RealtoReel A one-stop story shop for TV and film writers

In Terra Bella, Water Only Flows as Tears At first they calledFred Lujan a gentle- man farmer. The retired barber washed his tractor every night and parked it in the garage, a source of gentle amusement to the veteran growers around him. He called his pistachio trees his babies, his girls, and gave them names. “Come on, Suzanne,” he’d say to his wife in the evenings. “Let’s have a glass of wine and sit outside and watch our girls grow.” Katharine Hayhoe’s work is inspired Back when he was still learning to take by her faith, which puts a strong corners while tilling, he sliced one of the emphasis on caring for the weak. saplings. The other farmers told him to “That gives us even more reason to care about climate change,” she says, pull it out, the tree wouldn’t make it. But “because it is disproportionately he wrapped the trunk in mud and water affecting the poor and vulnerable.” and tape the way his grandfather, born on an Indian reservation, had taught him. He named the tree Survivor. Ashley Rodgers Eight years later, Survivor and the other trees were ready to give their first mature A Climate Evangelist Puts Her Faith in Science crop. In February, the 10-acre orchard was limate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian, has had Terra Bella, continued on page 2 quite the run lately. A few weeks back, she was featured in the first Cepisode of the Showtime series Years of Living Dangerously, meeting with ‘Titanic’ and the Fate actor in her home state of Texas to explain to him why faith and a of a Doomed Island warming planet aren’t in conflict. You( can watch that episode for free; Hayhoe It was a slow Sunday morning in January, was a science adviser for the show.) Time magazine named her one of the 100 Papua New Guinea’s rainy season, and the most influential people of 2014; Cheadle wrote the entry. “There’s something sun was making a rare appearance, light- fascinating about a smart person who defies stereotype,” Cheadle observed. ing up the green and gold island where I Why is Hayhoe in the spotlight? Simply put, millions of Americans are was staying. I decided to walk its perim- evangelical Christians, and their belief in the science of global warming is well eter, but found it difficult: Large sections Hayhoe, continued on page 4 of the trail around the island were missing, the land fallen into the waves. Beneath a washed-out bank, on a sandy point with colliding currents, I waded into Family Wins $3 Million in Retired Officers Urge the water to look for shells. A large, brown First Fracking Judgment Military to Step Up Plans bone washed against my calf. At first I When the Parr family started having The military must do more to prepare for thought it belonged to some sort of marine serious health problems late in 2008, the impacts of a changing climate, includ- mammal, maybe a dugong, and picked it they had no idea it was associated with ing updating war plans and building more up. But then I saw what was clearly a hu- what they call “a multitude” of drilling ships to operate in the Arctic, a group of man jaw, five teeth still embedded in the operations that popped up near their 40- retired military officers recommended in a bone, in the water next to me. I stared at acre ranch in Decatur, 60 miles northwest report. the bone in my hand, shocked to realize of Dallas. The report by CNA Corp., a nonprofit that I was gripping a person’s femur. Once At first,Lisa Parr dismissed her research group that frequently does work I started to see them, it seemed there migraine headaches, nausea and dizziness for the Navy, says the military must be were bones everywhere. as the flu, but when her symptoms more aggressive as it prepares to deal I stood in the wash of bones, numb persistently got worse, she knew with everything from increased numbers of and confused, then finally gathered what something more serious was involved. natural disasters in the Pacific to expanded Island, continued on page 2 Judgment, continued on page 3 Report, continued on page 3 RealtoReel [page 2] [email protected] | (800) 283-0676 | www.usc.edu/hhs

Terra Bella, continued Island, continued sprouting spring leaves. I could and wandered ashore without a Then a man from the irrigation district plan. That’s when I came across the grave- came and sealed off Lujan’s water meter. yard — part of it a small, neat plot with A green tag read “No Irrigation Water Is gardens of fake flowers still on the graves, Available This Year.” There was a $10,000 the other a half tumbling down the erod- fine for breaking the seal. ing shoreline and into the ocean. For the first time in the more than half What remains of the island of Kulenus a century that the federal government is a tiny, narrow strip of trees and hous- had been diverting Sierra Nevada water es — you can see straight through to the to farmers, there would be no deliveries water on the other