As a resident of the southeastern United States, I was within impact of the almighty Hurricane Helene.
Seldom a word said about this tropical cyclone beforehand. Just another typical storm, perhaps it will last measly hours. This is not an unusual perspective from a southerner, as Atlantic storms happen incredibly often, and it seems to rain around here at least 300 days out of the year. I have an abundance of childhood memories of being graced with weeks off from school due to potential dangerous circumstances, hardly ever coming to light aside from strong winds and days of rain.
But Helene was different. Beware of the Hs.
A sudden shift in direction; a quick and swift rise to power and Mother Earth’s imitation of Sherman’s March to the Sea. A death toll slowly rising; an epic financial disaster; mass, arborical casualties and homes completely leveled . . .
For South Carolina, this has been the deadliest storm since the infamous 1989 Hurricane Hugo. Places like Atlanta, and more-so Asheville and its surrounding areas are completely inundated. Some of my childhood travel sports are wiped from the face of the planet as if Genesis’ Great Flooding decided to take it one step at a time.
Photo from The Independent
Luckily for myself, my area suffered a massive punch to the face for only a day. Several houses in my neighborhood are ruined, and large trees have tumbled through fences and homes and streets. The power had been out for two to three days, as part of the incredible 4.5 million power outage metric. My town, typically aglow like a parade of giant fireflies, had been completely engulfed in darkness. The traffic lights were off, restaurants and retailers were all closed . . . an instant shortage of meats and gasoline and ice was due to the brisk onslaught of mass apocalyptic mentality, paired with failing refrigeration.
For me, in the grand scheme of things, the outcome was not so bad. I mean . . . a power outage for only two days? I can find protein sources outside of chicken and beef. Also, my house and vehicle are perfectly okay. My life has not been upheaved.
But this is not the case for a lot of people. Some others lost their livelihoods . . . and their life. The death toll has hit over 60 thus far.
Just from simple observations in my area, plant life is scattered like carnage and people are constantly praying to Dominion Energy–like angels in the flesh–to receive light and air-conditioning. It remains hot like Hell here. The other night we hid in the basement at the alarms of tornado warnings, but fortunately nothing came to fruition (although it certainly sounded like a tornado was happening outside). Well, overall, it was certainly a dent in my otherwise boring week.
And who knows? There are eight identifiable hurricanes in the Atlantic within 2024. More is to come. With the warming waters and extended summers . . . we must be prepared.
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The Tower Arcana is a signifier for disruption. We must brace ourselves for uncertainties and sudden changes within our lives.
In great news, at a personal level, I finally have the ability to move into a new home–within a small city surrounded by wetlands. I have lived along coastlines my entire live, encompassed by peat, moss, turtles and frogs. Being said, I also have firsthand experience of the unfortunately rapid decline of this beautiful biome.
Photo from Kiawah Island Community Association
Although, I feel as if discourse surrounding the degradation of the wetlands often gets overshadowed or ignored. Perhaps this is because many feel irked by the mushy, mustiness of swamps and bogs; the imbedded associations with mosquitoes, potential disease, and even the mythical (e.g., ogres of course); and out of any “body of water,” wetlands do not come to mind when considering the leisure of swimming.
Unless you are a wetlands local, it is unlikely that you will hear about its benefits, and the issues they face. There is a variety of external factors contributing to the loss of this ecosystem, including pollution, microplastics, land privatization, highway construction, and the introduction of invasive species.
The Decline of the Wetlands
The situation is quite bad.
To point out a specific example, let’s talk about the city of Charleston, South Carolina, which is a heavily popular tourist area located around marshes and blackwater swamps.
Photo from the Mark Clark Extension website
Last year, the South Carolina Department of Transportation proposed the Mark Clark Extension Project aiming to fill in 38.53 acres of wetlands with the I-526 Extension. The intention is to lessen the density of the infamous Charleston traffic, and “increase safety and mobility.” To be more specific, according to The Post and Courier, “the project would impact 27.49 acres of freshwater wetlands, 0.02 acres of streams and tributaries and 11.02 acres of tidal/Critical Area Waters.” Not only that, but much acreage of James Island County Park will be affected as well, including its public access to creeks and climbing walls.
