were literally forced, black people were literally forced to live, and to congregate, and to build neighborhoods.

Jonathan Hahn: As developers move in to this neighborhood of immigrants, they are pushing out the people who were forced to live here in the first place. But now there’s such a premium on higher elevation properties that some of the city's poorest residents are getting offered cash for their homes. A hard thing to turn down.

Zelalem Adefris: Developers will go around knocking on people's doors offering them cash for their house, or cash and six months rent for somewhere in the southern part of the county. Of course some people take the money and move. I'm sure others are more resolute in staying in place, but I think it's hard when you get offered like $250,000 in cash. People that are already socioeconomically disadvantaged, but would have been safer as far as climate change and sea level rise, are now physically and environmentally disadvantaged by being moved out of those areas. And a lot of folks move further south, which is extremely low lying and just a far distance from the urban core and a lot of jobs.

Jonathan Hahn: Many residents would prefer to keep living in their homes and in their neighborhood. Which is why Konscious Kontractors is trying to help residents stay. They want to play a part in Little Haiti’s development.

Uhuru Konsyan Alexandre: In terms of the American Dream, one thing is having a house. Having a home. We are doing our part to make sure we have the legitimacy to be among some of these players that are changing our community. We want to be part of it.

Does our people know about climate change? Yes. Does our people know how to be climate resilient? Yes. Are we part of the conversation in regards to how climate change is being exposed to them? No. And this is one of the reasons why we’re on the ground to stand in the gap.

Jonathan Hahn: As they’re rebuilding and renovating homes, they’re sustaining the cultural legacy of the neighborhood. Even in the way they spell the company’s name, Konscious Kontractors, with K’s instead of C’s.

Uhuru Konsyan Alexandre: The K that you see is really an artistic expression of combining the English and the Creole together without changing the pronunciation of the world. You would read it and say, "Okay, these people are trying to tell you a story about their language.”

Jonathan Hahn: And coming together to support each other and in the face of adversity, that’s part of the Haitian culture too.

Uhuru Konsyan Alexandre: Men anpil, chay pa lou. It’s a Haitian proverb that… that my mother… she raised and she raised with me with proverbs… And, Men anpil, chay pa lou comes from her having to say, "Let's put our hands together to do this." It's not necessarily like the physical sense, but it’s the understanding that there's so much work to do, how do we come together to do it?

[Drumming]

Jonathan Hahn:For now, these many hands come together in another way…

Michael Clarkson: Yeah, this community could change for the benefit of the people here, instead of than for the people on the outside. So our main things are education, agitation and organization then mobilizing people to, you know, solve the problem

Jonathan Hahn: For the Overstory, I’m Jonathan Hahn.

[Drumming]

Jason Mark: That story was produced by Danielle Roth and Jonathan Hahn, with help from Virginia Lora. Jonathan Hahn is the managing editor of Sierra magazine. Read Jonathan's full article.

(11:36) Mr Green and the Environmental Imapct of You Dog

Jason Mark: Now, some advice on sustainable living from Mr. Green, our advice columnist. Today a question from Wolf in Ecuador about the environmental impacts of man’s best friend..

Wolf: My question was, if there's any research being done on the environmental impact, on the ecological impact, or damage dogs have on our life in the whole country as far as fecal matter, disturbance of wildlife.

Bob Schildegen: It is kind of amazing to me how little research has been done on the environmental impact of dogs. It's kind of strange really when you look into it. It's the most common domestic animal that we have, and yet we don't know much about it. My biggest recent discovery is what's called dog canker. That is that dog's can actually kills trees by urinating or defecating at the base of the tree and many trees are killed this way, especially smaller trees up to six inches in diameter. They release ammonia, they release salt and that eventually kills the tree if the dog's use the same location over and over, which they do because apparently they're communicating in various way at the base of these trees. And so that's one of the most amazing newer discoveries that I've made.

