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Although many Americans and policy wonks see climate change as the major existential issue of our time, it ends up feeling like a relatively small piece of the American political conversation, which is more focused on the economy, immigration and democracy.
The climate crisis ends up touching on all of those issues, as CNN’s chief climate correspondent Bill Weir told me. His new book, “Life As We Know It (Can Be): Stories of People, Climate and Hope in a Changing World,” comes out on April 16. We talked on the phone about his recent trip to Massachusetts, where some beachfront homeowners who want the state to do more to help protect the area from erosion and rising sea levels also deny the climate is in crisis.
My conversation with Weir, edited for clarity, is below:
WOLF: You’re on the ground covering the climate crisis every day. Where has that taken you recently?
WEIR: To both ends of the spectrum. It’s the grim reality of what’s unfolding and also, we’re working on a special on innovation.
Most recently, I was in Salisbury, Massachusetts, on the New Hampshire border where folks there, over the generations, have watched the high tide get higher, year by year. As is the case along the Atlantic coast, erosion is accelerating along with sea level rise.
And so this year, over 100 homeowners banded together, spent $600,000 on 15,000 tons of sand in order to fortify their beachside homes from storms and higher tides. In years past, that would last them three or four years, but then they got yet another freak storm and high tide and most of it was washed away in a single day.
They’re coming to grips in various forms…
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