side — that rises just to most Central Valley irrigation districts. enough above the sea to meet the mini- In the third year of drought, there wasn’t mum criteria for an island. enough water to go around. Most of the 6,000 people who live That wasn’t the case the night before, It was a blow to the entire region, but a in Terra Bella and whose children during high tide. In the darkness, the sea attend school here are immigrant possible death knell to Terra Bella, whose farmworkers. rose to new heights, and swept through a pistachio and citrus groves are watered number of nearby low-lying villages. On only by rain and the government’s canals. Kulenus, the water covered every bit of “How am I supposed to just sit here and Michael Robinson Chavez/ land. watch everything turn brown and die?” As the water began to rise, residents asked Lujan, 68. wouldn’t be enough. They downsized to brought their possessions inside their Sean Geivet had known the news was the small house in Terra Bella and invested stilted homes, woven of bamboo and sago going to be bad. It had been the driest in pistachios. Lujan had several cancer palm, to wait out the sea. Soon, in the 13-month period in more than 100 years operations, and this year he had heart lower houses and those closest to shore, on the winter day the U.S. Bureau of Recla- surgery. Their retirement savings dwindled, the water followed them in. They moved mation announced water allocations. The but the orchard was their safety net. their belongings out of the way, then Terra Bella Irrigation District manager ran Survivor died in June. moved them again when the tide kept ris- through options in his head. Not having water during the first heat ing. They stayed awake, sleeping only once If the feds said a 25% allocation, most spell was too much stress for the injured the water finally began to recede. of the area’s 700 citrus growers could still tree. Lujan took it hard. Lately, a Kulenus elder named Ramis bring in a crop. If it was 10%, that was Driving to town, he noticed Setton Thomas told me, this has been happening enough to at least keep the trees alive and Farms, which had a pistachio-processing every few months. He heard on the radio try again next year. plant in Terra Bella, had planted new that the high tides are the result of rising Growers began dropping off checks with trees—about all the way to Bakersfield, it seas, and that rising seas are the result of Geivet, authorizing him to buy emergency seemed to Lujan. mountains of ice melting into distant wa- water, from wherever he could, for up to Back when Lujan still had his barber ters. But Kulenus is remote and just a few $1,200 an acre foot, six times the usual shop, one of his clients was a lifelong degrees south of the equator. Ice — avail- price. farmer, Mike Smith. He had always liked able from the store an hour and a half It rained in March — barely. Smith because he had a big laugh and a away if you can get a ride on a boat with “It smelled so good. It sounded so hard handshake. a motor — is a correspondingly difficult pretty,” Lujan said. Three years ago, Smith started a job concept. It’s the last time he saw rain. as liaison between growers and Setton But Kulenus does have a generator, Two weeks after irrigation water was Farms. Lujan decided to talk to him. which the 70 or so residents sometimes cut, domestic water was rationed. Most of Smith delivered Lujan’s plea, and Set- use to watch movies. Thomas thinks of the 6,000 people who live in Terra Bella ton Farms agreed to advance the Lujans one in particular when he tries to imagine and whose children attend school here are 10 acre-feet of the emergency water the those melting mountains: “I just remem- immigrant farmworkers. They would have company had bought, and let them pay for ber a movie about a ship that crashed drinking water—about half the amount it after harvest. onto the ice,” he said. A younger man next they usually got—but little work. “Mikey, my oldest grandson, just came to him offered the forgotten title: “Titanic.” The couple once lived in a two-story back from Afghanistan. My trees, my The movie’s iceberg scene is the closest house in Porterville. They had a swimming babies, are alive,” he said. “Now, I’m just Thomas can come to picturing the distant pool and a Jacuzzi, new cars in the garage. waiting for it to rain.” climactic changes that are raising the level They had saved for retirement. But as He was sure it would. of the ocean and dooming his island. they watched Fred’s mother grow older and The original version of this story The original version of this story face ill health, they decided their nest egg appeared in the Los Angeles Times. ■ appeared on medium.com. ■ RealtoReel [page 3] [email protected] | (800) 283-0676 | www.usc.edu/hhs

