Meera Subramanian
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Step by Step

January 20, 2025 By meerasub Leave a Comment

reflections of buildings and a staircase that descends into the River Nervión in Bilbao, Spain
stairs descend into the Río Nervión, Bilbao, Spain

{latest Substack…}

I’ve crossed a border into Spain, and we’re all crossing tipping-point thresholds, too many to count. We’ve passed into 2025, already a quarter into this no-longer-new century of this still-quite-young millennium, and it took mere weeks before wildfires were consuming entire communities in southern California and floods making people flee their homes in Malaysia. Tomorrow, we pass into a new American administration that will make these stories even more frequent as we catapult into a future that feels all too tenuous. Still, still, I repeat like a mantra, it’s not too late, it’s not too late. See Katharine Hayhoe’s great recap of 2024 with lots of good actionable information to carry with you into the new year. She also offered a reminder that although we did indeed pass an entire year having crossed the threshold into a world 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times, we’re still not there in terms of the ten-year average that will mark our true failure to reach the goals set at the Paris Climate Accords. If thinking about the future feels daunting, I get it. Britt Wray has changed her Substack’s name from Gen Dread to Unthinkable, also the name of a new climate-mental health platform that has a host of resources for taking care of yourself. Check them out and repeat after me, it’s not too late, it’s not late…

[Read more…]

Filed Under: climate change, peregrinations, Substack Tagged With: Basque Center for Climate Change, BC3, Bilbao, biodiversity, climate change, FRONTIERS, renewable energy

Covering Climate Now Award

July 10, 2024 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Super honored to join so many other amazing journalists honored with Covering Climate Now Awards yesterdayy! Solutions! Thanks to the great editors at The New Yorker, photographer Supranav Dash & local journalist Elizabeth Mani, the team behind the story—India’s Quest to Build the largest Solar Farms—about the world’s third largest solar farm, located in Karnataka, India.

Here’s what the judges said:

Through deep interviews with peanut farmers, school teachers, government officials, and vulnerable Dalit women — who’ve lost access to farmland they cultivated for generations — Subramanian creates a textured examination of the tradeoffs and power imbalances that the green transition might portend. “Fascinating,” judges said, Subramanian’s work quickly hooks audiences, and her “lovely writing” keeps them reading.

Thanks also to the judges for their time and Covering Climate Now for amplifying these stories that span our warming planet. Check out all the wonderful winning work HERE.

#journalism #climatechange #climatecrisis #awards #amplify

Filed Under: awards, climate change, journalism Tagged With: awards, Covering Climate Now, india, Karnataka, renewable energy, solar

Writing this Warming World

June 26, 2024 By meerasub Leave a Comment

**Join me and four brilliant writers this fall! Registration open now! **

From climate change to climate catastrophe to existential crisis, the vocabulary of our changing planet is quickly escalating in urgency. Writers are responding. Whether you are just finding your way into this space or have been writing about the natural world for years, this class is designed to help you find the right words to meet this moment of metamorphosis. How do we bring the personal and planetary together? How do we render beauty in a world aflame? In what ways is the state of the planet changing the shape of our lives? As chroniclers of the natural world under transformation, how does our ink find the fine line between hope and despair, or should it?

Led by author and journalist Meera Subramanian, this four-week course explores writing the twinned experience of climate grief and fierce love for the planet. Conversations with guest authors Emily Raboteau, Elizabeth Rush, J. Drew Lanham, and Helen Macdonald will shed light on the unique challenges that nature writers and climate journalists face. Learn how these five exemplary writers who cross genres in the climate space today are navigating common conundrums.

We’ll look closely at the work of our guest authors to deepen our understanding of best practices in portraying the physical world as it changes. We’ll analyze craft but also make space for thornier issues such as political realities and flagging morale. We’ll discuss the use of braided essays and other structural devices that are especially useful to storytellers and journalists in this niche, and get practical about how to deepen narratives with research and reporting.

Students will get weekly writing prompts and assignments to catalyze their climate writing, giving you the tools you need to work towards a solid draft essay by the end of the course. Although we will not be workshopping, there will be ample opportunities to ask questions and share struggles and insights. Participants will also receive a suggested reading list to serve as inspiration beyond the last class, as well as a list of outlets that publish climate-related writing or that are especially interested in stories with a strong element of place or nature.

REGISTER HERE

*

This course will take place on Zoom on Sundays, November 3-24 from 12 to 2 p.m. EST. Participants will receive a Zoom link prior to the course as well as a recording of the course afterwards. We cannot offer refunds once the course has begun. Please email [email protected] with any questions.

A limited number of scholarships may be available for this course; please send a brief statement outlining how and why a scholarship would impact your ability to attend to [email protected] by October 14 and we’ll get back to you by October 21.

*

Off Assignment’s Masters’ Series courses are unique four-session courses on in-depth writing topics that harness the perspectives and craft tactics of a lead instructor plus celebrated guest lecturers, such that participating writers gain a wealth of input while benefiting from the cohesive leadership of one renowned writer in a particular niche of nonfiction.