The funding for this project will be heavily reliant on the 2024 sales tax referendum happening in November. So far, it seems that the issue is heavily contentious, and is being opposed by nonprofits like the Coastal Conservation League. Voting “yes” to re-approve Charleston’s transportation sales tax will cause the 9% sales tax to persist until 2041, with 34% of it going to the I-526 Extension.
Highway development is only one component towards the decline of the wetlands, in which signifies that wetlands are nothing more than a “nuisance” to human activity.
Photo from The Post and Courier
Over 33% of the world’s swamps, bogs, marshes, and fens have disappeared since 1970. Due to this decline, 83% of freshwater species are now facing endangerment and extinction. This is a big deal. In case you are wondering what this means for humankind, the loss of wetlands will dwindle the ability to partake in outdoor recreation, like fishing, hunting, photography, and utilizing its flora for aesthetic, consumption, or healing purposes. Most importantly, however, humans need wetlands for flood, storm, and erosion protection, carbon capture, and to purify polluted water.
It is quite sad. This precious, productive natural resource is facing a lonely abandonment.
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Interactive Advocacy
On a lighter, somewhat random note, I recently was able to play a game called Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge that came out earlier this summer.
Photo from Movies, Games and Tech
I enjoy video games, and while Kamaeru is not a perfect title, it reminds me that video gaming can be an interesting, interactive advocacy tool. Many people nowadays play games–or at the very least this hobby has been more normalized–and gaming has the potential to spread awareness of issues that may otherwise be overlooked.
Kamaeru is a cozy “creature collector” that focuses on wetland restoration and the preservation of frog species. It teaches key ideas about carbon capture, how invasive species (e.g., nettles) affect native ecosystems, and how humans can harness the abundant resources wetlands provide, like berries and cattails. In the meanwhile, players can also decorate and expand their “frog sanctuary” and accrue different colors and patterns of adorable froggies. The frogs had been victims of wetland degradation, and the main protagonists Axel and Cleo are trying to reconstruct their home.
Another fun video game is called Kudzu, a modern-day aesthetical callback to the Gameboy era featuring the wicked power of the kudzu plant. Kudzu is a climbing, fast-growing perennial vine native to East Asia, but has unfortunately invaded North America, overtaking and killing indigenous plants and preventing the growth of small hardwood trees.
Photo from Movies, Games and Tech
The game plays in a Metroidvania fashion, and humorously delves into the destructive, almost wizardly abilities of Kudzu, which the player must face heinous creatures and rescue their mentor, Master Zoen. While Kudzu is not particularly a conservation-oriented game, it does offer a creative take on the plant and its real-world dastardliness.
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I mention these video games because aforementioned, I think video gaming is a great way to spread the message about something as undermined as the wetlands. Not many people encounter this biome on a daily basis, but it is nonetheless of major significance, and it is an ecosystem I have called home for decades . . .
**Also, to note, I wrote game reviews for both Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge and Kudzu on Movies, Games and Tech! Here is the link to my portfolio there: https://moviesgamesandtech.com/author/kjoliet13/
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The Suit of Wands is a signifier for creative approaches to everyday problems. We must harness passion and innovation to incite change.
Apropos of the 2024 Olympic Games, both media and word of mouth has been spreading concerns about the safety and cleanliness of the Seine River: a massive, 483 mile-long river in which its basin covers a considerable portion of Northern France. It is at the Seine where the opening ceremony occurred; hosting a grad queen-centered fashion vignette, a colorful water display, and a parade of boats holding the vivacious spirits of each 206 Olympic teams. The river is also to host the swimming portion of the men’s triathlon.
The Seine River is known to be incredibly polluted. For centuries, the river has suffered as a reserve for wastewater, “forever chemicals,” and bacteria such as E.coli. Swimming in the Seine has been banned since 1923 — over a century. The Seine, however, is not the only befouled body of water in Europe. The continent has had historic issue with managing agriculture, sewage, and industry runoff, causing an incorrigible slew of toxins.
Think of the Thames that flows through London. In the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, London’s poor sewage systems allowed waste to directly deposit into the river, causing the “Great Stink” of 1858.
