Almanack Contributor Kate Fish

Kate Fish is the Executive Director of Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA): www.adirondack.org.


Friday, July 3, 2020

The whale oil of our generation

Verkhoyansk, a small town in the Arctic Circle reported a temperature of 100.4 Fahrenheit on June 20, 2020, setting an all-time record. Indeed, the last 5 years have been the hottest in recorded history. We are also seeing, in the wake of COVID-19, that the consequences of profligate production and consumption of fossil fuels are causing more trouble than just rising temperatures and massive climate disruption.

The New York Times reported on June 18 that, “Pregnant women exposed to high temperatures or air pollution are more likely to have children who are premature, underweight or stillborn, and African-American mothers and babies are harmed at a much higher rate than the population at large, according to sweeping new research examining  more than 32 million births in the United States.”

A Harvard study in 2018 reports that, “Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-takers show that hotter school days in the year prior to the test reduce learning, with extreme heat being particularly damaging and larger effects for low income and minority students.”

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Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Standing together against racism

ANCA stands with our Black sisters and brothers in this time of nation-wide grief and protest that have resulted from the murders of George Floyd and so many others.  We stand with our Black sisters and brothers in declaring that Black Lives Matter. We stand with our Black sisters and brothers as America faces an inflection point, ready to do the hard work of making much-needed change.

This moment demands intentionality. Intentional language, intentional strategies, and intentional action to disrupt 400 plus years of racism and to dismantle the structural inequities that plague our nation.

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Friday, April 24, 2020

Equity & ecology in a post-pandemic world

On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I think about my sister’s prescient and intentional decision to live a life that is marginally dependent on global systems, as locally sourced as possible, and with as light a carbon footprint as she can muster.

My sister lives on a high mesa in Utah. Her home sits 16 miles up Sand Flats Road, just outside of Moab. She has no power, no water, no cable or WiFi, or connections to the normal things that link most of the rest of us to greater dependence on global systems.

She built the house herself. Since she had no power and everything had to be sawed by hand, she designed the house using standard-sized lumber which required minimal sawing.

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