Related show

  • Author: Meera Subramanian
  • Tour: Teaching/Workshops
  • Date: November 3, 2024 - November 24, 2024
  • Time: 12:00pm
  • Venue: Online
  • City: Everywhere
  • Country: United States
  • Admission: $400 USD
  • More information
  • Notes: WRITING THIS WARMING WORLD. From climate change to climate catastrophe to existential crisis, the vocabulary of our changing planet is quickly escalating in urgency. Writers are responding. Join journalist Meera Subramanian for this four-week course that explores writing the twinned experience of climate grief and fierce love for the planet. Conversations with guest authors Emily Raboteau, Elizabeth Rush, J. Drew Lanham, and Helen Macdonald will shed light on the unique challenges that nature writers and climate journalists face. This course will take place on Zoom on Sundays, November 3-24 from 12 to 2 p.m. EST.

Filed Under: climate change, teaching, writing tips Tagged With: class, climate change, Elizabeth Rush, Emily Raboteau, Helen Macdonald, J. Drew Lanham, literary, workshop, writing

baby sea turtle release!

January 17, 2024 By meerasub Leave a Comment

two baby sea turtles on the sand

by Meera Subramanian

S. AND I SIT ON A LOG on a San Pancho beach of western Mexico’s Nayarit coast, watching. Soon, we’ve been told, there will be a release of sea turtles, but we don’t know quite where, so we observe the movement of humans on the beach—couples in beach chairs; groups of young, tattooed surfers smoking cigarettes and weed; a woman reading a book. An older man races by in a dune buggy with a woman beside him, and then returns a moment later without her, rousing a trio of short-legged mutts to chase after him, barking and chomping at the tires. Where he has left the woman, a coalescing is under way, and we move toward it.

There we find Odette Brunel, a Mexican ecologist with long brown hair and reading glasses looped around her neck, holding a tan plastic bin. A hundred tiny turtles writhe within. They’re only a few inches long, dark flippers and dark shells barely containing an eager energy. Nearby, an eleven-year-old named Ananda holds another bin with more. A growing crowd crane their necks to look in. Children gather. Parents gather. Cell phone cameras, including mine, are at the ready.

Odette goes hoarse explaining anything she can to anyone who will listen, in English and Spanish. Her soft voice stretches over the sound of island music blaring from a nearby hotel that reaches its square body onto the sand of the beach.

“We call this tortuga golfina. It’s the smallest of the sea turtles that come here.”

…

Read the rest of the story, published in Orion, about witnessing the dangerous, crucial volunteer work of protecting and releasing baby olive ridley sea turtles in Mexico, here. 

And here’s a rough-cut video I made of the evening:

Filed Under: climate change, journalism, peregrinations, photography, plastics, travels, video Tagged With: Mexico, Orion, Project Tortuga, sea turtle, turtle

India’s Quest to Build the World’s Largest Solar Farms

April 28, 2023 By meerasub Leave a Comment

endless expanse of photovoltaic panels reaching to horizon

by Meera Subramanian

“Electrify everything” is a mantra of the global transition away from fossil fuels. But what does this look like, as the entire planet attempts to transition to a clean energy system? I went to the world’s third largest solar park to find out, and the story is just out in The New Yorker  as part of their special climate issue on #bottlenecks.

Pavagada Ultra Mega Solar Park covers thirteen thousand acres, or about twenty square miles—only slightly smaller than the area of Manhattan. And the way that the public-private partnership secured all that land was through a leasing model that’s being replicated elsewhere. Is it working? I met with peanut farmers and security guards, school teachers and solar farm officials, Dalit women who’ve lost access to the lands they once worked on, now covered with solar.

Teenager standing by her family's small shop.

by Meera Subramanian

Man leads his bullock cart laden with hay along road with large power pylons and solar beside it.

by Meera Subramanian

The massive project was up and running in under four years, but now—four years since then—village roads and schools and other promised development projects are still limping along.

Village man with turban walks on road that is being built, a frontloader with gravel and a cow in the background

by Meera Subramanian

And yet, as I stood in a substation, I marveled at how clean this energy is. Is it possible to make these massive installations work for the locals who find them on their homegounds?

Engineer in Pavagada Solar Park substation, sitting by his computer adorned with a flower.

by Meera Subramanian

Thanks to the incredible editor at the New Yorker Daniel A. Gross, and the photographer @SupranavDash, whose photographs are featured in the piece. Huge appreciation to journalist Elizabeth Mani in Bengaluru for her translation and reporting assistance.

#India #solar #renewable #energy #climatechange #climatecrisis #climateemergency #renewableenergy #globalwarming #solarpanels #green #nature #solarpower #environment #cleanenergy  #climate #solarenergy#greenenergy #sustainability #design #earth #sun #environmentaljustice #justtransition #livelihood

Read the story here.