Wolf: Yeah, yeah, I lived at Lake Tahoe for 50 years. People come up to Tahoe and it's open country and the first thing they do is they let them run loose and think this is the great outdoors for them. The dogs love it.

Bob Schildegen: I'm sure they do. Then they're allowed to do their business anywhere out in the woods that they want to then right?

Wolf: You know what the latest fad is now. That every trail head hiking into the mountains and the public beaches too, there is these little plastic bags.

Bob Schildegen: Ah yes.

Wolf: Under every one of these signs telling people to collect the dog poop, they leave their little plastic bag there instead now.

Bob Schildegen: Just walking with a dog through the woods eliminates a huge percent of the wildlife that is normally there. You will not observe because your dog is scarring it away.

Wolf: Yet people go for a walk in the woods to enjoy nature. Well wildlife is part of nature.

Bob Schildegen: [laughs] I've always considered it to be so, yes.

Wolf: You know I grew up with dogs too. I'm not a dog hater.

Bob Schildegen: That's good. I wouldn't want people coming out to attacking you there.

Wolf: I already have among my friends. We have a kind of an ecological organization going on and we love the backcountry, and I say to them, "A true ecologist does not own a dog," and some of my friends they laugh at me, some of them scold me. Some of them get mad at me, but that's the way I look at things.

Bob Schildegen: I think that's an interesting take. Maybe we'll publish an article in Sierra magazine on this very topic.

Wolf: [laugh]      

Bob Schildegen: Well, anyway it's been fun talking to you.

Wolf: Well thank you very much for considering this topic.

Bob Schildegen: Okay. Thank you.

Wolf: All right Bob, thank you very much.

Jason Mark: That was Bob Schilgen with “Ask Mr. Green” — our advice column for sustainable living. Ask your question.

(15:06) Selling Solar in Rural Montanta

Jason Mark: Brad Van Wert is the co-owner of Harvest Solar. It’s an energy company that has the challenge of selling solar to rural Montanans. Energy is cheap there, and Montana is coal country.  Here’s how Brad describes it:

Brad Van Wert: if you can sell solar in this market, I mean it's somewhat of a ketchup popsicle to a woman in a white dress.

Jason Mark: But Brad's found that some Montanan's actually do want solar energy and it's not necessarily who you'd expect. Brad says a lot of it has to do with the spirit of the people who live there in the Big Sky State.

Brad Van Wert: People come to Montana for various reasons. Honestly, I drove through on a road trip and just decided to stay. The last best place, it's certainly called. Montanans have a very deep connection to the land and feel a sense of ownership over it and even more so, a sense of responsibility to take care of it.

Montanans are a hardy bunch that are self-sufficient and are independent. Montanans hunt for elk to fill up their freezers. They grow a garden for their vegetables. They cut firewood to warm their homes.

So producing your own clean energy on your own rooftop is very much in line with those values. If I was to open my client book to you, the demographic would be completely different than what you might imagine. If I had to guess, 75 percent of my clients vote red. During the last election cycle, like five different systems with Trump signs in the front yard.

In Montana you have a lot of what we call ‘Folger can money.’ If you would imagine these are the type of people that have literally a Folger can under their bed that they just put money into.

A lot of semi-rural areas in Montana, people make a decent living and have a very low overhead, you know? And so I learned the lesson the hard way early on. I would make some judgment calls on people and maybe I wouldn't offer them full attention or I just kind of mail it in with a proposal or something like that and never hear from them again and then drive by their house six months later and they got an array on their house and I'm like, wow, I really blew it because I was over here chasing the people that were walking out of the co-op, you know, completely wrong.

And once I realized that I was psyched—both financially cause I could grow my business better, but also there's people out there that just walk their walk without, you know, not even worried about-- yeah, it's just what I'm doing, you know?

And then there’s a lot of people out there that feel the need to like, they're like, "Oh climate change and this and that". But again, it's like, dude, do you know what one plane ticket does?