Judgment, continued “By 2009, I was having a multitude of problems,” Lisa Parr told CNN. “My central nervous system was messed up. I couldn’t hear, and my vision was messed up. My entire body would shake inside. I was vomiting white foam in the mornings.” In 2009, Lisa’s husband, Robert, and their daughter, Emma, 11, also became ill, suffering a laundry-list of symptoms. “They had nosebleeds, vision problems, nausea, rashes, blood pressure issues. Some of the officers who Being that the wells were not on our helped draft the report see property, we had no idea that what they the Arctic region emerging were doing on the property around us was as a possible area of rising affecting us,” she said. tensions with Russia. After a two-week trial that ended on Earth Day, coincidentally, a Dallas jury awarded the Parr family $2.9 million for personal injury and property damages in Report, continued sia. “As sea-pack ice goes away, and we the family’s lawsuit against Plano-based shipping in the Arctic. have more navigable water, people will Aruba Petroleum Inc. The military panel that advises CNA also put down a marker and say, ‘This belongs According to the lawsuit, Aruba found that many changes were happening to us,’ “ said retired Gen. Ron Keys, the Petroleum had 22 natural gas wells within more quickly than they predicted in 2007 former head of Air Combat Command. a 2-mile radius of the Parrs’ property, with in their latest report that examined the U.S. military officers have said they three wells in close proximity to their Texas national-security implications of climate aren’t rushing to construct new ships home. The closest was 791 feet away. change. capable of operating in the Arctic, given As a result of poor management and “For our national defense, we need budget pressures. But the Navy and other lack of emission controls, Aruba created to be making sure we are more resilient military branches are taking steps to a “private nuisance” to the Parr family for the changes we have locked in,” said increase their training and improve their by producing harmful air pollution and retired Rear Adm. David Titley, the former ability to operate in the Arctic. exposing them to emissions of volatile oceanographer of the Navy. “It is chang- Defense officials also insist they are organic compounds, toxic air pollutants ing the battle space the Department of taking climate change into account. After and diesel exhaust, the lawsuit said. Defense operates in.” signing an agreement to use bases in the Aruba Petroleum argued to the jury Over the past year, the Pentagon has is- Philippines last month, the military moved that it consistently met state regulatory sued a series of reports analyzing climate to select a site for hardened, typhoon- standards for air emissions and that there change in the Arctic and outlining a strat- resistant buildings in which to store was no evidence its fracking of the wells egy for operating in the far north as the ice equipment to use in response to natural harmed the Parr family in any way. retreats and the waters become navigable disasters. “Unfortunately, [the jury] returned a for longer stretches of time. But the report says the response has verdict that we believe is counter to the But the CNA report said the military been uneven, with commanders in some evidence presented,” the company said in must use more resources to improve regions displaying more focus on the ef- a statement. The company further said it communications in the Arctic, and harden fects of climate change than others. complied with state air-quality limits. some ships to withstand floating ice. The report doesn’t argue that climate The original version of this story Leo Goff, a retired Navy Captain who change is the cause of conflicts around appeared on cnn.com. ■ helped write the report, said that while the world, but maintains it is a catalyst. shipping and energy exploration are ex- The report points to Africa, where climate panding in the Arctic, the military hasn’t change has “added environmental stress- Contact Us: For expert answers to ques- begun building the equipment needed to ors” to underlying ethnic conflicts in Mali, tions on scripts, or a health-themed poster respond to a crisis in the north. Sudan, Nigeria and other countries. to help dress a set, contact [email protected], “Right now there are plans and they “Climate change is not a cause,” Capt. (800) 283-0676, or visit www.usc.edu/hhs. don’t have action behind them,” he said. Goff said, “but it’s the match that starts Some of the officers who helped draft the tinderbox.” Follow HH&S at www.facebook.com/ the report see the Arctic emerging as a The original version of this story hollywoodhealth and @HollywdHealth possible area of rising tensions with Rus- appeared in The Wall Street Journal. ■ on Twitter. RealtoReel [page 4] [email protected] | (800) 283-0676 | www.usc.edu/hhs