Filed Under: climate change, elemental india, journalism Tagged With: india, just transition, renewable energy, solar, The New Yorker

Solastalgia: An Anthology of Emotion in a Disappearing World

February 14, 2023 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Cover of Solastalgia with a feather floating in a grey sky.34 writers. One planet in flux. How are we processing the changes underfoot and overhead? Join me and other educators, journalists, poets, and scientists as we try to put words to the experience of what Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined “solastalgia”… “the homesickness we feel while still at home.” Edited by Paul Bogard, author of The End of Night and many other books.

Perfectly fitting to release it today. A valentine for the planet. <3

Find your copy today. 

 

 

Filed Under: anthologies, climate change, News Tagged With: anthology, climate change, climate crisis, eco-grief, Paul Bogard, solastalgia

person place thing

July 2, 2022 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Randy Cohen likes to learn about people slant. Instead of asking them about what they do, etc., etc., he asks them about a person, a place, and a thing that are meaningful to them. It was a pleasure to talk with him about girls in India, maps of Texas, and falcons over Cape Cod. Person Place Thing from Northeast Public Radio’s WAMC was produced with Orion magazine. Have a listen here.

Filed Under: audio, climate change, elemental india, events, journalism, Orion

The World As We Knew It

June 15, 2022 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Book cover of The World As We Knew It

The world is changing, in a fast and furious way. The World as We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate is a new anthology chronicling that change in real time. Co-edited by Amy Brady (now the Executive Director of Orion magazine) and Tajja Isen (author of Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service and editor for Catapult Magazine) brought together an amazing roster of contributors including Elizabeth Rush, Emily Raboteau, Mary Annaïse Heglar, Alexandra Kleeman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Omar El Akkad, Melissa Febos, and so many others. In my essay “Leap,” I wrote about ticks, and the love child of Poseidon and the earth goddess Gaia, and summer rituals, and more:

Now, I can’t stop the calculus in my head as I interact with the places that once offered solace. This is what climate change is. It’s what it does to the psyche, along with the body, and the places we love. It’s nearly invisible until the moment something startles you into attention. A creeping catastrophe, waiting with arms outstretched to deliver a suffocating embrace. And once the knowledge is gained, there is no unknowing it. You are no longer climate blind. You see and cannot unsee.

From the starred review from Publishers Weekly: “The pieces create a moving mix of resolve and sorrow, painting a vivid picture of an era in which ‘climate change is altering life on Earth at an unprecedented rate,’ but ‘the majority of us can still remember when things were more stable.’ The result is a poignant ode to a changing planet.”

Filed Under: anthologies, climate change Tagged With: Amy Brady, anthology, Catapult, climate change, Tajja Isen

The World As We Knew It

June 12, 2022 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Amy Brady and Tajja Isen have gathered together writers to explore how they’re living in a world changing in a warming climate.  I’m honored to be one of the nineteen, which includes Lydia Millet, Kim Stanley Robinson, Omar El Akkad, Lidia Yuknavitch, Melissa Febos, and many more. Join Amy, Tajja and fellow contributor Alexandra Kleeman to celebrate the launch at this Zoom kick-off event on Wednesday, June 15 at 7:00 p.m. ET. Register here.

Update: here’s the video of the event, if you’d like to watch it:

powered by Crowdcast

And here’s a lovely shout out from Lily Houston Smith over at The Atlantic:

Near the end of her essay, Subramanian writes, “We have returned to the times of mythology, and we need new stories to survive.” The World as We Knew It is an attempt to write these stories, to hold a mirror up to our lives at a crucial moment in our collective history, and reflect the slew of compounding, often conflicting fears that characterize it. In many ways, storytelling while on the precipice of global devastation is no different from storytelling at any moment in our history. Delve into ancient myths and you’ll quickly realize that the human condition has always been marked by an uneasy awareness that even the most rigid systems are subject to the whims of fate.

Filed Under: anthologies, climate change, events

Strange Gardens

October 22, 2021 By meerasub Leave a Comment

By Alicja Wróblewska

It was a pleasure to explore Alicja Wróblewska’s art for the latest issue of Virginia Quarterly Review. Here’s how “Strange Gardens: An Effervescent Vision of Plastic’s Impact on the Ocean” begins…

What is beauty for? What is its source? Polish artist Alicja Wróblewska thinks about such things as she fashions fanciful sculptures, snaps photographs, and creates collages both analog and digital to explore the impact of plastics on ocean health. With a background in political science and commercial photography, Wróblewska lives in the tense space between the consumer societies we inhabit and the wreckage they leave behind.

She’s slipped away from work into the sunlight of a Warsaw park to speak to me, her long brown hair lifting in the wind as she walks with her phone, seeking…

Read the rest here.

Filed Under: Anthropocene, climate change, journalism, photography, plastics Tagged With: Art, climate change, ocean, ocean acidification, plastics, pollution, Virginia Quarterly Review

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