I'll be honest—I think that it's ideological at the core of it, for most people. However, the economics of it have helped allow more people to enter the space, regardless of political affiliations or whether or not they even believe in climate change. Deep connection to the land, feeling of responsibility to take care of this place. Last best place. What does part of that mean? Free and clean and refreshing and it's like, so do what you can to make sure it stays that way.

(18:19) Cancer Survivor turned Paddleboarder and Environmental Activist

Jason Mark: About five years ago Lizzie Carr had an office job, spent a lot of time on email, and didn't get outside all that much. Today she's a world-class paddle boarder who's started a movement fighting plastic pollution. To find more about what caused this change, Sierra’s story editor, Wendy Becktold, talked with Lizzie at her home outside London.

(18:40) Jason Mark: Lizzie, tell us how you became an environmental activist.

Lizzie Carr: It all really started back in about 2013 after I was diagnosed with cancer. And then from there sort of my life just took a completely different turn, really. After I'd finished my radioactive iodine and treatment, my radiotherapy, I went to where my dad lives, it's a tiny little island just off the end of Cornwall. I really just went there just for a bit of downtime to recover in peace, and I sat on a beach with him one day, just looking out into the water, and I saw somebody in the distance paddle boarding. And I think it was the first time I'd really seen it in real life, and I just sort of said to my dad, "I really, really want to try that. It looks so calming and relaxing." So, I just sort of went over to the local paddling club and asked to borrow a board, and just... I hadn't done it before, I just kind of said, "I just want to give it a try. I won't be long. Can I just borrow the board and bring it back?" As soon as my paddle was in the water and I started paddling along, I think it was a huge game-changer for me. And it was just allowing me the time to really think and remove myself from what was happening day to day.

(19:49) Jason Mark: After you stayed with your father for a while, did you then return to London and go back to work?

Lizzie Carr: Yeah, exactly that. Went straight back to work, and then just paddle boarded on the waterways in the evenings at the weekends, just whenever I could, really. I didn't actually know I could paddle board on the waterways ‘til I got back to London and started Googling it.

Wendy Becktold: People in the United States, when they think of London, they probably don't realize you can paddle board in London.

Lizzie Carr: Yeah, so, obviously, we've got the River Thames, which is kind of just the arterial river that runs through the center of London. And then we have a network of manmade canals that were built hundreds of years ago to basically connect the different parts of the country inland. But they are, for me, I think, real pockets of nature in a lot of otherwise very densely populated urban areas.

But then, obviously, that was really where my first experience and understanding of the issue of plastic came from. I would paddle up and down those canals. I would just see plastic everywhere. It would get caught on my board. I'd paddle past birds' nests made up almost entirely of plastic wrappers. I'd see swans kind of chewing at plastic bags.

It was really horrifying because obviously, I was using this water, I was using this place, to kind of restore my health, and, you know, it's my happy place, a place to go and feel good, and the experience was constantly marred by what I was seeing around me.

(21:17) Jason Mark: How did you decide that you wanted to work on this problem?

Lizzie Carr: I think it was just thinking, "How can I show people what I'm seeing? How can I get people to understand what this looks like? Where do I start with this?" And then just kind of came up with this idea that if I took all these photographs on all these routes and traveled this distance, that I could present to people, and almost kind of shock them into understanding.

I'd say the first sort of major challenge I decided to do was paddle boarding the length of England through the canals and rivers through our connected waterways. So, it was about a 400-mile journey right from the south of the country, and I'm sure everyone that I knew just thought I'd completely lost the plot. "What's happened? She's just survived this illness, and now she's doing all this crazy stuff." 

I wanted to do that journey because I wanted to draw attention to the problem inland, and show people that this is where it all starts, and 80 percent of marine debris is coming from inland sources. That must be coming from somewhere, and that's mostly our homes, so if I'm paddling this journey and it's got kind of me as a solo individual on this mission, and photographing and logging every piece of plastic I see on that route, then I build an evidence base that shows people what this problem looks like on their doorsteps, and how they've contributed to that.