According to the European Environment Agency, around 60% of EU rivers, wetlands, and lakes are “not healthy,” meaning notably polluted.
France had spent 1.4 billion euros to prepare and clean out the Seine. One major project was the construction of a large basin intended for capturing excess wastewater and rainwater. Sewage infrastructure and treatment had been updated as well. The Austerlitz train station’s basing, however, became steadily filled with rainwater following last Friday’s precipitation.
To demonstrate that the river has been successfully cleaned, Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris briefly swam around in the Seine two weeks before the Olympics began. Despite trying to alleviate concerns, the men’s triathlon has been postponed several times due to the constant need to re-test the water after Friday’s rainfall.
Personal Note
The world still has a long ways to go to fix these centuries-long issues. Water is the giver of life; water makes up most of the human body, and we can learn, heal, and be born from its properties. Yet, humans have become parasitic to the health of the earth’s rivers and oceans, polluting this precious resource to unnecessary degrees.
Have we turned a blind eye to mass marine deaths? To the eras of acid rain? To the increased frequencies of floods and droughts? To the lead and microplastics in our drinking water?
The concerns about Paris’ rivers are valid. It may be costly to clean them and test them so frequently, but it is a high necessity nonetheless. To think that so many urban cities are ineloquently located near “dog water” is a great misfortune, and an ultimate hazard to human health and the flora and fauna around us.
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The High Priestess Arcana is a signifier for wisdom and truth. We must remember to pay attention to the circumstances around us, and unravel bitter realities.
On June 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the long-standing 1984 Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. decision, greatly diluting the powers of federal agencies. In particular, this landmark decision hit the Environmental Protection Agency quite hard.
The “Chevron deference” has been cited in over 18,000 cases. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn this deference may send massive shock waves throughout the federal system–and a sudden shock is hardly without some chaos.
“The decisions are likely to present challenges to preserving the many decades of progress we have made in protecting people and the planet,” says Kameran Onley, managing director of North America Policy and Government relations.
What is the Chevron Deference?
The intention of the Chevron deference was to boost the decision-making and rule-enforcing abilities of government agencies without the threat of legal battle. Specific government agencies would be differed to if a law contained vague or unclear statements. When differing to an agency, they would then interpret the meaning themselves and the corporation or market would have to yield to this interpretation.
The Chevron deference had been heavily utilized by the EPA in cases regarding environmental safety, usually in regards to the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
In 1977, the Clean Air Act was amended to require all projects that would create major “stationary source” of air pollution go through an extensive process called “new-source review” by the EPA. Originally, the EPA interpreted this amendment to mean that even something as small as a single machine–like a boiler or smokestack–could be considered a key source of pollution.
However, during Ronald Reagan’s administration, the EPA changed its interpretation to define the entire building or plant at the major “source.” As long as the plant did not increase the total amount of air pollution output, buildings could work on project rather freely.
The Origins of Chevron
In 1981, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a petition for review to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. NRDC was challenging the EPA’s new interpretation of “stationary sources.” The D.C. Circuit ruled in favor NRDC. Former justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg cited that the EPA’s new interpretation conflicted with the past interpretations in prior cases.
Chevron Corporation, an oil and gas company, had been affected by the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act. As such, they intervened in NRDC’s case, appealing to the D.C. Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, however, overruled the D.C. Circuit’s decision in a unanimous 6-0 vote. It was determined that the EPA’s change in interpretation was completely valid, and the definition of a “source” should not be static. The new interpretation still appealed to environmental protection, but also preserved economic growth, in the court’s opinion. With this landmark decision, the Chevron deference was born.
Essentially, if a law or statute is clearly defined, then the court’s opinion reigns supreme. If a law is ambiguous, then agencies’ interpretations of these gaps are necessary. Chevron had limited the courts’ power to overrule agencies in this case.
What Happened?
The Chevron deference was overturned in the case named Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
Loper Bright Enterprises is a New England-based fishing company who challenged the National Marine Fisheries Service. The NMFS required domestic fisheries to pay for the cost of federal monitors that would be assigned to their boats, under authorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
Loper Bright Enterprises appealed to the D.C. Circuit, where the court applied the Chevron deference. Then, petitioning for a writ of certiorari, Loper brought the case to the Supreme Court asking: was using the Chevron deference appropriate regarding the NMFS requirement of domestic vessels paying the salaries of these monitors themselves? And, should Chevron be limited or eliminated entirely?
