Q&A: Vann Newkirk’s Vision for Climate Justice
The Atlantic’s staff writer for politics and policy provides a new perspective on hurricanes and climate change in the new Pop-Up Magazine
Every day for the last five years, I’ve thought about different versions of the same question: How do we get society to understand and act on the ramifications of climate change?
My day job, outside of 730DC, is with World Resources Institute, a research organization focusing on sustainable development and known for its role in supporting international climate action. There is, of course, no easy answer to the question of communicating climate change — perhaps the defining challenge faced by our generation, whether we have chosen it or not.
Vann R. Newkirk II is a journalist working through this question with remarkable clarity and candor. Based in Hyattsville, Maryland, just outside the Washington border, Newkirk is a staff writer at the Atlantic with a background in data, health, and policy analysis. He is also a co-founder and editor of the incredible Seven Scribes website and community, which promotes writers and artists of color. And now, in an emerging body of work on climate justice, Newkirk has delved into the intersections of climate change and pollution with health, addressed how climate change could affect American democracy, and — with his story at this season of Pop-Up Magazine — the story of how the 1999 Hurricane Floyd flooding of Princeville, North Carolina presages climate impacts. Newkirk also has an incredible Twitter presence.
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We emailed with Vann to get a preview of his Princeville Pop-Up tale, the ongoing significance of Hurricane Katrina, and the pitch for Hyattsville.
Hayden Higgins: Some of my earliest memories as a kid are of watching the Weather Channel in South Florida waiting for hurricanes. I exchanged hurricanes for earthquakes by moving from North Carolina to California about a month before the 1999 hurricane that’s the subject of your Pop-Up Magazine story. What do you remember of it?
Vann Newkirk: We moved in to Rocky Mount, North Carolina from southern Virginia right after Hurricane Floyd, so what I remember is the aftermath, the recovery, and the psychic scars people carried around. The apartment we moved to had been flooded so bad that it was eventually condemned because of mold and some critters — I talk about that in the piece. I had classmates that had to boil water from wells for years. And I went out to places like Princeville doing volunteer work and saw just how devastated some of the lower lying areas were for years after. But what really sticks with me today is just how on edge everyone was whenever storms or even heavy rains came again. Preparation isn’t quite the right word. It was trauma.
HH: There’s a museum in Princeville now. Have you been?
VN: The museum in Princeville has been one of my main partners in documenting what happened and is happening in the area. The museum carries DVDs with audio of some of the older citizens who survived the flood, and I think it’s as valuable a historical resource as any of the big history museums in DC or otherwise.
HH: You’ve been in conversation with David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth. What do you think the role of so-called worst case scenarios is in communicating the dangers of climate change? (Did you feel any pressure, when putting this story together for Pop-Up Magazine, to leaven the situation with optimism or a “solutions” approach?)
VN: David and I had a good chat on this, and I think he makes a good case that providing a sense of the “hellscape” scenarios is a useful tool in climate communication. But I am by nature a bit of an optimist when it comes to human systems — perhaps because I have to be to believe places and communities like Princeville will survive in a new climate regime. That optimism doesn’t mean that I feel any pressure to suffuse all of my works on climate change with policy papers or whatnot, but it does mean that I focus heavily on moments of human endeavor and striving that once seemed impossible. So, short answer, no Pop-Up Magazine didn’t pressure me to leaven my piece. It isn’t particularly sunny, but it is a celebration of something near impossible — with the full acknowledgment that we can do something near-impossible again.
HH: You’re working on a podcast for the Atlantic about Hurricane Katrina, which I’ve always felt was sort of a turning point in terms of how a self-described “climate justice” movement came to transpire in the United States. Why did you choose Katrina? What can we learn from that moment?
VN: I can’t divulge too much about The Atlantic’s Hurricane Katrina podcast just yet, but what I can say is that Katrina was clearly a turning point for me in terms of thinking critically about the relationships between race, class, space, and survival, especially with the context I’d already absorbed from Hurricane Floyd. And as I’ve covered the nexus of civil rights, environmental justice, race, and poverty here, writing stories about everything from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico to voting rights in Georgia, it strikes me that everything I’m doing has some connection to the institutions that contributed to the disaster of Katrina. So, I picked it almost as a capstone for the things about America I’ve learned in these beats, and hopefully y’all will learn what I’ve learned.
HH: What was most challenging about translating this story from an experience or memory, which you might have written down, into something you’ll be sharing from a stage with hundreds of people?
VN: The most challenging part of putting together my Pop-Up Magazine piece was communicating how much a sense of place and history matters to this community. I don’t know if most of the target audience — lots of transplants in relatively cosmopolitan cities and a generation that is incredibly mobile and less likely to place huge significance in neighborhood identity — can understand just how much rootedness and connections to family and ancestors mean to small southern towns like Princeville, and why the destruction of those connections is an incredible disaster even without mass deaths. So I sought ways to make that point and to provide first person experiences with that kind of loss, and I think we managed that, as you’ll see!
Quick Hits
Which Pop-Up piece is going to blow us away?
Oh we blow you all away as a collective, but I have truly enjoyed seeing Natalie Keyssar’s piece!
What’s the most sci-fi place in DC?
The most sci-fi place in DC is technically outside of DC but it’s on WMATA so please allow it. It’s the Wheaton escalator! That joint is like escaping a Bond villain’s missile silo or an underground bunker for a secret government research facility.
Favorite place to watch sunset?
I’m partial to the roof of the Watergate, but partially because that’s where I work and it’s just easy to get there.
Restaurant we’re all sleeping on?
Andrene’s Caribbean And Soul Food over in Brightwood Park near where I used to live. Coincidentally, I gained 15 pounds in that apartment.
Your pitch for Hyattsville?
I’m completely in love with Hyattsville right now. The best pitch I can give is that last Friday I took an hour walk through a beautiful park, picked up Mother’s Day cupcakes from Shortcake Bakery and a necklace from Fleisher, bought a toy for my son at the Franklin’s General Store, and made it back home in time to cut my grass and water my garden.