(22:44) Jason Mark: Did people start to pay attention?

Lizzie Carr: There wasn't much interest in it. It was still such an under-discussed topic, and people just didn't really understand it or why I cared so much about it. But as the journey went on, and I think more and more people became aware of it and heard about it, the response snowballed and by the end, people were tracking me on my website to see where I was, and coming out to meet me with flapjacks and drinks, and people were donating to the cause. And by the time I finished, it really felt like I'd achieved something physically, but also I'd made the point I wanted to make and people were talking about my challenge in the context of environmental activism, and my paddle boarding journey was a vehicle to really get people discussing plastics, and it had worked.

(23:41) Jason Mark: So after you finished your trip, what did you decide to do next?

Lizzie Carr: I analyzed all of my results, and I had a look at where and sort of the four or five hotspots around the UK that I'd paddled were. And I revisited those four places in the end with my paddle board again, and just litter-picked on my own over three or four days all the rubbish that I found in them. I was really on my own and then, all of a sudden, a lot of people were asking me how they could get involved on the ground, as well, and what they could do to be part of it. So, I borrowed my boyfriend's van and some paddle boards, and just went around the country armed with sort of five or six paddle boards and just said to people on social media, "If you want to come and join me and get involved, I've got some paddle boards. Join me litter-picking." And every year, that's grown and grown, and I've got a few more boards now and more volunteers. I do it in more places, it's more communities involved, and it's just really incredible how that's all just organically grown since it started.

There was a moment, I think earlier this year, where I was out in the water in London, it was a beautiful, sunny day, and there was probably about 40 of us on the water. We'd had people that signed up and borrowed boards, and then loads of local paddlers that had just come out on their own to join in, as well. And I sort of just took a moment, stood back, and just thought, "Wow!" It makes me a bit emotional now that I've created this, and it was just... I've never really looked at it like that, because it's always been very functional. It's always just been, the eye on getting the job done, and sort of feeling like there's still so much to do. But to kind of have that moment where you separate yourself from it finally, and just look around you and think, "All these people are doing this and helping because they believe in what I believe." It's really quite... yeah, it is quite emotional.

(25:41) Jason Mark: You founded the organization Plastic Patrol. What is that?

Lizzie Carr: Plastic Patrol is a nonprofit that I set up that really just started as #PlasticPatrol when I began campaigning a few years ago, and it's just evolved now into, really, what I would say is a grassroots community activism movement that aims, really, to understand a lot more about plastic pollution and what that looks like through scientific data collection that we then analyze to understand a bit more about, you know, the brands that are kind of creating this problem, the hotspots around the world that we're finding plastic is congregating, and doing something about it.

(26:27) Jason Mark: When you started this interview talking about your illness and talking about cancer, and it seems like that experience, as traumatic as it was, really sort of gave you a new direction in life.

Lizzie Carr: Yeah, absolutely. I think that my cancer diagnosis was the catalyst to everything that I've done since, I think. I always say that cancer was my worst nightmare but my greatest blessing. I never would have believed that I'd be thankful for what I went through, but obviously, as the years have gone on and I've sort of lived through it, I can look back now and just see how much of an impact that's had, a positive impact that's had, both on my life and the decisions that I've made since then.

Wendy Becktold: Lizzie, it was such a pleasure to speak with you! Thanks for joining us today.

Lizzie Carr: Thank you so much for having me.

Jason Mark: That was Sierra's Wendy Becktold speaking with Lizzie Carr. Lizzie's online at lizzeoutside.co.uk.

Notes and Thank Yous

The ending soundscape by Bernie Krause is from Crokscrew Swamp, near Naples, Florida. It’s one of the lowest lying environments in the state, which puts it at the greatest risk to rising sea levels.   

The Overstory is produced by Josephine Holtzman and Isaac Kestenbaum at Future Projects Media with help from Danielle Roth.  Special thanks to Virginia Lora. Our theme music is by Jeff Brodsky. This episode was mixed by Dara Hirsch.