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court overturned the bedrock Chevron deference in agreement with Loper Bright Enterprises.
Chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, James Comer, stated, “The EPA has been, in my opinion, one of the worst — if not these worst — offenders of the bureaucrats interpreting the law in the leftist mindset.”
The majority claims that interpreting ambiguity of laws falls “more naturally into a judge’s bailiwick than an agency’s”, and that Congress is fully capable of handling “technical statutory questions” themsevles, especially since they already have experts “at their disposal.”
The Dissenters
Three court justices dissented to this overruling, including Justice Elana Kagan, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Kagan expressed worry that removing the Chevron deference would cause significant, sudden shock to the current system, and would allow the “inexpert judiciary” to seize unnecessary power and make uninformed decisions without the input of expert federal agencies.
Kagan had wrote, “Score one for self-confidence; maybe not so high for self-reflection or -knowledge.”
Future Implications
The Chevron deference, while used often, was rarely cited or abused in terms of the EPA’s climate rules. In fact, there have been many moments where the Environmental Protection Agency’s deference was shot down anyways.
With the undoing of Chevron, there will be a need to pass laws with more careful consideration of how clear its wording is . . in which would be near-impossible to do, since the nature of lawmaking is rather complex. There is also now a greater emphasis on the role of the people in determining the green agenda of lawmakers voted in Congress.
“Given the dual crises of climate change and the loss of plant and animal species, we need to be top of our game when implementing the many groundbreaking laws that have been passed over the past few years and decades,” says Kameran Onley. “Despite some of the troubling implications of these cases, I remain confident that the federal government,” alongside local governments and conservation nonprofits, “will continue to be an important leader in protecting people and the planet . . . We have no other choice but to work together. Action is needed at every level of society to create the kind of world we want for ourselves and future generations.”
Personal Opinion
The Chevron deference is a double-edged sword. It is a justified response that this deference may have disrupted the balance of power, granting federal bureaucracy and the president a bit too much power in nationwide regulations that affect nearly everything in our daily lives. American citizens do not vote experts into these agencies.
On the contrary, there are not many occasions where environmental health and safety is appropriately considered without the rules and regulations of federal agencies, like the EPA. Without this sort of stronghold and influence of specialized knowledge, will Congress be equipped to handle environmental issues? Will the majority of American voters consider these problems when voting? Will polluting companies feel more or less obliged to follow sustainable practices?
It has been less than a month since SCOTUS’s decision. The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts are still instated. We can only hope that Congress and federal agencies can work hand in hand for the benefit of society. Hope.
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The Fool Arcana is a signifier for new beginnings. We will see where these decisions will lead us . . . for better or for worse.
“Climate change is a lot like death. We all understand it’s inevitable, but few of us truly accept it.”
– Brian McDermott
Even as pressing issues penetrate the public sphere, true action continues to operate at a snail’s pace.
On a daily basis, I am sure, we are constantly reminded of impending climate doom and environmental disaster. It is a taxing thought, for advocates and deniers alike. Those who try in any manner feel the weight on their shoulders and this inkling of doubt that their personal efforts provide no more than a fraction of a decimal of change. To those who still manage to deny any sort of climate change are only coping in their own way. It is the simple solution to put things on the back burner, but can lead to disastrous results.
It is silly to say that individual effort will cause massive change (it is big corporations we need to glare at) . . . but it will do something, even if it’s as little as improving your mental well-being. To anyone and everyone, regardless of how “real” and how “human-driven” our changing climate is . . . why not do something anyways? This planet is our home, and deserves nurturing and respect. The earth is our collective mother.
The point of this blog is to spread further awareness on environmental issues and educate readers on current ongoings. Awareness is the first step, and knowledge is key. I will happily share my findings and opinions here, and whatever else I yearn to write. Read at your own leisure.
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The Death Arcana is a signifier for change and transformation. Old habits must die, and new, more thoughtful practices will make way.
Blue Mushroom 