Hayhoe, continued will to make decisions and must live below the national average. And if anyone with their consequences. This is, after has a chance of reaching this vast and all, a classic Christian solution to the important audience, Hayhoe does. theological problem of evil. “Are bad “I feel like the conservative community, things happening? Yes, all the time,” says the evangelical community, and many Hayhoe. Climate change is, to Hayhoe, just other Christian communities, I feel like another wrong, another problem, brought we have been lied to,” explains Hayhoe on on by flawed humans exercising their wills the latest episode of the Inquiring Minds in a way that is less than fully advisable. podcast. “We have been given information 3. The Bible Does Not Approve of about climate change that is not true. We Letting the World Burn. Hayhoe agrees have been told that it is incompatible with with the common liberal perception that our values, whereas in fact it’s entirely the evangelical community contains a compatible with conservative and with significant proportion of apocalyptic Christian values.” or end-times believers—and that this Hayhoe’s approach to science—and to belief, literally that judgment is upon religion—was heavily influenced by her us, undermines their concern about father, a former science educator preserving the planet. But she thinks Geoffrey McAllister/for the Chicago Tribune and also, at one time, a missionary. “For there’s something very wrong with that him, there was never any conflict between outlook, and that the Bible itself refutes it. the idea that there is a God, and the idea “What’s more 4. Even If You Believe in a Young that science explains the world that we Earth, It’s Still Warming. One reason see around us,” says Hayhoe. conservative than there’s such a tension between the When she was 9, her family moved conserving our evangelical community and science is, to , where her parents worked well, science. Many evangelicals are as missionaries and educators, and natural resources? Young-Earth creationists, who believe that where Hayhoe saw what environmental That’s a very the Earth is 6,000 or so years old. vulnerability really looks like. “Some of my conservative value.” Hayhoe isn’t one of those. She studied friends lived in houses that were made out astrophysics, and quasars that are quite of cardboard Tide boxes, or corrugated ancient; and as she notes, believing the metal,” she says. “And realizing that Earth and universe to be young creates you don’t really need that much to be Hayhoe’s top arguments, for evangelical a pretty problematic understanding of happy, but at the same time, you’re very Christians, on climate change: God: “Either you have to believe that God vulnerable to the environment around you, 1. Conservation is Conservative. created everything looking as if it were the less that you have.” The evangelical community isn’t just billions of years old, or you have to believe Her research today, on the impacts of a religious community, it’s also a it is billions of years old.” In the former climate change, flows from those early politically conservative one on average. case, God would, in effect, seem to be experiences. And of course, it is inspired So Hayhoe speaks directly to that value trying to trick us. by her faith, which for Hayhoe, puts a system. “What’s more conservative than The original version of this story strong emphasis on caring for the weakest conserving our natural resources, making appeared on climatedesk.org. ■ and most vulnerable among us. “That gives sure we have enough for the future, and us even more reason to care about climate not wasting them like we are today?” she change,” says Hayhoe, “because it is asks. “That’s a very conservative value.” affecting people, and is disproportionately 2. Yes, God Would Let This Happen. Who We Are affecting the poor, and the vulnerable, and One conservative Christian argument is Hollywood, Health & Society, a program those who cannot care for themselves.” that God just wouldn’t let human activities of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear The fact remains, though, that most ruin the creation. Or, as Sen. James Inhofe Center, is a free resource for entertain- evangelical Christians in the United States of Oklahoma has put it: “God’s still up ment writers working on storylines about health, health-care coverage and climate do not think as Hayhoe does. Recent data there, and the arrogance of people to change. Funders have included the CDC, from the Yale Project on Climate Change think that we, human beings, would be the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Communication suggests that while able to change what he is doing in the Grantham Foundation, the Barr Foun- 64 percent of Americans think global climate, is to me, outrageous.” dation, The California Endowment, the warming is real and caused by human Hayhoe thinks the answer to Energy Foundation, ClimateWorks and the Skoll Global Threats Fund. beings, only 44 percent of evangelicals do. Inhofe’s objection is simple: From a From an interview, here are examples of Christian perspective, we have free