Photo by Eelco Böhtlingk
Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, is one of those climate activists that supports an “all of the above “ approach to social change: Lobbying for broad progressive policies at the federal, state and local level while engaging in direct action, including civil disobedience, to embarrass policy-makers and corporate polluters to reform their evil ways. But Tidwell is also a strong believer in bringing the climate change issue “home” – in this case, by documenting the perilous decay of hundreds of once-majestic oak trees in his beloved Takoma Park, Maryland neighbood due to the effects of 30 years of ever-worsening global warming.
In this his fourth book, the 68-year old veteran activist tracks in minute detail how these beloved floral giants that once lined Willow Avenue systematically withered, lost their limbs and leaves, and in many cases were reduced to lifeless stumps after chainsaws were brought in to prevent their decay from spreading.
The decay wasn’t slow, Tidwell shows. The main trigger was the dramatic shift in weather beginning in 2018 that inundated the mid-Atlantic with a deluge of rainfall and flooding that soaked the giant oaks in their own roots while exposing them to insects and bacteria that literally ate them alive. Trees began losing their limbs, their branches, their leaves, and started collapsing – by the thousands – in Takoma Park and the local environs. Longtime residents grieved these losses just as they would the death of close family members, Tidwell notes. Indeed, many had moved to Takoma’s tree-lined neighborhoods precisely to enjoy the overarching protection and sense of awe and wonder that these great floral sentinels could provide. These weren’t just tall trees, they were elders, symbolizing deep “roots” and an ancestral legacy; young families seeking comfort and stability basked in their shade during the neighborhood’s hot summers, and for years enjoyed the unmistakable whooshing of the wind through their highest branches, until the onset of extreme weather and the deluge silenced them.
That deluge wasn’t a “natural” climatic event. It was an “atmospheric river” the likes of which the nation hadn’t recorded for at least 500 years – and it would happen not once, but twice, in successive years. Thanks to long-term climate change, the usual jet stream of summer air that passed through lower Canada had been forced much further south, eventually pulling up tons of water from the Gulf of Mexico and then dumping it the length of the mid-Atlantic. Maryland experienced 10 inches of rain in just two hours in a single day, May 27, a record. Other massive unexpected downpours soon followed. In 2023, the sudden convergence of extreme heat and humidity and a cold front from Canada caused near tornado conditions that downed thousands more trees and blacked out Takoma Park and the surrounding areas for days. Tidwell recalls the herculean efforts of local rescue crews and power company workers to limit the damage to life and limb – but it was only a warning of potentially far worse things to come.
This is an elegantly written book much like the author’s richly evocative chronicle of Hurricane Katrina’s environmental devastation, Bayou Farewell, published back in 2004. As a one-time widely published travel journalist, Tidwell has a keen eye for ethnographic observation of people and their reactions to local events. Here he takes the reader from the halls of Congress and state legislatures to the homes and hearts of Takoma residents as they watch their tree-lined neighborhoods become denuded, their homes flooded, and their dreams of a carefree halcyon idyll for themselves and their families tarnished.
The residents of Takoma Park, a town of just 17,000 people perched on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, are accustomed to speaking out. Many, and perhaps most, are fierce Bernie Sanders supporters, and quite a few are employed in public sector agencies as scientists and surveyors. But the recurring weather crises are taking their toll, and many of them wonder if they can undo the damage before it’s too late, especially for their children.
Tidwell’s not a pessimist by nature. After more than 20 years deep in the trenches – and after building the award-winning Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) from a team of one to more than two dozen full-time employees spread out across the region – he’s accustomed to waging the good fight – bloody but unbowed. He’s watched as the tide of public concern over climate change has risen almost as fast as the continued melting of the polar icecap. His book celebrates the Biden administration’s historic commitment to climate action with passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. And he’s cautiously hopeful that growing public alarm will finally reach a tipping point, creating a new consensus for more forceful global action.
But if climate change is to be halted, or its effects softened, simply halting fossil fuel use – though paramount – won’t be enough, the author insists. More radical measures must now be contemplated. One of the beauties of Tidwell’s book is his review of some of these extraordinary measures, once considered experimental and controversial, but these days, no longer. One is the strategy of “negative emissions,” which would suck the excess carbon out of the air and store it in the ground in crushed rock, or with giant carbon-filtering machines or through some newfangled and still-experimental agricultural practices. These expensive new technologies might well work – on paper, at least – but once developed, it’s not clear they will work in time to make a real difference, Tidwell notes, with some concern.
Another possible strategy – even more futuristic and fantastic sounding – is “solar radiation modification,” sometimes called “solar geoengineering.” It’s a grand scheme for deflecting solar rays away from the Earth, in effect, by cooling the planet from above. “Think of it as a giant tree canopy for the whole world,” the author writes, “a kind of solar shade high in the sky that would effectively replace – for a while – the dying oaks in my neighborhood and the wildfire-ravaged pines in California.”
But there are other lower-tech – and likely more feasible innovations – available, too – like preserving and storing fallen trees, especially the giant oaks, even after they’ve perished. Tidwell cites a neighborhood friend and highly-trained scientist, Ning Zeng, who insists that downed trees can be buried in enormous “wood vaults” to prevent their stored carbon from being released into the atmosphere – boosting methane emissions – after ending up in a landfill or being used for mulch. In fact, Zeng’s efforts are already underway, impeded only by the reluctance of some government agencies to grant the permits required to authorize dead tree storage on federal properties or unused private lots. Tidwell says Zeng has made prodigious progress of late, even convincing the entire Maryland General Assembly, Democrats and Republicans alike, to back his ambitious plans. And the US Department of Energy has just awarded Zeng a $50,000 grant to begin building wood vaults in four states – a start, but a far cry from the huge multi-million dollar grant he’d hoped to receive from Elon Musk.
All of these broad national and state efforts need more grassroots support – but prophylactic neighborhood action is still essential, Tidwell insists. He spent years working with his former Maryland Democratic state senator – and now US congressman Jamie Raskin – and others to implement local initiatives to protect neighborhoods from the threat of more climate change-induced flooding. In the book he briefly surveys ongoing campaigns in Takoma Park to build neighborhood “berms” to stem rising flood waters as well as “evacuation canals” that can channel excess water to local streams and creeks. Other seemingly wild-eyed ideas – like building underground concrete water catchments under selectively demolished houses – should also be considered, Tidwell insists. But all such proposals would be expensive and some may not be politically feasible, he admits.
What about solar? Takoma Park has become a leader in the field, supporting the first all-solar powered EV gas and charger station in the nation. Solar panels are going up everywhere, often on the very commercial and residential rooftops once shaded by the town’s dying and fallen oaks. And young volunteers fan out across the neighborhood on weekends, planting new seedlings and removing troublesome vine growth that poses yet another threat to tree survival. As Tidwell argues, climate change is devastating neighborhoods like his but it can also compel them to become stronger and more politically self-aware, deepening their resilience and will to fight.
“All politics is local,” former Democratic House speaker Tip O’Neill once opined. Tidwell’s book reminds us that all politics is also “hyper-local.” Takoma Park has already spawned at least one climate action hero, and this book is something of a love letter from the author to the community that helped raise him and still sustains him in the fight. If he’s right, communities across America can tell much the same story he tells here – of climate ravaging and resistance – and they can gird their loins for the momentous political battles still to come. But they better get started; time is running out.
