Raising Hell in the Paradise Built in Hell

As the saying goes, never let a disaster go to waste.

Seems some people are reading A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit's book about the spontaneous mutual aid efforts that spring up about disasters [my notes at https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2016/07/notes-on-rebecca-solnits-paradise-built.html] and deciding to raise Hell in any possible Paradise for their own political purposes.  These are the people who are spreading disinformation and misinformation in the wake of the recent back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton and even threatening FEMA workers.

There's a term for this, resilience targeting, interfering with "the ability to recover, whether physically, emotionally, socially, or geographically, from a disaster."  Much more at https://www.truthorfiction.com/how-to-fight-disinformation-part-v-resilience-targeting/

This reactionary anti-climate/environment/ecology pushback is likely to get worse as climate groups begin to do what they should have been doing for years, preparing practically for the next weather emergency in ways that speed the necessary transition, whether the emergency arrives or not, building the disaster relief infrastructure and practicing for the seven lean years or how to live within our own ecological limits. 

The Climate Mobilization Project (https://theclimatemobilization.org) is one climate group now organizing around community preparedness:

"We are launching a  movement to survive climate impacts, heal together, and rise up against fossil fuels."

Here's one of their projects in Kentucky:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOieLeLY0RY

I like Solar IS Civil Defense myself (https://solarray.blogspot.com/2024/03/one-easy-shift-to-solar.html) and The Footprint Project (https://www.footprintproject.org) has "deployed dozens of larger solar microgrids, solar generators and machines that can pull water from the air to 33 sites so far, along with dozens of smaller portable batteries."

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org)

Progressive People's Action (https://www.facebook.com/PPAofPinellas/)

Tampa Muslim Disaster Response (https://www.facebook.com/groups/tampamuslimdisasterresponse/posts/532858529339340/)

Florida For Change (https://flforchange.com),

and New Era Young Lords Florida (https://www.facebook.com/groups/279049263144607/)

are all doing hurricane relief and emergency preparedness work now.

Mystic River Watershed Association (https://mysticriver.org) has a robust "climate resilience" program (https://mysticriver.org/climate-resilience) and I expect other such watershed and conservation groups  do too.

There is also the Cajun Navy (https://www.cajunnavyrelief.com) which grew out of the response to Hurricane Katrina as did Burners Without Borders (https://www.facebook.com/BurnersWithoutBorders/),  and I remember when Recovers.org (https://recovers.org/) first began developing their software system for community preparedness and recovery.

The effects of climate change are accelerating and feeding into the polycrisis or metacrisis we are living through and we are going to need to work hard and work wisely in order to navigate these times with as little damage as possible and, perhaps, restore some of what's already gone wrong.